Playing wrestling games with Laura.

"Oh you bitch!" she yelled at me. All I could do was laugh. I had learned so many new things about the girl I thought I knew, and this was one of them: Playing WWE vs Raw on XBOX 360. I learned she watched wrestling on TV often enough to be familiar with the Wrestlers and their moves. I learned she had favorites and knew the jargon of the ring, the heels, where the folding chairs were kept. I, by contrast, stopped watching WWF et al. wrestling in seventh grade.

We designed characters together, hers and mine which could have been reflections of how we see ourselves, or how we wish we looked--I was totally ripped and she was totally lithe. Than I selected a Diva on the character select screen and she selected the char she made of herself and told me I was dead. Bravado.

Then the match started and I Immediately ran to her and close-lined her, knocking her to the ground where I started pinning her.

"Oh you bitch!" she yelled as she mashed buttons furiously. I laughed as much from shock as pleasant surprise. Never had she called me a bitch, and she was referring to the character in the game--her competitive spirit was coming through on a game, another first. Usually she plays the games I am good at like Racing games and shooters where she prefaces before playing, "Ok, but I am really bad at these type of games..." But not this game, she is a champ at wrestling. It was probably the most fun I have had with her, in front of a TV, playing games, with my clothes on.

She went on to call me all sorts of bad things she had never before said to me, which not only made it ok, it made it fun. I learned which buttons made her mad and pressed them and she did it back to me. We tried new modes, new characters and new costumes. It really was a lot of fun. Far more fun than I expected, certainly.

What I remember most was learning about this new part of her that I didn't know existed, in fact hadn't known about it in the 13 odd years I had come to known her. I thought I knew everything about her see, and seeing this interest she had in wrestling--that she must have harbored it for years and not spoken about it--made me happy. Deliriously happy. :-DD