20. Regina Heyman

20. Regina Heyman. I have known Gina since, well, forever. Her mom and my mom were friends and were pregnant at the same time, Mrs. Heyman had Gina on May 19, exactly three weeks before my mom had me. There was never a time when we weren't in each other's lives. While we have lots of family friends who I have known since I was little - only Gina and I were best of friends since the very beginning and until this day. It would be impossible for me to really recount fifty years of friendship and all the crazy stuff we did together, Gina is so interwoven into my life and into the very fabric of who I am. I remember at my wedding when Gina gave a little speech at the rehearsal dinner and talked about how I was always using my "charisma" to get people to do stuff - like wash their hair in sand, or telling Kirk Semple that they loved him in the second grade, or scratching "Ms. McFabe" into a cabinet in our fourth grade classroom - and how she was happy to see that while I still used my charisma to get people to do stuff, it now had some meaning behind it and was for the greater good. That meant a lot to me to hear.Gina and I used to have this really weird voice we would talk in and call ourselves Tierney and Manoopy. We would stay up late at night for sleepovers, sometimes acting out these characters, sometimes with me telling stories about another made up character called Tricycle La Bicycle, or working on one of many projects, whether it was dance moves to Burl Ives or The Beatles, or our book "Vinegar and Smelly Feet." In fifth grade we were separated - our parents thought we had too much influence on each other - but since we lived just up the street from each other, we still saw each other and played together all the time. In high school, Gina went more Husker Du and I went more Grateful Dead, so we definitely started to move in different, although always overlapping circles. We spent every summer together on Block Island, and got into all kinds of trouble there, especially when we worked together, along with Joanna Stadtlander at Este's gift and ice-cream shop and continued to have that place be a touch stone once we were in college, her at Georgetown and me at Tufts. We talked on the phone constantly during the school year and once we both graduated, spent more time in the NYC neighborhoods we had frequented as high schoolers, both eventually moving into the city. After about a year, I left for the west coast and she stayed and built a life in the city, working her way up through the film industry - always regaling me with stories of the different stars she met through her work, and as Sasha always likes to say, referring to Martin Scorsese as "Marty."Gina, as hip and cool as she is, has always remained as down to earth as you can imagine. She is salty, hilarious, hard working and one of the kindest and most generous people I have ever known. I can think of so many instances, but a couple that stand out for me are when she was at my apartment in Seattle and I was fighting with the student loan collectors, Gina just handed me her credit card, and said, "Use this and pay me back. Don't even get upset, we've got better things to do." Another time when I was in India and my bank wasn't posting some checks I had deposited, i called Gina who, despite the fact that there was a huge snow storm in the city and everything was closed, trekked down to the bank to wire me money to cover me until my check came through. But those are just the material money examples, because she has a little and I have a little less. In fact, Gina would give me - or almost anyone - anything she could, including, quite literally, the shirt off her back.At my wedding, when the weather got really cold and I didn't have anything to wear, Gina lent me her Dinosaur Junior hoodie, as well as an extra pair of jeans and a pair of Keds. That's what I wore to my reception! To this day, Gina is the person I call when I am down, discouraged, anxious, lonely or super excited. Sometimes we have to make phone dates, because whenever we talk, it ends up being for hours, it seems like we never run out of things to say. When you've known someone that long, and they have been such an important part of your life for half a century, you have a feeling of being seen, loved and accepted that is so deep, it gives you the courage to do anything. Or at least it does for me.I wanted to do something great for Gina on her 50th birthday. All she wanted was for me to come out to her house in Queens, to take a walk, watch an old 80's movie and eat Thai food take-out. We did all that except watch the movie - we just laid on her bed and talked the night away. To say that Gina has influenced me and my life would be the understatement of the (half) century. Gina is like a part of me, I can't even begin to imagine who i would be if not for this friend and this friendship. Happy Birthday to both of us!