C’est (pronounced “say” for you non-French speakers) is my best friend from high school. Her real name is Laurie, but I only call her that when I’m trying to let everyone else know who I’m talking about. We knew each other vaguely through her being in a musical with my sister, but we officially met in French class where we discovered the term c’est (“it is”) and began introducing ourselves as such after we realized that we were a good match with my pants made out of city skyline fabric that I wore every day and Laurie with her Beastie Boys shirts. Eventually we got sick of adding our names after c’est and just shortened it to c’est. We both call each other that, and our French teacher told us that that’s not really how it works, but we kinda don’t care. The name stuck through all of high school and the forever beyond, and I’ve now delightfully tacked it on to the end of her New Zealand husband’s name (you’re welcome, Neil!) because that’s how marriage works.
C’est and Neilc’est met in England, but Neilc’est is really from New Zealand: land of no small mammals but lots of birds. C’est moved from Pittsburgh to England to go to school and Neilc’est moved from New Zealand to England for work and they met there through mutual friends. They then decided, “Hey, let’s go to Scotland!”, so they did. They lived there for a while, presumably living off of scones and meatpies and swimming around lochs. They recently moved back to Pittsburgh and got married in an anarchist bookstore that hosts weddings sometimes. We were sadly unable to attend as we had a client in NC that day, so we took ’em out for pictures in Mellon Park when we were in Pittsburgh last to get some pictures of them being married and running around. C’est used to go to Mellon Park when she was little. We made her stand behind Neil a lot act like his arms… because that’s how mature we are.
