My other sister Margaret calls me Brenda, and you know what? I don't mind a bit.

While She Said/She Said is usually the exclusive reserve of the Roach Sisters, we also welcome the call-and-response from our readers. Mostly this comes in the form of comments, though this week our friend Margaret Lowrie Robertson sent this, reporting that she is “grateful to Margaret for allowing the “other” Margaret to borrow her space to provide the flip side of Marion’s post about me last week.”

So now let me tell you about Marion Roach Smith, as seen through the eyes of my 21-year-old self: she is Brenda Starr, the brainy, glamorous redheaded Girl Reporter come to life.  All she needs is the exotic Basil St John with his black orchid serum to complete the picture.

I am awkwardly new in the newsroom, and marvel at this glorious golden creature, shuttling seamlessly the strata that separates copyboys from reporters and editors.  Yet from the moment of our first meeting on the newsroom floor, I know she is already a friend.

And because this is Marion, it is an unconditional friendship, like an “access all areas” backstage pass.  She is full of laughter and light, a rare and beautiful force of nature, juggling impossible elements – inhospitable working hours and the drive to achieve reporter status, a demanding social life with a vast array of friends, boyfriends, colleagues, admirers… and then, at home, a beloved mother slowly slipping away from the world.  Marion will eventually chronicle it, first in the Times Sunday Magazine and, later, in a milestone, best-selling book.  I wept when I read it, to realize what my golden friend and her sister Margaret had been through, because until then, I realized, I’d never really understood.

Something else struck me: while the rest of us were still trying to figure out how to make our mark, Marion already was writing in sky-high letters.

In those days, we are part of a charmed circle—among the last of the New York Times copyboys – along with our friends Suzanne, Mary and Marianne.  We each bring something different to this moveable feast and although we are all vying for the same prizes – a byline, a news clerkship, any recognition of the legwork/writing/reporting we are all already doing – there is, surprisingly, little sense of competition. Just a fundamental feeling we are all friends on this privileged journey together.

Here is one of my favorite memories of Marion from those days: we are dressed to the nines, in the heels and lipstick she has already told you about, shivering outside Studio 54 with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other young hopefuls, trying to catch the eye of the burly bouncer blocking entry to the fabled disco kingdom.  Before long, his practiced eye falls on Marion.  He does a visible double take, beckons her out of the line, unclips the velvet rope and stands back.  She grabs my hand to take me with her.  One triumphant moment later, we sweep inside, where Marion once again proves an instant magnet, this time for young, expensive men proffering champagne.

We drink and dance and drink and dance.  Oh, we are happy!  We are young!  We are in Studio 54!  New York is ours — the world is ours– that night. More than thirty years later, I no longer remember where reality and memory collide and blur.  I just know this is the kind of memory everyone should have.

Life’s currents ultimately take us on our different adventures, in different directions. She is a well-known writer and broadcaster by the time we connect again. More than 25 years have passed since we last met, but our friendship is easily resumed, as if never interrupted, first by email, then in person.   The years – life– have only added to her radiance and the things she juggles are different now. But as you, her readers and friends will know, her passion, her generosity of spirit, are not.

I am lucky.  Marion is one of several women in my life with whom I bonded early on.  The others… well, you know who you are.  We may not see each other for ten, twenty, thirty years. But the bonds forged when we were young and the world was wide open, are only informed and enriched by our experiences.  Because we now know that true friendship is not a fleeting coincidence of youth but a tie remaining undimmed by decades and distance.

Marion is still Brenda Starr to me but other, more important things help define us.  We were always sisters; now we are wives and mothers as well.  She has found her Basil St John—the dashing newspaper editor Rex Smith – and her beautiful daughter Grace, for whom she literally went to the ends of the earth.  Our universes have expanded, exploded, new galaxies have formed, but our home lives are now the axis upon which our worlds spin.

We are, finally, who we are.

And yes, we are still friends.

We may not be front and center stage in each others’ every day lives, but we don’t need to be – because even when we are occupied  elsewhere with our own productions, we are nonetheless still there – sometimes applauding in the audience, sometimes backstage with a helpful whisper.  Sometimes just there.

But always – ALWAYS– there.

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Nic Robertson and Margaret Lowrie Robertson in Egypt with their children

SHE WAS PENNY when we met, when she and I were among the last classes of copyboys at The New York Times. Just out of college, we had no idea that to run copy all day would perhaps not be best done in high heels. So we wore high heels and dresses, and ran from desk to desk in the great inky expanse that was the old New York Times newsroom on West 43^rd Street, and then got up and did it again all day – or in my case, all night – the next day. She is known as Margaret now, though not my sister Margaret, she is my other sister Margaret, a friend of more than 30 years, and you would have thought in all that time I would know her. I didn’t, that is until I read what she wrote on Piers Morgan’s blog, and then I wept.

These were not unhappy tears, but tears of pride, that rarely-tapped variety reserved for a child’s piano recital, or a partner’s retirement speech. These were the kind of involuntary tears that make you grateful to be there at all, and leave you ever more alive from the experience. These were the tears of admiring a friend.

My friend Penny had a sunny apartment on one of the busiest blocks on one of the busiest streets of New York. It was only a floor above street level, and above an electronic store named Borgers, and yet in that hubbub we plotted our lives and loves, and some of those goals, I am happy to say, we’ve achieved. She’s written a fine novel. I write books.

I quit the Times, and we lost touch for a while until one day, racing through an airport, I caught sight of her on a TV screen microphone in hand, with a dateline of some God-awful corner of the world, and almost missed my plane as I stood in wonder: New name, new job, scary spot, but it was Penny, right down to the ubiquitious lipstick she and I had always agreed could heighten nearly any of life’s experiences. Lipsick in a war zone. It was wonderful to behold.

These days, my friend Margaret Lowrie Robertson writes and edits, and Tweets and Facebooks from the home she keeps in London while her husband, the astonishing Nic Roberston, brings the truth to us daily from some of the most frightening, news-producing places on earth. They are true partners, as he fearlessly reports to us now from Egypt. Up when he’s up, Margaret supplies him with whatever he needs, including the constant contact with their children.

We visited with Penny (ooops! I mean Margaret) and Nic two Christmases ago. On our way to see them, we were again dashing through an airport when I looked up and saw Nic on the screen reporting on the assassination  of Benazir Bhutto, and while that was not surprising in itself, we knew that at that moment Nic was on a rare and precious vacation with his family. And still he got the story there for us, accurately and on time, and we should all be damn grateful.

I see Nic nearly every night now on CNN, and while I fear for the safety of my friends’ beloved husband, I champion what he does. Without people like this, there is no truth. And without his wife, he could not do what he does, which is what I did not know until I read her post on Piers Morgan’s blog.

If there is anything in the world like the admiration for one’s friend, I do no know what it is, except perhaps when it comes to you as a surprise, after you think you know someone so well.

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Me, on the swim team, before I knew the 15 Rules.

PAIGE DID IT. She broke the rules. She knew she was doing it as she did it, and she did it anyway. We were in a Skype call when she did it, and we sighed the collective sigh of the TSP sisterhood when she did, since we’ve all done the same thing, broken the same rule, and will do it again, probably as soon as today. Is this the one you break most, as well?

Maybe rules are meant not be broken, but this one of the 15 Rules for Us Girls to Live By never should be. I was just saying this to my friend Susie last night, when I suggested that she would never, ever let anyone speak to her sister the way she speaks to herself. If someone said to Margaret the things I said to myself about me and my miserable, insufferable, dreadful…oooops, there I go…I’d smack that person to the ground. I’d samba on him with my ice cleats. I’d read her the inanity of Ann Coulter until her eyes bled. I’d, well, I’d just not tolerate it.

And yet that voice comes a-roaring up whenever we feel less than what we think we should be.

Why?

If you know, let us know, sisters, but until then, read the rules and get back on the program. And add some of your own. That’s what a list is for.

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CHEAP NOTEBOOKS ENJOY the singular fame of being one of only two things you need to be a memoirist. The other, of course is a pen. You can add index cards to the list, but if you go out into your daily rounds carrying little more than a pen and a notebook you can write memoir. And you know what? You don’t have to believe me. This time, I’m bringing in a reliable witness.

It’s The Pink of Perfection, and with a blog name like that, you can believe every word.

I’ve written before about the small toolbox needed to write memoir. But here, for the record, is the very best testimony I’ve seen in, well, forever. Read up, memoirists, and get to work.

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I’M NOT ALONE. I thought I was. I certainly felt as though it was just me. I was wrong. Do you do as I do? Read on.

It turns out that there are many more pet owners than I ever realized who do as I do, and cook for their animals.

Did you see this piece? If not, read up on the growing sisterhood and brotherhood of those of us who cook for our fur-faced friends

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I’VE BEEN WRESTLING with the damnedest feelings. Vague one minute, sharp as knives the next, they make me toss, turn, and turn up the oddest diagnoses for them. That is, until I consulted the oracle of upstate, my big sister, and while what she had to say may not sound all that therapeutic to you, it saved my life.

I described my feelings to Margaret. She listened, thought for a moment, and proclaimed rightly that it was a bad case of empty nest; that ever since my daughter had taken this most recent and totally appropriate surge forward in her independence, I had lost hours each days with her, and that I was missing those hours.

Right she was. Nailed it. Right on the head. And we were good for a few weeks, until we weren’t, and I brought up the topic again saying, only half-kidding, “Hmm, I wonder if there is a drug for this.”

“If there isn’t,” she quipped, “there’s probably an app.”

And I laughed like hell, and moved on.

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TRADITIONAL MALE ROLES are heightened and added to when played by women. Think not? Have you seen Alien, The 40 Year Old Virgin, or the new Angelina Jolie vehicle, Salt? Major roles in all three were originally written for men, and, as played by women, became unforgettable. The sisterhood of stepping in–and stepping things up–is a good one, indeed.

But The 40 Year Old Virgin you ask? That searingly wonderful store manager, as played by Jane Lynch, was originally slated to be a male role. Oh yeah. And Sigourney Weaver, of course, simply owns that role of Ellen Ripley in Alien. And so Angelina Jolie has entered into a fine sisterhood by stepping into the role in Salt.

What a difference a dame makes. But here at TSP, we knew that.

So does NPR, in a wonderful version of this tale, as heard here.

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A BIG BOOK LAUNCH IS COMING. Actually, two book launches await the Roach sisters of TSP–mine, next month, for my book on writing memoir (left), and Margaret’s for her much-anticipated drop-out memoir due next February, for which preparatory plans are already under way. And what are the sisters doing to get ready? We’re reading other writing websites like madwomen, to see who’s saying what about writing and the steps involved in publishing, and what they all make of it today. Want to read along?

How much help can writers be to one another? That’s the sisterly question I’ve been asking as I read site after site, and it helps me sort the proverbial wheat from the chaff. From what I’m seeing, there are more than several good websites that can help writers get it on the page.

For instance, every day I go to these sites for these reasons, among my many digital travels:

• Grammar Girl, to get it right the first time;
• Advice to Writers, to get a kick-ass quote to urge me on;
• Writing Roads, because she’s damn good at what she does;
• Word Strumpet, because I love the name, and she lives up to it; and,
• Poewar, because it’s like going to a really good career counselor.

And you? Where do you go for encouragement and inspiration, to get all that you need to write on?

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THE LAST DAY OF FEBRUARY will bring the Full Snow Moon, rising at the eleventh hour and 38^th minute of the day. As with all full moons, the name comes from the Native American tradition. This name is fairly self-explanatory, though among some Native American people, February’s full moon was known as the Full Hunger Moon since winter conditions can make hunting very difficult. How do I know this? I write and record the daily almanac piece entitled The Naturalist’s Datebook, heard exclusively on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius 112/XM 157. Listen up. And see my other TSP almanac pieces here, including a recent piece on how I change my diet at the full moon, as well as at the new moon, each month.

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I WAS ON AMERICAN IDOL. Did you know? Did you catch me? No? Well, I recorded it for you. I think you’ll be really proud of me, sisters. It went really, really well, like this:

Marion: “You sent your new book–your fourth–to the printer. All corrections made. All edits done. It looks great.”

The other Marion: “But you gained five pounds.”

Marion: “Your daughter has completed a lovely, intelligent, application for a potential new school, on deadline, without your help.”

The other Marion: “But you haven’t started your Amaryllis bulbs yet.”

Marion: “Your husband is healthy, on a great diet, and fit, owing to taking your example seriously, and going to the gym twice a week.”

The other Marion: “But you never wrote those thank-you notes to those two people who now are dead; dead a good ten years, both of them.”

Simon: “All the italics sentences, step forward. Sorry. You didn’t make it. Go home.”

Ah. I love this show. Does it play on your favorite network, too?

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