Goodbye to J Part 1: You Had Me at Tequila Shots and Roller Skating

A very dear friend is moving to New York this week to start a really cool job with NPR. J is a journalist and she's lived all over the world working in print. And now she is branching into radio.

And she will be phenomenal. She's incredibly bright and articulate, and has a very accessible, friendly, conversational reporting style. You will all want to turn on your public radio station just to listen to her.

Now, of course we are all delighted for her. But selfishly, we are also incredibly sad to say goodbye. Who wants to let a good friend out of your sight? But this is a fantastic job - both for her and for us. Because in some ways, it will be like we still have her; we will be able to hear lovely J's voice every hour, on the radio.

So Saturday was a big goodbye bash for her. The Evite was out a month in advance. The hosts had rented out Karma, which is a cool space for a party, with fabulous high ceilings, good dance space, and huge windows. And the staff is super friendly. The hosts hired DJ Neville Chamberlain, who is great fun. They had ordered a huge, fluffy, goodbye cake.

So last week R, one of the organizers and one of J's closest friends, sent an email to a small group of us.

Now, let me just mention that R has the biggest brain of anyone I know. He can, genuinely, focus on 12 things at the same time. Really. He gets bored easily with life's prosaic details. He is always looking to insert randomness into, well, everything. Just to keep himself entertained.

So the email message. How, R wondered, should we spice up this party? What did we think of getting the DJ to play the All Things Considered theme?

Our friend T, who is so funny and never known to hold her tongue, responded not two minutes later with the following:

"Oh my god, you want to spice up the party by playing the All Things Considered Theme? Have you ever been to a party before?

Spice = tequila shots, nude roller skating, snarfing CoCo Puffs and absinthe, breakaway pants, Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen at the Hotel Chelsea."

It's not to say that J's party wasn't fun - it really, really was. I'm going to go into further detail tomorrow.

But when I move away? I absolutely want T planning my farewell.