Gary Coover
The second to last time I saw Julie, she ran over and immediately said four things to me:
"Fuck you!"
"Fuck you."
"FUCK you!"
"Fuuuuck you!"
From anyone else, this might seem unusual. Also repetitive. But this was Julie. So it was definitely not unusual, and oddly not repetitive. The reason she chose this greeting (other than being Julie), was that I had finally left a comfortable corporate job and launched a startup. This of course was the general path that Julie had been not-so-subtly coaching me to take for the prior 8 years: to take a leap, bet on myself, and stretch myself in new ways. Because that was Julie - she was betting on me before I even knew we were gambling.
So what her quadFU greeting was really saying was:
"Fuck you!" --> "You fucking did it! I knew you could do it!"
"Fuck you." --> "You love it don't you - I know you fucking love it, you don't have to tell me."
"FUCK you!" --> "I am so fucking proud of you. I have always believed in you - I'm so happy you decided to as well."
"Fuuuuck you!" → "What the fuck took you so long? Just listen to me next time and you'll save yourself 8 years!"
I spent the better part of my last two years of high school and all my college summers in Julie & Dennis' living room. You could argue that I was there because that was where my best friend Peter lived. But if you've ever plugged your soul for an hour or two a day into the Julie Mancini experience, then you know that it's an addiction that you don't want to kick.
One of Julie's true gifts was making you believe that you were special. Not different special or unique special, but more like crazy fucking amazing special, and she needed you to just tap into it a little more and see what she saw. And we all believed it. Maybe it was because we all were blown away that this force of nature was giving us her full caffeine-fueled attention. Or maybe it's because she was able to shine a light on areas of ourselves that we couldn't see on our own. Whatever it was, you couldn't leave her presence without adding two CCs of juice to your self esteem or your mood.
Julie was electricity for the soul.