I’ve found my twin

Did you ever fantasise about being a twin when you were a kid? It was right up there with being an alien from Alpha Centauri for me. I think it was the appeal of a permanent playmate that understood and accepted all my quirks and idiosyncracies (of which there were – and still are – many).

Well, I think I’ve found my spiritual twin and she happens to be my co-editor at iVillage.com.au.

Actually, spiritual is a bit of an ick word. But I’m having trouble coming up with the right one to describe all the freaky similarities there are between us. We don’t look the least bit alike – we’re obviously fraternal – but below the surface it’s pure doppelganger territory.

Let’s start with the obvious stuff. She’s called Lana, I’m called Alana. It makes our @ivillage.com.au email addresses quite easy to confuse.

We’re both bloggers – hers is called The Sharpest Pencil, mine is called … well, you know what mine is called. We both started blogging because of major life incidents – in her case her son was born prematurely, in my case I became a stay-at-home mum after 20 years in the same workplace.

We’re both 44.

We’re both dissatisfied with our 44-year-old bodies. She wrote about hers recently in a blog called The Fat Diaries, I wrote about mine in Fat Clothes.

We both love a theme, be it for a dinner party or a birthday party. And we’ll spend inordinate amounts of time meticulously planning and executing those themes.

Speaking of birthday parties – we both like making elaborate cakes for them. Check out her amazing rainbow cake here. Remember my creepy cauldron cake for Sprog 1’s gross/Halloween party?

We’re both just a teensy bit anxious and paranoid.

We’re both addicted to Google Analytics and think “I’ll just take one more look” five minutes after the last one when we’re supposed to be going to sleep.

We both get a desperate craving for a Diet Coke around lunch time every day.

She’s vegetarian, but she appreciates a good fried chicken recipe – well, a photo of one at least – just as much as I do. So we were both pretty jazzed about our Finger Lickin’ Fried Chicken recipe post at ivillage yesterday.

And we both hate peas – I couldn’t believe it when I noticed Lana picking them all out of her rice salad for lunch on Monday.

Spooky, don’t you reckon?