hen my best friend Julie called, I was in the middle of repainting the walls of my apartment the week before I moved out -- slathering two, three coats of white primer over the mint green and the diva red I had so boldly chosen to define each room. I love painting an apartment, watching it take shape and begin to burn with character -- but this was the opposite, erasing whatever impression I had made on this place, leaching it of my personality. I felt depressed that day. Not in a grand way, but in a small, defeated way. I was feeling sorry for myself. Sometimes, when I'm not careful, I do that.

That's when Julie called.

"How's it going?" I sighed, held the phone with a grimy fist, crusty with latex. I looked forward to unloading my frustrations. Julie's been shouldering those for 15 years.

Instead, our conversation took a turn. It was a bracing turn, one that made me wake up from my self-pitying slumber. Because what I didn't know -- what I had no idea about -- was that Julie, a rural legal aid lawyer in Texas, had been given a new case. It was a difficult case, a prominent case, a case I had heard about on "Larry King Live" and which I was, frankly, stunned to discover she was handling. Julie, my best friend, was representing seven of the FLDS polygamist wives.

I really can't tell you about this. I wouldn't even begin to know what to tell you -- what I could tell you, what I should tell you, what I even understand myself. What I can tell you, proudly, is that my best friend Julie won her case yesterday, in which a (conservative!) court in the third district court of appeals ruled that Child Protective Services overstepped their boundaries in taking away these women's children. Yesterday, Julie gave a press conference, which I watched on Larry King Live (while I was talking to her, by the way, which was kind of surreal). She has been on NPR, and Dateline, and who knows what else? The decision has since been appealed; it will not end anytime soon.

But if you suspect that this whole post is just some excuse to congratulate her, just a way to bring more attention to her accomplishment, just a way to transmit to our friends who might not have caught her on the transom the amazing things that she is doing -- well, I would like to tell you, that is the furthest thing from my mind. Julie is one of the most humble people I know. So I'd like to just point out, for the record, that i have yet to paint my new aparment. Thoughts? I am totally taking suggestions.