Day 256

This girl... (the one on the right)

...Welcomed me with open arms to Hullings Hall in August of '94. She dyed my hair burgundy (you know, the trendy mid-90s hue). Repeatedly. In the closet (with the utility sink) across the hall from her room. She kept me company during many pizza and NIN-fueled all-night study sessions in the basement lounge. She always told me what I needed to hear, whether it was "you are awesome... truly" or "you are acting like a total asshole." And one can't forget how she scooted over and offered me half of her loft bed that time Brett gifted me a large family of crickets.

This girl...got married just a month before me. And attending her wedding was so important to me that I hopped a plane from Toronto to Cleveland, leaving Olin with the extended fam he'd not yet met and our rambunctious 10-month old Demps, who, as the story goes, stole an unsuspecting man's steak. Right off his plate. And then jumped into Aunt Cora's swimming pool for a post-dinner dip.

This girl...is the fantastic mom to two terrific boys...whom I met today. Finally. It was awesome.

Day 99

This picture of Jon and Mike (the kind of friend we call fam) makes me very happy. And so does this video that my Allegheny pal Charles posted in response to seeing it on Facebook tonight. It's times like these that I wish I could have a big old tea party where all of my worlds (ok, maybe not all) could collide.  These three guys would most certainly have a lot of laughs together - and amid all the silliness I bet they could get that pesky healthcare problem all sorted out. 

Tonight: Grateful for so my funny, smart, and compassionate friends, both old and new. 

We party hard, yo!

Day 51

I love my alma mater, Allegheny College, more and more every day. There, I learned that it's absolutely acceptable to meld your loves into a focus/a comp/a career. That if you feel like improv dancing with your  choreographer friend to the beat of the cool swimmer-guys you met freshman year in bio lab and you think it'd be fun to have an audience, all you need to do is sign out a space. Want to work in a coffeehouse? Help get one started in the campus center. It's all very Harold and The Purple Crayon now that I think about it. Imagine it, create it, do it. Meet amazing people along the way.

This wasn't the experience I signed on for. I was pre-med. Gonna be an optometrist. But Allegheny was absolutely the college experience I was meant to have. How I stumbled upon the right place for the wrong reasons I'm not sure... but, well, lucky me.