Kimchi Weekend #2 2008 (In order to fulfill my curiousity in how men go to the bathroom)

Okay, so the hose is nowhere near my crotch...but somewhere in my deranged, off-center thought process, I could envision while standing there for about 30-45 minutes holding that hose in my hand in a slightly downward position that this would be, in fact, the closest thing to being a man standing at a urinal. That is, if that said man were 300 lbs and had a bladder the size of the Lochness monster. Ahh, a girl can wonder, can't she?

The past weekend marked the 2nd "Kimchi Weekend" at Laura unni's house and proved to be just as fun, and even more rewarding than the first time I went. There is definitely something to be said about cooking collectively that brings a group of people together in an amazing and surreal way. It seems so subtle and sort of ridiculous - the idea of standing in a kitchen together, slaving over the stove, peeling and cutting vegetables, filling big tubs of cabbage up with water - but I have never felt more connected with four women in my entire life, almost as close as the first time that I ever learned how to cook any Korean dish in a Korean kitchen.

See all those bottle tops there? Awww yeah, you're not seeing things - that is all alcohol, baby. Let's just say the first night was our attempt at making mandu that ended in four or five drinks later, a girl pow-wow outside on the porch curled up together chattering until 6 AM and absolutely no mandu made at all.

Every time I go to Laura's house, I feel like I get closer to a part of myself that I had never exposed before. Sometimes a part of myself that I didn't even know existed. It's a comforting and blessed thing to be able to have a place to go with nothing holding you back from being completely yourself and to be surrounded by people who only encourage and facilitate your inner soul to grow and emerge as a stronger person.

As horribly stereotypical as this is going to sound, I felt like I was in a scene of the Joy Luck Club. Or Soul Food. Or The Ice Storm. Five women in a kitchen until 5 AM, talking of life, love, loss, pain, perseverance, courage, bravery and being scared shitless sometimes. It was like the scene of a movie where you know this is the pivotal point, this is where the epitome of the movie is coming from. This wholly collective togetherness that is encasing around these five individuals.

I was left with a lot of wonderful, somewhat scary, and yet poignant thoughts to ponder when leaving Laura's house. And I also took away with me some amazing new friendships.

If I take my heart's advice, you can be sure, I'm still unsteady...

This past weekend's events have become an entire blur with only bits and pieces electrifying through the nerves in my brain to communicate that yes, you did do things this weekend.

For starters on Friday, I was reunited, if only for one night, with my friend Y, who was on her way to Staten Island where she will reside indefinitely (hopefully, for her sake). It was a nice reunion, filled with a night of endless driving, (If anyone were to ever ask me how to get anywhere in the state of Virginia, please do not be offended when I laugh maniacally in your face. Short Code: Virginia's roads are definitely not for lovers, and more explicitly, not for me) girl-talk until the wee hours, several hours of partying and dancing to the sounds of Noel Sanger (who I coincidentally had an impromptu "heart-to-heart" talk with at the end of the night that was pretty cool) and then a very near-crazy 58-mile drive home for myself, alone.

I spent most of the beautiful weather on Saturday inside the confines of my room. Not because I was broke or because there were no plans (And here is where I input yet another apology to K.Hyon for missing out on hanging out in the rays of daylight!), but because my partied-out, old-fart ass was complacently passed out in the thrawls of slumber for several hours - hours only intermittently disturbed by my addiction to YouTube videos and watching reruns of Clean House on the Style Network (Don't deny the powers of Ms. Niecy...seriously).

I was abruptly pulled from this spell by numerous phone calls, one of which was Darren (aka Bathroom Boy) which went as follows:

Me: (sleepily) He...hello?

Bathroom Boy: Dude, what happened to you last night? What are you doing?

Me: (pulling a potato chip out of the bag lying in front of me on top of my comforter) Nothing, I was just lying around, catching up on sleep from last night. And what do you mean what happened to me last night? I was at Snatch. Where were you?

Bathroom Boy: I looked for you - everywhere.
(Note: I hardly believe that he looked EVERYWHERE. Because if he had, in fact, looked EVERYWHERE then he would have inevitably found ME.)

Last night was Christian's birthday, and I stopped by to say hi before heading to Buzz.

Me: Ohh...was that you? I saw some tall black dude with glasses on walking out the door but I figured you'd be at Buzz, so I knew it wouldn't be you.

Bathroom Boy: Well it was, and you missed out. Anyway, so I'll see you tonight.
(Note: That was not a question.)

Me: Wait - what do you mean? See me tonight? Who said I was going anywhere?

Bathroom Boy: No one did. But you're on the guestlist, and it's free before 11...so be there.

Me: Wow, that's very direct and bossy of you. What if I don't want to go?

Bathroom Boy: You don't have to want to go - but you must be there.

Me: Peer pressure, much?

Bathroom Boy: Peer pressure all the way. See you tonight. [Click.]

Five hours later, a trip to downtown Baltimore's Sutton Place to pick up three tag-a-longs and off on 295 I went. I wrangled up enough energy to drive myself to DC, yet again and parked the car.

Ten minutes later, after meeting J.Lo and Ciconte and Dane at the door - we were inside, and down to the main room.

Several hours of dancing, partying, laughing and [will insert another story at a later date here], I was ready to go home, and so were my tag-a-longs. However, my friends had a different plan in mind and within 20 minutes of coersive speech on their part - I found myself in the car, with R and the tag-a-longs driving back to Baltimore to do a drop-off and head my ass as well as R's back to Virginia for a further partying fiasco.

In the end, this weekend was altogether fun, and I am ultimately proud of myself for the way that I held myself this weekend, with all things considered.

This weekend is going to bring lots more pictures, I promise - as I take on the road again towards Pennsylvania to stay with L unni and the Korean sistas for our now monthly "Kimchi Weekend". I can't wait. It'll be really relaxing, and peaceful to just be around people who completely and utterly get you. Plus, throwing a few martinis and a shitload of delicious kimchi and mandu in the mix doesn't hurt either.

My Coming to America

When I was around 10 or 11 years old, I used to feel really uncomfortable and uneasy when it came to my friends and the conversation of birthdays. I'm not sure if your peers at that age were anything like mine, but it became some one's novelty idea to state not only their date of birth but the exact time stamp as well. You would be in the middle of 5th grade English class, and it'd be Mary Sue's birthday and when asked if it was, indeed, her birthday, Mary Sue would reply: "Yes! But my Mom says I wasn't born until 1:45 pm exactly!"

At that age, the fact that I couldn't give you the exact time of my birth unsettled me in some way. I don't know if I can dig that far back into my past to precisely explain to you why I felt the way that I did, and I'm not even sure that if you could talk to the 10-year old me that I would be able to explain it any better. I just did.

I felt embarrassed, and overwhelmed with just how embarrassed I felt over some minute detail that in the grand scheme of things, held little to no consequence if not to just be some sentimental value to throw into the pages of a baby book. But God, no matter how lame you might have tried to twist it to be, I would have wanted nothing more than to tell you what time I was born.

When I think back at the significance of my feelings as a kid, I guess I could self-analyze and tell you that this obsession and immense feeling of hurt/embarrassment that came with not knowing the time of day I was brought into this world would probably stem from the deeper-rooted problem of just not knowing anything. It could be, but I can't exactly be sure. Perhaps you could just chalk it up to pure peer pressure and peer anxiety of wanting to fit in. I guess maybe essentially that's all my adoption issues were - this identity confusion and overwhelming sense of wanting to find a place to belong. Who knows. (I sure as hell don't, even after all these years.)

Today, though, today is my redemption. Today would eventually become the counter-attack for my self-esteem during the early years when I would battle with my adoption demons over what made me feel more "whole". And as I grew older, and into my now early twenties, I have been able to remember this day with a tainted bittersweetness. The kind of bittersweetness you feel when speaking of a loved one: can't live with it, can't live without it.

Today is my "Gotcha' Day". The day that I arrived off the plane from South Korea into BWI at around 11:45 pm at night. The flight was long and I was actually part of a group of seven or eight children that were being flown into the airport from Korea with my parents being one of the adoptive couples. I hear stories, and I see pictures - a picture of my tiny, frail premature body being carried off the plane by one of my mother's closest friends - another picture of an anonymous Korean woman standing at the edge of the airflight gate, looking on with tears in her eyes. I had later learned that this woman was one of the young Korean women who volunteer to be "baby escorts" or pseudo-mothers for at least the long journey over to America. This was my "birth", so to speak. This was my coming into my life as an Asian-American. As the person that I am now.

At the peak of my teen angst years, I looked at this day with disdain. In my eyes, I was brought here against my will, I had no say in the matter - and it especially hit me harder whenever my parents would say things like, "We didn't bring you here to screw up your life." or "We adopted you to save you. You wouldn't have survived at all in that orphanage."

Nowadays, it's just a day. A day to remember, of course, but just a day nonetheless. Without it, I probably wouldn't be here writing in this blog, in this chair, thinking about how my Spanish midterm is due by midnight tonight. With it, I have faced a lot of turmoil, identity confusion, frustration and hurt. But I wouldn't be me without all of those things.

So maybe, just maybe, I'll break out the vodka and orange juice tonight to celebrate. And more than likely, I might even throw on "Coming to America" to heighten the celebration festivities. =)

The Most Beautiful View In The World

This has been my view of the world for the past week and a half. And what a gorgeous sight it is -- the dashboard of my 2008 Toyota Corolla.

For this Thanksgiving, I have been most thankful more than anything for the most amazing people that I have been blessed to have in my life. Friends who love me, care for me, and make sure that I am taken care of....Friends who made this possible this year:

So thank You for friends (family):

for cars, for left foot accelerators, for poetry, for blogs, for freedom, for crummy jobs that help pay the rent and put food on the table, and for sunsets:

"Defying Gravity"

Something has changed within me

Something is not the same

I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game.

Too late for second guessing

Too late to go back to sleep

It's time to trust my instincts

Close my eyes...

and leap!

It's time to try defying gravity -

I think I'll try defying gravity

and you can't pull me down.

I'm through accepting limits

'cause someone says they're so

Somethings I cannot change

But till I try I'll never know!

Too long I've been afraid of

losing love I guess I've lost

Well if that's love,

it comes at much too high a cost...

And so I'll try defying gravity

Kiss me goodbye

I'll be defying gravity

and you can't pull me down...

So if you care to find me

Look to the western sky

As someone told me lately

Everyone deserves to fly

And if I'm flying solo

At least I'm flying free

To those who ground me

Take a message back for me

Tell them how I'm defying gravity

I'm flying high, defying gravity

And soon I'll match them in renown

And no body in all of Oz

No wizard that there is or was

Is ever going to bring me down!

Bring me down!

-From the musical "Wicked"

**Why didn't I hear this song four years ago?

A Great Weekend!!!

(I have been behind in my blogging duties to myself so bear with me.)

Thursday Night (of last week): Made sure to leave work right at 5 pm to get over to FFCU on Bel Air Road. (Because that's the location that my coworker, Code Name: F. Sanchez used to work at and had given me a friendly connect by being able to drop her name there.) Once I got there, I nervously sat and waited for someone to call on me in the line. What about credit unions made me think of them as forbidden secret societies? As if the word "union" constituted that I must work at a place where I get a special secret coded name tattooed on my ass and a name badge that had access into government facilities. And then, one day, while conversing with Code Name: F. Sanchez about car loans, she informed me that I, little ole me, could hold an FFCU account. Is it because of my newly G.I. Jane haircut that made me a formidable opponent as a secret agent (if not for skill, just for the mere fact that it has made me look like one tough motha sucka)? Or could it be the fact that I know her, Code Name: F. Sanchez and she is part of their covert society based on former FFCU workers who meet and have lunch at some posh restaurant every Thursday?

Alas, no, it is because I am a student, she tells me. A God-damn student?! What's so effing special about that? It's THAT easy to be a member of FFCU? Well, Jesus, I thought, I should go in and apply for a car loan.

And that's just what I did. And I was told that I would have to wait for the response. (which I received and will talk about in another post in the near future, if I ever get my ass back on blog schedule.) What bugged me the most was that my mother showed up at the last minute. Now, understand, she had to show up sooner or later because she was my ride, but she sat there so quietly, not asking any questions, even though the whole point of her being there was for her to ASK QUESTIONS. My God! I guess she forgot to put that on her list of things to do.

Friday: God, I wanted this day to be over so badly. Not just because I was excited about going to see Carl Cox @ Buzz (which I was) but because my week had been ridiculously packed with endless projects, and never ending piles of financial yada and bullshit. The more and more I stay at the this job, the less respect I have for people who have money and flaunt it. I can't tell you how many times in the past week I have had customers keep me on the phone, complaining about how much money they have and how much they had to spend in cash for their $22.6 million home in Milan. Blah, blah, blah.

Friday night: I rushed home from work and immediately tried to clean up my room, get my laundry done and get into my costume for the party. I was going as a schoolgirl. I even bought the sexy pantyhose that only come up thigh-high. Oh yeah, baby. But then I realized at the last minute that I had gotten rid of my black boots and only had brown ones to wear. Well, that wouldn't work. But I didn't really have time to worry about that. J was to be over any minute (close to 8) and I wanted to have the place cleaned up from my work week (because I have a tendency to throw things everywhere during the work week because I come home too exhausted to do anything but sleep) so that he had a place to nap. By this time, as exhausted as I felt, I was too filled with excitement for the party - and I was up and raring to go.

He showed up close to 9. Collapsed on my bed, and the sucka was out like a light. And despite my award-winning cleaning skills, I had failed to get the text that he had sent just minutes before telling me that we probably weren't staying at my place this weekend. All that work for nothin'. Well, at least the room looked pristine to my satisfaction for the most part.

I had the TV running while he was sleeping and I decided to finish getting dressed. Now was the time to focus on the fact that I didn't have matching boots. So after trying different variations, I finally gave up and just threw on a pair of jeans, and a black laced tank top and a black hat and a matching sweatshirt and was done. I put my make-up on and then checked the time. It was close to 11.

I woke up Sleeping Beauty and we were off. And of course, like always, while I was sitting in the car driving there I started to get sleepy - meanwhile, J got wide awake. So by the time we got there, I was exhausted again and he was energized like the pink bunny.

God, was it fun!! I got to see D - who hadn't seen the G.I. Jane look yet. He pulled me aside and admitted to me that he was never worried from the start - due to my "great bone structure" I think is what he said. It was really loud - but then he pulled away and motioned towards my cheek bones, so I think that's what he meant. I love that my guy friends are the kinda dudes that pay attention to things such as "great bone structure". It really meant a lot to me. He kept telling me that it looked great. Probably because D knows I am the type of person that needs to be told a bazillion times.

J got to see his friend J-man. Although J-man's friend was gettin' a little frisky with me. It was flattering in the beginning - you know, the kind words, the look up and down. You ladies know what I'm talking about! Especially when you're not feeling like you have your A-game on (I mean, yes, I took the hat off for the whole night, so it was the first night out as G.I. Jane in a club) and some dude says you're hot. That's always nice to know. But not when they come from behind and get all freak-a-leek on the sides of your body and then crouch down low like they are in a constipated squat trying to press their face close to your booty. Oh, hell no. Not cool.

D caught it though. D saved me! He went to J-man and told J-man I was his sister, and I was kinda "involved with someone" and I didn't want to be touched like that. That was pimp, D, very pimp of you. Much appreciated, my friend.

There was some other creep later on with some massively large and seizure-infested lit glow sticks that was running around and then trying to hit on me and Esther-unni while we were sitting on one of the blocks. J saved us then. Yay J!!!

I was happy to run into Eugene and Kuya EARL!!! Even though Kuya Earl was f*cked up, he recognized me and rubbed my head "for good luck". Asked me how I was doing, and gave me a big big hug. He told me all about what was going on with his family as he always does. I felt like I was part of that family at one point - so he knows I still care. Until he gets to Corp. He suddenly said that Corp was in the market to buy a house in Towson. He started working for Sinai as some sort of respiratory something and had been asking about me. Kuya said he didn't know because he didn't know. J is convinced that Corp is trying to find me. I don't think so ... I think he gave up on me a long time ago - just like I gave up on him before that. Regardless, it was nice seeing Kuya - even though this is the upteenth time I have seen him out WITHOUT a girl!! Hmm... (I have my thoughts about that)

Ohhhh, before I finish Friday night's expo - I gotta point out one thing that really GROUND MY GEARS!! This dumbass piece of no-good white trash of a bouncer (I don't know your name, and you better be so glad I don't) that works at Buzz... for the past few times that I have gone there, he has always been the one who checks my ID. So when he checks it, and I get up there, he takes the ID and he stands there for a good two minutes - moving his eyes from the card, to me, to the card, back to me. Giving me this "I'm a bad ass motha f&cka" look with these piercing eyes and these pursed lips. The first time it happened, I got scared. Second time, annoyed. Third time, pissed off. This time? I looked this motha f&cka right in the eye. IN THE EYE. Try to tell me that's not me, stupid ass. So I shaved my head, bitch - go get some glasses. I didn't have any plastic surgery. It's the same person. Grrrrrr!!! Then he has the audacity to ask me "Do you have any cards on you with the same name?" WTF?! You want my passport? You want to check if I am a legal citizen while you're at it? Grrrrrr!!! I showed him my credit card and then he finally let me in. That bastard... I swear. One more time and I will probably be banned from the club forever for kicking the living shit out of him.

Saturday day/night: Right after Buzz, we all left together. Gen-Gen begged me and J to come to his place (because we didn't go the last time) so we headed over there with the code to his garage door. When we got there, Gen-Gen asked us to take Elvis (his puppy) out. In the rain. In the cold. At 3 or 4 in the morning. Yeaaaahhh...

We did, but Elvis only seemed to want to piss. So we went back inside and waited for Gen-Gen. Thirty minutes pass by - no Gen-Gen. This is where it gets hazy for me. I know we were there for what seems like a while. I remember laying on Gen-Gen's comfy white couch and collapsing... I remember seeing the dog jumping all over the place and J sitting in the chair adjacent to me. How long we were there, I have no clue. J said I started talking inaudibly again...hehehe. Oh well. We all have our moments.

Finally, I just remember J grabbing my hand and telling me we were getting out of there because Gen-Gen was never coming after all.

The rest of the night was AWESOME!! It was just great to hang out with J and be goofy, retarded people. Talk about everything and anything, sing karaoke until we have no voices left, listen to music and make commentary... (he still won't let me live up that damn discussion we had about Irony) it was just really relaxing.

Sunday: I woke up wishing it were Saturday and that weekend wasn't over. But it was Sunday, and we were too tired to do anything but lay in bed, eat something, and then go back to sleep. We did stop at Target really quick so we could pick out a gift for lil Drew. I told him to buy the Duplo (because what kid doesn't like Legos?) but J was thrown off by the fact that the set came with a Duplo cat and he insisted that we not make Drew "sissy"...so instead, we opted to get some some mini cars and trucks (which J dubbed as "manly"). I was so impressed with J's coordinating skills!! He got a blue bag and then got a card that said Happy 2nd Birthday with a dump truck on it! (I am sucker for wrapping gifts with a unified theme and I guess it rubbed off.)

J dropped me off at home, and he headed to the party. I saw the pics on LP's site - looked sooo cute!!! I collapsed in bed, and then woke up to work on Chemistry. And then found that my phone was seriously missing. J called me at work later on to let me know I had left it in his car.

V Fest Day One Review (In Pictures): Part 1

I know I went into a review of what happened on Saturday but let's go into detail, shall we? And, alas, in pictures!!!!

J came over to my house at around 7 AM (we had planned on leaving early since we didn't have a parking pass and figured it'd be utter chaos trying to find one) but that didn't exactly work out very well. For one thing, my lazy ass woke up late, but only because my head was still throbbing from the steroid injections all night long and it took me forever to find every single bald spot to administer the steroid cream before I went to bed. Then on top of that, I had a full night of weird ass dreams of people growing hair in kitchen cabinets, people having hair on their beards that never stopped growing and people who had hair growing wildly all over their legs (Don't ask where all that came from.) Quick end to story, when J came to my house and I quickly let him in, I was standing in my bedroom, wrapped in a bath towel and fresh from the shower.

Finally, I got ready, threw myself into a nice hot blue bathing suit and hot shorts, pulld my hair back into a ponytail with a matching hot blue cap and slipped on my flip flops. We hopped into the car, headed to Dunkin Donuts to grab some breakfast (yummm, J got me hooked on chocolate flavored coffee!) and then were on our way! Untillll, we hit 83 and I realized the worst thing ever.

"Shit babe!!!" I screamed.

"You forgot the tickets," J finished my sentence and looked to see my nod my head.

I WAS SO SORRY!! I felt like a jerk because we were so excited, singing along to music and getting all pumped. BAh, but anyways J is a crazy driver and within about 30 minutes, we had the tickets and were back on our way again.

By the time we got there, it was around 8:45 AM or so, and the gates to the parking had opened at 8 and the gates for the concert weren't due to open until 10 AM. We were aiming to try and see if there was an opening for the official parking near the gate for the concert, but it was practically half full by the time we got there, and you looked through the gates, you could see a thousand or so people all in their cars, hanging out of their trunks with coolers, and chairs, getting drunk as the morning went on.

The guy at the gate told us that although the parking lot was full, he had heard that Pimlico Middle School was being used as a parking lot for the V Fest and they were only charging $25. SWEEEEEEET!!!! So we headed over there, even though the guy at the gate didn't even know where to direct us. Luckily, where there is a school, there is usually "school crossing" signs. So we parked:

And then realized how many freakin' people were already at this parking lot (that reminded me a lot of Merriweather), doing the same thing as the people in the official parking lot. Drinking like crazy people.

J and I decided to start a-walking...and eventually *harp plays* we found ourselves at the gates!!!:

I found always find it funny when they have a list of the prohibited items:

Once we were all standing around waiting for the gates to open, we realized that there was one short opening for the VIP people and then one for the people with the general admission tickets.

Cool, except for the fact that when we finally realized there was a second line and that it looked like this:

Once we got in, I was so excited that I was literally taking pictures of EVERYTHING. I knew that it was probably going to be the only time that I would be able get a clear picture of the stage from where I stood since there was no one there yet and no one performing, the stage was freaking masssive:

Once we found where the bathrooms were (it was cool because they had this huge balloon up in the air that said bathrooms that you could see for miles; unless of course you were like me, and your eyesight was slightly impaired, hehe) we headed over to the North Stage (the one in the picture above) to get good seats because Fountains of Wayne were up first. While we were waiting for Fountains of Wayne to start, they started showing some trippy ass shit on the big screens. J told me to stop staring at it so much so I decided to take a picture of it to remember what I was seeing (it looked like some Windows Media Player stuff with random pics of flowers):

And then....

FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE!!!!!!:

We decided to scratch The Fratellis and just head over to one of the Shade Tents that they had set up after we checked out the Virgin Megastore that they had set up. It was freaking amazing!! They had everything there from cool bags, to all the bands' t-shirts to all the bands and DJs CDs from the beginning of their careers to their most recent albums. It was awesome and I regret not being able to take a picture of it - but I wasn't sure if they were going to let me.
I bought an Amy Winehouse t-shirt and then J bought The Police t-shirt for his little brother. Then we headed over to the Shade Tent to catch some shade:

This was where J got hit on by the Charm City Roller Girls (they were wearing pink feathered outfits and on pink and white roller skates). There was one girl in particular who came up to the chain link fence, bent over, lifted her pink feathers and pressed her butt against the fence in front of him. He looked at me with this look like "what's going on?" but I wouldn't let him live it down for the rest of the day or the night for that matter. hahaha

As we left the Shade Tent, we ran into the Green Light bushes: yes, you heard me right. They had these poor bastards running around in the heat in these bush outfits to help promote the Green Light thing they had going on - they had a bunch of recycling bins all over the place and everything like that:

Memoir of Friends #1

-=Prelude Edit=-
As a sort of writing practice, I started to write memoirs of people that I once knew. People who for one thing or another have affected my life in a way, or many ways. People who have passed on, but whose memory has kept with me throughout the years, and has helped me get through some difficult and interesting times. This is the first of the many pieces that I found myself scribbling into my journal one afternoon. I needed a chance to let the writer's compost build. I needed to let go of some tears. This is for you, Jules.


The first time it hit me that I had lost Jules was a week after her funeral. Even after I had seen her open casket where I cried hysterically and stared disbelief at the body lying there that everyone kept telling me was my best friend, even after the two hour funeral in the church where I sat in the back pews in my pink dress because Jules had said that she wanted everyone to celebrate her in style, even after the reception at her parents' house where her mother had created picture posters of Jules with a few dozen of them being with me in them... I was still in disbelief. It still hadn't set in.

Until one day, a week later, I was walking through the parking lot of the mall and heard Jules' favorite song blaring in the near distance.

I turned to see a guy driving around the parking lot in his white Honda Civic, windows rolled down, and singing his lungs out.

"Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes...five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear..."

And I broke down in tears.

RENT was her anthem. She ran out to buy the soundtrack the week it came out, and would walk around the school hallways with a CD-player in one hand, both earphones clasped around her earlobes, and reciting the words from "Over The Moon" with such precision and emotion you would have thought they made the part of Maureen for her.

She had become my Maureen. The crazy, sexy, amazing, alluring, intimidating 5'2" powerhouse that was Julia made me feel like anything I did was the greatest shit since sliced bread. My first day of school there, I felt completely out of place. I was one of two or three kids that were homeschooled for most of their middle school years stepping into the most insane, liberal-arts public high school in Baltimore County.

Everyone who came to Carver knew everyone who was already at Carver. That was mostly because Carver was one of those high schools where they were bound to choose middle schoolers that had attended other liberal-arts schools such as Deer Park, Loch Raven Academy or the infamous Sudbrook.

To the freshman students who arrived, the teachers they were going to be assigned to for their primes were legendary. To me, they were some of the wackiest teachers I had ever met in my entire life.

Jules was an alumni of Sudbrook. She, of course, had studied Theatre and Vocal Arts there. She had a voice on her that could project for miles. To this day, I blame my ability to be loud and obnoxious on her. When she met me, I was a timid, quiet Asian girl who wore jeans with pen spots splattered over them and tattered t-shirts to achieve the "artistic look".

Everyone thought Jules and I made the oddest pair as friends. She, the Sudbrook-attending, outgoing, insane theatre student, and me, the introverted, nervous, literary arts student with my head stuck between the pages of my journal 99% of the time. But the friendship worked. And Julia made me realize that life was too short, too alive, too raw, too beautiful to miss out on. We would stay on the phone for hours, reciting lines from upcoming Broadway productions; me listening to her new monologue for Theatre 1 class and her listening to my new sestina for Intro to Lit Arts.

Her bright spirit became something I will never forget. From her stealing "hamster burgers" from the cafeteria to jumping on top of her seat in the auditorium after I finished my hip hop dance for the Black History Month assembly to skipping class and walking to the mall to buy "movie star shades" - Jules was, and will always be my star.

Do You Remember...?

It might have been two years ago but when I close my eyes and listen to the same songs that came across that beat-up radio sitting propped against the freshly painted walls you had just painted that night - it seems like it was just yesterday.

"Thanks for inviting me..." I whispered, pressing my face against your arm. I'd only tell you that while you were sleeping so you wouldn't realize how one night with you in a deserted house with endless painting supplies could mean so much to me. It's something that even I had a hard time understanding. All I knew was that I felt happy...and completely content and safe.

That's all I can remember now. You, me, the summer wind, a fuzzy radio station, and the feeling of utter happiness and elated joy. I love memories that end that way.