I saw Emily today, she came home from the boat! I hadn't seen her since Jessie's wedding, which was more than a year and a half ago.

We had dinner with Jessie and the baby, and went to Em's dads'. I think Emily's dad's in Sachse is one of my favorite homes, hands down, ever. Mr. Harris has not changed his house since 1975 I think. You walk in and there's this fabulous dandelion wallpaper all throughout the kitchen, brown shag carpet, and deer heads ( decorated with sunglasses and jack balls by Emily 10 years ago ). The older boys' rooms are still the way they had them in the late 80's and early 90's; Mr. Harris let Eric paint his room black ceiling to floor, then top it off with a mural of a dove with a flag in its mouth pierced by a bayonnet above some pink floyd lyrics. His porn magazines are probably still under his stack of yearbooks. In the backyard, the swing is still attached to the tree... the swing Emily always dared me to jump off when we were 12. The same swing we tried to incorporate into the skit we filmed in 11th grade about the feminist movement for history. I stood in this "old" kitchen while Em got her pictures of Greece, Italy, Turkey...all these wonderful places she saw with the navy while I stared at the fridge and wondered if it was still stocked with blue bell ice cream sandwiches and frozen pizza. Everybody wanted to spend the night at Emily's because her dad let us do whatever we wanted. We'd wake up at 1 pm after drawing all over ourselves with sharpie markers, and there'd be donut holes and orange juice out on the table, ready for us. This house just spoke to me for some reason, of my friendship and of how living in suburbia wasn't always that bad. I thought about how rare it is for a place like this to still exsist. I dream about the house I grew up in ( even though there was nothing particularly unique about it ), and am a little sad when I wake up and know that I can never go back to it and if I did, it would be a completely different house.

I thought about how it was weird to stand there and know someone other than my family who knew me when I was 12. I knew her when she was that age. She was a tree climber in red patent leather airwalks who scribbled pearl jam lyrics on her notebook. Me at that age, hid behind ridiculously large bangs in pink converse allstars, and always stared up at my friend in the tree timidly asking " are you sure I won't fall?"

Your core personalities never change. Yes, I'm quoting you David DeSoto, get over yourself :). This is why I'm a teacher no more than 100 miles away from the place I grew up, and why she has been to over 15 countries.

Sometimes I think my insane memory, sentimentality, and strong emotional ties to nostalgia are my prized posessions. Sometimes these things makes me sad. But such is life. I love it :)