I Like Everything

This is my friend. Why the mask?  Uh...witness protection perhaps?
This is a story about things I like.

I like....road trips. The kind where you only check the miles on the signs to make sure you haven't passed where you're supposed to be going because you were having too much fun talking about favorite song lyrics, future plans, bad boyfriends and nothing inparticular.

I like (though I never thought I would) not having to ask for some cheetos, because they're public domain.

I like setting off at least 11 singing sock monkeys, including one that growls. 
I like getting high on rubber cement and Sharpies building the most obnoxious bunch of posterboard flowers to put in a pot covered in even worse poetry.

I like when the guy at the Mexican restaurant calls us amigas, and I look at the girl on my left and my right and think "amigas for life!" and giggle to myself. I like seeing the lemons lined up on the counter and remembering when the baby was just a baby and made lemon faces and got passed around the restaurant.

I like trying on hats and scarves and being collectively aghast at the silky, pillowy, awful jumpsuits. I like turning 15 colors at the makeup store and getting all glittery.
I like spraying 35 perfumes, each one slightly worse than the last until someone gets nauseous.
I like poking some giant, half smashed bug we think was a cockroach outside the store.

I like sitting on purple and orange couches with my friends, calling dibs on the beds and deciding on the next name for the next band we'll never start.

I like knowing that when the door opens, we're gonna get the smile we've been waiting for.
I like sitting on the deck making inappropriate jokes about sausages.
I like telling stories about high school, and remembering where our lives intersected the first time.

I like beans, but I guess that's not the point...unless it is!

I like that alcohol was not a factor.
I like making up the words to songs.
I like laughing and singing at the same time and the way it kind of hurts your lungs.

I like tangents, the way we always get on them...HEY!
I like the voices mixing.
I like the quiet of a simple song.

I like falling over laughing, doing the Carlton dance, growl-singing, stomping and swearing
I like the way time passes like a bullet train in a room full of music and laughter.
 I like the way time doesn't pass.

I like how things never happen as they're planned, but always happen to be better than I expected.
I like finding the voice to sing and forgetting everything else.

I like jamming to the Spice Girls and Jonathan Coulton and Queen and Metallica and Big and Rich.
I like all these things.

But I *LOVE* my friends.
I wouldn't trade you for the world. 

Around the Corner

It's a beautiful evening.  The air is smelling like spring, and you may not be able to see the stars, but the rain is falling softly and a change is in the wind.

I was driving home enjoying it all and I realized I was just on the edge of something that at least *I* consider pretty amazing.  My jeep, as you can see, is precisely 1001 miles from a quarter million.  I didn't think I'd ever get there, and then as I was enjoying my windows down, music up sanctuary...there it was.

I guess something I found today is that no matter what's going on, even when things seem awful...something amazing can turn out to be just around the corner. 

Wordwind

Wind crashes through the window in violent waves, washing over my body. It takes no prisoners, and it does not knock. Blowing back the curtains it exposes me to the night, forcing me to look at the stars burning behind gray clouds and darkness.

This is a wind that makes the trees ache, sweeps clean the streets, and slithers into homes through holes in unwatched stones. Forces its way inside of me. Makes even the puddles and ponds tempestuous seas. Forces me to forget the pins and needles keeping me from being free, fiery, messy.

This is a wind that takes the nearly burnt out ends and makes them sweeping wildfires. The one that presses at the sails and sends me slicing through the waters.

It brings change without asking permission. Picks up the places I've been and puts them places I'll go. Sending scents of lost loves and changing seasons. Reminding me to be a force of nature, the insistent whisper of something stronger. The cooling kiss in a silent storm.