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.