Not sure why, but I wrote this and forgot to publish it back in November!
Do you have old friends that you still get together with for weekends here and there?
About once or twice a year, I get together with some of my college roommates. I met them the first quarter I was in college at The University of Georgia. (I may have mentioned on Dogwood girl that I attended that fine institution.) I was trying to study for my first ever college exam, and I was so nervous, that I had studied for hours. (Duh. I aced it. Part of a terrible domino effect of events that resulted in me doing terribly for a year there at school. Better to not do so well on that first test and think that college is hard than to get it in your head that you barely need to study.) Well, I was tired, over-caffeinated, and stressed. My boyfriend and friends had all gone to see a band (Five-Eight, if I recall correctly) and I wished I was out seeing a band, too. I was trying to concentrate, and all I could hear was music booming, shrieks of laughter, and loud voices across the hall.
Have you met me? I am not shy. I marched right across the hall, and I asked them (probably not-so-politely) to keep it down. So, this little tiny thing with dark hair and a pair of the most piercing blue eyes I have ever seen, marched right up to me in the door way. I towered over her, and looking down at her, she was looking up at me, and if looks could kill, i woulda been a dead girl. She stared me down for a minute, then looked at my t-shirt, then said,
“You like Jane’s Addiction?”
I was completely caught off guard. I laughed.
“Yeah, i like them. You?”
“Yeah. I’m Honey.”
That was the Fall of 1990. We’ve been friends ever since.
This is us on our floor at Church Hall.
I think that’s Rachel’s room to the left of Charlie, and maybe Jennifer’s to the right of mine? I honestly can’t remember her last name now. Charlie was my boyfriend at the time. I think he is wearing my Hellraiser shirt! I was wondering what happened to it. I bet Matt Long was wondering, too, because I think I stole it from him. On the back, it said, “So many monsters, so little time.”
So, Honey was a deadhead, as was her roommate Laura. Not really my thing, so it was funny that we ended up friends, but college dorms make strange bedfellows. We all smoked cigarettes like maniacs, and played cards (Spitemouse!) and Nintendo in their room, for hours on end. Honey, and Laura, and Rachel, along with Jennifer, Rachel, Joy, and some chick that lived across the hall from me and could play the guitar like a mother. We laughed our guts out, and acted like complete dorks in front of each other.
Our friendship was cemented that year.
The following year, in the Fall of 1991, when we decided to get an apartment together, we added in their friend, Dana. I didn’t know Dana that well. I only met her through Honey and Laura, but we became fast friends. We shared a room in the three-bedroom apartment, to save money. It was v. glamorous: Two twin mattresses on the floor. Add in two long-term boyfriends, and it was a coed sleepover just about every night. (Sorry, mama.)
Wish I had a picture of Robert, who was Dana’s boyfriend at the time, but I don’t think I do. He is definitely a part of the landscape that was my sophomore year in college. He stayed up late watching TV and drawing. That was the year I had purple hair, which I remember, because Mya and I died our hair together in my bathroom in that apartment. No pictures of that either. I can only imagine that it must have looked horrible, but I can’t really remember. If you have a picture of it, for the love of God, please scan it and send it to me. I need a laugh.
We played a lot of Taboo, and the boys upstairs had lots of keg parties. Ren and Stimpy was always on tv during the weekends. That was also, “The Year Punk Broke,” I believe. Nirvana’s Nevermind came out that fall. I bought it the day it came out. I still remember begging Laura to go see Nirvana with me at the 40 Watt. Awesome show. I think Chris Herren went with us, too. It seems like everyone else had gone home that weekend, or something. And I think Dinosaur, Jr. played the very next night. That weekend is a distant blur of a memory of an awesome rock and roll weekend that I just enjoyed the heck out of. Green Mind, I believe, came out about the same time. Within a couple months, Nirvana was everywhere, and the guy upstairs would play “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on repeat for hours on end, when he wasn’t screwing the guts out of his screamer girlfriend.
Then, Honey and I lived together with Scotty on Pulaski Heights. Best roommate arrangement ever. And then like a dream, I was graduating and it wall all over.
This is me and honey, on the steps of my little house, the day after my graduation party. Oi. My head.
And she moved back to NC. Laura went back to Columbia for law school and then moved to Charlotte. Dana had gone back to NC too, and finished school in Boone. I moved back to Atlanta, and then on to Denver and then back to Atlanta.
Through it all we stayed in touch. Visits, breakups, showers, two brain tumors, weddings, divorces, births and deaths. We are still friends, and we still see each other every year. And I can’t imagine my life without them.
Not sure how I forgot to click publish on this post, back in November, when I spent a weekend with the girls at the farm. Better late than never. I don’t want the Girls to think that it wasn’t heaven. I want them to know how much they mean to me, and how much I love them.
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So, Laura is taking guitar lessons. Very cool.
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Dana’s mom has a hat collection.
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Relaxing on the patio.
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Dana really is the hostess with the mostest.
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We like to make sure and get plenty of Vitamin C.
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How cute are they?
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Me and the girls on the bridge.
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Very cool pedestrian bridge over the river.
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Don’t remember which river this is.
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Beautiful friends on the river.
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Happy, smiley Laura.
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I think that is Table Rock in the distance. Pictures don’t do the view justice.
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It is really hard to have any stress at all, sitting alone in the middle of a field at dusk.
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This old tractor makes me smile. Something about that blue color.
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We had a full moon. Dusk at the farm is my fave.
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When I look at us, I think we all still look 20 years old. Isn’t that funny?
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And much laughter. Good for the soul.
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Evenings spent talking on the patio.
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We get a little goofy. Dana is v. talented, as you can see.
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The view from the patio.
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Mimosas on the patio.
