i don't even know where to begin.

finally, at the end of the summer, i have had more time to hang out with my best friend beth. it is nice. she is the all-new spontaneous fun beth. i like it a lot. our vacation is one week from today, and i can't wait. you should probably get a hold of us sometime during that week and party it up with us since we will be livin on the edge steven tyler style and gettin crazy all nite long. if your definition of "crazy" includes wearing fake mustaches and leaving banana peels on steps and that sort of thing. because that's the kind of people we are.

i started getting a new tattoo last week. it is big and pretty and amazing. i am not going to post a picture of it until it is done, which it is not. i sat for four hours and still have another one or two to go, but it will look fantastic when it is finished.

from saturday until sunday, a full 24-hours, i had the most wonderful time with a member of the opposite sex that i can remember in FOREVER. it began a few days earlier, when we still hadn't met in person but decided we were star-crossed best friends, living on opposite sides of town and being kept apart by certain powers that be. i jokingly told him to come over and take out our trash for us. an hour later, he was outside under the balcony, throwing pennies at the door rather than reciting romantic lines of poetry at me. but i was happy to see him all the same. AND he took our trash out for real! haha. fastforward to saturday, when he came over to hang out and we spent 24 hours talking, hugging, laughing, laying around, listening to doowop, eating pancakes, holding hands, blushing, playing Q and A, etc. it hasn't felt like that in...damn, too long. i don't want to jinx myself. but i can't stop smiling.

on a sad note: andrew came over to say goodbye to us today. he is going away to school in IL on wednesday. beth and i have been in denial about this for so long and i resisted saying goodbye until the very last minute, when i broke down in tears. i didn't realize until today that we have been friends with andrew for 10 years. he is our oldest friend. he is our best guy friend. there was a short period during high school when the three of us didn't hang out so much because we all had so many different things going on. but that passed, and the last few years found us closer than ever, even if we weren't hanging out every single day like we did back in that summer of 1996. it's going to be so weird to not be able to call andrew up and have him come over whenever we want. of course i wish him the best of luck and i know he is doing what he needs to do for his life, but that still doesn't make this any easier. it still hasn't even totally hit me yet, so i can't even say all the things i want to say about it. the words just won't come out yet.

so while i was sad, my brother chris was trying to cheer me up and get me to hang out. we did end up going on a bike ride, which was the first on my beeeeeautiful old orange bike. we drove up to the gas station to put air in my tires and he bought me subway to be nice. he even bought a cookie especially for me, haha. i love that kid sometimes. most times, anyway. especially these times, in the conversation while he was trying to make me feel better:

DEXTERM16: hang out?