Coming Home to Kansas

Hello, my loves. I have nothing much to say except hello, I thinking of you, wondering what each day is like. We've been through a lot this last year and a half, haven't we? Some more than others.

Tonight I'm home with a nascent cold, which I would really like to get rid of before this weekend, which is a weekend of yoga with a visiting teacher that I've been waiting for. That sentence seems a little unwieldy. I'll leave it. I'm watching No Reservations and drinking hot ginger tea, and taking some truly awful tinctures. We'll see.

Today I got paid, and wanted to go buy some expensive yarn. I resisted.

What did you do today? This one day, sometime in November?

In response to Lesley's e-mail with the eulogies, I started to think about how I knew Topher, and where it all began. This is what I wrote to her.


I remember the first night I met him . . . I think. Now I'm not so sure. I remember visiting you when you were a freshman. Christian Challenge (though I recall it being named BSU back then) went to Manhattan for a dance. That could have been the night, though now I don't remember the part he played in the evening.

The first night he made a lasting impression on me was at your house. So it was probably Christmas break? He showed us all sorts of card tricks. Actual good ones that took some skill. Though I guess part of me was all "Lesley's dating a guy who does card tricks??" I knew at that time how deeply in love you were, and I loved him for being so cool and nice to your nerdy young friends.

I have since experienced being immediately liked, by that I mean given a chance based on knowing someone else (street cred, if you will?), but he was the first one to do it: automatically assume we would enjoy each other's friendship because we both had something in common: loving you.

And I remember you showing us (probably another time) this long love letter he wrote to you. Not so much for content, but for style. The one where he took that huge piece of wrapping paper and covered the entire back side with teensy script, probably professing his eternal love for you. At the time, I was, of course, madly envious because I wanted a guy like that, and also heartened that you had found one (therefore, it was entirely possible that I could find one, too). And in retrospect, I am doubly impressed, as whenever I sit down to write a love letter, it usually goes like this: "Dear Tim. You are the love of my life. Ok, bye."

I have a picture of him at your wedding, with us bridesmaids. He has a gleam in his eye, no doubt provoked in part by being surrounded by bridesmaid beauties, but mostly by the recent ceremony linking him to the light of his life.

I know why I don't remember field day! We moved there in fifth grade, so I vaguely remember that field day, but I spent most of May in the hospital my 6th grade year because of my stupid appendix. I'm not going crazy. I just only had one.

Not that the whole "Why does the place mat say Topeka, Kansas. We aren't in Topeka. That makes no sense," is any testimony to that fact.

Yeah.

Maybe I need a better supplement.

Because of you, we loved him. Because he loved you, it made us love him more.

Happy birthday, Sarah! Hope it's a good one. :)

When this time of year rolls around, I always find myself reminiscing about the campouts at Ellie's. In fact, I will probably have to hunt for some of my old photos today, just to satiate my nostalgic mind. What photos of campouts do any of you have? If you could share/post them, that would be great, and I'll try to do the same at some point.

Oh, and is it just me, or has the word verification become really hard? :)

I got these as a nice suprise in the mail today and I love them!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who just turned 32...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GARRETT!

In anticipation of this weekend, I started rereading our blog, starting from the very beginning (have to page down to the bottom and read up). Two years, we've been going at this! Wow!

Reminded me of a lot of memories we'll have to rehash. Go back and reread! I'm so excited to see everyone so soon!

Labels: fun times, memories

Hey, guys,

So. It sounds like most of us will be home for OSD, and of course we should get together. I'm hoping, also, that we can include a memorial for Mariah. It seems really important. Any ideas? Locations? Times?

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave sooner than I had expected, probably the night of the 29th in order to attend the memorial for another friend outside of Chicago on the 30th. Which is all very sudden and sad, and necessitates changing my flight. Any suggestions on how I might do that with a minimum of charges?

As it happens, I'm going to be in Kansas the week of Old Settler's day. I know Jen is having her reunion...are you going? I was thinking of heading up to Salina for the Land Institute Prairie Festival, but that seems less and less likely.

Eliza is having her tenth year reunion. I think it's telling of the different ways that we felt about high school that I was way the hell out of the country for ours, and she is making a special trip all the way from Madison to go to hers. Not that I don't completely value our friendships, guys.

I changed my mind about Facebook.

It still annoys me that they broadcast every little thing, like, "Ellie just wrote on Lesley's wall: 'hi!'" but a lot of my classmates are on it, and I just discovered you can play SCRABBLE!

So. If you're not on it, get on it, and we'll start a Scrabble game.

Labels: fun times

How's your day? Hope you are having a good one, Ellie!

I just have to vent a bit about how much I hate myspace! I guess it's my own fault because I'm so backward that everytime I try to tweak my profile or be creative with something it all backfires. So I am sorry for any weird posts that pop up from me there. I somehow don't understand why all the online activity I do has to be broadcast -- it's the same reason facebook grates on me. And I never have the patience to change my settings, and when I try, they don't save anyway. Sorry for my bitch fest here, but I am just the village idiot when it comes to communicating via myspace, so I thought you all deserved fair warning. :)

I just wanted to say Happy Birthday Lesley!!!

Hello, is anyone out there?

Lesley visited me a few weeks ago! I meant to take lots of photos but then, I always do but never manage to.

These are in my neighborhood, right after we went out for breakfast at Lula Cafe with my brother-in-law Chris, Eliza, and her husband Ben. (Though it appears to me that Katie and Eliza married pretty much the same person, for identification purposes, Chris is in orange, and Ben red.)



This is the "square" in Logan Square. Really, it's more a round-about.

Labels: pictures

Hannah! Hope you had a good birthday. Were you working? Has it been dry there? I was watering everything yesterday, and the ground here is like cement.

All of these recent birthdays made me wonder if blogger has some way to program in birthdays, anniversaries, etc., for our group members. It would be cool to have some way to have them pop up in the blog or via email.... Like some sort of blogger calendar. Do you know of anything like that, Ellie?

Even though summer never slows down anymore, I wonder if you all have any specific plans during the next few months? Vacations? Trips? Jobs? Goals?

And is anyone who doesn't live in Kansas planning to visit this summer? I am thinking I will spend at least one weekend in the Sunflower State. And speaking of Kansas, poor Greensburg. For some reason, I keep thinking I knew someone who had ties to that town, but then I often think that about *any* Kansan small town.

Hope you are enjoying the weekend!

This is the brush that I love. You can find a variety of brushes here. You can find distributers of the brushes here. Just search by your state and city.

I am a day early though, right?

I got my hair cut yesterday and that makes me think of you, Sarah. I think you could help me out of my current rut. Anyway. The woman who cuts my hair always remarks how long my hair takes to dry (it really does take forever). Yesterday, she told me that paper towels were the secret to getting the most excess water out of your hair. Better than terrycloth. I love it. All these expensive hair products, and what will really work on my hair? Brawny.

She also say that fabric softener sheets are the secret to getting rid of flyaway dry hair in winter. I love that she never tries to sell me the pricey stuff. She sends me to the household section. I wondered if you have hair secrets like this, too, Sarah?

And, how will you spend your birthday?

Hope you have a good day, LeAnn!

This might be old news to some of you.

I guess it's pretty sad, but I'm not going to lie about it. My initial reaction was to shriek with laughter/disbelief when Paula told me about it.

Allison Ford (Schults now) was the president of an organization that was like PTA or something, but not called PTA. And it just came to light that she embezzled about $6,000. I guess the treasurer was kind of slow in figuring it out that there was something going on with the money, and mom tried to be all "innocent until proven guilty" but then she told me the day after it was found out, Allison had a sick day and it was announced that she had resigned, but she also wrote a letter in which she basically admitted to it and apologized.

(She always did like writing dramatic letters.)

I had a long and complex relationship with her, as you might know. If not, I'm sure I will write a blog entry reflecting upon its complexities one of these days.

Anyway. I feel sort of evil about it, but I am totally not surprised by this news whatsoever.

Labels: gossip

I could pretend like I'm super suave, a computer genius, but truthfully, I logged on to Google/Blogger several times today, and once, the US blog appeared! I'm not even going to question it.

So I was just fooling around with colors, and am not particularly wedded to this combo.

One of my favorite time wasters online is this: Visibone Webmaster's colorlab/

Come up with your own new color scheme!

Labels: blog business

Ellie where did our archives go? And why when I am at the dashboard are there 2 US blogs?

Anyone have any advice as to what kind I should buy? I want decent quality, user friendlyness and I don't think I can spend more than 300 dollars. That's the absolute highest I can go, and I'd rather spend a lot less.

I hope that you are all doing splendidly. I am sick of this drabness and coldness...for the last couple of weeks I have barely left the house except to go to work, and pick up copies of Grey's Anatomy at Blockbuster. How is everyone else dealing with winter? Or maybe it isn't winter in Kansas anymore.

I was just thinking that I would say hi to everyone. I am enjoying my job. That is with the exception of having a stalker. Maybe that is someone else's idea of fun and entertainment, but not mine. I am hoping that I will not see him this weekend. Anyway HI!