no place like home.

here's a photo of me with some lovely ladies I've been friends with for years and years and years. L-R: cathy, diane, and kristie.

cathy, on the left, and I have been best buds since third grade. back then I had coke-bottle glasses, long stringy mousy hair barely held in place with those barrettes that had ribbons and beads strung through them, and was wearing things like members-only nylon jackets and camouflage fatigue army pants. it's a wonder she would even speak to me, let alone be my friend.

cat and I have slept over at each others' houses endless times; these sleepovers, in our youth, usually involved sneaking the toaster and some ingredients upstairs in the dead of night to make tuna-fish sandwiches and reading back issues of Seventeen and Young Miss. we rode our bicycles all over mililani town, usually stopping at the pay 'n' save for crack seed (if you're not from hawaii, you probably don't know what crack seed is, and thank your lucky stars you don't). we've sung in choirs, played the trombone in bands, stumbled our way through handbell performances, and performed organ-piano duets together for almost three decades. she's a relentlessly cute, sassy-dressing, extremely talented artist and musician with a penchant for jane austen and movies from korea and hong kong. she's hoping to get a job teaching english in korea this fall, which means that when I return to hawaii for another visit, she may not be living there anymore, which would be extremely sad and weird for me but an incredible life-changing opportunity for her.

more to come soon. I'm off to seattle tomorrow.