Oh man.
What a whirlwind, huh!
As soon as Becca came into town on the 29th, i had a feeling things would gett better/more exciting, but man, that was ridiculous! I originally thought she'd be coming in on the 27th, which would've coincided with the release of Jason Mraz's new album, Mr. A-Z, which I totally heart, but it didn't. I DID however, get to go buy the album with my baby cousin Sammy (a.k.a. Uncle Sam, Sam the Eagle) and he said the infamous words:
"You know what? I love you!"
ANd I was like, ready to fly on a cloud of rainbows, it was sooooo cute. 6 year olds make perfect boyfriends - listen up fellas.
Anyway, maybe i can sum up what a lovely time was had by all. If you'd like to look at pictures, go to http://community.webshots.com/user/becschapes and look at the STLness folder.

I've really opened this blog for the purpose of forcing myself to write something, and to just get back to writing writing writing like i know I can, so bear with me while i cut my teeth yet again. I'll ruminate later.

So Becca comes back, and we celebrate Happy Missouri Month (as it was christened in my house, by mer) with the Kirkwood High VIPs, and our groupies.

Here are some highlights (not really in order, but who cares!):

- becca's first night back we go to Beale's street bar, and proceed to get in a lot of trouble involving a hotel room with a balcony, some ripped clothing, some bruises and some lost dignity and sleep. Ah youth! Don't think i could've made it through that trauma with out west side story and jason mraz's track one on the new album. Party gone wrong PTSD is like, brutal, guys! Mom's not mad about it and thinks its funny.

- Wed. night at DUffy's turns into a reunion, except for that creepy guy with the canada shirt that said he had a gay affair in 1st grade. Laura handled that one politely - another reason to develop a signaling/S.O.S. system BEFORE entering any bar. We run into everyone, and prompty whisk them off with us to Maggie O's for college night, and we run into MORE people, and its all just really awesome. Most of them are VIPs, too! Its amazing. I crimped my hair for that one. We all get numbers so we can randomly call people for girls night, planned for the following monday.

- pool party at Becca's - mer discovers that we have yaegger and left over boxed wine from new years - the race begins to drink it (the wine) before the expiration date. I opt to just steal others' beers and act all innocent and what not, hoping to ride on my reputation, which is stellar, if not a little comedic. Boys say gross things and I get a quite flustered and demand respect - some things will never change. Brad tries unconvincingly to tell me I'm not his favorite person. Note: becca's pool is slippery and if you try to run away and back into the side, you'll slip, and probably get water up your nose...especially if you're saying, "euwww, gross!" at the same time. Learned that the hard way any number of times.

- After the serendipitous meeting at Duffy's, Thomsam Williams' parents sureptitiously go out of town, leaving his house open for a world of bonds just waiting to be kindled and re-kindled. Catchphrase is the best game ever, especially when the boys don't invite you out to come listen to them play music :( Its also good for talking to those who were never all that good at talking in high school. Reuniting with random high school buddies begins, and its awesome - as the VIPs expand, so do the hearts of many a KHS graduate. I get to play the drums when the power goes out and proceed to wake up all the babies in the neighborhood with my best Animal from the muppets impression...i think i have a natural gift. Becca sings about gays in space, and doo doo pie, and i do my best britney spears impression. Thomas sings and plays Tribute for us(I'm really good at singing like the demon, as becca discovered), and we all just can't help but have some frickin' good times until laaaaaaaaaate.

- VIP party with margaritas and the baseball game by the pool. mom gets mad for no reason and meredith overreacts. Night swimming is priceless.

- Chocolate Bar with ian and a couple Mexicans that only Lori could handle anyway - in her muny uniform no less! Kristin leaves us for Miami, and we are all like, devastated. Luckily though, we were all on the side of the table that DIDN'T have the recovering alcoholics. Poor Laura did though, and we salute her.

- Trip to lamberts including semi-tornado weather, and an unfriendly roll guy! (who knew it was possible) I did get some shorts that say "hot buns" on them though. A lamberts classic. THanks to jason mraz for providing the soundtrack to like, all of august. Meredith got the "oops i'm dumping a drink on you trick" pulled on her, and she fell for it. I got to wear a bow tie.

- Girls night reunion, we try to take notes but really only end up gossiping about who's married, gay, pregnant, sick, dead or ugly. I for one am glad that no one was all of those things. 'Twas an enlightening night! Mom gets mad and mer overreacts. We don't end up calling any random boys, b/c they all have to get up to like, build houses and crap, and so do we and we actually don't think boys are like as exciting anymore...next reunion must be on a weekend, (possibly thanksgiving or xmas?) though, just to add the element of possibility (though that would eliminate the element of swimming). We end up playing higher or lower with our Most-Wanted Iraqui militants deck of cards - if you lose, you have to try to pronounce their name, and you must follow their name with, "...is BAD!"

- we go to the city museum for some real hippy music, conversation, and the chance to jump into a big vat of balls while wearing red high heels. It was amazing! Becca and I were having like, a field day.

-Party in the Park ...we all dress up all preppy and try to score it with the business crowd in Clayton. WE really end up just talking to each other and running into Kayla Weber (whose teeth are like, day-glo white) and having like, a LOT of margaritas. Mer never got even close to carded, and ended up having so much to drink that she was inspired to pop a squat in shaw park and get sick, forcing us to pull over by ladue high school, after which a policeman showed up, but luckily he was awesome, and understood our plight through some sortof young meaning-to-do-well telepathy, and let us go on a "well, be safe and get home" as we apologized and promised we would! Here's to you, ladue! So we listened to Jason Mraz, (track 3 specifically) b/c really we didn't feel like listening to anything else. Dropped meredith off at home, put her in bed next to a trash bag, and then we went to duffys, and it was like whoa reunion! I ran into john lemke, and it was totally wonderful and pleasant. Best conversation i've had with him ever. I had a lot of best conversations ever that night - maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the moon, maybe it was my confidence in my infinite wisdom, who cares! it was magic, and only slightly embarassing.

- Thomsam's magical thursday night party: complete with vodka and fruit punch, guitars, boy musicians in the garage that prove to be less engaging with their audience than in person (and that's saying something - whatever, boys are always instant entertainment for me anyway - like both a car wreck AND a shooting star at the same time ) so, inspired by the speediness that shmirnoff inspires, we ladies just had to go inside and roll around and bounce off the walls in general while I attempted to play "sleep all day" with Liz on vocals. All that an a Jason mraz and Toca viewing on VH1 in the living room, more rolling on the floor, raps about my school (inspired by a flip flop), and perhaps some stirrings of young love all blossomed under thomsam's roof, even as he drank too much from a frisbee and passed out after too much Jason mraz sing alongs (as if it were possible!). We later walked to becca's pool for some late night skinny dipping. Becca S and Kimono proved to us all that love at first sight is real, and Kimono's free-spirit begged the question, "shave or wax?" but no one really wanted the answer. It was a full moon and we were all open to the mystery of it all! I later sent jason mraz a crocheted hat inspired by all the magic he was in cahoots with creating. I saw him in a magazine and he had his girlfriend's name airbrushed with unicorn on his t-shirt that he was wearing while he was making waffles in his semi-humble california abode. That was awesome, Jason Mraz.

-we all go to blueberry hill b/c mark is in town and they have cheap blue moon pitchers. I run into the only penn people I know in st. louis while i'm wearing a ridiculous penn shirt. Its pretty funny. we all have so much fun just talking and laughing and being generally compatible people, even if I was the only common denomonator and though half of us never really hung out in high school, despite being in the same class...luckily we were awesome. And no worries, the reunion is going to be aMAZing now b/c we're all friends and life is wonderful if you'd just give it a chance...its magical sometimes, when you least expect it! Oddest couple of the evening, Ian and Carolyn M, who really have more in common than they ever thought possible (or at least than Carolyn thought possible, but I knew all along).

- mer and i take liz out, in the hopes of going to Kayak cafe, but instead get stopped by the moonlight ramble, and we get to cheer on like, 300 bikeriders, 15 (at least) from whom I got a high five! Only one creeper asked to see mer's boobs- the rest were quite receptive to our cheers of : "go bikes! Livestrong, lance armstrong, woo!"

- we go shopping and i find a beaUtiful suit, and Tony and Tina "lets go to the nightclub on our space station" makeup that I love so much is on sale. It's all very magical!

- Mer left for London today, after some magic last night and day - i went to Frizz's wedding shower at a winery in the mountains of missouri! it was bellissima! There were crags and everything, and i got to have a coffee beforehand! Frizz is so in love, she's not even scared of getting married! How awesome is that!? I'm so glad I get to stay for the wedding...Becca and I bought her matching robes with "Frizz" and "Jeremy" embroidered on the chest. THey will be perfect for their wedding love nest! Whee! i believe in love! I came home soon thereafter, my hair a little windblown, my brain still a little wine-o'd and we went to the chocolate bar, where we met up with always fashionable and always late carolyn and her friend, and where no one got carded, and la-la-la-life was wonderful and the cocktails were chocola-la-la-late. And there was a fountain outside to boot!

-I sang in church this morning, and even after the day long drinking extravaganza my voice sounded ok. I got pretty nervous while I was singing, and I was like, WTF i always sing in chruch, that is like my niche! Anyway, I love my church and my pastor, and everyone who was leading the service i knew and I was just like, my church rules! I missed it a lot while I was at school and I hope I'll be able to find a place like it wherever i end up. My grandma took me to brunch afterwards, and she told me all about how she lived in San Diego (which makes me feel a lot cooler - San Diego is so cool!) and how she had blackout curtains and all the roofs of the houses were painted to look like trees and greenery so the "japs" couldn't get to us - and how a japanese submarine came to her favorite sunbathing island but we caught it, and now its in a museum. Grandmas are awesome. I was happy we had so much to talk about - she has so many funny stories, most of them involving soldiers of some sort of famous movie stars and politicians - apparently California of the 40s was a lot smaller than it is now. Grandma was like, neighbors with the 40s equivalent of lindsay lohan, it seems. I guess its b/c all their husbands were in the service together, and if war's not a even playing field, then what is? My grandpa was in a movie, too - just as an extra playing a serviceman, but hey, how cool am i.

Anyway, that ends my summary...maybe I'll think of more glorious highlights. Whoever that guy was that said, "you can never go home," well he was full of crap! I like to think that the VIPs and I proved him sooo wrong.
Don't stop believin' in love!
~Lori