I had a few days off from school when I realized that my picture page needed serious updating. There were pictures that were two years old and very outdated. I planned to just add a few more pictures, switch a few things around and leave it at that. But then I realized that to fully capture my friends in their full glory, they needed their very own page. So here it is. (Also, my other page was taking far too long to upload and this way, the two pages are more concise and more slower-than-death modem friendly...and my family and family friends get their own page, too, so this is just a very good idea...why didn't I think of this before?)

So here it is-- my friends at their best and worst. Mostly at their best, because my friends are never at their worst (awww....)

This is my best friend, Jenn. She's an incredibly nice person and at some points you may just fall down laughing around her. She's got an interesting sense of humor and she's just one of those people you feel very comfortable around instantly. We became very good friends through gym class when we would stand just outside the center of whatever game we happened to be playing because the both of sucked at it, no matter what it was. We are not gym inclined. Jenn, however, claims to have a talent at handball and I don't think I'm too bad at floor hockey. Volleyball, on the other hand, is a totally different story. She's my conga buddy and she's introduced me to Sixth Sense, Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman. We both love Will & Grace so much (she does a dead-on Karen impression) and her other interests include Elvis, Cher and Betty Boop.

And here she is again. This is her school picture from junior year, since I never got one from senior year. I almost think she never got them printed. She got in a car accident on the way to my house a while ago and scared the living shit out of me. I was running down the road, screaming at her and found her lying in the car bleeding. She was okay, though...just a broken finger and some nasty cuts. She was still more lucid than I was when the cops arrived, too. And at the hospital, she reminded her mother that the Cher doll is coming out soon. She's so damn wonderful.

She's going to an all-girls Catholic college...she is crazy. But she's majoring in history, so that's cool.

Kevin....Kevin's also on The Jerks Page, but we are once again friends. What can I say about Kevin? He's a chum among chums, when he's not living up to that jerk title. We're both aspiring filmmakers of sorts, so occasionally we have little movie chats. He, Jenn, and I saw the remake of "Planet of the Apes" and long after Jenn got bored and went home, Kevin and I were still standing in the parking lot, complaining about how terrible the movie was. In my graduation card he wrote that some day we'll both be up for the same Oscar, I'll win it, and he'll run up onto stage, grab the statuette out of my hands, and run out the back door. Ah, Kevin...He's good people.

Luken is one of the more humorous people I know. He's great at doing accents and he just pulls stuff out of his head that is so funny. A little while ago we discovered that we both loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when we were little, and that we both owned a few of the episodes that Burger King sold a few years back. So we watched "Invasion of the Turtle Snatchers" synchronized over the phone. It was awesome. And we finally watched "The Sixth Day" together, before heading off to college. It was something we had been planning to do forever (since we saw the previews, anyway) and then he bought it for me for Christmas, and we just got around to seeing it in late August. But that's us. Brian showed up at Luken's house while we watching it, and Luken wouldn't let him in, so he sat outside on the porch. Luken locked him out and eventually he left. Poor guy. But watching the movie was a long time in coming and it had to be done. And it was hilarious. When I am rich and famous, he's going to live in my backyard, as my Cato Caelin. And I recently found out that he promised his closet to Jon, so I guess I'll never be lonely. And they say money can't buy you happiness...

Pat is another laugh riot (I swear I surround myself with the funniest people I can find) and I often find myself laughing out loud at the e-mails I get from him. He's got the strangest comedy skits you've ever heard of (one involves Saddam Hussein singing a Smashing Pumpkins song while playing the guitar) and he comes up with great band names. My personal favorites: Other People's Basements and Spoon Fed. Partial Scum is good, too, but that was more of a joint effort. Transparent Chocolate, Rubbing Clams...there's a bucket-load. Luken came up with Bazooka Groove. Lisa and I agree that Patriquo (he hates that name, but I really enjoy saying it) is a gentleman, a title that really pisses him off. He's since moved to Wisconsin, and if you're feeling sentimental, you can visit the Farewell Patriquo page.

Some of the things Jen says and some of the things she's done would have you in stitches. She's got this totally off-the-wall sense of humor that cracks you up all the time. She used to skip classes to join our cafe study freshmen year (her and Kim are best friends and her brother Brian is Kim's boyfriend...). She made the New York trip such a riot. There was one incident involving the school principal and a squirt gun that I'll not soon forget...She's not ashamed of anything, either. We were at a local pizza place a few months ago and this Aerosmith song came on and she started dancing around the place, while the rest of us just kind of sat shyly in the corner. She's a blast.

Lisa's a drama club person. She's an incredible actress and a very hyper person in general. You come to expect crazy behavior from Lisa...you learn to live with it because it's worth it to be around her. She and I have had some long talks about interesting things that should probably go unmentioned. I don't where I'd be without Lisa. She's a fantastic friend, is very nice--mainly, and makes some damn good goulash. She's just great. She calls me up and gives me crap about not talking to people because I'm shy, and she's a fantastic poet, and so on and so on. She's wonderful.

This is Jo. She's totally outrageous, funny and a blast to be around. She moved to the US from England a few years ago and ended up in good old Springfield (lucky her). I can't remember exactly when we realized we were friends. One day, she just sort of materialized in my L.A. class and Henry, Heather and I immediately took her under our collective wing (not that she needed it...Jo's a regular social butterfly...it's hard not to like her: sharp, witty, thoughtful, and pretty...hey, a rhyme) and from then on, we've been friends.

That same year, I went to see Star Wars for the very first time with her, Henry and a few other friends. After the movie (which I fell in love with), we all picked out Star Wars nicknames. Jo was Leia. In this particular picture, she looks quite a bit like Carrie Fisher, in my mind anyway. But normally, she looks like Natalie Imbruglia.

This is Jon, and this is probably the only normal photo of him I have. He does crazy things, and rarely will he just smile and pose. This was graduation day (note the black porkpie hat: not a graduation cap), so I guess that makes it special. Anyway, this is Jon. He's a character, I tell you. We've got this letter thing going on, and it's so covert and stuff...it's insane. He's a fun guy.

This is Darren. A few months ago, in a fit of weirdness, I e-mailed him out of the blue, and now we're friends. He's a very talented writer/actor, and has got an amazing speaking voice. He is the master of dry wit and humorous expressions. He knows things that no one has any business knowing. Ask him about the battle of Thermopylae. He'll tell you.

This is Brian, who I somehow managed to not include up until now (he pointed it out). Well, I messed up now, didn't I? My apologies to Brian, who indeed is my friend, and indeed deserves his own separate photo with his own separate paragraph praising his greatness. He is the mastermind behind "Minty Fresh," afterall. I have whiled away many hours with Brian and Luken at Luken's house, with Brian and I being utterly destroyed by Luken at a variety of video games. We bond in our common ineptitude. We all played this silly online game where they give you a bunch of letters and you have to find the words that they can make. It was very addicting. Luken and I came up with legitimate words, while Brian's in the background, shouting, "Girsey!" with complete conviction. So "girsey" has now become a staple in our conversations. Luken has defined it as mean "ridiculous", but Brian prefers to use it this way, "Keep it girsey." So keep it ridiculous.

Kim I got to know through classes, band trips, and mutual friends. I need to update this picture: she wears her hair down most of the time. She recently went sky diving with her mother as a graduation present. She was so pumped and ready and not the least bit nervous. We got to watch the video afterward: she looked like she loved it, and she did. So Kim gets bravery points. Brian wants to have her, Luken, him, and I jump together some day, but Luken's too cheap. So it goes.

This is Andy...I could go on for like a decade about Andy...we met in first grade. Now that's history. We used to play Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck and all those fun things, and we had a business (Ice Tunnel Bookmarks) when we were six or so...our location was primo. Anyway, in sixth grade we got assigned to do a project on the Canadian provence of Manitoba (which he called "Montibago") and well, friends again. And then we drifted again. And now we're friends again! Ain't life crazy? Anyway, Andy's super smart and SO funny...like top five funniest people I've ever met, I'd say. Anyway, Andy is cool.

Jess! Whoo! Jess is a young'un, but she's very grown-up: trust me. She's a fellow trumpet player (we met in community band) and we have a lot in common and talk at length about fun stuff (like threatening Jon with our X chromosomes and dressing in bondage gear) and serious stuff and she's way cool.

This is Nate. We were in the same grade and worked at Brooks together (Brooks Disco! The Signal! Rubber bands! So many things!) and we're now at college but we talk far more than we ever did in high school ("hi"s in the halls...yeah...) so it's good.

This is Chappy. Chappy has a real name, and occasionally I forget that. We were in the same English class in 7th grade where our teacher created the name "Chappy" and it has stuck like you wouldn't believe. He and Nate go to the same college and were roommates last year...so talking to them online at the same time was damn eerie. Chappy owns swords and knows martial arts. Go Chappy!

Okay, this is way fuzzy and I don't know why. At any rate, this is James, out in Wyoming at his far away college. He sent me a bunch of pictures of sunsets and large expanses of empty land and one of him, so I scanned him in. James...James is good people. We were on lighting crew together and had a lot of mutual friends, anyway, but lighting crew was what did it. During Jesus Christ Superstar, we were the two assigned to run the spots in the bay, so we had many hours up in the ceiling to talk. Good times, good times.

This is Sunshine. She, Kim, and Jen make for quite a trio. They are absolutely crazy together. Last year the four of us roomed together in NYC and it was a 24 hour laugh riot. Kim and I had such a hard time getting Jen and Sunshine to stop joking around and laughing so we could just get to sleep! A little while ago, we all spent the night at Sunshine's house and it was somewhere in the dead of winter at that point. Jen decided we should all put on some of Sunshine's dresses and nice shoes and walk all the way downtown to eat pizza. We were all freezing cold and miserable, but it was great. I can't wait to see the pictures of that...Jen's got a copy and she's showing around her college, apparently. Her friends think we're crazy.

If you'd like to see my family photo gallery (complete with parents, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, cats, family friends and myself) click on the silver star below:

If you'd like to see delightful group pictures of friends:

If you would like to see photos of former friends, please go to The Jerks Page:

Thank you for visiting my page!