Soco Ameretto Lime
...And that's how it was! Don't you remember? Thank you for the lazy Summer days, spent doing nothing together, because we were just young enough to have no pressing responsibilities. In the beginning, the very firsts, there were Julian Summers and Andy Ramsey and Chad, and I still have the perfect picture in my head of the three of you, one two three, sitting on the couch in the otherwise bare apartment. Oh, October!! What you held will never be seen again! I am seventeen, and drunk and dumb, and I barely know Devon's name, and I barely notice Kill Bill on in the background; these are the days, those strange days, where I kiss a boy and move into the next room and kiss a different boy. "No lies just love" scrawled on the window in dripping green ink that I think many of us will never forget. And how much I cared about Christopher, and Alex, and Matt, and all four of us; the Final Fantasy nights, Matthew beating Super Mario all in one go, Andrew doing the same with Starfox. Ahh...all the quotes we began forgetting long ago, already. DTBFA! All the acronyms, NTIM. Kyle crawling on the floor, "I'm not drunk, look at him!!" Emily and me, oh Emily, eating mushrooms and becoming best friends for the night. Making an adventure out of traveling two rooms away to the kitchen. And how silly we would have looked, had anyone else been there, and how still it was probably the best trip I've had...oh, mushrooms. Eating the entire eighth at the Savitar show in Lawrence. And from that I just remember Alex and me, just Alex and me, standing in such a crowd, facing the band made of our best friends. Ah...all the bottles we collected, stashed on the balcony, paper grocery sacks full of empty glass waiting to be recycled. The handle of Viaka that took forever to finish, something you only drank when there wasn't anything else to drink; and still, only then if you were really desperate. The 151!! The flaming shots, "Crecia, Emily won't let us do flaming shots..." And how I was scared, but I tried it anyway. The Bailey's. The Kahlua Especial. Matthew and I making White Russians. Discovering a love of whiskey! Makers Mark and how much money we'd spend every weekend! The Rumplemints Peppermint Schnapps! And how Christopher thought he could gargle it without consequence...nope. How odd they were, "Punch me, as hard as you can! I will thank you for it tomorrow." All the people in and out all the time, "Your apartment is not a frat house...nor is it a turnstile at the county fair..." But really, that's how we saw it, isn't it? How we could count how many people spent the night, and it was well over a dozen? Little Chris turning sixteen, and how mortified he was the next day? Or the Bacardi Limon, all the screwdrivers, and trying LSD and mescaline...and Liz, how she was so young but what can you do? And Josh Nessari and his Jack Daniels, oh, the Jack...the Red Stripe, the PBR, the bokens. Bradford and all the wine we drank, and all the trips right down the street to Nichol's. Our Christmas tree, and how it lingered for months and months afterwards; the guitar incident; all the walks down 39th street to Crave Cafe. Inde-Nick, Jeff-Hollywood, the awesome mornings, everyone in a weird, great mood, collectively understanding how utterly fucked up we had been the night before. Cramming as many people as possible on each bed. Deciding who to sleep next to. The forts we made out of pillows! Yes, "Let's make a fort!" Sleeping outside on the balcony every single night, my god, the thunderstorms, perhaps my favorite part of this entire year...the lightning, and the rain. Sometimes it would reach us and sometimes it wouldn't. Either way, we stayed, we loved it, being outside and being together as much as possible. Robyn spending every waking moment with me. Andrew becoming way more than just a randy. David. Always the observer, right? With his camera and camcorder, catching us in acts we probably wouldn't want to recall on screen. The early days, with Devon and David; or I remember curled up in the chair, won't you go away, but I have John on one side and David on the other. Emily says, "Why are you here?" She always knew how little I wanted boys around, how little of their affection for me I returned. John! And who knows how old he was...27, or something, but it doesn't matter, but I made dinner for the three of us, younger by 7 and 10 years, but how you both loved me all the same...and my spaghetti squash with balsamic beans. The enchiladas I would make. How I had the hugest crush on Stefany and I wanted to do everything right around her. How much I cooked and baked, always from scratch, usually turning out well. How I haven't cooked since, at all. The dishes. MY GOD, the dishes. And how much I hated Emily; and she stopped bringing anyone around me, you take everyone, this is always "CRECIA'S apartment, I am invisible." Emily and Lorren. Ahhh. And how I hated it, and tripping, "What does he think about at night? Isn't he sad? Isn't he lonely?" And how everyone could see what was going on except her. The nights we'd have forty people over. With random scarves and ties and sweatshirts always left accidentally, almost never seeing their owner again. And we didn't make any money, at all, but it didn't matter. We managed to afford the apartment and somehow that was always all we ever needed. How Alex and I were practically attached at the hip, and our plans for Taos that I think I knew would never actually happen. Drunken walks to Sunfresh to buy more booze; calm evenings, "We don't need to get fucked up to have fun!", turning into the rowdiest nights we'd ever experienced. The hookah night, all of us bonding over pot and flavored tobacco. And I could convince the boys to drink Smirnoff with me every once in a while, because remember, I am a girl, and I do like those girly drinks...watching the weirdest movies. Oooh, this is Criterion Collection! I remember Pi, but not much else. Watching early morning cartoons with Trevor, who stopped talking to me for reasons unknown. Ah, every boy I've ever liked back has always suddenly and inexplicably stopped talking to me. But the others linger for years...pulling an all-nighter to drive to Warrensburg to bail Trey out of Jail...with Bright Eyes on the radio and your heart in your hands. And the Winter, when having a party would always just depend on my mood...the loneliness. The crazy vibe we all created in a place that will somehow never be around again...how we really thought, I think, that we would stay eighteen forever. And we did keep it going, for a while, you know...we did try; but I guess even that only worked for so long, right? And eighteen, now I only have a week of you left to go.