Chapter 6: "Good Morning Baltimore!"

So I saw Hairspray last night at Ferris. And it was amazing! I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was worth the two hour drive. Hairspray is the reason there was no blog yesterday. I was gone from 5:30 till 1:30. So I didn't post a blog, because before that I was busy all day. So one strike against me. Rats, I wanted to do a blog post every day. Anyway, I suppose I could elaborate on some of my circles of caring (see Chapter 5: "No, I am your father" *Shocked look* "No, No, That's Not True! That's Impossible!") I don't want to offend anyone, and if you wonder why you are in one circle and not another, you can just ask me and I hope I'll be able to give a coherent answer. Most of these are completely arbitrary and sometimes don't reflect the reality of how close to someone I am.

First is my immediate family. My mom, dad, Jesse, James, Ashley, and Ashlee. I know that technically, Ashlee is not related to me, but she and Jesse are in a relationship, and she comes to family events, and comes over and eats dinner with us sometime. So I'm including her in my immediate family. Obviously I care about my parents. My dad likes talking to me about everything, and since he's a metaphysician, I'm a little bit of an amateur philosopher, thanks to him. My mum is great, and I love her a whole lot. Jesse and I used to play together a lot, based on our ages. We fought more than James and I did, probably also based on our ages. James and I had an interesting relationship. He entertained me, and I was his audience. I hero-worshiped him, still do to a small extent, so we got/get along well. And Ashley is now married to James. I really like her. She's just so adorable and makes things and is really nice.

Extended family is next. So my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my cousins with their boyfriends/girlfriends, and my cousins' kids. I'm very lucky to still have both sets of grandparents, and I love them a whole lot. My dad only had one sibling, Kathy, and she only had two girls, Lisa and Nicole. Lisa is married to Jim and they have three kids; Kristen, Allison, and Colin. Nicole is married to Dave, and they currently don't have any kids. Kathy is married to Larry, who is not Lisa and Nicole's father. Lisa and Nicole's dad is Lon, who I see every year or so at the occasional family gathering. My mom is the second-to-last of eight children (not in order of age): Kurt, Craig, Tom, Todd, Dave, Mike, Janet. Kurt is married to Linda, and they have two kids, Carly and Sarah. Carly is married to Dean, and they have a little girl, Adeline. That's probably not spelled correctly. Sarah is married to Randy, and they have one girl, Ava, and another kid on the way. Craig is married to Patti, and they have two girls, Annie and Nora. Tom is married to Dee, and they have one girl, Jackie. Todd is married to Deb, and they have three kids: Ben, Logan, and Rachel. Ben is married to Jen, and they have three kids: Erin, Robbie, and Penelope. Logan is dating Katie, and Rachel is dating Michael. Dave is married to Karen, and they have two girls (girls seem to run in my family), Julie and Kelsey. Julie is dating Nick, and Kelsey is dating Zach. Janet is married to Ian, and they have two kids, Erin and Garret. Erin is dating Scooter. Yeah, so that's the family. It's a large family, and we only get together once every few years. I included all of the dating relationships, because I think of my cousins' boy/girlfriends as part of the family, as most of the relationships are a couple of years old.

Best Friends. Best Friends is a category which three people inhabit. My best friend, my bestest friend, and my BFF. These are just titles to keep them apart in my head, and facilitates easier storytelling if I don't feel like saying their names. I don't love my bestest friend more than my best friend and vice versa. So my Best Friend is Megan. We've shared four years and countless late night conversations, we've been thought of as one person, and we've grown into adults (kinda) together. I don't know how I would have survived high school without Megan. My bestest friend is Emily. Emily and I go way back. We've been going to the same church for forever. She's two years younger than I am, and so when we were kids, we played together, but we both had a playmate our own age. And our two pairs of girls would play together in one larger group of four. However, when both of the playmates our own ages stopped attending our church, we started hanging out more. And then we were always good friends, but in the past couple of years we've really grown closer. We talk about everything and are just super close and cuddly. She's my bestest friend. I also don't know how I would have survived the past couple of years without Emily. And my BFF is Aaron. Aaron is the latest addition to this circle. In fact, he's only been in it a couple months. We've known each other for three years, but never really talked much at church or youth group. But then we had a couple of good conversations this summer, and I ended up writing him a letter, and we've been good friends ever since. He's one of those people I feel like I could tell anything to, and he would understand me, not judge me. And, I like having a best friend who is a guy. Calling him my BFF is a little joke.

So there's three groups today. I'll probably try to continue the pattern in the coming days/weeks, depending on what else I can think of to write about each day. I've still got these "circles" to talk about:

Close Friends

The Girls

Youth Group Core

Youth Group extended

The "Puppies"

Church

KAMSC People

Norrix People

The Hive Mind and Friends (alternatively the Meat Club)

Also, I'm sorry about not writing yesterday. I feel bad about that.