when I was twelve...

...my big sister got married on this day. Happy twentieth, Sue and Dave. I wore a god-awful white cotton dress with this big fuschia flower across the chest and a tie around the waist. My hair looked like it'd been shaped with a mixing bowl, my big cowlick a bump on my otherwise smooth brown head. I had not yet learned to smile for the camera. Awkward doesn't even begin to describe my way. Sue and Dave moved to Alaska almost immediately after their honeymoon (Hawaii? I think). Dave was stationed there for the Air Force.

Then when I was twenty-one and I had just graduated from college (and once I'd gotten that damn cyst removed---holy pain, batman), Keita and I drove across the country in her red Isuzu Amigo (pronounced Amy-go). We took three weeks to see the sights, the highlight of which was New Orleans. Holy hurricanes, batman. Our destination was San Diego, and after three days there, I flew to Anchorage on MarkAir, an airline which no longer exists (brother-in-law Dave, upon hearing I was flying MarkAir, asks if he can take an insurance policy out on my life). I arrived sometime in mid-July when the sun doesn't set until 11:30 PM or so. I left in mid-May the following year after having survived the worst, and I mean the worst depression I've ever experienced. But in between, Sue and Dave and the kids and I had some good laughs, mostly at my expense. For instance, the guy I dated almost the whole time I was there. Ya know, there's a saying about men in Alaska: The odds are good but the goods are odd. Love it. So so so true.

Twenty years of marriage to the man she began dating when she was fifteen years old. Holy sheet. I can't think of a single constant in the last twently years of my life except maybe my cowlick. Happy anniversary, you freaks.