This is James, my sweet wonderful James!  I was 17 years old when I moved into the dorms at CMSU.  My suitemate Teresa and I were friends right off (so wonderful, wish I had pics of her), and she had this best friend James, a sophomore, that she knew back in high school.  Anyway, met him the second night I was there and followed him around the super Wal-mart in Warrensburg like the lost little freshman I was.  That same year we did some crazy stuff (hello!  Halloween and that freaky leopard couch - Don!  I want my f*#$%ng pictures!!) and I trusted him more than most.  Hey, he's a Virgo!
   To make a long story short, James and I have been friends for seven years (this is a personal record, mind you).  If there was one person I'd consider a brother, it would be James.

    Chad was my other half for the longest time.  He was always the best friend I never had and always wanted - we'd take classes together, party together, did speech and debate...I was even suckered into one of his plays (Annunciation!)...we even eventually lived together. 
   If I could say one thing about Chad is that he not appreciated enough for who he is.  He could never say no, and always tried to do everything for everyone.  He still does, I think.  Chad moved to St. Louis over a year ago and we haven't kept in touch as much.  It is a shame.  I do miss him, and I hope he is having as much fun as he should.
   I love you, sweetie!

   Jim, oh Jim.  Jim, well, Jim is Jim.  He's very attractive, smart, and has a great sense of humor.  He knows how to dress and probably his only bad habit is watching Buffy too much (sorry, sweet-T, I had to say it!)
  Jim and I have been friends for nearly seven years and he would have been my man of honor if tradition and family members hadn't have stood in the way.
   He has been talking about moving to KC and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll take the plunge.  Late nights with pool and tequila are good incentives, as well as having his old friend Monte to keep him company.  He's one of the best friends I've ever had.  Oh, Jimmy, I love you!! (gush, gush!)

   This is Chad Chitwood.  I met him first when I was a sophomore and he was a freshman on the CMSU debate team.  Can't say we really hung out much back then (I distinctively remember him at a party at my apartment on Halloween - Jay and Ryan S. tried to handcuff him to the couch and he pulled up like the Wookie out of Starwars and tried to beat the crap out of them - it kinda scared me away).
   Anyway, Chitwood and I did both compete for CMSU, he as a debator and me as mostly speech.  It was only in my last year, with our new coach, that Chitwood and I got paired up as a debate team.  Oh, and can I say we kicked ass!?!  Oh, hello!  Teams would shake in our wake.  Our names would come up on the schedule sheets for rounds and people would cringe....
   But anyway, Chitwood and I became close friends (you really have to be as debate partners).  And we did get to go to London and Scotland together to debate (the picture right above is of us at the Sherlock Holmes home - me dressed up as Sherlock and Chitwood as Watson).  Chitwood is now working for Sen. Jean Carnahan and we hang out whenever he comes back to visit from DC or Springfield, MO.

  Okay.  First picture is me and John S., my first ever duo partner at CMSU.  Love him!  He now is the director of speech & debate at Northern Illinois state.  Second pix is me, Jim, and James at James' old house in Springfield.  Right before we went out drinking and dancing, I think.

  The top pix is me and Vickie on top of Julie's old desk in the graduate office in the CMSU speech & debate dept.  Vickie is so cool - she was a bride's maid at my wedding, though she could have officiated the service if need be (she's so multi-talented!).  She is working towards her MFA in poetry right now out of Louisiana State University.  She is another one of my friends that deserve so much more than they get (I know such great people).  If only she could meet a man worthy of her!
  The second picture is of Julie and Chad S.  Julie and I used to compete together on the team before she became a coach.  Now she is making lots of money teaching out of Indiana State.  I am happy for her, but we were becoming great friends right before her and her husband Shane had to move (boohoo!).
   The last picture is of Fred.  Oh, Fred.  My last year in college I kind of abducted him, tried to mold him into the perfect little interpretation speaker.  Even though Fred is older than me, I felt sort of maternal to the little guy.  Unfortunately, I graduated and left CMSU to pursue career goals, leaving him to be corrupted into a chauvinist horndog.  Oh, the tragedy!

   The top pix is Jim, Shane, Julie and I (blonde wig) at Halloween.  We were the rock band "Bread Pudding" (I'm glad I drank too much sweet & sour that night - it would have been too painful otherwise).  The bottom left hand picture is Sean W. (I do miss you - I hope you are somewhere happy doing something you enjoy!) and Cheyenne (a freshman the year I left). The last picture is John and Chad S., looking coy.

    The top picture is from my freshman year (hmm, my anorexic stage) with John and our speech coach Cindy at a tournament.  The middle picture is at my apartment (from left to right: Moony (some frat boy I hardly knew) Kutt (who I competed with for five years - he came on and left with me), Chad S., Jay (oh, the stories I could tell about Jay) and Jim.  Yes, they were all drunk.
   The bottom left hand picture is me, Jim and Chitwood on a lazy afternoon in Jim's office at CMSU (while Jim was getting his MA).  The last picture is my sweet Fred and his evil friend Josh, who never could quite bring himself to like me.

    The top picture is of Jim and James both looking fab!  The second picture is just like the one above, with me, Jim and Chitwood being goofy and playing around in Jim's office.

    Okay, no photo-manipulation here!  That's Sean G., all six feet nine inches of him.  One of the biggest humans I've ever met and he laughs like a freaking girl.  He's so cool, though - he's going to be my body guard if I ever need one!  Under his arms are Crystal (who Chad S. and I used to debate and hated when she competed for a different school - wouldn't you know, she competes for us, I start debating with Chitwood, and totally love her.  She's so honest and nice, it's hard not to) and of course, Fred.  Oh, Fred.
   And the last picture is evil Josh again.  So he doesn't like me; I never said he didn't want to stand next to me.  Boys are like that sometimes, you know?

   So I am now straying from the chronological path.....These are pictures of my friends in high school.  The first picture, left to right, is Jaime, Kim (we called her Taz) and some girl in my english class who for the life of me can't remember her name.  Anyway, hung out with Taz a lot, but Jaime was really my best friend.
   The picture on the right is of Jaime and me sometime during our junior year in high school.  Jaime and I were inseparable for the longest time - my mom started limiting my phone calls to her to 15 minutes at a time - I swear she was timing them at the end.  Jaime and I had all sorts of classes together, and I would listen to her talk about boys (obviously living vicariously through her since I wasn't allowed to date until hell froze over).
   Anyway, lots of stuff happened during our friendship, too much to talk about here, some too painfully to write into words and some too crazy that I just shouldn't.  But the short story version is that she was really cool, really bad, and I adored her for it.  Then she became a "born-again Christian" and hated all of my college friends because they were either a) Non-Christian  b) Gay  c) open-minded.
   I still see her on occasion, but it's a struggle to carry on a conversation because we are worlds apart in how we feel life should be.

  The picture on the left is me and John, my first ever duo partner (read more about him in Speech & Debate).  Love John, miss the guy - he is now the director of Forensics at North Illinois State.
  The picture on the right is Chad, Jim and me, back when we were one happy family living at 1205 S. Holden.  I couldn't have asked for better friends/roommates, and there is a small part of me that wished I could go back to that time when everything was peaches.

   More pictures of Chad (from our New Orleans trip) and Jimmy on the phone (other hand a ciggy?)

   Picture on the left is Vickie (who probably will beat me for putting this pix up here - it doesn't show how goddess she is!) and then there is a pix from my wedding, with the boys and Vickie (how dapper we all look - Vickie with flowers in her hair, Jimmy with his "smart" glasses on, Chad with his elegant smile, and hell, I'm the bride).  What fun.

  My photography teacher would be so pleased with the perfect example of an imperfect photo!  Jim and I at James place; James has these two golf clubs up on the wall; I take a picture of Jim without even trying to do it on purpose - and look!  He is an alien w/ golf club antennas!  How perfect!
 

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