Intro

There's a direct disconnect between portions of my life. Seemingly fluid and uninterrupted but definitely defined by a before and after of events and happenings and most importantly incidents. One thing after another, molding and shaping me to be who I am now. I refer fondly to my adolescence as "before vegas". The "after vegas" is a whole other story. One thing I can be certain of... "before vegas" held two of the greatest loves I've ever known. Every guy I came across and my best friend.

Its a long and winding road riddled with your typical and not so typical adolescent shenanigans. The best and most amazing show writer couldn't sit down and come up with the stuff we did. In hindsight I have to really think about specific stories otherwise all I have is a blur of memories that vaguely pop out. Ridiculous and completely inappropriate barbie themes,  Styrofoam heads, music and lots of it, french fries and pools... Uno, yearbooks, and a phone next to a poker table. Yeah, I know. It all sounds crazy, but it was the best time of my life.

There's one day in particular that sticks out to me and that was the day it all began. I remember a little bit of my life before this but in my eyes this was the day that my adolescence began. After all, where else does anything start but at the beginning?

Prelogue Part 1

Lately I've been spending a lot of time trying to puzzle out how I got from here to there; the great here of childhood to the there of "adulthood". A girl reads a lot of books and articles enforcing the idea that you're the person you always will be by the time you're 25; that the long years of adolescence mold you more than anything else ever will.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions? My road would be paved with empty mascara tubes, heavily annotated yearbooks, bad sunburns, bad ideas, unrequited crushes, halter tops, worn out sneakers, cut up magazines, mountain dew bottles, disposable cameras, sleepless nights, mix tapes and books and books and books and books. It would not be a road you'd want to walk on barefoot.

But I was a girl who grew up in the most suburb-y of suburbs where the blacktop was smooth and hot, and smelled so good when the rain hit it on a July evening, that I'll spend the rest of my life trying to find a perfume that captures the scent. It was the 90's not the 50's but we still almost never locked our doors.

In our division all of the houses were one of three designs, which means that you could go into anyone's house and find the bathroom. Now I find that comforting, but at the time I was bored out of my skull. The way you can be when you have no actual things to stress you.