Megan

Today should have been Megan's 26th birthday. Since 5th grade, Valentine's Day has meant a fun, crazy, Megan-style birthday party. Instead today I watched MST3k movies, because RENT would have been too hard.Megan was one of the most alive people I've ever known. Things as simple as baking cookies or colouring hair became adventures when she got involved. And afterward she would make an epic story out of the simple-activity-turned-afternoon-long-fun. She was funny and vibrant and dynamic, and I'm grateful for her friendship. Even if we hadn't seen each other in a year, our relationship picked up as if we'd hung out the week before. I cannot go anywhere in my hometown without thinking about her, because we spent so much time doing so many things together.
Snapshot memories, as I thought of them

Megan and I met in 5th grade, when she switched elementary schools for a year. On the first day of school, she punched Karl, who was very popular, for some reason, and I was happy that there was someone else who didn't like him.

We learned pig latin in elementary school and drove other kids CRAZY with it. When they started to pick it up, we changed up the rules. And by we, I mean Megan.

Megan convinced me to play flute in 5th grade band. Otherwise, I probably would have ended up as a clarinet player, since I (even now) can't make a sound on a brass instrument.

Which leads me to marching band. Megan wrote an L and an R on her shoes, so she'd remember which foot to start with. Senior year, Megan and I managed to be next to each other, and it was great to have someone to mock the sophomores with. We tried to convince the Medds to let us do a kickline at one point. They totally didn't go for it. Also, robot poses! "I am a broken robot."

Stuart Davis concerts.

It was during marching band that I heard about the first WTC plane crash on 9-11, from Megan. She heard it on the radio on her way to school.

One of the most fun games we invented in elementary school was alien scientists. We wandered the playground, pretending we were aliens come to observe this weird species who called themselves "humans." We took notes and drew conclusions from our observations and everything! The force of Megan's personality made our geekiness cool, somehow, in the eyes of our classmates. We ended up with quite a few people playing alien scientists with us before it got too cold to write outside.
I am the Walrus. As loud as we could sing. To a record, because that song had yet to be released to CD.

One of the few summers I spent at home during my college years, Megan and I had been hanging out at her apartment when she developed a pressing need to bake cookies. Only her oven was unreliable...on a good day. Sometimes it caught on fire. So we introduced her chihuahua, Leela, to my parent's dog, which was an adventure in and of itself, and baked cookies. It was one of the more relaxing afternoons I've ever had, since cookie baking with friends is a huge nostalgia thing for me.
We took our siblings and some other kids trick or treating, and had oodles of fun by running around in the dark and jumping out at the kids we were kinda-sorta watching.

On the first band trip, Megan was in her vegetarian phase, and spent the entire 2 day bus trip eating french fries. At one fast food place, there was no ketchup. We were all shocked and appalled.
We drove MM back to the airport after she came to visit one summer, and ended up having a lot of extra time once we got there. Only Megan could have made the tiny tiny airport store so entertaining. Not to mention convincing MM, B, and myself to don corn hats. The lady who took the picture for us couldn't stop laughing.
Megan needed to dye her hair for something, and called to see if I wanted to help. This was probably the summer after high school. We went to Wal-Mart, bought hair dye, and went to work. However. Megan's hair was so thick, that we didn't have nearly enough dye, even with two boxes. So we colored part of her hair (after all, we figured that out in the middle of the process) and then went back to the store for more dye.
They didn't have any more in that color, and we needed at least two boxes.We found one box at Walgreens, but had to go all the way to Target to find another box. It was absurd. We applied our new two boxes of dye, only to realize that the color wasn't really strong enough for whatever it was Megan was doing...something about a role in an indie film, I think. So we went back to Wal-Mart for a darker color, and picked it based on the fact that they had enough boxes. Then we colored her hair again, and were finally successful, so we spent the evening eating leftovers and watching Friends DVDs.

We once played dress-up while babysitting her sister and all sang terrible early 90's music while playing air-guitar.
In junior high, maybe elementary school? we started a stuffed animal hospital with B and I think MM. Not only did we repair whatever ripped stuffed animals we could find, we added things to them to simulate organs, and performed surgery on them. Our most successful surgery was adding a noise-making tube to Abby's giant clown, so that it made creepy noises whenever she moved it.

Megan introduced me to the awesomeness that is Mystery Science Theater 3000. We rented that movie every weekend for an entire summer, until Dad bought a copy for me. We watched it all. the. time.
We made up stories about the people ice skating at the mall while waiting for a movie.

We played in the band together at the mall's grand opening, thus keeping ourselves entertained for the several hours that we were playing boring pep band music, staring full into the sun.
Someone left some large empty cardboard boxes in the hall at school one day, and rather than ignoring them, Megan started a hallway-wide potato-sack race using the boxes after school.
In high school I went rushing with Megan when RENT came to Hancher. I don't know what to say about it other than it was so much fun, really cold, and made for lots of great stories and quotes later on. Everyone thought my pink fuzzy blanket would make an awesome pair of pants. The trashcan is probably still tapdancing.

Megan, I miss you. You left us all much too soon. Thank you for the fun times, the spectacular memories, the friendship, and the ability to consider mundane activities epic adventures. Your passion and sense of humor inspire me still. Happy Birthday.