Happy Birthday Ryan!

Seems like all of my friends are turning 30 lately and I've still got a few to come this year. Next up on the chopping block: Ryan! A long time ago we figured out that his birthday is exactly 7 weeks after mine. Just a little random birthday fact from me to you. Anyway, I added up the years and I've known Ryan for half of my life. It's crazy to think we're so old.

Ryan and I met one fateful day at Olympus High School in October or November 1993 (my memory is failing me). At the time I was in love with a boy named Matt Iba and I had magnet letters spelling out his name in my locker. (Yes, I was a crazy stalker.) My best friend Sarah had told me about this guy in her Health class named Ryan with blue hair and a beanie who looked just like Matt Iba. Turns out this guy happened to have a locker about three lockers down from me. One day while eating lunch by our lockers I said to him, "You look like Matt Iba." He looked at me with a quizzical expression and asked, "Who's Matt Iba?" To which Sarah replied, "Oh just some guy she's in love with." And the rest, as they say, is history. Our first date included watching Say Anything in my basement and innocently holding hands. I'm pretty sure his dad picked him up by 10:30 and he sent me flowers the next day trying to be a real life Lloyd Dobler. Oh to be 15 again. Well, not really. But I have such fond memories of my adventures with Ryan and I'm so glad to call him one of my best friends after all these years! 

A little trip down memory road with Ryan:

• We listened to A LOT of music.  Some bands that will always make me think of Ryan: New Order, Squeeze, Erasure, Morrissey, Yaz, Joy Division, NIN, Alanis Morissette, Oasis, Radiohead, Indigo Girls, Pet Shop Boys, Koop, The Cure, The Smiths, George Michael and the always entertaining Evil Dick
• Trying to get his parakeet Flo to speak by playing this phrase over and over again: "When do we eat?" Unfortunately, she died before learning to speak.
• Teaching him how to drive a stick
• The hideous outfits we wore to school dances. Don't ask to see the pictures, I've already burned them. The mid 90s were not fashionable.
• Taking the dip on Gundersen Lane at 50 MPH in my old green bug
• He had the same cell phone number for 10 years until he got a super cool iPhone
• That one time we missed the Salt Lake exit driving home from Moab in his Rabbit resulting in a 3 hour scenic drive
• Yearbook Day 1994: remember how you still had that cast on your wrist??
• Hanging out in each other's basements for hours on end
• The crazy accident on Highland Drive in 1995. My parents made me go to the emergency room and I was wearing his underwear and my mom saw. 
• Visiting Austin last year: Chuys, queso, lots of great beer, Indian food, German home movies, 6th Street bars