Things Laurel taught me:

1. Bob Dylan
2. People are worth talking to--everyone has a great story
3. Years make a difference
4. Stories and Pictures are important, and so is action

Things John taught me:

1. Anything can be endured
2. You are not all that you imagine yourself to be
3. Hygeine counts for something
4. Girls like good-smelling things
5. Romance ain't dead, and, if it is, it shouldn't be

Things Eddie taught me (not all of which, granted, have I learned):

1. The world, in all of its complexity, is gorgeous, and worth a moment of pondering
2. People are worth the risk
3. The smallest things contain the greatest rewards
4. Affectations aren't

Things Phil taught me:

1. People worry
2. Goofy is Good
3. The Good Way really is the Right Way

Things Bay taught me:

1. Ugly, if complicated enough, can be misinterpreted as beautiful
2. Loud is Good
3. People are approachable, and entertaining, to boot!
4. Family is peculiar

Things Maria taught me:

1. People are different; some keep secrets
2. Anger, fire, these can be used to make us better
3. The good life means helping others

Things Meridith taught me:

1. Fear doesn't mean as much as you think it does
2. Bluegrass, and other related Appalachian atrocities, are not ashamed of themselves
3. Love sometimes means Fear
4. Love yourself by living the life you should

Things Alicia taught me:

1. Getting stood up for the prom means dick in the real world
2. When life gets all fucked up and the trees get turned over on their roots, good things like art happens

Things Bree taught me:

1. Bitchy is sexy
2. Short ain't too shabby. neither
3. Make people feel good; they deserve it

Things Johanna taught me:

1. TV is Good, it keeps us Sane
   
2. Whe you lend a dildo to a friend, please make sure a condom is attached
   
3. Even the logest lived loves are sometimes meant to close
   
4. Birthdays of friends and family should be written down and remembered
   
5. Laughing from your belly will, if kept up long enough, convince those with you to laugh from their bellies, too
   

Things John Hanson taught me:

1. A man can play playstation and still be a man
   
2. When out getting in trouble with your friends, there doesn't have to be a friend who acts as Mother
   
3. Short ain't bad at all!
   
4. "Self-Conscious," when presented to a group of people, doesn't halt or stall the moment, if you're willing to play along, even self-consciously
   
5. The beach is a good place to go. So is the titty bar. Same, so, the roulette wheel. Same, so, home
   

Things Laura taught me:

1. The Beautiful are as quirky, if not moreso, than the rest of us
   
2. The Beautiful can desire to cause pain, and they, like the rest of us, can get over it, too
   
3. The Beautiful are, essentially, not like the rest of us, which is what we all feared from the get-go
   

Things Anindya taught me:

1. Sometimes people need to be barked at
   
2. Number One can sometimes be the Way to serving all the numbers
   
3. Little shit really don't count fer shit
   

Things Ngeab taught me:

1. There is more courage in the world, amongst more people than there are Thai restaurants in the US, than I can hope to imagine (To break the rhetorical style for a while: To Ngeab, and to all other people who can manage to stir themselves up to travel to a foreign country with very little understanding of that country's culture, much less its language, or its foreign portrayal of love or friendship, and to come out alive, much the better for it, well, to this venture I grant whatever respect I can muster--and then some. Ngeab, in this world and in the next, if there is such a thing, you have all of my support)
   
2. Love--both between friends who see one another clearly on paths crossing one another, and between a lover to one who would not be otherwise loved, clear paths or no, is real, and to be bowed before in awe
   
3. Basil ain't as bad as I think it is, sweet or no
   

Things my father taught me:

1. If you honestly keep from meddling in the things of your loved ones, things will indeed turn out for the best for them
   
2. Sleep is when your true voice shall speak
   
3. I should fear nothing in this world above my own irrational fears
   

Things my mother taught me:

1. Boom boom ain't it great to be--crazy?
   Boom boom ain't it great to be--crazy?
   Silly and foolish, all night long
   Boom boom ain't it great to be--crazy.
   
2. I will always be loved
   

Things Damien Gottlieb taught me:

1. The Superbowl isn't boring
   
2. Being short is a recurring theme, one of which we should be weary
   
3. Shepherd's pie sucks ram's balls
   
4. Guns are scary, if in the wrong hands, or in the right ones
   

Things Andrew Mogan taught me (which, surely, I will not learn for some time):

1. The world is mostly kind outside of the cities
   
2. Purple is NOT an acceptable color for men
   
3. Incommunicable experience is, indeed, incommunicable
   
4. Even so, the kindness of strangers, even the most strange, is not to be turned away lightly
   

Things Callie McClain taught me:

1. Young love, even as far back as the second grade, don't die easy
   

Things Petra taught me:

1. Not saying what you fear to say is not always the result of fear, but instead of something... else
   
2. Other people are Way Smarter than you could ever hope to be
   
3. "Moments" exist, and should never be replaced in memory by "Regret"
   
4. Pain counts for something in this world
   

Things Megan taught me:

1. True to yourself, be
   
2. (more later)
   

Things taught me:

1. That this world is still young
   
2. That my own life, no matter how long or old I conceive it, is still young and novel
   
3. Do Not Be Afraid. The World Asks This of You. Do Not Be Afraid, and let all that comes of you, and your actions, and of your thoughts, please, come. Please.