you said you'd be coming back this way again, baby

it was august, 1998.  i was living at home in california.  i decided to move to provo to give school "another chance".  so my mom and i packed me up and basically took the first apartment we could find.  apartment 61 in the glenwood.

gina was the first roommate i met.   i (allegedly) was unimpressed with her box fan, and she was a pink floyd fan, so i knew right away that she was evil.  but we quickly moved past these real-life issues and became fast friends. together we wore overalls excessively,  created the world's best chore chart (my chore-chart avatar was twisted sister just to give you an idea of the awesomeness), shared a love for pumpkin-pie ice cream (as evident by our individual gallon tubs from ream's in the freezer), blasted 259 with the windows down (on sundays driving home from church), dated 259 (okay, that's debatable), battled it out over many intense rounds of skip-bo (gina was the ultimate champ), and spent many a saturday watching rock-and-roll jeopardy marathons on vh1.

1998.
celebrating john lennon's 58th birthday.  naturally.

last year gina decided to move back to the states (after living in 22 different countries and teaching in switzerland and running a half marathon in prague and learning 29 languages and seeing cake in paris and milan, and being in a cake video, BEING IN A CAKE VIDEO!), and so i started begging her to come to florida.

until... one evening i got a text from her, "what are you doing on march 30th?"  to which i replied (because i know her so well), "picking you up at the airport!"

which indeed i did.  in the am. not the pm.  (that was a close one.)

we hadn't seen each other for eight years, but it was as if no time had passed.  i still laugh at everything she says (she loves it), and i still make it really easy for her to tease me mercilessly (i really do always leave the door wide open for her).

we had so much fun and she was completely comfortable taking on my life for a week.  after the mommy and mommy's-helper business was done for the day, gina and i partied hard just like the old days.  we flirted with our waiters, blasted cake so loud and sang along with mr. big until we were hoarse, stayed up until 2:30 am looking at old pictures and laughing at pretty much everything.  we went to miami beach and got stuck in a rainstorm under an awning with four very friendly black women, saw a drug deal seven feet away from us, ate cuban food (well, if you ask gina my "cubano sandwich" was not cuban food but if you ask our cubana waitress it was indeed cuban), ate a lot of food (a lot), and spontaneously burst out into "superstar" at the EXACT SAME TIME!!!!  (this moment goes down in history as the best gina/robin moment ever.)

gina would appreciate it if i mention that she is wearing her gym clothes in this picture.
and she'd also want me to mention that i took her to spin and she hated me for it.

i won't even say how many takes it took us to get this picture.
but i can imagine that just by me mentioning it you can probably guess...
a lot.

gina, thank you so much for the years of memories and for being such a wonderful part of my life.  i am so glad i randomly (but probably a little guided don't you think?) chose your apartment to live in that fateful day back in august of 1998.

please come back to florida.  i will patiently await your text...