Ode to Peeves

On this most wondrous of days, I must give some mad love to she who was born 25 years ago. I wish I weren't so awesome at getting all my computers and cameras stolen, or else I'd have a more eclectic and extensive image collection at my globe-trotting disposal, but having mostly only words, I do my best:

Peeves, I sing your wonders.

If you were a sound, it’d be the flipping pages of a paperback when you bend your nose for a whiff.

If you were a color, it’d be two-toned and hard to name but very pleasant to paint on your walls.

If you had a stalker, it would be me.

Why, you might ask?

Is it because you are the person I text my new passwords to when I change them?
Nay.
Is it because of all the links you send me about shifting earthly orbits and distant galaxies, claiming it makes your head explode?
Not entirely.
Is it because you used to always forget to turn the security alarm off in the mornings, causing Sars and I to awaken in panic about 15 seconds after you casually strolled out the front door?
Alas, it is not.

It is because your sister, Ashley, had a birthday party in 1995, which my brother attended (bringing a partially wrapped pineapple for a gift, as I recall) and I tagged along (despite the fact it was ALSO the night of the Miss America Pageant) and we bonded over the post-party hogging of the moon-bounce in your backyard.

I called my Mom, I begged to stay the night, and a demented friendship—destined to span the decades—was born.

When I first met Peeves, she was just another girl with an alarmingly extensive collection of beenie babies. She had a phone that was a killer whale and a closet costume at the top of the stairs with contributions from her Uncle Havno's stint in Vietnam and her Mom’s disco days.
Her beenie babies, pristine artifacts in a carefully acquired collection, soon fell victim to our favorite game—The “All Pets” Pet Store-- where our slogan was “Sorry! No Refunds!” because our pets always mysteriously died just after they were paid for. I’m not entirely sure how we came up with this, and I’d like to pause in my reverie to assure everyone that Peeves remains a responsible lover of animals:

(Pictured here with my Zola)

In fact, she not only adopted the puppy I accidentally ran over (uh... long story) but paid monstrous vet bills to have a metal bar put in his gimp leg. In my own defense, I can’t even wield a fly swatter and would rather pretend not to see bugs in my house or trap them with coffee cups and postcards to transport them outside. Regardless, we were the owners of the All Pets pet store and subjected her hundreds of plush toys to terrible tortures. We kept whales in tiny cages, smashed flamingos, and I can’t quite remember what else, but in the end we were always quick to pipe “Sorry, No Refunds!” before collapsing in cackles.

Of course, we never really required a vast stockpile of toys to keep us busy. No, we made a marooned ship from her foldout couch and a lazy landscaping project in my front yard became “Tunnelia,” our own personal colony. Shoveling handscoops we burrowed small tunnels for our toys and recorded important state details on a yellow legal pad:

Mayor of Tunnelia: “Mr. Hamburger Man”—a kids meal toy from Jack In The Box

Official Motto: “Weight, I hear some it from dishwasher for fluffy.”

Official bird: Peacock.

Oh the madness of our childhoods... Hours were spent on the orange mac in her sister’s room, where the walls were bright orange and strewn with chili peppers and photos of Gavin Rosdale, with plastic needle-pierced Easter eggs adorning the desk.

There was the matrimony of Hammie and Harvey and the many games of hide-and-go-seek-in-the-dark played on the 3rd floor of our church, where we also snuck through the baptistery and stole cookie dough from the kitchen while spreading lies about the unused balcony actually being an "Elder Graveyard."

Later in life, when I descended into reticence and staunch reclusion, she came after me longer and with more dedication than anybody else. And when I continued to suck at life and ignore everyone, she waited like a noodler at dirty bird. And when I finally, FINALLY, told her that unspeakable thing I couldn’t let out, she sat there (having paused our Annual-Lord of the Rings-All-Day-Marathon) and I remember the first thing she said was “Well what do you want to do about it?” and the asking of this question was the beginning of the unraveling of that dark and twisty thing I’d kept needlessly hidden inside.

A few years later, when I was living like a vagrant with all my stuff in storage and a small pile of clothes and books in the backseat of my car, I asked her for a favor. It was just before Christmas and I was continuing my tradition of boycotting the holidays and wanted to hide out in her rental house while she and her roommates were with their families.

Of course, she said, and I should have seen the gleam in her eye.

When I showed up, she escorted me to the tiny room she shared with Schmalone and pointed proudly at the twin mattress resting against the wall, a faded sheet tucked across it.

I’m only staying a few days! I don’t need a bed!
Well who knows…. Maybe you’ll stay longer.
No, no, just for Christmas.

Somehow, I stayed for over 6 months, 3rd girl in a tiny room and 5th girl in a tiny house that was falling apart in every way, with walls so thin you could belt out a random line from any song and have it answered from every room of the house. All it took was a shout from the kitchen, or a trill from the bathroom, and suddenly there were five or more voices pausing to sing the next line of the Lion King Intro Song or “When You Believe,” from The Prince of Egypt.
The longer we lived there, the more things broke beneath the strain of so many occupants and a steady stream of visitors who could easily walk from campus for Thursday’s communal lunch. The bathroom door refused to lock or stay shut, which meant any time you were on the toilet there was a very good chance someone would run by and kick the door open. The garbage disposal regularly clogged and flooded, requiring us to orchestrate elaborate plunging rescue missions while cardboard was employed to prevent the Chai on the stove or the monkey bread on the counter from being flooded with ground up bits of food.

Living there, I never had a key and I kept my stuff in a small stack in the coat closet or at the foot of the bed I had so vehemently opposed. I can remember sitting there on that mattress, shortly after I’d moved in, and realizing I had somehow lost my joy... So often I was a dark cloud, and yet Peeves kept me.

In those months, we all feigned racism and intolerance with each other (Mandaze was a sleeper cell terrorist insurgent and Kristin was a communist who monitored our internet usage, Peeves' obsession with Matisyahu made her one of The Chosen People and I was, of course, an African, all of us jokingly yelling and fighting while Shmalone—The U.N.—would intercede and plead “Can’t we all just get along?”) We'd sing our house-wide karaoke, and we'd schedule weekly roommate dinner:
and I began to feel these tiny pinpricks of clarity… living in this house of patience and grace and love.
It could have been the sleepscreaming and sleepwalking of Shmalone, the nightly requests to listen to “His Eye Is On The Sparrow” while I waved my phone in the dark for a light show, or the abusive situations we put Peeves' sock monkeys in while she was not home, but in that house, where she tricked me into staying, I began to learn how to feel again.

Of course, she was eventually whisked away to that city of Fleur De Lis in a state that will only ever make me think of an Orlando Bloom movie, corrupt mutant-chicken-raising fast food joints, and creepy banjo tunes from Deliverance.

Fighting the distance, I condescended to visit her and nearly died when Sars, Schmalone and I hit a wolf at 2am and ended up broken down on the side of the road until 6am, nearly eaten by hillbillies while we yelled at the grossly incompetent Triple A operators for not knowing we were too stupid to realize we were actually in Indiana and not Kentucky.

(Sidenote: I just had to google image Kentucky in order to remember the next state over, and honestly maybe it was Illinois or something, all I really remember about that night is the look in the wolf’s eyes ((okay, it was probably a coyote, but will always be a wolf to me)) which very clearly said: “I want to live” just before I heard THWACK followed by screeeechhherrr drraaaggguuuugggghhh, some screaming, and some waking of Shmalone in the backseat who was certain we were on our way to heaven and handled it quite well.)

And then, even further whisking away occurred when she married that guy from Fenway:
Whose green house we had covered in Autumn leaves, gifted with a living room toilet, and broken in to kidnap their couch cover because it was a color Peeves "liked so much she could drink it."

we sent them photos of it chillin' on campus

little red bo peep?

adorning the couches of the student union

calling for help

and of course, being thrown from the highest point we could access

Despite this widening of the gap, Peeves, you remain, forever, my Carlotta Valdez.
Even though you live in Appalachia and I’m in Asia, I will remember listening to Incubus in my hot pink room in seventh grade as I read aloud to you from a super trippy portion of an Ayn Rand book I probably did not fully understand.

You taught me the wonders of wavy lays and French onion dip...

And you continue to amaze by writing me profound notes that include tidbits like:

“millions of memories: countless.”

Yes, there have been rough times, like when I accidentally deleted all the numbers in your phone, and the skype rift caused by our opposing reactions to the LOST finale, but girl…

It’s gonna take a lot to take me away from you/there’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do/I bless the rains down in Africa/Gonna take some time to do do the things we never have.

Happy Birthday Peeves!