Five People I Met in 2010

How do you introduce a list of people who have had an impact on your life? How do you measure and quantify and calculate who should be on that kind of list? It's hard to imagine that I haven't even known some of these people a full year. So in no particular order:

Nathan Drake

Who knew we'd have just enough people randomly in common that we'd become friends. Between beating each other and ourselves up at the Rec, wandering downtown and just having nights in, this has been a fun winter break. You're wild and energetic and honestly hard to handle sometimes, but you're also a true friend that I know I can trust with anything, a friend who isn't afraid to tell things like they are even if it means calling me on my shit. You've given me fresh perspectives on aspects of my life I'd honestly never considered strengths before. I look forward to knowing you in years to come.

Jayne Godsil

Sure we've yet to meet in person, but that's only a matter of time. Sharing a (digital)room with you is a veritable steam room (because you know we're so hot). Other people inspire me artistically and socially, but you? You inspire me to kick ass. A conversation with you always reminds me that I don't have to take anybody's shit. I know this probably makes you feel old, but you're the kind of person I want to grow up to be (though the older I get, the less weight that kind of statement seems to carry).

Chelsea Hilborn



I met you officially in person mano a mano (or as was technically the case, breast to breast rather than hand to hand) when, like a kitty outside in the rain, I came pawing at your door one day to give a little bird a hug. You're proof to me that adversity builds strength, that being the better person is a choice. Thanks for the memories, for kidnapping me (with several hours notice) and being my lifeline to a different world while I was away.

JoeJack Kostylo

I'm not always sure about living with you, but you fill my life with music, with singing and dancing and the soundtrack that is the magic box. We're a strange pair to be sure, brought together by chance into this unusual apartment situation but on the whole I kind of enjoy it. I find myself disagreeing with the way you think a lot of the time, but that's good for me. The whole process of reconciling discourses makes me stronger in what I have to say and in how I think.

The Crazy-Haired, Glassed, Gender-Queer, Asian Poets

I probably left out a few adjective phrases here (or if I got them all, put them in a variable order), but at least a few of you out there know to which pair this is referring. You are what I'm all about. Life, change, it's about art, it's about creating something , creating life and living it. You inspire me. "You give me prophet vibes." Every time I read that, written down the side of a page in my Rendevous journal, I get shivers down my spine. I don't know what it means, but it speaks to something larger in me, something I'm looking to see grow. I don't want to be a prophet, I don't want to have followers, but I want to speak with the wisdom of one, to be a vessel for the messages of the Gods inside me. As an honorary Poet with you (the glasses part is my only deficit), I'm looking to the future.

Okay, so I technically had 6 people since the GHGGQAP is both Mandy and Henry, but I can't write about them singularly much the way I can't just write about ONE Power of Hoper. There are many names and faces missing from this list but these are the ones I've chosen to write about. I hope you all have a wonderful year and don't forget to look around you at the new faces you meet, you never know who'll end up sticking around.