I’ve never enjoyed a Thanksgiving Day quite so much in recent memory. One of the closest friends I’ve met online invited me over to her home since she lives nearby when she’s not at college; as it would so happen, the first time I would meet her in real life, she tackle-hugged me from behind. She’s five feet tall and was born with a rare genetic disorder that left her with an almost nonexistent jawline, sloping eyes, a lack of soft palate and subsequent speech impediment, and no opposable thumbs (though she loves to cook– eighteen years of living with four working fingers means her index finger’s practically opposable) but she’s one of the luckier ones, to be honest, and I’m very grateful for it. Other common symptoms mean she could’ve been mentally handicapped, or deaf. Appearance means nothing when the person is this damn awesome. She’s now a religion studies major at Syracuse University and is quite possibly the world’s most well-informed agnostic in those regards. Don’t judge a book by its cover? Don’t judge, period.

Her family’s also part Italian. Good food? Earth-shatteringly good food.

Still, I will take these little memories and put them into a shiny mahogany box in the back of my brain. Talking about life, college, and crappy dining hall food while on a swing set at her local playground, still being too short for the monkey bars, getting stuck on the slide. The giant grilled turkey, turkey-shaped butter, and food antics with the mom and dad and gin-drinking grandmother. (Who accidentally left her gin glass unattended when my friend was two; bad things ensued.) Snowflakes, My Little Cthulhu (so cute!), custom t-shirts, “the blue centaur is really, really gay”, art portfolios, YouTube and DeviantArt trolling (as if we could go without!) and the most amazing British things ever.

Life is good.