that was SO hetero normative

Danica Radoshevich has been a friend of ours (Salma, Ranna, Neela, Bardia, Rene, Genevieve, Nazy, Sanjar, Parsa, Aria, and others) since Salma was 7, and I was 9.  The first memory I have of Dani is one day when she came over for a playdate with Salma, and I was OBSESSED with cutting out pictures of models from magazines and using them as faux paperdolls, because randomly paperdolls were super expensive, and my mom would only buy the books for me sometimes, because after I [carefully] cut out all of the paper doll outfits, I would play with them for a little bit before I would get a little bit bored and slowly the pieces of the outfits would get lost.  Now that I think about it, I had this amazing "Gone With the Wind" collection and it took me like a week to get all of those giant Scarlett O'Hara dresses cut out.  That paperdoll set lasted a while actually.  So did the Christian Dior paperdoll book that Genevieve gave me.  Mostly because my mom didn't let me cut out the dolls for a really long time.  Because just like she knew what would happen with our Barbies* she knew what happened to my paperdolls.

Wow.  I just totally segued into another story completely.  Back to Dani.  So anyway, I was cutting out the models from the magazines and just doing my own thing.  I thought I was so cool as the older sister, playing with my paper people, having a good time.  And Dani's like, "oh hey, can I join you?"  And I like grudgingly gave her one of the uglier models, one of the ones who was standing really strangely.  Like, in the picture, she was probably standing normally, but the cutout was just proportionally wrong to all the other paper people, and she was just the outcast cutoff.  So I gave her that one, and she started to play with me, and the next thing I know, she's like looking into the doorknob screaming, "ICEBERG AHEAD! ICEBERG AHEAD!" And i'm like, "Woah woah woah, WHEN DID THIS BECOME THE TITANIC??!"  But then...somehow, from there, I decided Dani was going to be my best friend.

And best friend she remained.  We lived really close by while we were growing up.  We'd always hang out at each others houses.  Summers were spent together, going to the YMCA pool, bothering our babysitter Evie, playing cops and robbers at night.  Our parents were friends too.  Our dads randomly loved each other, and our mothers would spend time complaining about the eccentricities of our fathers.  Salma spent more time with Dani, of course, because they were classmates, the same age, the same height.  Randomly they were "shoe sisters" because one time they bought matching shoes at Target.  Also, they had this Mario and Luigi sketch they would do because Dani had this ancient game for Nintendo 64, and her and Salma would always play it.  Anyway, Salma would be Mario, and Dani would be Luigi, and they would go around doing this really funny run, and I ALWAYS wanted to join, but Salma was all, "No, it's just for two people."  And I was like, "But I can be Princess Peach."  And Salma would be all, "No, thats not how the game works."  And they would keep doing their thing.

Dani knew everything about us and understood us completely and perfectly.  Even this weekend while she was here, she still after not living near each other for the last six years, she totally just got us.  We laugh at the same things, we get annoyed at the same things.  It just complete honesty and comfort.  It's awesome is what it is.

She came from New York, where she's doing an internship in Brooklyn, to visit for the weekend.  We took her to Eastern Market and she bought a bag.  We went to this Cajun restaurant around there and watched the "Ghana-US" game.  Everyone in there hated us because Salma was loud and obnoxious and every time Ghana would do something good, and everyone would yell, "No!  No!  No!" Salma would yell, "YEAHHH GHANNNAA!!!"  She said she had to make up for the lack of support Ghana was getting.  So Dani and I sat there, watching the game, but getting more entertained by Salma's enthusiasm over her team.  We were scared to see what would have happened had Ghana lost.  So good thing we saw a victory there.  Otherwise we would have seen a very scary Salma.

Dani's super cool these days because she goes to Grinnell which is in Iowa, and she studies studio art.  She's working at a print shop this summer and she throws around words and phrases like, "ableist," and "hetero normative."  I love it.  She's so articulate and manages to get her points across so well using the most brilliant vocabulary ever.  But then, in the midst of discussing something with my mother (who thinks of Dani as her third daughter), she'll be like, "do you guys remember that time we all goozed (cus DUH she knows that word)?"  and then we'll all go and replay that story over and over again.  No.  Not by goozing.  Jeez.  We just do the sound effects.  Haha, that makes it so much better, right?  Right.

It was so completely normal to have her here with us this weekend.  All these years Sal and I have lived in Virginia, we always bring Dani up.  We always say, "if Dani was here, she would do this," or "If Dani was here, we could go here..." But alas, we only get to see Dandan like once a year.  It's ok though, because we decided that one day we're all going to live near each other again.

Right, guys?  When we start our "SaDaRa" band and sing "O-Town" songs.  And Michael Kramer (whose name is actually Michael Fraiser) can be our manager and hire us a choreographer because we really don't know how to dance.  And then Dani can pretend the soccer ball is actually Kevin from the Backstreet Boys head, and Ruth can make moussaka, while Zhivoin complains about Bill Clinton and jokes around with Bardia.  :)