Eccentric friends shape experience

Everyone needs one friend who's absolutely crazy -- someone to whom the phrase "wacky hi-jinks" is a personal philosophy. A crazy friend is always willing to toss a few twists into an already hare-brained scheme. A crazy friend will never back away from a good time just because it's 4 a.m. and she has a midterm the next day. A crazy friend goes where her soul leads her without regard for the laws of the land, majority opinion or doctor's orders. My crazy friend is Kelly, and she didn't just consent to have this article written -- she commissioned it.

Calling Kelly unique is like saying that Hemingway enjoyed a little drink now and then. Let me paint you a picture: thigh-high black boots with three-inch soles, a lacy blue tutu, burgundy fur-trimmed housecoat with two enormous holes in the back, a black wig and a chain necklace from which dangles a set of house keys. But of course, that was just Friday. Not all of her wardrobe is so outrageous, but most of it is, and she switches it up often enough to keep all of us on our toes.

Kelly enjoys only one thing more than attending parties: hosting them. I count certain late nights at her varied houses among the most surreal of my college life, and that fact is due entirely to Kelly -- and to her themes. Recent offerings include "anything but clothes," "skirts" and "white-trash wedding." During the latter, Kelly stopped the music around midnight to open the polls for bride and groom -- the two people who most closely resembled actual white trash. The idea was that the elected soul mates would be married in the living room and then make out to the drunken jeers of everyone present. A lesser woman would have satisfied herself with being crowned bride, but Kelly ran for groom and, due to her singular talent for vocal persuasion, won by a landslide. The bride was a girl as well, and it was a beautiful ceremony.

In the end, it doesn't matter what the party theme is because Kelly always, without exception, ends up completely naked. Over the years, it's become almost a matter of personal pride to her, and her regular friends have ceased to be alarmed when she saunters into a room in her birthday suit -- we usually say something like, "Oh, is it 12:30 already?"

Kelly radiates individuality so brightly that I feel I have less right to the word when I'm with her, but that's OK -- at least I know that when wacky hi-jinks ensue, I'll have someone to blame afterward.