I never felt the need to know what a dromedary is until I met her.

Or how to make a candle out of used birthday candles.

Or go to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror in my underwear.

She is a weirdo, and I say that with highest regards. She's not the only one. I know for a fact that there are several teenagers who call themselves a "freak" or "weird" or "random," but we all are. The freakish thing about her is that she doesn't try to be. The odd thing is that she hasn't tried to kiss me yet.

I'm shy, but I'm pretty weird myself. I can make minute rice in 57 seconds. I've timed myself. I spent a whole day and 13 bags of mice to make this happen.

And now I make candles out of used birthday candles.

You know how really artsy girls make prom dresses out of soda tabs or candy wrappers or Capri-Sun pouches or whatever? She made a prom dress out of a blanket. That might seem fairly mundane at first, but think about it for a while. It's pretty weird. It's not some old blanket that has sentimental value. She wasn't walking through a store when she saw a blanket and thought, "Hey! I can make a prom dress out of this!" She just decided to make a prom dress out of a blanket, bought a solid pale pink blanket from Walmart, and made a prom dress. She gets away with nonsense like this all the time. And, yes, the dress was very soft.

She made me make a pact with her and three more of our friends. Whenever one of us dies, the surviving ones have to go to the funeral in drag, the guys in formal gowns and the girls in Dumb and Dumber tuxedos. We wrote a contract and buried it in a Ziploc bag. We're seventeen years old, and we buried a contract in Tommy's backyard.

She's my best friend, and I'd never be the person I am today without her. Thank you.