Waylon the Monkey is a plush monkey with long velcro hands and feet that has been in my care for the past 6 years.

Initially he was considered the love child of Zach and our friend Steph. How a stuffed monkey can be a love child I'll never know... and frankly I don't want to know. All I know is one day during my junior year at IU I returned from class to see Waylon hanging on my apartment door knob along with a Storm Trooper Pez dispenser. On the concrete in front of the door, in silly string was written "We love you Angry"

It was obviously a corny prank/friendly gesture from my boys Levi, Zach and Rory.

Since then Waylon has had a comfy home hanging from my studio lamp. And currently, around my neck.

I think I'm going to take him to Zach's viewing tomorrow because clearly he's a reminder of happier times. I also decided I'm not wearing dark colors. I've decided I'm not gonna mourn anyone when they die. I'm gonna celebrate and be happy that they lived and I got to live with them.

Aside from Waylon I have many lovely memories of Zach. One night he took me on an impromptu outing to the IU Auditorium to see a show and we had seats in like the 5th row. It was awesome! And all the times we all went out to Lake Griffey and shot bottle rockets--fun tip: Bottle rockets + empty wrapping paper tube = very fun make shift rocket launcher! And there was the one time I almost shot him in the face with a bottle rocket launched out of milk jug during a prank. Oh! And the one time we were playing with bottle rockets at Levi's and we set like 20 off at once and he almost got shot... y'know...We really shouldn't play with bottle rockets like that... we're just reckless.. hell not even reckless... we're just stupid LOL.

Other non bottle rocket related memories include the time he and I went to the 4th street art fair. That was fun and let's not exclude the countless times we all just hung out in Levi's basement and played video games and watched movies. And my first trip to the drive in with him and the gang to see Pirates of the Caribbean and Finding Nemo.

Ah, those were the days.

I'm doing much better than I expected with this. And that's good. I figure as long as I have Waylon I'll always have a little bit of Zach.