Anna and Abby

Today I had the chance to spend the day with my old friend Anna. Anna and I met in 1999 when I was living in DC on my dad's sabbatical. We went to the same school and were in the same advisory group. I don't remember exactly how we became friends, but I know that much of our early bonding came over introducing one another to our favorite musicals. She taught me about Sondheim; I introduced her to RENT. We realized that it had been almost exactly 10 years since we met, and the day's activities were fitting to that.

We started at the Dupont Circle Farmer's Market, where we both bought some gorgeous purple kale and extremely fresh ginger (with the shoots still attached!) My kale:
We had lunch in the sort-of-park that is Dupont Circle proper. Anna and I have looked very much alike at different points. At one point her hair was very curly and mine was really short. Now we are reversed. People always thought we were sisters.

In honor of our tenth anniversary of friendship, we paid homage to some important spots in our teenage years. After I moved back to Rochester, every time I visited Anna we would trek out to Dupont Circle for the afternoon. We would have lunch at WrapWorks, which no longer exists, and spend a long time scouring every inch of Lamda Rising. Back then it felt important, a time we could be ourselves and talk about the things we didn't want our parents to overhear. Today the store didn't hold as much appeal, the buttons not as funny, the books and cards more overtly sexual. Had the store changed or had we? Maybe we just don't need it like we once did.

We also paid a visit to Kramerbooks, a great bookstore, and resolved to send eachother book recommendations. We finished the day with a long sit in Cosi. We always stopped there as teenagers, when it was called XandO (did you say it zando? X and O? Who knew?), and had an Arctic Mocha, a sweet blended coffee drink. For Anna, drinking something with coffee in it was pure teenage rebellion. It was a long time (months? years?) before she would buy her own instead of sharing mine. Our drinks today (coffee for her, iced cappucino for me) struck me as somehow grown-up. Our conversation also was no longer about teachers and furtive crushes, but about our healthy relationships and jobs. I look at us and like who we have become.