I'm going to miss Rome

So I’ve recently been hanging out on my friends’ web albums because

1. They are there for a reason
2. My goodness, is my nose really THAT big?

I was in yearbook during high school. In addition to learning the crucial skill of looking busy when I'm actually doing nothing, I learned that captions are kind of hard to write. Write something that is “witty,” and you risk looking like lame among a group of losers (since it WAS high school and outside my very exclusive group of friends, everyone was mean) and if you write something that is “informative,” then that’s just BORING. Caption writing was a delicate blend of the two that I never, ever mastered. Just like title writing. I SUCKED at titles. My titles would be something like:

A Large Log

Catch-12

Silly Seniors.

You know. A mélange of subtle alliteration and complex allusions.

(I did not actually write any of those titles for the yearbook. Or did I…)

So I was looking through my friends’ pictures, and golly, did their captions ever keep me entertained. It was about as good as looking at pictures on facebook. Let’s take for instance the following:

Original caption: "French Architecture"

or

Original caption: "I like this one"

and then there is a caption that says "Wa-la," which I understand is supposed to say "Voila."

Granted, I realize there are some pictures that are hard to write captions for. It’s like a picture of a tree. What on earth are you supposed to caption about a tree? That’s when I just throw up my hands in the air and say “Well, I’m just not going to caption you!”

Then, there are those pictures that are begging for captions. For lame or informative captions. Any sort of caption, because you can’t just leave them bare.

Let me introduce you to Linda Muzere. Yes, I know I’ve done introductions before, but I did not know Linda at the time, as she is a woman of many mysteries. She might be last, but by no means least.

Linda Muzere practices her seductive gaze.

She is not like most people. Most people, when they see me haul forth my mighty camera, do the following, like Arwyn:

They wither. They cower in fear. I can’t really blame them, since I do the same thing.

Linda Muzere, however, positively preens when the camera is out. She lights up like a 6000 watt light bulb and sidles into the range of my viewfinder.

Linda Muzere wonders "Does that thing really work?"

I just blatantly point my camera, and she never churns out a disappointing picture.

Linda Muzere displays her domestic housewife side.

Linda Muzere recovers from a tack attack: her wallet matches her shirt.

What else is so special about Linda Muzere is that she makes anyone who she likes who talks to her feel like a million dollars. If I should (surprisingly!) say something self-deprecating about my looks, she would tell me to stop being ridiculous and pull myself together, then would proceed to compliment me in such ways that I would feel as if I could beat Catherine Zeta-Jones in any beauty competition.

Linda Muzere: Profile

Linda Muzere: Odd Profile

Linda Muzere: she eats too, just like us!

Caught offguard while rummaging in her purse, Linda Muzere gives her patented surprised look.

Linda Muzere celebrates reaching the summit of Mt. Vesuvius by boogie-ing.

And then we talk about boobs. Every morning we anxiously enquire about the other’s friends’ well-being, appearance, and buoyancy. The ego of my mammary glands have been inflated to about a size DD. Which, actually, might not be so healthy for them when they have to face the real world again, but they’ll just revel in the glow for a while longer.

Linda Muzere, small and mighty, sets another trend by tucking her shirt into her underwear.

Linda Muzere, although she is joining the Marine Corps next summer, exerts no unnecessary actions. She takes the elevator to go two floors down, takes the tram to school 10 minutes away walking, and you can usually find her at the end of the group during excursions.

Linda Muzere stays stylishly cool.

Last week I was plagued with a huge sore on my mouth that comes out periodically when I don’t sleep enough, when I’m stressed, and evidently when I mix chapsticks. Or when I look at my mouth the wrong way. In any case, it was pretty obvious. Actually, it seemed like it took up my mouth plus my chin, the way it was throbbing. It was like a giant red bloody beacon of light emanating from my mouth. I was avoiding pictures and looking at people in the face like the plague until, you know, the pus stopped flowing free and my mouth stopped looking like a cesspool or a peetree dish with some sort of a fungus bacteria culture. So Linda sort of noticed my mouth after several people had asked what on earth is wrong with me and GOD, is it airborne? And after our daily complimenting of each other, she ended it with “If you stand far enough away and at the right angle, you can’t even see that thing on your lip!”

And the way she said it, I almost believed her.