Don't let the Masters degree from Georgetown fool you...

I had a hard time with today's challenge "The person who've done the most messed up things with." First, I have the Kellys, whom I've been friends with for over 20 years now, and we've done some crazy things together in Germany... co-ed slumber parties, dodging drunks during our Frankfurt Galaxy months...

Then there's my college room-mate Karen who was with me through the evening of the special brownies and the infamous "9 shots of tequila" night when we ran into a cop and went into the steam tunnels under UVA... And Lisa... man. You don't even want to know the crazy things I've done with her (good thing I have no pictures).

And then there's Mariko... The picture is of me posing with her on the night she graduated with a Masters of Science in Foreign Service (Translation: she is a glorified humanitarian, and I mean that in a "I'm so jealous she gets to travel and help people" way).

Aside from walking into S & M clubs in our spare time, we have hunted for imported red wine at local 7-11s in Japan late at night. We've gone to the Tokyo fish market and eaten raw fish for breakfast. We've ridden the Ferris Wheel at Odaiba, which apparently is mostly ridden by overly affectionate couples (we were the only couple NOT making out). We decided to start singing "That's Amore!" at the top of our lungs, mostly to annoy the other riders, but also to distract ourselves from having to watch couples, um.... making out. We've played drunken Scrabble at our local ramen shop while oogling the Japanese Keanu Reeves look-alike who wore those tall, white rubber boots. Ah... the boots.

We also walked around the city of Kyoto in the dreadfully humid month of August for not one, not two, but three straight hours looking for what amounts to a bar. A bloody bar in a city, for goodness sake (OK, it was an izakaiya, which is a very COOL bar where you scream for the waiter to come for more drinks and food but I digress). And of course Mariko has to bring along these crazy pictures of her trip to Thailand, which were rocks in the form of intimate body parts and splash them all over the table like cheap perfume in front of my new boyfriend.... Our idea for the DIY Pap Smear never panned out (but if you ever see that in a drugstore, it was totally our idea... OK, mostly Mariko's idea, but I think I should get some percentage of royalties for having to put up with hearing about it). And the boyfriend didn't pan out either, but after the dirty rock pictures combined with the DIY idea, you would run for the hills too...

And then there were the Kit Kat innuendos that I saved Mariko from in Hamamatsu...

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: while the quality of messed up things might be higher with others, Mariko tops the list for quantity. I mean, if the craziness of the Tokyo and Kyoto trips alone weren't enough, I don't know what is...