Facebook Friends: Derek - Dineen

Derek Goettel
Derek is one very sweet potato. We went to High School together. He could (and still can) grow body hair at rate that puts all other men to shame!–Except on his head.

Derek Goon
Goon!!! Goon was a good buddy of mine in college and I still see him once in a very awesome blue moon. He has the coolest tattoo I've ever seen. And he can do all kinds of things with his hair. He's sort of like the Madonna of our bunch. He changes his hair and looks like a completely different person, but he's always given away by that sweet smile that he always has on. He's also really ballsy and just goes off and lives in other countries like it's no big deal - which always impresses me. He also just got married–see–more ballsyness.


Diane Necker-Cofer
Diane is my sister's sister-in-law, so, what does that make her to me? Well, nothing relation-wise, but she IS my friend and I'm very grateful that my sister has such a great sister-n-law living down the street. She's got a very kind, sweet and generous nature and is happy to help anyone and she's great to just talk to.


Diane Toroian Keaggy
Diane is a born reporter. Very inquisitive with a huge personality, plenty of drive, and a giant backpack full of conviction that she carries with her. If you're a stranger at a party, don't worry if Diane is there. You won't be a stranger for long. She'll have you laughing in no time. But, whatever you do, don't tell her you like Disney World.


Dineen Serpa
Another reason that facebook is cool. Dineen and I got to know each other by commenting on our mutual friends facebook posts. We chatted it up virtually for a few months so by the time I flew to Arizona for our mutual friends wedding, we were already pals who had just never met. It's great to go to a wedding with people you know even though you've never met.

Dineen is clever, outgoing and loves to climb things.

Facebook Friends: Debby - Denny

Debby Keim Herbert

Debby could have been a supermodel, but chose to use her giant brain instead. She was the girl in High School - and every school had one - who was wicked smart, effortlessly beautiful, genuinely nice to everyone, athletic, able to switch from utter goofball mode to student body president mode in 5 seconds flat. Not to mention cheerleader, mascot, homecoming queen, and general all around do-gooder. If only she didn't have such a great personality too. She's good people.

I got to spend some time with Debby at our 10-year reunion and she is exactly the same - other than the mild british accent she's picked up from living in London, which just makes her all the more charming!

Dede Hall Thies

Ah, Dede. The perfect mix of southern charm, northern eastern depth and midwestern inappropriateness. Her life appears to be quite different since the last time I saw her. She's added a husband, a couple of kids, and a near death experience/miracle to her list of accomplishments, but she's still got that same beaming smile and a glow that even shows up in pictures.

Deep Dutta

I met Deep at a few years ago, and, you know how sometimes you meet someone so amazing that you just know it's going to change your life forever? Well, it wasn't like that, but it was still pretty cool. We had a pleasant and instant camaraderie. I love when I don't have to work for it.

Odds are I'll never see Deep or his beautiful wife again, but I'll think fondly of him forever!

Dena Pullen Powers

Dena is my beautiful, sunny, radiantly warm cousin who I haven't seen in 15 years. It's circumstances like this that make me so thankful for social media! I think a family reunion is in order, Dena!

Dennis Smith

Co-worker and friend. Give Denny a pile of scrap wood, some heavy duty styrofoam and some cheap paint and an hour later he'll give birth to a masterpiece. He is 8 parts laid-back, happy-go-lucky, Grateful Dead-loving artist and 2 parts angry revolutionary. He can also illustrate anything and he looks great in a newsboy cap. If you've been to an art/craft show anywhere in St. Louis in the last 10 years, then you've seen Denny's stuff. It's AWESOME and it usually serves some sort of purpose other than just hanging there. See it some more on his website! Click This.

The Friends - A Defenition.

Since I use this phrase so often, I felt it needed it's very own post.
"The Friends" is the term Amy B and I use when referring to the large group of about 20 of our High School friends, their spouses (usually also classmates), their parents, and the few random stragglers that have been picked up a long the way. They're all thick as thieves. It's sort of a bizarre and wonderful phenomenon that I haven't seen anywhere else. On most weekends you can find The Friends in a giant herd hanging out in someone's garage, patio, pool or the bowling alley. Once a year they all trek to a giant cabin in the Smokey Mountains. They are a super lot of people and I'm lucky to pop in a few times a year from my side of the river to open arms and juicy gossip.

Facebook Friends: Dawn - Debbie

Dawn Stine

The only real-life rodeo cowgirl I've ever met who is also fluent in sign language. Really, the only real-life cowgirl I've ever met period. She lights up any room she walks into.

Deanna Hemmersmeyer

Deanna is gorgeous and REALLY quiet. I love quiet people for two reasons. Number one: When they talk, it's usually worth listening to. And Number two: Every time they give you a bit of personal information, it feels like you've earned it.

Debbie Arnold Gregory

Some people are more fun to draw than others. Debbie's more fun. Big eyes, long lashes, a great nose and a mouth with such great character. When people have really great features you can just relax and have fun. I bet if Talous Lautrec were alive today he'd beg her to be his reluctant model.

Debbie Mackintosh

I haven't seen Debbie since I was about 7 years old. Her and my mom were best friends when they were kids and stayed that way until Debbie and her family moved to NYC to build a church and produce musicals (at least that's what my 7-year-old memory tells me she was doing.) You know, no big deal. I remember Debbie being very kind and radiantly warm and nothing I've seen or heard since leads me to believe she's changed.

Debbie Steudeman Stieferman

Debbie is great and she has the two hardest-to-spell last names of anyone I know. She is also one of those people who made my life what it is today. She gave me my job at the science center nearly seven years ago, even though, looking back, I was pretty terrible. We spent most of the interview talking about cats and crafting, so I guess she thought I was at least qualified enough to be entertaining–lack of talent be damned. She's a tiny ball of concentrated individuality. Her hair was always sticking up and her sweaters were sprinkled with whatever she had for lunch and it was totally and completely charming. These days she is the owner/operator of Gooey Louie. THE BEST gooey butter cake in St. Louis. Food Network even came to visit them!!! Debbie gives hope to creative scatter-brained types like myself. Someday we CAN get our acts together achieve something!!! Thanks for everything Debbie!!!

Facebook Friends: Dan - Dawn

Dan Posey

What do you call your brother-n-law's nephew? I call mine Dan and I only see him once or twice a year. Just like the rest of my family! He's an awfully sweet and multi-talented guy with fancy hair that always looks different. He should walk around with a frame on his head, because that coiffure is art.

Dan Zettwoch
I'm not going to be overly-flattering here because I know he hates it. Here goes. Dan is what happens when two incredible people get together and make other incredible people. Not only is he pretty much the most talented artist on the face of the earth, but he's also an asset to any trivia team. He knows everything about almost everything (except practical things like how to use a Q-tip or how to cut pizza) From sports to US presidents to geography to Gilmore Girls. His brain doesn't work like the rest of ours. When he learns something new it stays there. FOREVER. Like Rain Man.

Some of Dan's other talents include, but are not limited to: playing sports, being patient, balancing the fine art of being humble and knowing you're awesome at the same time, teaching people what he knows, growing a beard, running in a circle and punching the air at hard-core punk shows, being nice to everyone, being thoughtful, making anything, being liked and respected, wearing hats, and sweating–and all this is me NOT being flattering.

Dan is going to be more successful and famous than the rest of us, so you should probably go and check out his stuff here so you can say you've been following him since way before he got famous and sold out.

David Cashman

I'm sure you all had a David Cashman in your High School. The guy that was friends with everyone, involved in everything and so kind and generous that it really raised the bar on what being a "good person" equates to. Dave is the kind of guy I wish would run for politics. He should really consider running for mayor...mayor of planet Earth.

Dave Oliver

A quarter of my high school social life was spent in the basement of Dave's parents house...sitting at their 70's style bar...waiting to drive my drunk friends home...because I couldn't drink...because my mom insisted on smelling my breath when I got home. I don't know where Dave's parents were all this time (I'm pretty sure they were sleeping), but I'll bet they never threatened to smell his breath. (I'm actually thankful for that tight leash now, Mom!) Dave has been a very nice and hospitable guy ever since. I guess he has his sleeping parents to thank for that!

Dawn Mais
I have a pretty good smile. Having braces three times will do that. But, Dawns smile makes my smile look like an eighty-year-old mid-evil British peasant who eats dirt for breakfast.

Dawn and I were illustration majors together. I don't see any art anywhere on her facebook, but there's plenty of pictures of pets, planes, and exotic places. Certainly more than I'll ever have.

Facebook Friends: Dan - Daniel

Dan Glynn
Dan Glynn is my unofficial bright-blonde cousin who makes a chili that I try to beat out every year at his annual chili cook-off. One of these days, Dan!!!! He's also one of the nicest guys you'd want to adopt as a relative.


Danielle Stewart
When I say things like " I love the people I work with!," Danielle is included in that lot. She has a big brain in which she stores everything that's going on anywhere and everywhere in the Science Center. She knows EVERYONE and she is so supportive. I can always count on her to know someone's name when I don't, to remind me to do something that she asked me to do five minutes earlier that I've already forgotten about, and to tell me what book to read next. She's a very important cog in the gears that make that place function and she is forbidden to ever leave us.

Danielle Thompson Sowers
Oh, how I loved Danielle when we were cheerleaders together! (For that one semester) We got along so easily. She's a sunny and positive person who couldn't make an enemy if she tried. I can't be sure, but once when I was facebook investigating her I gathered that she now does something with fashion, although, I can't find evidence of it now. Danielle, you should probably take me on as a charity case. And PS - you live right near me!


Daniel Lough
I went to college with Dan. We were both art majors. He took me to my first formal Fraternity puke-fest. I once went to his parents house and ate half a jar of olives stuffed with blue cheese and made myself sick. About an hour after that I ran my car into an icy ditch and he had to come rescue me. We once had an art show along with Katie O'Malley and while his talent astounds me, his pornographic subject matter seemed somewhat inappropriate for a small town winery. What can I say? I'm a prude.

Daniel Price
I never went to summer camp, but I have gone to the same resort on the same island for one week every summer since I was 3. Danny has the same exact tradition. For one week a year we're family. Our parents are besties. Most of my fondest memories of Danny involve him cheating at cards, stuffing me in a dryer or pushing me into a pool - and not just when we were kids. I didn't have an older brother to pick on me, and he filled that void. Danny has a dead-pan sense of humor that I wish I could get away with and a laugh you can't help catching. Some of his favorite pastimes, as far as I can tell, are throwing children, eating, and getting a good sunburn.

Facebook Friends: Coryn - Dana

Coryn York

Cory is a beautiful girl with perfect eyebrows that I feel was born in the wrong decade. She should have been a flower child. I picture her natural environment to be a muddy music festival that she arrived at via hitchhiking.

Courtney Holtmeyer

Courtney, no matter how many kids you have or how much older you get, you'll always be Tim Leake's sweet kid sister to me.

Craig Markus

This once skinny, funny and slightly awkward teenager must have gone off and cocooned hisself sometime after we graduated and come out a successful man-sized husband and father of three beautiful children–once again reminding me how truly far behind I am in the game of life. Thanks a lot, Craig!

Dana Harris Schultz

If I was a teenage boy, I would hope and pray that a girl like Dana would move in next door. Grace Kellyesque beauty, brains, and a sense of humor that keeps you on your toes with just enough weirdoness to be unintimidating. Way to be, Dana. Way to be!

Dana Johnson Cuneo

This gorgeous girl is always so well put together that she makes me feel homely when I show up to parties in my only pair of jeans (that fit) and my shirt-of-the-week. I'm always happy to see Dana. She's got such a sisterly quality, and not just because she is one.