Taylor Anderson

Her name has been in the news in the past 24 hours and I can't help but think about the "15 minutes of fame" phrase. The name Taylor Anderson wasn't newsworthy last week, last month, last year. She wasn't the headline story on Yahoo, she wasn't the subject of a CNN piece by Anderson Cooper. And the only real reason these people and news outlets are interested in her is that she is the first American discovered to have been killed by the Japanese disaster.

But I knew her name before then. I called her Tanderson, because that was her email address at school. She and her roommate Kim lived down the hall from me my senior year of college. Tim and Kaylor were very fun hallmates. Theirs was the only room on the hall to have TiVo, and I used to go play with the remote to hear the funny sounds. They weren't best pleased when I did that, since it usually resulted in some strange menu that they had a hard time getting out of.

Tanderson had tiny feet. She was a tiny person, but her feet were almost comically small. She could fit into children's shoes. I used to dare her to buy the gaudiest children's shoes at Target. The kind that lit up or had Dora the Explorer printed on them.

I once found a computer program created by some university that allowed you to input a picture of yourself and then the program would alter the image to make you look like an ape, a baby, a man, different nationalities, artist's renderings, etc. Taylor's favorites of herself were as a caucasian man and an asian man. We would run down the hall back and forth between each others rooms to compare and giggle at the images.

She started a book club. She was the president, I was the "secretary" though it was really only a title, since I did precious little work on the club. Tanderson picked the books. She organized the meetings. She brought snacks (usually heisted from the dining hall). I remember that we read "a confederacy of dunces" and none of us really liked it.

She loved the show "Daria" on MTV, and actually had a stash of old Daria episodes saved on her computer. One halloween she made herself up to look like Daria, and her short stature and frizzy hair really worked as the character.

We went to a celtic festival together, specifically to see a band that she had discovered. She had never heard the band play, but the name had so intrigued her that off we went. "Poisoned Dwarf" was a pretty good band, but the greatest part was the drunk who decided to dance in the aisle. We named him the poisoned dwarf and giggled at his antics long after the concert was over.

We both worked for the school's tutoring center, and though we never worked at the same time, staff meetings were that much more fun when there was a buddy nearby.

There was one day that I particularly remember. I was badly hungover and Tanderson came to hang out in my room. I had just gotten a set of Astaire and Rogers movies for christmas, along with some crosstitch patterns. She was a knitter. We watched movie after movie, stitching away at our different products. Not a really exciting memory, but cozy and comfortable.

Tim and Kaylor's dorm room window looked out onto the same street on which stood many sorority and fraternity houses. Somehow either Tim or Kaylor had gotten hold of a laser pointer, and as the sun went down we turned off the lights in thier room, crouched behind a bed and shone the laser through windows, on tvs, on people's bodies. The people would look around for the source and we three would colapse in giggles until regaining control of ourselves, looked for the next victim.

Tanderson was adamant that her name could somehow be inserted into any song, as long as it was in English. My ultimate (or so I thought) test was "Baba O'Reily" by "the Who", but of course, thats an easy one. "teenage Taylor! It's only teenage Taylor!".

We went to see a David Sedaris reading together. My first ever. We waited for close to 4 hours in line to get his autograph, me in very painful shoes. Before the show however, we had to pick her younger brother up from school, which meant that I would see her house. For whatever reason, Taylor was embarrassed by her family's affluence, and actually told me that she had to know someone really well before she would let them see her house. I suppose that was her version of the classic spit-in-your-hand-and-shake. But way less gross. Her house was pretty standard except for the coolest thing I have EVER seen in a home. Between her father's study and the library there was a revolving bookcase. It was sooooo cool! I spent a good ten minutes playing with it until Tanderson teased me for being such a nerd and telling me that we had to go if we were going to make it to the show.

The first night we met we were driving to meet a mutual friend's boyfriend. We passed a billboard for the lottery and spent the rest of the drive comparing what we would do with the jackpot and making up wild ideas about inventing a fraternity and something about cheesy puffs. On the way home from that trip we had to take a toll road and neither of us had any change to pay the toll. No attendent in the booth. It was very late and no traffic was coming, but I doubt it would have mattered. We both scoured the car for loose change and when a quarter was discovered under a seat we cheered and howled with laughter.

Such stories may not mean much to others, but they are and were very personal and very indicitive of Tanderson's personality. She loved Japan. She very much wanted to teach. When she got into the JET program, she was so excited. She had travelled to Japan before and was eager to go back. To live and work in a place that she admired. She taught Kindergarten and dressed as the mad hatter for halloween.

The piece of news that I knew was true even before it was confirmed was that she waited at her school after the earthquake to make sure her students were safely deposited into their parent's arms. She was going to make sure that her little ones were safe before she thought of her own safety. That day she had forgotten her cell phone in her apartment, and I'm sure that that was the only reason she left the school. She wanted to get home to her apartment, to her cell phone, to call her family to let them know she was safe. She had ridden her bike to work, and so that was her only means to get home. She never got there. I haven't heard yet how she died, though it's not hard to guess. I don't think I want to know.

Taylor Anderson was a funny, loud, bubbly person. That seems to be said of all who tragically die, but it is so true. We shared jokes, we argued, we ate together, we lived in the same hall. She was a good person. She was my friend.