#i almost went to college in burlington. which me and all my friends got

[girls-are-very-pretty]

okay so I’m kind of looking for advice and kinda venting, if you’ve got advice I welcome it, if you just wanna look at this then keep scrolling then thats also valid.

So, this week sucked pretty seriously, my brother found out where one of his teachers lives and left him cookies on his car which I think is the craziest, “its expected that you don’t leave cookies on the car of a dude you just met just because you saw where they live” but everyone thinks im overreacting and its making me feel like im crazy, and its like week 9 of school and I’m super tired and exhausted (I’m trying to keep up my 90′s grades in college classes and it’s harder than I thought it would be), and like just existing has been giving me migraines the last few days and my fam is like overall a nightmare, so the house is suffocating and I really just need to get out of the house before i have a breakdown, but as we’ve established I live in the middle of nowhere so if I wanna spend the day out of the house I gotta go somewhere, I had planned on going to burlington, spending a few hours in barnes and noble, getting like four boba and sticking them in the fridge at home to drink over the next couple of days, picking up a tsumtsum mystery pack because they’re always fun and I like collecting them, like overall just kinda vibing not at home. And I told my mom I needed to get out of the house and she was like “you’re almost 18, thats okay” and I was like “yuusss” until she said “except you can’t go to burlington” because shes worried about covid cases, so I thought montpillier but they have none of the things I was planning on doing to destress and so part of me is like “just go to burlington and say you went to montpillier” or “say you spent the day with your best friend and sneak all your shit into the house without telling her where you went” or “go to montpillier, and then go to burlington so at least you won’t be lying when you say you went to montpillier and its a biggish city so you could probably explain how you got all the stuff, provided she doesn’t google and learn there is no barnes and noble in montpillier” but like lying makes me feel bad, however staying in this house feels like I can’t breath and I’m on the verge of tears half the day so its like...I don’t know what to do, I had it all planned out and it was gonna be great but now im stressed again and I’m just so tired. If you have advice I appreciate it, but also just typing that out made me feel a little better, didn’t solve any problems but it let me process a lil so idk

[tofascinate]

twenty-twenty reflection

The year is 2020. I distinguish this year from the others. And there will be more. There might be many! I want to remember, if ever asked upon myself, that my year of 2020 was distinct from the mash of living. From the accordion of living, perhaps. From the “bellows” of my accordion life, here is my layer of 2020:

January

began with a visit from Kellan, the preparation for a long-anticipated trip to Hong Kong with Rohit. I was living at Momma’s. I had been working for her since I graduated in 2019, while I applied for job positions in cities and graduate programs in Europe and the West Coast.

In January I spent almost 2 weeks in Hong Kong with Rohit and his family. This was a life-changing trip. This was amazing. I felt so taken care of, and each day filled with exploration. And snacks. For the first time, Rohit helped me with Cantonese – every single time I asked, which was a lot, considering my personal goal was to learn as much casual Cantonese as I could while there. I recorded all my new vocabulary and phrases in a list on the plane ride back. Here I met Rohit’s family in their home element, spent an afternoon with Rohit’s mom, accompanied Rohit to friend meetups, and experienced a Chinese New Year family celebration (!!). I hiked the most exhausting and thrilling mountain of my life, called Lantau Peak (the second highest peak in Hong Kong). I felt some of my biases melt on this trip, and some of my interests open up and blossom.

I left Hong Kong as the coronavirus became an issue in the Eastern Asian world. I spent a night in Tokyo, not with Rohit, but with my nourishing airport snacks and exhausted schedule until my flight left the next day for the U.S.

February

In February life moved quickly. I applied to all 4 master’s programs, I had a second interview for a serendipitous job position in Philadelphia (the only job among many that wanted an interview!), I helped Rohit find an apartment in Norwalk, I left Rohit at his apartment in Norwalk, I accepted the job in Philadelphia, I found a place to live in Philadelphia (more magic was to come of that 2-weeks-before-moving FB find), and I moved to Philadelphia!!!

March

My momma helped me move here. To the city I’d never before been to, but in which I was about to find the happiest home. The first 2 weeks of this month were extremely memorable. I worked in the Comcast Technology Center building (a wow) as a LaunchCode teaching assistant for a 12-student, 14-week intro to computer programming and web development intensive course. I took every opportunity to explore the building, the surrounding city. The first week of connection with students was special. The idea of working the rest of the course remotely was ridiculously unlikely.

On March 14th, the pandemic was real. On March 13th, my co-teacher took home the classroom’s bottle of Purell.

My second roommate, Channing, and her kitty Tycho moved in. Deeksha, Channing, Tycho, and I would become a mini family.

We were in quarantine times, but I hadn’t had so much social interaction, peer interaction, freedom, intellectual stimulation, and work to do since the end of college 2019. It was a blessing to be where I was.

April

I will use April to say that I loved this job. It was a pinch-myself moment all the way through. I still sometimes can’t believe that I rose to the responsibilities, leadership, and organization required of me. Maybe it’s like that with new jobs that push you outside of your comfort zone and give you so much room to grow. LaunchCode was an extremely supportive and inspiring company to work for. The community of students (Comcast workers transitioning into future software engineering roles) were admirable and kind in how hard they worked, and how they helped each other.

I realized at this time that I was experiencing the dream I had put intention towards. It’s not always obvious realizing this. In fact, at first I thought I was accepting the job because it was the next best and only option. On the outside I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me once immersed in it. When things all came together, I realized here I was, in the freedom of living independently from my home nest, in a friendly family of roommates, in a new city to explore, with a working position that supported me financially, allowed me to save for grad school, that opened me up to the computer science industry world, that used my strengths and pushed me to grow, that used my creativity, and that felt like I was being paid to learn.

I am sooooo grateful for serving in this role. It served me tremendously.

Also to be noted, Philadelphia spring. And Tycho the kitty made me love cats more than I thought I could love cats (who are now sometimes allowed to sleep under my blankets too).

May

At some point here, Deeksha, Channing, and I got to be really creative and goofy together. This plus sharing food and Deeksha eating my desserts ♡ ♡ = start of roomie love. Channing’s surprise birthday scavenger hunt.

At some point, I got accepted and not accepted into master’s programs!

And how did it happen that my random roommate’s husband was living and working in Germany following his CS master’s program there? Or that my roommate-friend would eventually move there too?

June

Work program extended by a week = another week of pay = I justify more so staying in Philadelphia longer… and longer… Staying also meant more time in the magical family and incredible bit of life I knew would end eventually. Staying meant not putting my parents at risk, or having to stay inside to keep them from risk.

In June I saw 6 helicopters flying above the city from my rooftop. I filmed them one night and was captured fleetingly in their search light. I stayed home for 6 and 8 pm curfews. I read ideas and information, and observed the panicked passion of my social media a little hesitantly. I spoke with my family. I read more until I felt settled and inspired with the movement of change. I walked around the city. I saw society a little differently; I saw reasons to question how I saw almost everything. 

The Monday after the big weekend, my coworkers asked me and us all how we were doing, if there were protests in our neighborhoods. It was the first time I saw my coworkers as Black. I didn’t know if I was saying the right thing. 

My co-teacher told me I was “lucky” I’d be moving out of the country. I told him I still wanted my home country to be a welcoming place for all. He was not so confident.

And! Rohit visited for a week :). I had fun and we both couldn’t wait to go back to having individual spaces to be ourselves.

July

At one point, with my job ended and Channing in North Carolina for most of the month, I was met with the pressure of everything I could do in the calm before the storm of change, and everything I wasn’t doing. A little rough. Oh to be leaving a place that has already been leaving you.

August

I moved in with Rohit in Norwalk! Took all my Philadelphia belongings in a car with not-friends Deeksha and Channing, and drove (Channing drove) to Norwalk. I was so grateful to them for that trip. We got a glimpse of the no-parking beaches. Specifically, we parked for 15 minutes in the “15 Minute Parking ONLY” spot by the beach at cotton candy sunset while Deeksha and I ran to the warm water and the two of us dove in like happy water pups and not 23- to 30-year-olds. Next day was a rockier beach and I’m still wishing Channing her next sunny beach day. This month was fun and without-a-car adventurous, though the airbnb-turned-rented-apartment that was actually’s Rohit’s didn’t quite feel like my settling in home. My daily purpose was working for my mom again and preparing for my master’s program.

I loved running so much with Rohit.

I did not love figuring out how to acquire a car to stay in Rochester for a month. Haha (thinking about tears). But we did it! And then we packed too many of my things into the car with Rohit’s things and drove 6 hours to Rochester, NY. 

September

I think we each ran longer distances than we had run before along the river trail in Rochester. We were a little outdoorsy. We had an ample supply of local Chinese bakery goods (that reminded me of Hong Kong bakery items). There was sun, but not in the apartment. By the way, this apartment was a miraculous coincidence from one of Rohit’s (very tidy and kind) friends who hadn’t been living there for months but would have to move out at the end of October. So we could pay him rent!

Also surprise to AriaRay’s patience, calm, and going with the flow acceptance: as a bonus level to the desperately declared plan of packing ahead of time to avoid the overwhelming stress of the previous move, Rohit and I learned we would also be cleaning and clearing out our friend’s apartment first! 

In the end, I had to accept that it was Rohit’s leading responsibility. Whatever we could do would make the experience easier for our absent friend. We moved out and found donation homes for almost everything. We did it! 5 pm and out the door to Burlington! (Extra exclamation points for whirlwind desperation and relief.)

October

I spent my last day with Rohit in Burlington. Burlington was love. And glorious fall.

I packed for Germany, I found a place to live in Germany, I boarded a plane to Germany. I got on the plane to Germany and went to sleep in Germany and thought, “Haha, isn’t it funny that I’m in Germany? Who thought of Germany?”

A new country and a new day to day life! I was grateful to be finally there and in awe that I had gotten to this point. My childhood self said, “when I’m 23, I’ll be in Europe.” Well, here I am.

We’re still in a pandemic. Meaning my classes are online and my traveling is cautiously limited to grocery store treks and to walks or bus rides around the city.

I have 3 very nice (and extraordinarily clean??) roommates from Ukraine, Russia, Iraq. All studying. One speaks better German than English, which is sometimes amusing as I really do want to have a conversation with her anyway.

Birthday, Halloween. But sometimes I forget and think my last birthday was in 2019. Blurry.

November

Hmmm studying. It still feels unprocessed to reflect on this. My master’s program can be considered a computational linguistics degree, formally called “Language Science and Technology M.Sc.” because to be more specific, this degree covers broader areas of computer science for language, and linguistics for computer science, than only computational linguistics. 

I do love the subject. It is by far a synthesis of my linguistics and cs interests. I’m learning a little more than what my focus for here initially has been. Is this a good thing? Maybe a nice cushion of knowledge and perspective. Still looking for how to study and process spoken language, how to relate this to second language acquisition. 

I think I get it. My core lectures right now are foundations for this field. I will leap from them into my specific field of interest. My software project is a learning ground for tools and seeds for future ideas, practice with coding group projects again. My seminars are for thinking, reading, discussing, weaving ideas, hearing from others seasoned in the topics and those of my peers investing their newfound or nurtured interests. Three more semesters.

Where will I be next?

I think I should mention one Thanksgiving meal that we cooked for, and shared with the additional guests of Olha’s partner Gaston and his roommate...with a name I can’t place now...from Morocco. This was a widely, uniquely fun night.

December

Hello cozy holidays, the first, by myself. My roommates and I decorated a tree from our local grocery store. I made cookies and cards, sent 14 gold letters. I spent hours decorating and felt creatively festive. ‘Tis the season :). Hoping everyone can feel the love I’m sending. 

Surprises came after small gifts appeared from each roommate to each other. Olha made us all Christmas gift bags of gingerbread cookies. I strung a decorated card on the tree for each roommate and shared cookies and oranges. Uliana wrapped Russian tea and a scented candle in parchment paper, leftover gold glittered tree ribbon, and a holiday clothespin. She wrote “Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!” in each of our languages: Russian (well, not Ukrainian), English, German. Zhenas gave us each a gift bag of treats. So, there has been magic in my apartment this season.

Happy New Year, and thank you 2020, for all the joy, discoveries, and change you have brought me. Here’s to love in 2021.

♡ 

[raysofcrosby]

HOMETOWN

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦, 𝘪𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘳𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺."  – 𝙉𝙞𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙖𝙨 𝙎𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙠𝙨, 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙉𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠

𝘨𝘪𝘧 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵 (𝘹)

𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥: yes | no

𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨(𝘴): tbh nothing big, just some bad words here and there.

𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵: 4,604

𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺: give me back my hometown by eric church

𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦: tbh i’ve been in a huge writing funk lately the kind where i wanna write but can’t get myself to, so i found one of my old writings from like 5 years ago and figured why not edit and update it and tbh this is what became of it. there’s a part two that’s half written, so if it’s wanted i can totally finish it. otherwise, sorry if my writing is horrendous :-) 

Some dead guy once said ‘You can’t go home again’ but the dude was full of complete shit. You can, but a lot of the smart people who don’t, decide not to because of the many lists of reasons they hold.

Josh Anderson considered himself to be one of those people. After he graduated secondary school and went off into the OHL, he swore up and down that he would never return to his self-deemed, small hometown. And the moment he made it into the NHL two years later, he kept that promise. Though when his parents asked to see him, he couldn't turn them down. It's the least he could do for all that they had done for him throughout his life. Without them and their sacrifices, he knows that he wouldn't be living his childhood dream. So he'd go to visit them, but not too often it seemed.

He wanted to embrace the life the NHL could give him. Explore the ever-winding paths out in front of him and mingle amongst the interesting people along the way. Wander down those paths for so long, that Burlington would look like nothing more than a speck in his back windshield. Yet, there he was driving down the same never-ending road leading to the old hangout he and a few of his buddies had declared as theirs during the middle of grade 9. If it were up to him though, he wouldn't be driving down this potholed road and he sure wouldn't as hell be back here in Burlington.

It's not like he's here voluntarily. It seemed as if his phone wasn't capable of being silent as the calls from his childhood buddies came in all at once. Each rambling on and on about the same fancy invitation with their class crest and school colors splashed over the front, informing then that it's been 10 years since their graduation and that it was time to "re-kindle those lost valuable friendships with some of your fellow peers and have a grand ole time at the class of 2012's class reunion." No shit, those are the exact cheesy words written by the old class president who had the unflattering privilege of being called 'Kiss-ass McGhee.'

He had NO intentions of attending this class reunion with a bunch of people he grew up with his entire life and came to hate about 60% of them throughout his years of primary and secondary school, but his best friends sure were some persuasive assholes. Secondary school wasn't really the best time of his life. Besides having an intense focus on hockey, all the underlying partying and stupid shit he did on the sidelines from grades 9 through 11, there were a few speculations whether or not he'd graduate, let alone make a name for himself. But with the help of some pretty good people, his partying cutback, his hockey stats severely improved along with his grades and he ended up graduating at the top of his class. That doesn't matter though– it hasn't mattered in 10 years. All that matters is that he doesn't find being in a room with a bunch of people in 10 years, with a good majority of them probably deciding to stay in this misery of a place while he made a new life and a name for himself across country lines and in a state nearly 400 miles away...a "grand ole time".

Sorry Kiss-Ass McGhee, but he's having no part of it

He parked his new range rover up into a parking spot right in front of the diner and got out. The warm rays from the sun hitting his face only made him want to jump right back into the AC and drive away. It was really only a 6-hour car ride back to Columbus and while 12 hours in a day wasn't exactly appealing...it was a whole lot better than what his night seemed to have planned ahead of him. Instead, he closed the door and locked it behind him, walking to the door of the diner and inside. It smelled and looked exactly as he had remembered it did back when he was here for the last time, exactly 10 years ago the night before he turned his back on this town and never looked back.

"Ho-ly Shit, well would you look at that boys. He did show up." Josh turned towards a corner booth and smiled, seeing the aged faces of his best friends. "You owe me 30 bucks, Nick." His best friend and the guy he practically considered to be his brother, Dillon said, walking over to him with open arms.

"Hey, Dillhole," he laughed, wrapping his arms tight around him.

"It's good to see you, Josh." He pulled away and motioned over towards the booth they had reserved.

He slid in on one side and Dillon slid in on the opposite side. It was crazy, seeing all five of them together again; Nick, Dillon, Archer, Colt and himself. They were the boys that caused the entire ruckus in this town, both on and off the ice. And while they weren't all the hometown heroes, they were pretty much the light of the town. "This is fucking crazy," Josh said, shaking his head.

"Watch that mouth young man," a familiar voice nagged.

He snapped his head up and instantly smiled. "Mrs. O'Donnell!" He got up and hugged her, only to pull away and place his hands on her shoulders. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm just fine," She smiled, letting out a sigh as he sat back down in the booth, and she began collecting the menus off of the table. "It's just been a long time since I've seen you boys all together in this booth. I was starting to think I was going a little crazy there. Is it the usual five double cheeseburgers and two baskets of chili fries with five chocolate malt shakes?"

"Mrs. O'Donnell, how do you remember that after all these years?" Archer laughed, his eyes wide in shock.

"You boys have been ordering the same thing since you were 7-years-old," She just sighed and added a light chuckle. "Plus, it's pretty noticeable when I no longer have to order ahead 3-times the number of patties every shipment. I'll be back soon boys."

"Does Mr. O'Donnell still work the grill? He made the best burgers," Colt said, folding his napkin repeatedly.

"I believe so," Archer replied, his eyes squinting as he looked towards the back of the diner. "I think their oldest is taking over the business soon, though. Mr. and the Mrs. want to travel around the country in that old RV they got."

Archer was the only one out of the five of them who stayed behind in Burlington. Dillon had moved somewhere over in Vancouver, Nick over in Buffalo, New York, Colt down somewhere in Florida, and Josh was more than content in his quaint house he'd bought down in Columbus, a little over 15 minutes away from the Arena.

"So how have you guys been? How is everything?" Dillon asked, his eyes meeting everyone who was sitting at the booth.

They all kept in contact, sure, but they didn't talk all the time. There was a group chat of course, but the probability of them all being active in it at the same time was incredibly rare. It's been hard seeing as how busy they all got as they went their separate paths whether that be to the next level of hockey, college or even straight to a 9 to 5 job. They still made it work as best as they could, seeing as the last time they were all together was Colt's wedding in December.

"You guys remember that girl I met during that grad trip in grade 12?" Nick asked, as Mrs. O'Donnell came by and dropped off each of their milkshakes.

"The blonde one with the big–" Dillon looked over at Mrs. O'Donnell who was sending him her classic 'don't you dare say what you're going to say' looks. "Uh, personality?" He smiled as Mrs. O'Donnell turned away, but motioned at his chest as if he were cupping a pair of impressive sized, invisible boobs. Which soon followed by a smack in the back of the head with a napkin by Mrs. O'Donnell, sending the table of men into a fit of laughter.

"Yeah, Shelly!" Nick nodded, leaning back into his seat. "Well, a few years after that, I ran into her on campus and we started dating and well...I just proposed to her a few days ago."

"What?!" Josh smiled, taking a sip of his malt shake as he tried to hide his surprise. "That's awesome man, congratulations."

Nick smiled and accepted the pats on the shoulders and congratulations the rest of the guys had given him. "What about you guys? Any ladies in your lives?"

"I'm dating this girl who was in one of my classes back in college. We didn't know of each other, but we started dating at the academy and now we work at the same station but–" Archer looked around and leaned over the table. "You guys know how fast news spreads around here, so that's why I'm whispering. Her name is Julianne and I'm actually proposing to her next week."

Josh almost choked on the swig of malt shake that made it way down his throat as his eyes widened. That's three of five who were either married and or engaged, and there he was still incredibly single. Another round of congratulations went around the table and eyes landed on Dillon as they waited for a life update. Josh knew Dillon better than anybody, so he definitely knew that the slight twitch in his right eye meant he was hiding something.

"Let me guess," he snorted, taking another sip of his shake. "You're getting married too?" A deep read started to spread across his face as he looked into his malt shake. "DUDE!" Josh yelled, crumpling up a napkin and firing it at Dillon's head.

"It just happened two days ago man," Dillon said, holding his hands up in defense. "I'm still letting it all sink in.”

“Who?”

Josh had to admit he was curious himself. While they didn’t talk every second of every day, he thought that he’d at least be up to date in huge events such as engagements, in Dillon’s life. “Yeah Dillhole, who?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and smiled. “Uh…Amy Hough.”

For the second time that day, the group of men erupted into a bunch of hollers that sounded like a pack of wild dogs. They couldn't help it though for one reason, and one reason only. Amy Hough had been Dillon's girlfriend since well...forever. From grade 1 all the way to grade 12, it was as if those two were made for each other. Everyone thought they were going to follow each other to college, get married after graduation and become that cliché couple you see on lifetime romance movies. But they called it quits the day before the big grade 12 grad trip and went their separate ways.

“Guys! Guys shut up!” He laughed, begging the group to quiet down as the red from his face began to travel down his neck. As soon as they did, he smiled again. “After we got the invitations to the reunion she uh, called me and asked if we could get together the next time I was in town, which happened to be that weekend and…we just kind of picked back up where we started.”

“We got those invitations eight months ago and you’re just now telling us, bro?” Archer asked, throwing his napkin at him.

“Sorry sorry!” He said as he did his best to dodge the napkins. “What about Josh?!”

Everyone turned their eyes to Josh. “Yeah Josh, what about you? You got a lady in your life?” Colt asked.

“Yeah, as much as a big shot you are down in Columbus, you’ve got to have at least a few ladies lusting after you,” Nick laughed, wiggling his eyebrows. “Maybe multiple at a time, eh?”

Josh could feel the heat begin to rise in his cheeks and he silently prayed for it to go away. Sure, he had women lusting after him, as Nick had put it. Tons, in fact. But that came with the territory of being a professional athlete. He could barely enjoy the clubs with his teammates without the women around him doing whatever they could to catch his eye. Was it flattering? Sure. Did he cave into it? Of course, he did, especially when he was in his earlier to mid-twenties. He was a guy, after all. But lately, the hookups seemed to slow down, even if the selection of women at his beck and call only seemed to rise. Sleeping around or even having a regular hook-up in whatever city they’d be playing in just didn’t seem appealing anymore.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and shook his head. “Actually no, I don’t. I haven’t really thought about dating, to be honest.” He pursed his lips and brought his straw to his mouth as he met their shocked gazes.

“What?” Archer asked.

“You’re shitting us right?” Colt added, looking just as surprised as the rest of them. “I mean, not even the occasional club hookup? Nothing?”

Josh just shrugged his shoulders and swallowed his sip of shake. “Just busy I guess. Haven’t really thought of dating much…doesn’t really feel right.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Dillon seemingly glaring at him as he struck the thinker pose. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Oh nothing, I’m fine. It’s just that I think the lack of hookups and the reason that you’re not dating anyone right now is that deep down you’re still stuck up on Y/N.”

Josh could feel the heat start to rise again and this time, he couldn’t hold it back. But he did his damnedest to withhold any sign of emotion from them as best as he could. Hearing your name spoken by anyone but his inner voice for the first time in nine years hurt more than he could describe.  “What? Pft, no I’m not.”

“She’s here in town you know…” Archer said, looking at him. “Just saw her leaving her parents place the other day.”

You and Archer were neighbors, but not until grade 6. Up until then, Josh had the utmost privilege of being your neighbor and best friend. Then the whole moving and  ‘who you hang out with could affect you for the rest of your life’ junior high bullshit happened and he didn’t see you again until grade 9. Josh still hated himself for the way he ignored you all those years based on the fact that you weren’t really the most popular girl in junior high and he knew that he was an ass for it.

End of story.

“O-Oh….she is?” Josh asked, looking away from his friends.

“Which means she’s going to be at the reunion tonight…” Dillon added, looking at him. “Are you going to say hi?”

The last moment that Josh had with you started playing in front of him like a black and white movie that was moving way too fast for him to really capture the details. He had spent the last 10 years pushing back everything that he knew about you in the back of his mind. He didn’t want it coming back, ever. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

Fuck, he knew that was a lie. He should have just kept his mouth shut.

“I bet you $15 you chicken out and run away like a little girl.” Dillon smiled, leaning over and extending his hand towards him.

Josh looked Dillon in the eyes and knew that Dillon was reading him like a God damn book right now. He knew exactly how Josh felt towards you, and yet Josh couldn’t bring himself to say no. He shook his hand and held his stare. “Deal.”

“Here you are, boys. Five double cheeseburgers and two chili fries. I’ll be back by later to check up on you.” Mrs. O’Donnell turned to walk away but turned back around. “And now that you’re grown men, I expect less of a mess from ya.”

They all laughed and focused back on their food as the conversations drifted from their love lives and more into sports and recent stuff on the news. But as Josh took that first bite into his burger, he looked to his left and stared at a familiar old, empty red single booth. Only back then, it wasn’t always empty. It always had someone sitting in it.

You and him.

“Alright fellas, I guess it’s about time we head out towards the good ole reunion,” Archer said as he grabbed the bill before any of them could reach it. He took out a bunch of bills and put them inside of the check, closing it.

“Can you believe Kiss-Ass McGhee wrote that? How fucking cheesy can you get?” Dillon laughed, scooting out of the booth.

The men said their goodbyes to Mr. and Mrs. O’Donnell and left the diner, standing around a bit before they stood by their separate cars. “Where’s this thing at again?” Josh asked, digging his car keys out of his jean pocket. “Please don’t say it’s in the gym.”

“Yeah, tell me McGhee didn’t go all ancient times and at least got us a sweet hotel,” Colt added.

“Sorry fellas, but it’s in the gym.” Archer laughed, opening his car door. “You guys still know the way to the school?”

“You mean the hell hole?” Dillon asked, getting into his car and leaning out the window. “Yeah, I think I’m familiar with the route.”

Josh shook his head and laughed as he watched his friends get into their cars. “Alright, meet you guys there!” Archer called out, starting his car and backing out of his parking spot before turning out of the lot and left to go further into town.

Josh got into his car and started it, watching his friends each leave the parking lot before him. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, feeling his grip on his steering wheel get a bit tighter as he sucked in another deep breath.

He can do this. It won’t be that bad, maybe you won’t even remember him. Maybe you wouldn’t even say hi, yeah, yeah that sounds plausible. He’s totally got this.

He let out the breath he was holding and opened his eyes, putting his car into reverse and backing out of his spot before turning left onto the road and followed it into town. Tonight was going to be a total shit show and no matter how many motivational talks he gave himself, there was no way of preventing it. The closer he got to the high school, the more nauseous he became. It’s been 10 years since he’s seen you and the possibility of seeing you now drove him absolutely, fucking crazy. Tons and thousands of possibilities and worst-case scenarios filled his brain.

Would you recognize him? Would he recognize you? Would things be the same when you see each other? Will all of those memories that he spent 10 years pushing away come back up and replay the entire night? Would his feelings come back? Would yours?

A sudden knock on his window brought him out of his thoughts. He looked to his left to see Dillon standing there. “Come on dude!” He wasn’t even aware that he had parked his car…or that he had even arrived at the high school.

He took another deep breath and turned off the ignition, unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car. “Sorry, I was just…thinking.”

“About Y/N?”

He nodded slowly. “I just–“ He locked his car and dug his hands into his pockets as far as they could go. “It’s been 10 years since I’ve seen or talked to her Dill. We haven’t kept in contact or even bothered to keep in contact. Plus, I’ve pretty sure that one we see each other, she’ll probably run in the opposite direction.”

Dillon shrugged his shoulders and looked at him. “You don’t know that bro. Maybe what happened to Amy and me, will happen to you and Y/N.”

“I highly doubt that Dill.” He replied, walking into the school gym with him and coming to a stop at a table with the rest of the boys, searching for their nametags and putting them on their shirts. “You must have forgotten just how badly things ended with us. I don’t think they’ll just pick right back up and she’ll act like none of it ever happened.”

“Hey, you never know Josh! It’s been 10 years and during those 10 years, both of you grew up and matured. You’re both 28 for God sakes. I’m sure you’re not going to let the way you handled things when you were 18, get in the way of how you deal with things at 28.” He walked into the gym, leading the way as Josh followed behind him. “Besides, maybe she wants to reconnect and maybe, just maybe you two will hit it off again.”

“Hey, you two.” A voice said, causing the two of them to turn around. The girl walked over to Dillon and kissed him before looking at Josh. “Josh Anderson, is that you?” She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “It’s been years! How have you been? How’s the NHL? Everything you ever dreamed of?”

“Everything and more,” Josh laughed, pulling away with a smile on his face. “It’s nice to see you too Amy and congratulations on the engagement! You better keep this boy in line.”

Amy looped her arm through Dillon’s and looked up at him. “Oh I will, you can count on that.” She looked at Josh and the expression on her face resembled that of shock as if she had just realized something and hadn’t told him. “Have you two talked to Y/N yet?”

“We just got here. She’s here already?” Dillon asked, looking around the crowd.

“Yeah! Here hold on, I’ll go get her!” She smiled, winking at Josh before turning away and disappearing into the crowd of classmates.

“Amy wait!” Josh called out, realizing that he was about five steps too late before she was out of his vision. He looked around to see if he could spot her anywhere, but he was shit out of luck.

Dillon put his hand on his shoulder. “Remember…$15.” Josh just groaned, earning an honest laugh from Dillon. “You’ve got this man, remember…anything can happen.”

As he looked up from his feet, Josh could see Amy begin to make her way back through the crowd, looking behind her. He turned quickly, facing Dillon with a look of panic on his face. “I can’t do this man. I shouldn’t have let you guys talk me into coming to this stupid thing. This was a huge mistake coming here.” He could feel his heart start to race and his palms get clammy.

The last time he had ever been this nervous was during playoff runs and game 7 of the year they won the Stanley Cup. Well, all of those times and the times he’d ever been around you. Nerves and adrenaline during hockey games were one thing, but the nerves he’d get around you were those same ones, escalated a million times over again. But it’s been so long since he had to deal with that level of nerves, so as far as he was concerned, he was so far out of his league.

One thing was for sure; he had to get the hell out of here.

“Josh man, come on don’t leave.”

“You’re leaving already?” A voice said, stopping Josh in his tracks, as well as making his heart skip a beat. He turned back around and as soon as his eyes met yours, his mouth went dry and it was as if every English word he’d ever learned– had disappeared and he couldn’t speak. After a few moments of a failed response, you tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear and smiled. “Hi, Josh.”

“H-Hey Y/N.”

[naomi-owens]

                                                            WILMINGTON TASK 002 ; QUESTIONNAIRE

ARE YOU A WILMINGTON NATIVE? IF NOT, WHERE DID YOU GROW UP? TELL US ABOUT YOUR CHILDHOOD.

The question had been one she was expecting, and one that immediately brought a faint smile to paint over her light pink lips. She was fiercely proud of her childhood; it was something she would never get tired of reminiscing — as her two parents always made sure the Owens’ children were well taken care of, and sculpted into proper human beings. “I am, yes. Born and raised over in Masonboro.” Naomi answered. “We actually have stuck around the same house since my oldest brothers were born. It’s sort of that modern, yet traditional Southern style farmhouse with daphne plants up the walkway and a really, really big backyard with a barbecue on the deck and a fire pit right smack in the middle of the yard. They struck lucky with getting the property for cheap. Fun fact, it was actually built on a apple orchard years and years back…” Naomi trailed off, swiping some loose curls from her eyes before chuckling to herself. “I can’t wait to get back into that house properly. Alex’s place is fancy and nice and all, but it isn’t the same.” Taking a moment to inhale a deep breath, lulling over the memory of her childhood home that her parents worked themselves to the bone to spruce up, Naomi sat up a bit straighter in her seat to continue. “I honestly can’t sit here and tell you how nice my childhood was because it was…incredible. It’s going to sound super unrealistic. My parents literally did everything for us and worked off their bare back. I didn’t fight with my siblings more than the usual annoying little sister who just wanted to hang out with her three older brothers. We were middle class, but my Mom and Dad worked so hard we hardly ever were aware if we might have been struggling. I went to school, got amazing grades and made amazing life long friends. My older twin brothers were star soccer players, Dominic was just lost in photography and art, and I went on to join the volleyball team, cheerleading squad, and the high school band league. We had family dinners every Thursday night, my parents made our friends feel like children of their own, we all attended church down in Forest Hills on Sunday…I don’t know, it sounds all too good to be true, but it was literally the perfect childhood. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP LIKE WITH YOUR FAMILY? DO YOU HAVE SIBLINGS? A LARGE EXTENDED FAMILY?

“They’re the worst. Seriously, I don’t know how I managed to deal with them for as long as I have…” Naomi faked the idea though was shaking her head, unable to take her own joke seriously. She loved her family far too much to ever carry on such a joke — the topic of her parents, her siblings, her aunts and uncles always brought a sudden warmth to her heart. She was cheesy in that sense, as nothing made Naomi more happy than the fact that she could honestly say she was tied with a beautiful, wholesome family with their own little whacky quirks. “Anyway, no, being serious… I’m close with everyone. It’s kind of insane how we managed with how we came to be. Quick history lesson! My Mama was actually born up near Burlington before she moved over to Wilmington in high school. My grandparents, Sofia and Ivan Burgos, were born in Burlington as well. My great grandparents on my grandma’s side, however, originated over in Ukraine before they picked a random place on the map in America, or one that was at least well established, and picked up and moved. They moved to the states when my grandmother was eighteen, and brought my grandfather with them. I actually never got to meet them, but from what I learned from my Ma, I got the sass from my great grandmother, Eva.” Naomi chuckled some more, twisting around the small cross that dangled around her neck once the topic moved to her father. “My Dad had lived here for generations. He’s the more Americanized side of my family, thus where I’ve gotten the true Southern trait, and the Owens last name. My father’s family has lived here since…God, I can’t even count. He used to tell me all these stories of my grandparents and their time in participating in those horse races, even making it to the Kentucky Derby…My Dad ended up losing his parents when he was in his twenties, a few years after my twin brothers were born, and his sister not long after that due to illness and an accident. So really, my Dad was all we ended up having from that side of the family. He did a really good job of keeping the tradition of the Southern Owens name and family alive, even if how our own little family started was a bit unorthodox…”

Naomi then exhaled a deep breath, realizing she had began to ramble a bit more off topic than necessary — but at the end of the day, she rarely got to ramble about her family’s history. It was almost like she was taking advantage of it to reminisce herself. “Anyway, my parents were both born in 1959, and they met when they were freshmen in high school. Fourteen, I believe? They both went to New Hanover. Long story short, they fell in love, got together, and somehow and some way my two oldest twin brothers came before they could even graduate. That was the seventies so… teenage pregnancy was really frowned upon way more than it is now. It just didn’t happen…especially with twins. They basically got the blessing from their parents and got married before my brothers were born, moved into a tiny apartment, and my Dad started working in construction. My Dad ended up dropping out of high school to take care of my Mom and the twins, while my Mom finished high school and got her diploma. She went on to grab a job with the county as a clerk for some politician and got lucky, because that job earned her a retirement and a pretty big chunk of change to put into our savings. It honestly still amazes me how they did it…My grandparents were very little help because of their “traditional” values.” Naomi trailed off once more, dampening her lips with the smile still evident on her features. “So basically, that’s how we came to be. Roger and Joseph were about ten when they moved into the house we have now, then my other brother, Dominic, was born, then five years later I was born.” A deep breath was exhaled from her chest when she finished her long ramble, adjusting her weight within the seat and crossing one long leg over the other. “I honestly think our history is what made us so close. You know? We’ve been through so much, we all worked so hard. We shared a loss of my Dad three years ago, we shared a childhood that was the best one we could be. Even now, when I’m living with my mom in her old age and Dominic is traveling the world, and my other two are nestled up in Forest Hills starting their careers and family, we still manage to make it work. We’re all still in contact. It’s incredible.”

DESCRIBE YOUR HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE.

“Traditional,” Naomi began to laugh, before she was shaking her head and waving her hands to try to steer back to the point she was making. “And that’s not like…it’s not a bad thing. No. It’s just…you know when you watch a movie and those teenagers are literally living the perfect lives? Perfect life, big group of friends who always hung out on Friday night after a football game? That was it. That was my life, and I honestly loved it. Granted, we added our own twists and spices of our own sort, but that was it. I joined as many teams and clubs as I could to get to know people, because little Naomi Owens was stuck in her brother’s spotlight and legacy he left if she didn’t try to step out of it.” Naomi laughed, poking fun at Dominic’s popularity within her high school…especially with the female population. “I met some of the very best people of my life there, and those who are still the most important to me. I met someone I hated then, then ironically almost went on to marry.” Naomi shrugged at the thought of Tristen, though briefly recalled the time where Tristen and Jaxon spent more and more time together in the shared hallways, which resulted in her next comment. “Met someone who I still cannot stand but manages to make perfect, little babies with Alicia—, I met Amy… I met my best friend. She became my sister. I spent more and more time with people from middle school. We went to cheer camp, cheer competitions, cheered at those football games and partied at the Taylor house where we drank too much bad beer and almost got caught by the cops. We went to prom, and killed it. Had bonfires down at Wrightsville…I got good grades, I think I fell in love... I truly had the time of my life in high school. Sometimes, I honestly wish I could go back.”

WHAT WAS YOUR YEARBOOK SUPERLATIVE? WHY WAS THIS SO?

“Oh God, I got two.” Naomi laughed. “Best Eyes, and uh—, Most Likely to Brighten Up Your Day, which I think both are extremely accurate. I mean,” She then went up to playfully frame her cheeks, like she was showcasing her facial features and her big multi colored hues for the opposing person. “Plus, I’m not one to object that I can make someone’s day brighter. It is my goal, anyway. You don’t get the nickname of ‘Sunshine’ from multiple people for nothing, you know?”

WHAT DID YOU DO AFTER HIGH SCHOOL? DID YOU GO TO COLLEGE? IF NOT, WHY?

“I ended up going to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which is why I’m still so directly involved with their galas and the first responder charity balls. I’m a loud and proud alumni.” Naomi hummed out her answer playfully, ironically sporting the traditional colors of her alma mater, with the Carolina blue laced within her white blouse. “I went back and forth for half of my senior year on where I wanted to go. I knew I wanted to go to college, and I had the best grades I could have so I could basically go anywhere I wanted and have a great chance at getting accepted. I was in love with music, but I was more in love with the idea of spreading the knowledge and the love it could bring rather than constantly performing it, and making money off marketing my talent. So, the decision to get my teaching degree was kind of made up immediately. I loved school and the simple math and English class anyway, so why not?” She then began to laugh, tapping her manicured fingernails down on her knee. She could remember the night she applied for UNC vividly. It was after a long talk with her father on her goals, dreams, and what she wanted to accomplish. It was one of many that she had shared with that man, and one she truly had taken to heart. It resulted in her climbing out of bed to grab her laptop at two in the morning, lighting up her bedroom with the computer screen and spending the next five hours on the application that would grant her an acceptance to one of the better schools in the South…and as close to home as she could possibly get. “College, anyway, was kind of like high school. It was just a whole other ballpark. At the time life was changing, which is to be expected, but I’m not personally a big fan of change.” Athena had been gone to California by then. Rhett was up in New York, making small visits with his then girlfriend. Things had changed, people had changed drastically. She made new friends, and new lifelong friends. “I joined a sorority for a hot minute. It wasn’t my cup of tea, I ended up declining the bid I got from this girl after the week I spent there. The parties were great though.” Naomi laughed some more. “But no, it was nice. It’s where I got to know Tristen really well. I got my own apartment for the first time —, with a roommate of course, got close with Alicia (@aliciapvlmeiro) , then came student teaching, then eventually graduated with my teaching degree.”

WAS THERE AN EVENT IN YOUR LIFE THAT GREATLY IMPACTED WHO YOU ARE NOW AS A PERSON?

“There was a few, but none as deep as the next person’s.” It was a little fib that left her mouth before she was releasing a chuckle to follow to mask the mood killer, brushing back a few loose locks of hair from her eyes. “As cliche as it might be, my Dad passing a few years ago definitely shook me up. It changed my entire life. My Dad was practically my best friend and, well, his death was kind of sudden. One day he was a healthy man nearing the end of his fifties and the next we’re getting a call he suffered from a heart attack on the job site that literally killed him.” Naomi paused, forcing herself to suck in a sharp breath in order to actually get through explaining the year that followed. “The months after his final day were…hard. I’ve never seen my Mom so distraught. She was a whole other person. I can’t blame her considering her and my Dad had been in each other’s life’s for nearly half of their own, but still. Seeing your Mom like that…It’s a whole other ballpark, and it was like for at least five months my family shut down on themselves. My brothers used the excuse of their own lives to ignore the fine details that my Mom needed help with. Dominic literally fled the country to “travel” for work and Roger and Joseph…they hid themselves behind their wives for a while. At that point my Mom was hardly taking care of herself; she wasn’t eating properly, she wasn’t taking her own medication, wasn’t attending her doctor’s appointments. Moving back in with my Mom after being on my own wasn’t ideal, and it basically ruined my relationship at the time, but it was kind of a given.” Shrugging her shoulders, Naomi shook them afterwards as if she was shaking of the gloomy cloud that hovered over her whenever she talked about that year. It was hard, and took her quite a while to be able to talk about without suffering from one of her classic panic attacks. “I think it definitely shaped me into being more grateful for the little things, and living in the moment. You don’t realize half of what you have and you take them for granted more often than not.”

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE? IF NOT, DO YOU THINK THAT IS POSSIBLE FOR YOU IN THE FUTURE?

The question sort of snuck up on her, and the hammering in her chest was surely noticeable. It was an easy answer, with plenty of complicated underlying layers. She had been in love twice in her life, and both times had differed tremendously. “I’ve actually been lucky. I’ve been in love twice, and while life kind of screwed me over, it still reiterates the fact that love will forever be something to believe in. When you experience a great love not only once, but twice…you can’t help but imagine what might be in store for you next.” Naomi could still recall the very moment when she was hardly eighteen years old clad in a tiny part of jean shorts, loose blouse and drink in her hand as she danced upon the tailgate with her friends on the beach, including the young boy she had fallen for. She didn’t know it then, how could she? She hardly knew anything she wanted back then, but with the logics laid out in front of her now she knew she was very much in love. She knew so with the way it was so easy to hop down and allow her feet to carry her across the sand to the teenage boy that made her heart flutter, and throat close up to feel like she was suffocating. She knew, and it was the ultimate reason why she ended up granting him the gift of being her first — despite the fact that he never was aware of that little fact, she did date once or twice other than Rhett Sullivan, it still secretly meant something to her. It was a young love that she was sure of back then, then fizzled to the back burner once he made the grand move and time and distance forced the two to become a distant memory that could still be warm to the touch. Tristen came along years later and pulled her from the slumps, and displayed himself as a completely new person from the obnoxious teenager she despised in high school. He was older, mature, dreamy and smart. It was difficult not to fall in love with him after so much time of dating, and day dreaming about a time together when he could slip a ring on her finger and make the transition from their apartment to a house filled with kids one day. Naomi smiled at the memory, allowing herself that brief moment that wasn’t swarmed with bitterness and frustration she felt over the overall ending that came with Tristen, and instead allowed herself to reminisce the good parts in peace. 

“I’ve been in love with two amazing guys, with years between them. The first was a young love, kind of the teenage dream type of thing…We never said it, we didn’t have to. He knew.” Naomi nodded, pushing her hair behind her ear once again. “And then the next grew over time. I hated that guy at first. He was everything I despised in a person for the longest time, and yet years later he matured into someone I grew to love. I swore I was going to marry that guy…” Trailing off, Naomi then shook her head. “He’s gone now. Things didn’t work out, for obvious reasons. I think he’s in Chicago now with a really good job, and even if I’m a little bitter, I hope he’s happy. He deserves it.” Her body shifted in an attempt to get more comfortable within her seat, her lips pressed together once more. “As for the future? Of course. I don’t believe anyone is limited to one or two great loves. If we’re lucky we’ll find that one right off the bat, others have to go through a few to find the one that lasts.” She couldn’t help but let her mind wander off to a taller man in particular, one she found herself kissing only weeks prior. There was an annoying and overwhelming feeling that struck her chest whenever Alex had invaded her mind, or even had been brought up. She wasn’t so sure she could go as far as to smack a label on it and call it love, as that would just be insane. It was new and scary and sort of out of her element, and perhaps that was why she was so quick to run away from it. One thing she couldn’t deny, however? It was something, and plenty had saw through her denial already. Shaking her head free from the thoughts, Naomi twisted back to face forward, licking her lips nervously. “I think it will happen for me, soon enough.”

WHEN WERE YOU BORN AND WHAT IS YOUR ASTROLOGICAL SIGN? DOES IT INFLUENCE YOUR LIFE IN ANY WAY?

“January 3rd, 1987. Freshly thirty one, baby.” Naomi joked as she playfully pumped her hands into the air, settling back into her seat before she fell out of it in laughter. “I’m a Capricorn though, and honestly? Not really. I don’t really check in with those horoscope things daily or read up on matchmaking signs and all that. There’s a teacher at my school that’s crazy into the constellations enough for the rest of us.” Naomi laughed some more, the deep laughter rooted from her belly and shaking her shoulders ever so slightly. “It’s totally weird, though. I’m not into it but I can’t deny that when I read something that’s supposed to relate to my sign, it’s accurate. Like…it’s weird, and kind of trippy.”

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR? TELL US SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE ACTIVITIES TO DO DURING THIS TIME.

“I love summer. I love, love love summer around here. You’ve got all those shops near the ocean or at the Riverwalk opening up for the season, the weather is nice enough that you can withstand the beach for longer than a half hour, and the mood is kind of—, it’s just warm, with this orange and yellow-ey feel that’s hard to beat. Not to mention I get a whopping two and a half months off to myself to do whatever the hell I want.” Naomi grinned as she mulled over her answer. She was always happier when the sun was shining, even if she could appreciate a good rainfall that left a brisk feeling in the air and a clean slate for the ground beneath her. Summer was well on it’s way and well, Naomi was itching for it. “I kind of do a mix of things over the summer since my free time is wide open. For a few extra paychecks I teach a few classes down at the recreation center for the summer, it’s mainly teenagers catching up on credits or adults that want to try something new. It ranges from art classes, pottery classes, creative writing classes and piano lessons. Those only last throughout July and maybe take up two or three hours out of my day, so the rest is kind of bouncing around. I’ll do some shopping, spend some time amour at the lake or the beach. I’m a water baby, so if I’m not doing anything that requires clothes and shoes, I’m in my swimsuit near some body of water either messing around or lounging.” Shaking her head, Naomi then laughed some more. “Considering Alicia and I just bought a place, I actually have an excuse to actually stay the night outside of town instead of spending a pretty penny on a hotel. I’m most excited to spend some time there this summer.”

WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN TEN YEARS AND WHAT DO YOU HAVE HOPED TO ACHIEVE?

“Ten years down the line I’ll be forty one…wow. Let’s not think about that.” Naomi quickly shook her head free of those thoughts with a laugh to follow. “By then my husband and I will be celebrating our anniversary, or maybe even planning our wedding. Who knows? I’ll have two little girls, Charlie and Lana, with a boy on the way. I’ll be moving out of my starter home since the renovations for my new, freshly built house designed by yours truly out near the countryside of Forest Hills will be completed. I’ll be sporting the SUV when dropping my girls off for cheerleading practice. I’ll have accepted a job with the school board as the arts director for the district.” Naomi paused. She honestly thought about the question far too often, and she wondered just who would still be in her life ten years down the line. If the previous decades was telling enough, it was that people came and went even when they were the closest to you. It didn’t matter the timing, it mattered more about the direction their life was taking them in. Naomi brought her larger eyes back toward her lap with a smile stretching across her lips, examining the creamy polish on her short nails before her head was perked back up. “I’ll be happy, and that’s all I could ever want.”

[dreamsaretangiblegoals]

Questions to my Former Self w/ RIshabh Prakash @rishabhprakash8

In the running world we have various types of runners. Theoretically speaking we all work really hard as runners. In the context of personality type, i grativate as coach both introverted and extroverted ahtetles. In this particular case, where the mixture of hard work, talent and personality is what we find in Rishabh Prakash from Burlington High School now a freshmen attending Cornell University. Over the past two years I have started to develop a rapport with this amazing talent and better human being. Honesty is the best policy he is missed this year. However we are going to check in with Burly's Finest. 

Info:

DATG: First & Last name: ?

 Rishabh Prakash 

Social Media Instagram: rishabh_prakash_ 

Twitter: RishabhPrakash8 

Facebook: 

Age: 18 

HS Graduated & year graduated: Burlington High School Class of 2019

 College: Cornell University 

Events: Distance and XC PR’s: 

Mile: 4:14.88 

2 Mile: 9:08.02 

5K: 14:46.89 

8K (XC): 24:22.30 

10K: 30:10.5 

DATG: How are you man ? How are things at Cornell ? I’m doing great man! Things at Cornell are going great! It’s been an adjustment getting used to college but I think I’ve finally gotten into a nice routine and I’m having the time of my life. 

DATG: What's your major ? Computer Science and I’m hopefully trying to minor in Business 

DATG: Seems like yesterday watching you crush it here in Massachusetts, you had an amazing high school career. Where there any lows if so when ? It is inevitable that every great runner has some lows in their career, and a runner is defined by not only by their successes but also by how they have bounced back from their lows. For me, the biggest low in my high school career was senior year indoors around All States. I was amidst my best season of running and thought that I was poised to have a great run in the two mile, and thought that if I could stick with Ryan Oosting for the majority of the race, I could break 9 and make the race one to remember. There was a lot of hype around that race and I definitely let that pressure get to me. Unfortunately, I got sick a few days before the race, and despite that tried to put myself in the race and consequently died hard to something like a twelfth place finish and a very shitty time. I was very down on myself for almost a week after that race, but was able to get over my sickness and use my disappointment/frustration as motivation to run well at Nationals two weeks later. 

DATG: When did you start to believe that you were in the best runners in the area ? State Coaches my junior year was definitely a turning point in my running career where I realized that I truly was one of the best runners in the area. I led that race nearly gun to tape (before being outkicked in the last 150 lol) and ran 4:24, which was a massive PR for me at the time. I beat a lot of talented runners in that race and it really showed me what I could achieve in my high school career. 

DATG: Is their preference in favorite season or track event ? In Massachusetts, and Eastern Mass especially, we’re definitely spoiled in that we get to run at either BU or Reggie, two of the best indoor tracks in the country, for nearly every meet, so there was always an opportunity to run fast. So during high school, indoor was definitely my favorite season, and I don’t see that changing in college. Event wise, I thought I was a miler junior year and then moved up to race the two mile consistently senior year. In college I think I’ll be a 3k/5k runner, but I honestly love to race anything from the 4x400 to the 10K and just race in general, and think my versatility and range is what makes me a good runner. 

DATG: How is Upstate NYC treating you ? Gets cold and alot of snow ? How is that working out for you ? So far, the weather has not been that much different from home in MA, but we haven’t really hit peak winter yet so I can’t judge. If anything it’s just a few degrees colder than MA and snows more frequently, but the weather is pretty manageable for someone born and raised in the Northeast. The trails in Ithaca are amazing though so when the ground wasn’t covered in snow during XC season I was able to hit nearly all my mileage on soft surfaces with scenic views which was really nice. 

DATG: Go to Cereal: Lucky Charms or Froot Loops 

DATG: Biggest adjustment in College so far ? From Academics to Athletics ? Freshman year in college is really all about adjustments, and how well you can adjust is a huge determinant in your success both academically and athletically. Being a student athlete at an academically intensive school like Cornell has been far from easy. The workload is exponentially higher than high school, and time management is very key to ensuring you are successful. For a decent amount of my first semester, it felt like my life was really just doing schoolwork with running being my only break from that grind, but I have slowly started to have more time for myself. Athletically, running itself doesn’t change other than a slight increase in volume. The biggest change from high school has been the emphasis on all the little supplemental things, such as post run lifts, hurdle mobility, and recovery, that we do every day that adds to the length of practices, but are vital to staying healthy. 

DATG: Funfact you know I am gamer. Are you ? We have a Nintendo Switch set up in my dorm so I play a lot of Super Smash Bros Ultimate with my roommates and teammates. 

DATG: Favorite High School moment ? Third Place and All American in the Two Mile at Nationals. Being an All American was a goal that I had for so long so to be able to finally achieve that was surreal. 

Team wise, winning State Relays indoors my senior year was my most memorable moment. We had a tough couple of losses in dual meets leading up to Relays that decreased our confidence as a team, and injuries and other factors really left our team shorthanded. Despite the adversity, we exceeded our expectations in multiple events and were able to defend our Relays title. I think if you ask Coach Carr to tell you his favorite meet throughout my four years, he would pick that Relays meet - it’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him. 

DATG: Your taking a road trip and you can only play 3 albums what albums are there ? 

1. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, since every road trip needs Kanye and that is 

undoubtedly Kanye’s best album 2. Big Bootie Mixes #1-#16. If you don’t know what Big Bootie Mixes are, they’re basically 

one our long mixes that top pop hits of the past 6-8 months, plus a few rap and rock throwbacks, but remixed to be up-tempo with EDM beats in the background and quite a few bass drops. They’re great for warmups and road trips, and playing all 16 would get you through 16 hours of driving. 3. A present day rap album, maybe today something like Astroworld or Drip Harder. 

DATG: Your School alumni Paul Hogan had an amazing career Post High School at Umass Lowell, has he mentored you or provided guidance along your journey ? Paul has been a huge mentor through high school and I’m sure he will continue to be one through college. More than anything, he has served as an example to look up to, and a runner that I can strive to be like. I remember freshman/sophomore year in high school when everyone would talk about Paul’s greatness, and thinking to myself “I wanna be like that.” And as I got faster and realized that his records were actually attainable, I would look at the school record board every day and it would motivate me to try to break his records. Seeing Paul’s success as an NCAA All American, and now as a pro runner for BAA, is something that will definitely motivate me throughout college. 

DATG: How is the Culture on the Cornell team ? I would say that our positive and supportive team culture is our strongest aspect and will be one of the primary reasons behind our success in future years. It was also one of the main things that drew me to Cornell during the recruiting process. We all hold each other accountable towards our own goals and push each other to be better versions of ourselves, while working our 

asses off every day at practice. At the same time, we are all best friends and have tons of fun outside of practice together. 

DATG: If you could play another sport what would it be and why ? Probably soccer. I played soccer growing up until high school and it was always my favorite sport until I started running. I’m also a huge basketball fan and can give any of my teammates the work in 1 v. 1, so either soccer or basketball. 

DATG: How was it to be coached and trained by my main Coach Matt Carr ? It is something I am very grateful for - to have had the opportunity to be coached by one of the best coaches in MA. Aside from writing killer workouts and training plans that contributed to my improvement, he definitely brought the best out of me as an athlete and truly made me believe that I could be the best. One of the biggest takeaways I will take from Coach Carr is in regards to goal setting, in that he would always say “if you achieve all the goals you set for yourself, then your goals were too damn easy.” Aside from that, practice was a blast every day with Carr’s sarcastic humor and memeable personality. 

DATG: How was your first XC season in College ? Any Highlights ? Overall, it went pretty solid. There were ups and downs but as a whole, it was a great first season. My first big invite, Paul Short, was a huge surprise in that I ran 24:22 for 8K (way faster than I expected to run) and placed really high. From there, I had a terrible race at Pre-Nats where I DNF’d, and a not as bad but still kind of terrible race at Heps. A lot of things like nervousness, bad fueling before the race, and stress from school, contributed to those shitty races, but I was able to improve on those things and run 30:10 at Northeast Regionals, and our team finished 9th running all sophomores and freshmen (with one junior) so our future and room for improvement definitely look bright.

DATG: What are your short term and long term goals ? Short Term: Run 4:08 for the Mile and 8:10 for 3K indoors, and score at Heps (Indoor), and hopefully sub 14:20 for 5K Outdoors. Long Term: Break 4 in the Mile and 8 in the 3K, win Heps as an Individual and as a Team, make NCAA’s as an individual 

DATG: I noticed that Prakash family isn't done yet with running ? Baby Bro is on the come up huh ? Introduced him here first and last name so the audience can check for him ? Do you believe he has learned anything from you 

Rithikh Prakash. Remember the name. He actually just broke 5 (4:55) in his first indoor mile a few days ago, so he’s definitely got a bright future. I definitely hope he has learned a good amount from me, just being at my meets and seeing me run the past four years. More than 

anything, I just want him to have fun with the sport of running during these early years and not feel pressured to run crazy fast, and eventually pave his own legacy. 

DATG: If we had an ability to go back in time and you could have a conversation with Freshman Rishabh who is entering his first track season what would you share with him that you think he could benefit from ? I would tell Freshman Rishabh to just have more fun with it. Running is such a mentally taxing sport, so if you are always dialed in 24/7 and focused on running fast in every single race, the sport becomes less fun and you go into races feeling more pressure and nerves than necessary. There are hundreds of opportunities to race, and every shitty race has the potential to be followed by a great race. I feel like I was too dialed in too early on, and would tell my younger self to just chill out a little bit more and have more fun with running, because it truly is an amazing sport with amazing people! Other than that, I would tell freshman Rishabh to keep working hard, and to stay patient. I was a bit of a late bloomer and would get down on myself early on when I saw freshmen and sophomores running crazy fast, wondering what I could do to be like that, but the truth is, all I could have done was stayed patient and let myself mature while putting in the work. So - have fun with it and stay patient and improvement will come! 

DATG: You know I need that Cornell Hoodie or Beanie ? Size Large thank you kindly. Gotchu! 

DATG: What can I do to make the podcast better ? Just keep grinding out content man! You also have a lot of outreach in MA, and I’m sure a lot of other runners would do Q&A’s like this. I think the public would love to read more content like this. 

Looking forward to seeing you crush at the IVY Championships 

Dreams Are Tangible Goals

Previously on DATG: Questions to my Former Self w/ Aaron Lucci

Previously on DATG: Questions to my Former Self w/ Catarina Rocha

[paratextpublishing]

The Room of Requirement (This American Life #664)

Ira Glass

Act Two, Book Fishing in America. OK, so our program today, of course, is about people who want libraries to satisfy some very deep, and sometimes, very idiosyncratic desires. And the people in this act, they wish for a library that can give them something that only ever existed inside the pages of a book. Sean Cole, tell us what happened.

Sean Cole

There's this book I've always really loved, a novel by Richard Brautigan. If you haven't heard of him, he was a really funny, almost surreal, hippyish writer in the '60s and '70s, probably best known for the book, Trout Fishing in America, a very short and deeply experimental piece of fiction, part travelogue, part fever dream. It's what made people cultish about Brautigan. A kid who went to my college legally changed his name to Trout Fishing In America.

But the novel I'm talking about is lesser known. It's called The Abortion, subtitle, An HistoricalRomance 1966. And it's not so much the story that gets me. It's the setting. It takes place in a library in San Francisco. But instead of coming to take books out of the library, people come to submit unpublished books they've written to the library, forever.

The books are there to stay. They can bring a book in anytime. The library never closes. And the librarian-- there is only one-- is always there to greet them. He lives at the library, and he's the narrator of the story.

This is from the first chapter. The librarian says, "We don't use the Dewey decimal classification or any index system to keep track of our books. We record their entrance into the library in the Library Contents Ledger, and then we give the book back to its author, who is free to place it anywhere he wants in the library, on whatever shelf catches his fancy.

It doesn't make any difference where a book is placed because nobody ever checks them out and nobody ever comes here to read them. This is not that kind of library. This is another kind of library."

The librarian is reflexively polite and effusive. He might say to someone, "I don't think we have a book like this in the entire library. This is a first." He puts people at ease. He says, "My clothes are not expensive but they are friendly and neat and my human presence is welcoming."

Eventually, a woman comes in with a book, and she's very beautiful. They fall in love. She gets pregnant, but they're not ready to have a child. So because this takes place in 1966, the two of them travel to Mexico to get an abortion, which is why the novel is called The Abortion. But just the spectacle of this library, it's hilarious, and heartbreaking, and democratic, and other-dimensional all at the same time.

Brautigan imagined a great anonymous wash of humanity marching through, with a lot on its mind. Kind of the Utopian ideal of the public square, except completely silent, all written down on rows and rows of unread books. The librarian says the main purpose of the library is, quote, "to gather pleasantly together the unwanted, the lyrical and haunted volumes of American writing." And when you talk to other people who've read The Abortion, the conversation usually winds its way to this one chapter.

Todd Lockwood

"The 23?"

Sean Cole

"The 23." [LAUGHS]

Todd Lockwood

Yeah.

Sean Cole

This is Todd Lockwood, a photographer and music producer in Burlington, Vermont. I'll tell you why I got in touch with him in a minute. "The 23" is essentially a list of all 23 books that came into the library this one particular day, by little kids, old people. And the chapter's made up of just little descriptions of the 23 books that the librarian wrote down in his ledger.

There's one called It's the Queen of Darkness, Pal, a science fiction novel written by sewer worker. There's a book called Leather Clothes and the History of Man, which is somehow entirely made of leather. Not just the binding, but the pages. Richard Brautigan himself comes into the library with a book called Moose. And a doctor comes in looking, quote, "doctory and very nervous," with a book entitled The Need for Legalized Abortion.

I asked Todd what some of his favorites were, and he pointed to this one.

Todd Lockwood

Just the title alone is just wonderful. It's called Bacon Death by Marcia Patterson. "The author was a totally nondescript young woman except for the look of anguish on her face. She handed me this fantastically greasy book and fled the library in terror. The book actually looked like a pound of bacon. I was going to open it and see what it was about, but I changed my mind. I didn't know whether to fry the book or put it on the shelf.

Being a librarian here is sometimes a challenge."

Sean Cole

Todd first read The Abortion when it came out in the early '70s. A friend of his gave it to him with a little inscription that said, "This book will change your life."

Todd Lockwood

And that turned out to be more than prophetic.

Sean Cole

He ended up reading it about once a year for the next 15 years.

Todd Lockwood

And every time I'd read it, I'd get the same feeling from it. First thing I would say to myself is, when is somebody going to build this library? When is somebody going to do this? To eventually becoming, when am I going to do this?

Sean Cole

A real life library for unpublished books submitted by their authors. A home for anything anyone felt a burning need to express, or explain, or somehow get off their chests. Todd dreamed for years about one day creating a place like that. And there was clearly a desire for it.

In The Abortion, Brautigan gives an address for his fictional library. 3150 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, California, 94115, which is the real life address of the Presidio branch of the San Francisco Public Library. So for a while, people were actually sending their unpublished manuscripts there and had to be informed, this is not that kind of library. This is a normal kind of library

Anyway, Todd kept putting off his dream, thinking, I'll put that library together someday. And then two things happened, the first one being very tragic.

Todd Lockwood

My sister died in a plane crash--

Sean Cole

Oh, my God.

Todd Lockwood

--in 1989. This was the United DC-10 that went down in Sioux City, Iowa. So losing a sibling is one of those things that really causes you to look at the things that you've done in your life and ask yourself, are these really the best things I can be doing right now? And so at any rate, about a month and a half or two months after the crash, I thought, you know what? I need to just get away from this constant sorrow here and take myself to the movies.

Sean Cole

And there was this movie that had come out earlier that year that Todd hadn't seen yet, a Kevin Costner vehicle about an Iowa farmer who plows up his corn to build a baseball diamond.

Man

(WHISPERING) If you build it, he will come.

[RUSTLING]

Todd Lockwood

So I went to see Field of Dreams, and about halfway into that film, it became really obvious to me that Brautigan's library is my baseball field. If I build it, people will come.

Sean Cole

It wasn't even before the movie was over that that struck you?

Todd Lockwood

Yeah. Yeah, as soon as that part of the film started to unfold, I was just astounded at the parallel. I was like, this is weird. I felt literally as if I'm supposed to be sitting here right now watching this. This is all part of a big plan.

Sean Cole

Which, if you remember, is exactly the way Kevin Costner's character felt in the movie.

Todd Lockwood

And I'm not a person that gets too caught up in the metaphysical aspects of life. But when I stepped outside the theater afterward, I just--

Ray Kinsella

I feel it as strongly as I've ever felt anything in my life.

Todd Lockwood

I'd never felt so sure about anything in my life.

Sean Cole

Todd immediately started calling around, putting a board of advisors together, appealing for funding. It took about half a year. And then finally--

Todd Lockwood

And around here on the side is our entrance.

Sean Cole

--the library opened its doors in Burlington, Vermont in 1990. This tape is from a BBC Radio story that aired a few years in. Todd led the producers past The Vermont Institute of Massage Therapy--

Todd Lockwood

And here we are.

Sean Cole

--to a modest wooden building, outfitted with comfy chairs and shelves for the books. A swinging placard out front said, in capital letters--

Todd Lockwood

The Brautigan Library.

Sean Cole

And underneath that, the words, "A Very Public Library."

[DOOR CLOSING]

Now it's one thing to adapt a piece of fiction into a movie. It's another thing to adapt a piece of fiction into a library. As soon as they started talking about how The Brautigan Library would work in real life, Todd and his advisors and volunteers realized that they were going to need to make some concessions, such as whereas in the novel, there's just one librarian, in real life, there were many. All volunteer, and none of them lived there. Certainly never impregnated anyone there, or not to Todd's knowledge.

And unlike in the novel, the books were almost exclusively submitted by mail. And the authors had to kick in a little money, $25 or so, to cover the cost of binding their manuscripts. And people actually came to read the books, from all over the country.

Todd Lockwood

I was sitting there one day, and a couple comes in the front door. And they announce, we're here! And I said, well, welcome. Where are you from? And this couple had flown from Houston for the weekend, specifically to hang out in The Brautigan Library for a couple of days.

Sean Cole

Stop it.

Todd Lockwood

And we had many of those.

Sean Cole

Probably because of the barrage of media stories about the library. New York Times,Wall Street Journal, a wire story that got picked up by hundreds of papers across the country. Everyone treated it as a quirky human interest story. The first and, at the time, only library for unpublished books, which started off as a piece of make-believe in a weirdo novel written 20 years beforehand.

There was a ledger the librarians used, but they didn't write down descriptions of the books that came in. Rather they wrote down descriptions of the people that came in. This is from that BBC story.

Woman

This is March 20, '93. "A man stopped by from Washington. 'Is this the library?' he asked. 'Yes,' I said. 'It's The Brautigan.' 'What's a Brautigan? Is it the city library?' I told him it was a home for unpublished manuscripts.

'Why?' he asked. 'So they can stay alive, and people can read them,' I said. He wasn't impressed. 'Where's the real library?' he wanted to know. 'Same street, three blocks up.' He left."

Sean Cole

A lot of people have asked that question-- why? And over the years, Todd has tended to give a pretty short and well-honed answer, almost like an artist statement. In fact, he used almost exactly the same words with the BBC producers in 1993, as he did with me in 2018.

Todd Lockwood

The beauty of it is that it doesn't make sense.

For me, one of the beauties of this whole thing was that it didn't make any sense.

Sean Cole

It was illogical.

Todd Lockwood

Yeah. Yeah.

Sean Cole

Just like in Field of Dreams, where he says, I have done something completely illogical.

Todd Lockwood

Right. Right. Oh, yeah.

Ray Kinsetta

I have just created something totally illogical.

Annie Kinsetta

That's what I like about it.

Sean Cole

It's what I liked about Todd's library, and it's what I'd always loved about the library in the novel, the fictional one. It wasn't just illogical. It was impossible. And I loved sitting with the librarian in that impossible place, surrounded by books that only he and the people who wrote them knew about.

So for someone to transform an imaginary magical place I loved into an actual location I could maybe visit one day, it was like finding out there was a real life chocolate factory, like the one Charlie visited, or a wardrobe that opened up unto a forest with talking animals in it.

But there was something else, something stranger, that The Brautigan Library had in common with Field of Dreams. The story goes like this. In 1991, about a year after the library opened, the Bumbershoot Arts Festival in Seattle asked Todd if he wanted to set up a mini version of the library at the festival, an exhibit. So Todd, his wife, and about 100 of the books they'd amassed up to that point got on a plane, flew out there, and set up shop in this indoor event space.

Todd Lockwood

And so first day at the exhibit, I'm showing people around. And this gentleman walks up to me, and puts out his hand, and says, Hi, I'm Bill Kinsella, the author of Shoeless Joe, the book Field of Dreams was based on.

Sean Cole

No way. No way.

Todd Lockwood

And I was just dumbfounded. I said, you have no idea how wildly fantastic it is that you are here right now. I said, if you hadn't have written that, I might never have stepped up to the plate and really done this.

Sean Cole

You just said, "stepped up to the plate."

Todd Lockwood

Oh. [LAUGHS]

Sean Cole

It just so happened that Bill Kinsella, or WP Kinsella is what it says on his book jackets, was a featured speaker at Bumbershoot that year.

Todd Lockwood

And he said, well. He said, I've got one for you. Were it not for Richard Brautigan, I would never have written that book.

Sean Cole

No way.

Todd Lockwood

In fact, he said I would never have gotten into being a fiction writer, were it not for Richard Brautigan.

Sean Cole

This is the part of the story that when I tell it to people, their eyes get really wide. The part where one twin in a fairy tale figures out why she's been wearing half a locket around her neck the entire time. Todd hadn't known it, but no other writer had as much of an impact on Kinsella's life and career as Richard Brautigan.

In 1985, Kinsella published a book of weird, vignettey short stories that he called his Brautigans. He dedicated the collection to Richard Brautigan, including, in the dedication, a fan letter he'd written to Brautigan, in which he said, quote, "I have just written a novel about a man who drives from Iowa to New Hampshire, kidnaps JD Salinger, and takes him to a baseball game at Fenway Park. He was talking about Shoeless Joe. That was part of the plot.

Sean Cole

And so you're both kind of shocked. I'm imagining two shocked men.

Todd Lockwood

Yeah, right. [LAUGHING] I was like, perhaps someway or other, Brautigan himself is playing some sort of role in all this. That we're like marionettes, and he's up there just with a great big smile on his face, just having a blast, messing with the real world.

Sean Cole

Or haunting it somehow, like he was saying, playfully, better not forget me. I wanted to talk with Bill Kinsella for this story, but he died in 2016 on September 16, the same day Richard Brautigan had died in 1984. Both of them chose that day to end their lives. Kinsella was terminally ill and opted for doctor-assisted suicide, which is legal now in Canada, where he's from. Brautigan shot himself with a revolver.

The Brautigan Library chugged along in its original location for about six years. But as Todd once wrote in an issue of the library newsletter, reality can be so clankingly real at times. By 1996, fewer and fewer manuscripts were coming in. Money was tight. Here and there, Todd had to make ends meet with funds from his own bank account.

And finally, the entire Brautigan Library was moved to a room in the Fletcher Free Library, the regular public library down the road in Burlington. It stopped accepting new books but people could still come and read the ones that existed. 10 years went by, and then the Fletcher Library decided it needed the space for other things. So all The Brautigan Library books, more than 300 of them, found themselves shrink wrapped on a wooden pallet in Todd Lockwood's basement.

And this is the moment in the library's history when I first heard about it. I've been wanting to tell this story and see the books for myself for about 10 years. But way back when Todd and I started talking about this, he said he needed to wait, that he was in negotiations with a couple of academic libraries that might be interested, couldn't do an interview until something was finalized, et cetera and so on. Certainly the books weren't available to look at. I said I'd keep checking in, but I didn't.

And then this past summer, I started thinking about the library again. So I looked it up, and the library had finally found a new home in Vancouver, Washington, about 3,000 miles away from where it was born.

John Barber

Watch your head here, low ceiling.

Sean Cole

And it had a new librarian, John Barber, a professor at one of the universities in town. He led me down into the basement of the Clark County Historical Museum.

John Barber

And here it is, The Brautigan Library.

Sean Cole

Wow.

John Barber

These are all the manuscripts.

Sean Cole

Oh, my gosh.

Come to find, the manuscripts have been housed in this building since 2010, and John Barber was instrumental in making that happen. If there's such a thing as a Brautigan scholar, it's him. He may know more about Richard Brautigan than anyone else alive. He was a student of Brautigan's and hung out with him.

So naturally, he was a big supporter of the library from early on. And when the library shut down, he was sad to think of all the books being mothballed in Todd's basement. Until finally, he just got inspired and organized to have them all moved to this place. And he's taken on the mantle of the librarian.

John Barber

Also, I should say, Richard Brautigan once told me that he would haunt me.

Sean Cole

Wait, he said, I will haunt you?

John Barber

Yes.

Sean Cole

This was in 1982, two years before Brautigan killed himself. Brautigan's friend, Nikki Arai, had just died of complications from cancer.

John Barber

And I said, you have your memories of her. You could write about those memories. You're a writer. That's what you do. And he said, I don't write for therapy, and actually got really upset with me. Then he said, but then again-- and he turned and walked away. And he came back after a few minutes with a little slip of paper, on which he had written, "Where you are now, I will join you soon."

Sean Cole

After dinner and another bottle of whiskey, they went out to the yard and burned the note in a kind of ritual to send those words to Brautigan's friend.

John Barber

And I went home that night-- slowly because of all the whiskey-- and wrote about that experience. And I showed it to him, and he said, if you ever show this to anybody before I'm dead, I will haunt you. And I did. And he does.

Sean Cole

After all, John, for all intents and purposes, now inhabits a physical manifestation of an idea Brautigan had in his head. And what's a little startling when you meet John is that he is the librarian from the novel. Like he's just like him. His clothes are not expensive but friendly and neat, and his human presence welcoming.

John Barber

Yes, we look an awful lot alike. Tall, mustache, glasses.

Sean Cole

He's reflexively polite and effusive. I had all three meals with him the day we spent together. And each time, he said to the server, in all earnestness, "Thank you for your hospitality." Same as when the museum's director let us in early before it opened.

John Barber

Thanks so much for accommodating us.

Man

Of course.

John Barber

Thanks.

Sean Cole

It's much smaller than I imagined somehow.

John Barber

Well, there's that, certainly. There's 300-plus manuscripts that are associated with the library. So we might actually say that it's small but mighty. Because each of these 300-plus manuscripts that we're standing in the middle of has dreams, and aspirations, memories, and hopes for the future associated with it.

Sean Cole

In fact, it's just two long sets of bookshelves at one end of the museum's research library. And all of the books have the same plain black, brown, gray, or blue bindings. The host of that BBC piece said they looked like body bags for whatever was inside of them. I really wonder how many of them were ever read cover to cover.

I wanted to see if being in the library gave me the same feeling I had as when I read TheAbortion. And I have to say more and more, it really did feel like I had climbed into the pages of that novel, with its messy expanse of humanity marching through. Some of the books were silly. Others were mournfully nostalgic. Still others were deadly serious.

Sean Cole

Enjoy the War, Peace will be Terrible.

Which is about the lives of two teen girls in World War II Vienna. Others promoted radical ideas.

Sean Cole

Three Essays Advocating the Abolishing of Money.

Almost 50 poetry collections. I opened up one called I'd Be Your Roadkill, Baby. The poetry reading.

Sean Cole

"He greased me with his words--" oh! OK, I can't say that on the radio.

Instead of using Dewey Decimal, the books are organized according to what they call the Mayonnaise System. It's a Brautigan in-joke. He ended Trout Fishing in America with the word "mayonnaise." And it goes by category. So there's adventure, family, future, humor, love, meaning of life, poetry, natural world, social political cultural, spirituality, street life, war and peace, and my favorite, all the rest.

Sean Cole

[LAUGHS]

John Barber

There's always the miscellaneous drawer, right? Where something is just too offbeat to fit in.

Sean Cole

And instead of the summaries being in a big library contents ledger, there's a summary printed out on the first page of each book. Of course, almost all of the books are offbeat. Like this is the summary of a novel called Did She Leave Me Any Money?

Sean Cole

It says, "A philosophical comedy about men, money, motivation, winning strategies, architecture, nudism, trucking, corporate assassinations, heart attacks, sexual politics, hometown parades, spiritual warriors, and the dredging of Willapa Bay."

This is something a bunch of the books have in common. It's like their authors are gushing forth with everything they've been wanting to talk about their whole lives. And with a lot of them, there's this sense of, this is important. I alone have the answer. Just like with a lot of the books in Brautigan's novel. For instance, there's the most prolific contributor to The Brautigan Library, Albert E. Helzner.

He's got 19 books here, three under an assumed name. And they're mostly comprised of his own personal scientific theories and observations. Titles like A Revolutionary Way of Looking atthe Earth as a Planet, or, more to the point, The World is Wrong. The only way I can think to describe it-- and I do so admiringly-- it's like PhD-level stoner thinking. Everything and everyone in the Helzner-verse is interconnected and impactful.

In his book, October 6, 1990, Helzner said that every year on October 6, he'd go to the maternity ward of a hospital, look at a newborn baby through the glass, and ask himself, how did this birth come about? What is the long-range effect? And what is the significance of any birth? Addressing the baby he went to see in 1990, he says he wants to tell her what transpired on the day before she was born.

"I spent the whole day thinking about you," he writes. "On that day, the moon was shining on my town of Marblehead, Massachusetts. It was a bright full moon sitting in a clear sky. My wife and I drove to Seaside 5 Corners for a bite to eat. We saw the moon as we drove along. We saw the old buildings. You'll see the same moon and the same old buildings when you grow up."

Albert Helzner died in June 2016, but his books are still at the library. God knows where that baby is now.

I asked John if there were any books in particular that he wanted to show me. And he was really enthusiastic about this one that he thought gave a sense of what the library was there for. It's called--

John Barber

Autobiography about a Nobody. And it's written by Etherley Murray of Pittman, New Jersey. And she may have said, oh look, here's a library that accepts manuscripts, regardless of subject matter.

Sean Cole

Right, exactly.

John Barber

I'm a nobody. They'll be interested.

Sean Cole

It's mainly the story of her growing up during the Depression in Altoona, Pennsylvania, eating onion sandwiches and, quote, "wearing coats that belonged to women who had just departed this life." Except it was in the humor section, intentionally so. There's a cartoon horse in a red union suit on the title page, tears cascading from behind its blinders.

John Barber

She says, in the notes that came along with the submission, that she had submitted it to 40 publishers, who, although they liked the story, did not publish manuscripts of nobodies.

Sean Cole

In Brautigan's novel, a guy in his 50s walks into the library with a book he wrote when he was 17. "'This book has set the world's record for rejections,' he says. 'It has been rejected 459 times, and now I am an old man.'"

Todd Lockwood

You know, there'd be a sense of completion, for one thing.

Sean Cole

This is Todd Lockwood again, the founder of the library.

Todd Lockwood

And we heard this from numerous writers that sent us works. After their book had been in the collection for a while, we'd hear back from them, hear back from writers who would say, wow, this really is a weight off. I just feel like the project is done finally. Even though it technically was finished, it's the fact that it's sitting on a shelf in a public place, where someone that that person doesn't know will cross paths with that book, and take it off the shelf, and perhaps read it. That sort of completes the circle, and I can get on to the next thing.

Sean Cole

It's funny to think about, but in some ways, The Brautigan Library is more like the library in the novel now than it ever has been. The books are housed in a building that looks more like the Presidio branch. They aren't often read by anyone. And it has one librarian, who actually is available at all hours of the day and night to accept new books, but only digitized ones, PDFs submitted online.

But the more I think about it, it's not about how perfectly or imperfectly Todd or John turned a fictional place into a real one. That's not the point. It's that Richard Brautigan in his novel predicted with perfect accuracy what would happen if you did create a library like this. That being there would give you a feeling like you're walking down the street and noticing that everyone has a book they've made tucked under one arm, a jumbled woolly individual transcription of how the world feels to that person.

It's the feeling of being able to read everyone's mind for a moment and being startled by their unedited thoughts because they're nothing like yours, but they're just as weird. It's like the librarian says in chapter two of the novel, "There just simply had to be a library like this."

Ira Glass

Sean Cole, who's one of the producers of our program. Coming up, a woman who went to the library every day for a while as a child suddenly realizes one day as an adult that the way she was remembering it was not right at all. That's in a minute. From Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.

[thedaveandkimmershow]

Turns out “memory lane” for me is basically I-5 going north from Seattle to Vancouver. It’s a drive that’s filled with overlays from the past and, as the missus ‘n I drove to Bellingham on Monday, a lot of those memories were brought front and center once again.

We didn’t even have to get out of the drive before a memory poked its head out.

For example, and for starters, we already live a few miles north of what I used to think of as Canada. I mean, not literally Canada, but soooooooo far north that it might as well be. 

The place I’m thinking about was actually a kennel to which my dad and I were taking our beagle, Rusty, back when I was a kid. This would be the northiest north part of Lynnwood. And however we reached this remote area from Magnolia, the last bit was done on 99, take a right at the red clock building, take the very next right after that, then drive down to the end.

So we’re on the road now, up I-5 passed Everett. Coming down into the valley after downtown, Dagmar’s Landing is always a memory. An olfactory memory. Because this whole area used to stink. Really it did.

That was also back when I was a kid... paper mills, I think.

Whatever it was... it. was. nasty.  

Keep driving and, of course, Marysville. Where our dear friends, the Ramos family, lives. We always give a wave of the hand as we pass by.

Mostly a mental wave of the hand.

But you get the idea.

After the casino, it’s Seattle Premium Outlets. I especially remember this place ‘cause the last time we were here... my hands were literally freezing.

Not a great memory. But it sure sticks with you.

Next up, 172nd Street NE. Smokey Point. An area that itself has no particular significance other than it’s where we’ve exited to reach three destinations west of I-5.

The first is Lake Ki. When she was in grade school, Linzy ‘n I and her uncle and cousin came out here disturbingly early one morning to fish.

So yeah.

We did that.

Not too far after Lake Ki, Country Burger. And I love this place. Looooooooove it. It’s on the way to Warm Beach... but we’ve actually driven all the way out here just to eat here.

No kidding.

You should definitely check it out yourself. 

Almost all the way to the water, Warm Beach Camp. We spent time up here with family as well as called it home for a few days of Winter Camp for Kids during a week that included Valentine’s Day.

And yes... Kimmer did her camp medical provider thing and I helped.

What was nice... was that we were set up in our own cabin.

:-)

Back on I-5, coming up on highway 532, the Stanwood exit, I’m always reminded of Stanwood Foursquare Church because my very first Kid’s Camp gig was accomplished without my own computer. I had my own consumer-grade video camera, sure, but as for a Mac...

I used theirs. 

Drove up here to borrow it. Drove back here a week later to return it.

It was an awful lot of driving, but worth it as the church was gracious enough to loan me the use of their own Mac.

La Conner’s never been that big a deal for us, but every time we come up on Conway, WA, not even a proper town but a Census Designated Place, I’m reminded of a wedding we attended out here. Somewhere.

I know it was a classic white-painted church. I think a steeple, definitely two stories. Barely on the west side of I-5.

I also know the reception was in La Conner and driving between the two was pretty straightforward. Conceptually, anyway. There were actually a lot of turns and curves and unlit roads involved.

Can’t actually find it on Google Maps where I figured it would be... but I still always think of it around these parts.

North, still, there’s an area where you kind of descend a little into another valley. It’s not super dramatic or anything, but you notice it.

And every time I do... I think:

Arlington.

Of course, were I to print that in the paper or broadcast it on TV, you could definitely call that Fake News.

Remember that exit for Warm Beach?

Arlington’s on the east side of I-5 at that point.

Still... this is where I always think Arlington.

And probably always will.

As you pass through the area, eventually a county road parallels the freeway. Somewhere along here, back when I was a kid driving this way with my parents, was a little stand where they sold honey. I remember we stopped there once to buy some. Don’t know if it’s still there. I didn’t see it this trip.

I just think honey along this stretch of road.

Okay so the area I think of as Arlington is basically the outskirts of Mount Vernon. The overpass you see below is, for me, the sign that we’ve entered the town proper.

Is that true?

No idea. I’ve always just thought that when I was a kid. Pass under the road and BAM.

Mount Vernon. 

Couple things about Mount Vernon is that there used to be a 2-3 story brick building here that was a bookstore. Kimmer ‘n I actually stopped in town once to check it out. Nowadays, I don’t think it’s there anymore. Not in the brick building, anyway.

The other thing is that one year a bunch of college friends and I did a Skagit Valley bike ride. A totally doable thing ‘cause it’s all flat in the valley.

I think we parked in town and rode our bikes across that bridge below toward wide open spaces.

That’s what I remember, anyway.

Burlington and Highway 20 is another major crossroads in my life. 

For one, I remember going on the Skagit Tour when I was a kid. You basically drive I-5 from Seattle to Burlington, head east about 60 miles on the North Cascade Highway and...

There you are.

I caught this description in the June 16, 1977 edition of the Centralia Daily Chronical. It matches what’s still rolling around inside my head.

“The regular tour is generally available by prepaid advance reservation only. This fully-guided four-hour visit begins with a complete orientation at the Diablo Tour Center and includes a ride on the incline lift, a boat cruise to Ross Dam, a tour of the Ross Powerhouse and an all-you-can-eat family-style meal.”

https://newspaperarchive.com/centralia-daily-chronicle-jun-16-1977-p-7/

The thing I have an actual visual memory of, though, is this.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lift_at_Diablo_Dam,_1954_(40496828082).jpg

It’s the incline lift near Diablo Dam. 

They don’t use it anymore on the tours, but when they did, it had this kind of capacity.

And I loved riding it as a kid.

Prolly still would.

http://www.funimag.com/photoblog/index.php/articles/us-the-great-era-of-lost-american-funiculars/seattle-diablo-skagit-4/

I’m actually thinking about redoing that tour someday. But I am bummed about the incline lift.

Here are a few more details about the tour...

https://www.goskagit.com/funicular-lift/image_4d742320-f3c8-11e2-8e32-001a4bcf887a.html

Okay so say dams, tours, and hydroelectric power isn’t your thing. About 60 miles further east on the North Cascade Highway you’ll find a town pulled from the old west. 

At least it’s got that vibe.

We actually drove out here once to hang out in a nearby cabin with friends. 

We got a late start on the evening we were supposed to catch up with them and, by the time we hit Burlington, it was super dark. And we had no appetite for driving Highway 20 that way. So we figured a hotel for the night. Only, there was some kind of sports tournament going on at the time and all the hotels were booked.

As were all the hotels in Mount Vernon.

We basically had to backtrack about 20 miles to find a room at the inn.

Yeah.

Winthrop was cool, though. The next day.

Okay. We’re back at Burlington and Highway 20. We’re not any further north, but west of here I remember a great country breakfast kind of place painted red from top to bottom with white trim. It’s a place I’m pretty sure we must’ve spotted from either I-5 or on our way to Deception Pass. Certainly there wasn’t a way for us to just know about it.

Of course, like that little church I mentioned earlier... I can’t find it where I was pretty sure it would be on Google Maps.

UPDATE (11/10/2018) Found it! It’s called the Skagit Valley’s Farmhouse Restaurant. And my memory was completely off as to its location. Turns out, we never spotted it from I-5. Not even once. Kimmer ‘n I spotted it from Highway 20 on our way to Whidbey Island one time.  It’s also not “painted red from top to bottom with white trim”. So I don’t know what that’s about. All I know is... it’s still here.  :-)

Kimmer ‘n I managed to eat there once and it. was. delicious.

Back on Highway 20, drive another 20 miles across the valley, then across Fidalgo Island, then across a pair of iron bridges onto the northern tip of Whidbey Island.

Right down below is where my family spent a lot of picnic time when I was growing up. 

We even came here once with my Aunt Esther and her family. She had a 16mm film camera with her and managed to capture the most embarrassing moment of my grade school self ever.

To this day, it’s the most embarassing moment of my life.

And I’m pretty sure she still has that film.

My dad liked to gather a lot of the naturally polished rocks here which, I’m pretty sure, gave him the idea to buy a rotary rock tumbler that he set up in our garage. It always seemed to be running. 

From Burlington north... next stop’s Bellingham which I always thought was this.

It’s actually Fairhaven, one very Instagram-friendly neighborhood of Bellingham. Calling Fairhaven Bellingham is like calling Pioneer Square Seattle.

But this is where I always ended up on those few occasions in my life I found myself in Bellingham so...

I thought this was Bellingham.

Yeah.

Bellingham, of course, is much more. And last Monday we had an opportunity to explore it just a touch more thoroughly. Enough to finally understand that Bellingham isn’t what I thought it was.

And this:

The photograph below is Haggens, up the hill from Bellingham Marina. Broadway, take a left on Meridien. You’ll find it by the time you hit Illinois Street.

Anyway.

The thing about Haggens is this is the grocery store Kimmer’s talking about whenever she talks about the grocery store at which she worked when she went to Western Washington University. The one she rode her bike down to from her dorm. And then back up again.

The one she worked at that one time when she fell asleep in her dorm and woke up thinking it was the next morning when it was actually evening of the same day.

Thought she missed her shift, you see.

That Haggens.

This one here.

And there you have it. My trip up Memory Lane. North Edmonds to Bellingham. It’s a fast drive getting there, a little over an hour (which surprised both of us). 

But it covers decades of pretty awesome memories.

:-)

[randoreviews]

OTTAWA REFLECTIONS

     Let’s reflect. Where is Ottawa? Just past those three stars in the sky and down the rainbow road a ways. No, if you’re going from New England, you have to go through Buffalo. Buffalo will let you know that you shouldn’t be sad to be leaving America. Even if you like a good wing, you can get that anywhere now, with as much blue cheese as you want.      Once you’re in Canada, the land flattens out to reveal power lines and stations stretching on for miles and miles. They look like electric scarecrows. If now you get a faint tinge of homesickness, again think of Buffalo. We went in the summertime, in August, but if you go anytime between November and April, this will be a winter oasis. The swirls of wind and snow will almost seem to be carrying your car along. (I know from going to Quebec City many times in the winter... dear old Quebec.) Take heart in the snow: it’s not cold, it’s comforting. Aren’t you warm in your car? But this was August and no rain, and my friend kept talking about how he could see how the rail system was all connected. (He had just read a book about trains and had a fever for talking about it.) Once you get somewhere abroad, even if it’s on the highway in the middle of nowhere Canada, you start to think you see things with a fresh eye. This may in part be due to the fact that we all leave some baggage behind in our home countries, as soon as we cross the border.      I was a little homesick. I always think I want to travel across the world, but as soon as I get ten miles from my house I start to think about my friends and my houseplants, etc. It’s quite the dilemma being a person. We’re all just walking question marks. We got to Ottawa (which I’ll point out, is the capital city) at sunset and I immediately thought I had made a mistake in bringing us here. It seemed small and nondescript. It seemed like something that would hardly be a city in the U.S. Well, we would at least have three days to see how boring it was. Sometimes it’s fun to see just how bored you can get. It’s a fun, fully immersive activity. We met our AirBNB host, who, do I even need to tell you, he was Canadian so he was friendly. (Not as many French Canadians in Ottawa, to my knowledge, so they are apt to be more friendly.) He was a male hairdresser and we were staying behind his salon off of a little gated courtyard with a little fountain, and he made haste to introduce us to his wife, I think to prove to us right away that he wasn’t gay, even though he was a hairdresser. (Still could have been gay... and who cares anyway? Be as gay as you want.) The apartment was a sleek little place, what you would expect from a hairdresser. White everything.      We turned on the local news and started to drink some beer. Of course we connected to the WiFi and I responded to a couple friends’ texts telling them that I was in Canada, to make it more real for myself. Aren’t you jealous? I’m in Ottawa. How can you travel and not watch the local news? It really puts you there. If they’re having a pumpkin festival the next day on the outskirts of town, or a lumberjack competition, don’t you want to know? Just for your own edification? Thinking about it, we got the beer in Burlington, where me and my friend went to college. So we didn’t go through Buffalo. I made that up, I guess just to talk some shit about Buffalo. (Sorry all you Sabres fans.) And the beer was strong, and before we knew it we were drunk. I was playing songs on my phone. John Coltrane, Bob Marley. Legendary Americans to remind us of home. (Okay, Bob isn’t American but we’ve basically adopted him.) Once a friend asked how I was doing and I never really know, but I told them I could play any song on my phone, so that was at least something.      A stones throw from our place was a bar called Atari. I figured they would have some arcade games — not that I would want to play, I just like looking at them. For aesthetic pleasure. You understand. It was a bit of false advertising because they didn’t have any games, but they did serve strong drinks. We sat on the roof and our server (he was definitely gay... and friendly), he sold us on one, two, three drinks. My friend doesn’t drink very much, but will drink if that’s what we’re doing. We became best friends with our server for that hour or so. He told us that Ottawa was okay but that when he graduated college he wanted to move to Toronto. Toronto is like the LA and New York and Miami of Canada all combined. Ottawa isn’t the Washington D.C. It’s more like... Richmond, Virginia, or some place like that. EXCEPT...      ... EXCEPT... where the government buildings are it is beau-tee-full. It’s called Parliament Hill and it’s like all of a sudden you’re in London, without all the smog and the congestion and people throwing acid in your face. It’s real chill. And international! Canada’s immigration policy is more lax than Uncle Sam’s, and if you’ve just moved to Canada from, say, Ethiopia, you want to see the capital with your family. You want to go to Parliament Hill and see the Peace Tower, which is like Big Ben, but again, more chill. I saw some high-class pretty women who, maybe this is my bad but I just assumed they were prostitutes and I thought, politicians DO work here! The Hill is on a river, not too far-fetched of a name, the Ottawa River, and it’s a pretty idyllic scene. I live in a suburb, pretty much all white, so really it was just good to see some black and Middle Eastern and Asian people.      We paid for those drinks, I mean the following morning we paid for them, and after we got coffee the following morning, which wasn’t quite strong enough to be a silver bullet, my friend went back to the place to rest more and I sojourned around the main market that’s near The Hill. I saw a picture of Obama from when he visited the market a few years back, shaking someone’s hand, and thought to myself, this place is all right. I stood in front of the U.S. Embassy, took a good long gander at it. It’s not a modest building, I’ll say that. It almost looked more like the real seat of power. It has what looks like a steel spine running down the middle, like a combination of Alien and Predator, like it could get up and shoot lasers and eat the rest of the city. It’s probably the only thing in the city that isn’t chill. If we somehow got in a mishap about some stolen poutine, my friend and I, we would seek refuge in this building. Not only are we Americans, our I.D.s would show them... we’re from Massachusetts, basically the birthplace of the country, if not of all civilization.      That second night we didn’t do anything besides to tell ourselves we weren’t drinking. And we didn’t. I can’t drink more than once a week. Thankfully my body revolts. Besides that drinking is fun, it’s almost worth drinking to then not drink the next night and just eat and sleep and watch TV, to remind yourself of the good, quiet life. I’m pretty sure I did some stretching that night too, just in the little corner of the kitchen. Made it my little impromptu yoga. Felt so good. We also happened to get the Lions-Patriots preseason game, because we were close enough to Detroit. Home has a way of finding you wherever you are.      Now the THIRD day (technically the second DAY we were there)... the third day was the big day. Hangover... gone! The gay bartender was great people but we hadn’t gotten pulled in by him again. The third day late morning we went to the National Gallery. First we stopped in an antique bookstore and I looked at the spines of all these books about traveling to Antarctica and taking a dogsled across the Yukon. Crazy shit, man. How bad does your wife have to be for you to be like, fuck it, I’m traveling to Antarctica! I may not make it back! Was Ernest Shackleton’s wife just one of the worst people in the world? Or was she lovely and Ernest simply had the exploring bug? Something must have been going on there. Then when we went to the National Gallery we saw all these paintings of people in canoes and dogsleds, and houses in winter, and rivers... lots of rivers. Canada, man. You know what’s north of Canada? The North Pole. That’s how far it goes up. Do you know how cold it is in Canada in the winter? Like, everywhere in Canada in the winter? It’s fucking freezing. Do you know what extreme conditions do to people? It makes them make great art.      The most famous group of Canadian artists is the Group of Seven. I only really knew Lawren Harris’s work from this group, but the member probably most central to the group, who drowned in a damn lake, is Tom Thomson. Tom Thomson is one of those artists like Van Gogh who, although not nearly as prolific as Vincent, you just fall in love with him right when you see his paintings. Or you fall in love with his work... but isn’t that the same as loving the man? Trees blowing in the wind. Trees standing stalwart way up on the side of a mountain overlooking a lake. Trees in the deep woods next to a river. From the little I know of his death, I got the impression that some folks have tried to make it more of a mystery, possible foul play, but probably he just drowned and it’s their way of making him more of a legend. I have to get a hamster or something and name him Tom Thomson. Such a strong name.      Anyone who knows me knows I’m an art and museum lover, and less the sports bar kind of guy, but you reach a point in a museum where you say, no more, please. Please! You’ll bring the Mona Lisa to me personally right now and I can look at it close up with no one else around? I’ll punch a hole in that bitch’s face. My point is you reach a saturation point. If you don’t reach a saturation point, that means you haven’t been absorbing anything, which probably means you’re a robot. We retired to the AirBNB to sit and look at our phones and stare at the wall and not look at any art of any kind. We then went to a medicinal shop and imbibed some medicine, allowed by the government, and then the art could really blend and distill in me. We walked around The Hill and, jeez, it was one of the most beautiful late afternoons I’ve ever seen. Sun shining, the sunlight twinkling off the water. Real magical travel shit. We walked down by the river and canal and inspected the lock system. My friend has a very curious mind. Maybe in his next life he’ll be an engineer.      The big boxing match happened to be the last night we were there, and we went to a pub beforehand and the female bartender sold me on a place to go to. At first I thought she was just being nice to me because maybe she liked me, and then about eight seconds in I was like, nope, she’s selling me on something. I could die in a fiery car crash in a ravine and she would sprinkle down advertising cards to her friend’s club on my dead body. Come to think of it, I’ve never met a female bartender who you could describe as, Oh, she seemed shy and genuine. I get it because they have to deal with so many people, so many assholes, so they have their shtick and their guard up, but it’s never a good feeling when someone treats you like an easy mark. To further perfectly emphasize my relationship with women (not that I was interested in her), we ended up going to her friend’s club, because I told her I would go and I stupidly stupidly have integrity or whatever when it comes to that stuff, and it was at full capacity. A woman who I didn’t even like who I was just trying to be nice to swindled and sold me on something that I was then shut out of. Kind of wish I was a politician so I could just fuck high-class prostitutes and not care. But then do you even have a soul at all? Could you appreciate the Tom Thomson paintings?      It’s funny, I have no idea what we ate for breakfast the next morning before we left. Totally gone from my mind. (I am writing this on my phone on a red eye at about three in the morning.) It wasn’t a crepe, I would have remembered a crepe. It wasn’t chicken wings, I don’t eat too many of those. I’m desperate to remember in part because I’m hungry right now. Maybe a chocolate croissant? Chocolate croissant is my best guess. Always my best guess. As we got close to the border and our phones really started working again, we picked up the baggage again that we had sort of kind of left for a few days, back to our regularly-scheduled lives, but with the sunlight flickering on the water in our minds in the late afternoon sun.

[sartorialatlantan]

When Traveling to Plattsburgh

This has to be said about Plattsburgh, New York. Unless you live close and I mean close, within a handful of hours tops, take a plane. This is not an easy town to get to. You cannot fly directly there. You have Montreal as an option; get your passport updated though. You can fly into Burlington, Vermont and take the ferry over. I think there's a ferry ride from Montreal too. I wouldn't know though. I drove. I drove with my wife and two daughters, 3 years old and 1-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia. Alpharetta to be exact, which is a touch north of the city. We left early, 5 in the morning, and started our two-day journey. My kids hadn't ever been in a car this long so this was definitely going to be interesting, an experiment in patience for us no doubt. We bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee a year prior for the occasion, something large and spacious to make the trip as comfortable as possible. It's no "land yacht" but it's big enough for two adults and two small children. We were scheduled to drive through several states on day one. We would make our way out of Georgia and into both the Carolinas and into West Virginia and not stop for food or real rest until we hit one of the many "burgs" of Virginia. To my surprise, the girls were doing quite well. It's amazing what a dual screen DVD player will do for your sanity. They had a regular rotation of their favorite movies and my oldest had mastered the art of interchanging the discs; only after the end credits, of course, she likes the music that plays while the words scroll up the screen.

Our first stop of any notable length was for lunch at southern roadside staple Cracker Barrel. I felt fried, eyes burning, stiff back, mild headache from too much caffeine and not enough sleep. You can go to bed as early as you like, it doesn't mean shit when your one-year-old is teething. When you've been driving for 7 hours and finally stop you're literally buzzing. We ate lunch with my wife's parents. They were on this trip with us riding in tandem from this point on. After the meal, I told my oldest daughter she could have something from the restaurant's general store. So naturally, we left with our bellies full and a pretend waffle maker. Waffles, butter, and syrup included. The plan from this point was to press on to Hagerstown, Maryland. There was no alternative, the town of Hager had to be our destination; our hotel reservations for the night were in said town. We would not arrive on time though. We weren't on the road ten minutes after leaving the Cracker Barrel parking lot when the tire pressure light came on. A little backstory on this tire…this damn tire. The low-pressure warning light had been coming on for weeks, maybe a month. My wife drives the Jeep and would routinely stop for air, only every time she'd stop and manually check it, the pressure would read normal. We figured maybe it's a bad sensor in the tire. Days before leaving, just to play it safe, we take it to the service center. They check it, do whatever it is they do and give it a clean bill. Must be a bad sensor… As it would turn out on the trip, there was a nail in the tire. Thanks to the Internet, and the scattered Jeep dealers up the east coast, we were only delayed one hour and back on the road, free of charge. It meant arriving well past dinnertime, but we made it.

The second day we covered all the New England ground. I guess it was NewEngland. It's all a highway blur at this point. From Maryland we were back into West Virginia then into New Jersey, then Pennsylvania, or was Pennsylvania first, then New Jersey? Then finally we crossed into the state of New York…with an eternity to go. I haven't checked this on the map but from what I can tell Plattsburgh is the farthest tip north on the right side of the state and we drove straight up the side. I feel bad for people from New York State because, well, the rest of us just assume if you say you're from New York, you mean the city. I'm here to tell you, New York State is huge and open and full of country. There are hillbillies in Plattsburgh that could be from deep South Georgia just based on looks alone. But I'll get into that later. After a nine-hour second day drive, we arrived. And here I thought I felt fried the day before.

The whole time leading up to this trip my mother-in-law had been warning me to brace for an ugly town. "It's not a pretty town, it's old and rundown, but the lake is nice". She was really selling it (he said with jest.) She wasn't wrong. The town is old and rundown, but there was a certain charm to it. The house we stayed in was on Lake Champlain; if it weren't for the islands in view you'd swear it's an ocean, and I'm told that it's not even as big as the Great Lakes. The house is on the same street my wife's father and his six siblings grew up on. This is their hometown, and what an interesting hometown to have. The lake is gorgeous, and with it still being early June at this point, it's still freezing cold. I swear there must've been an un-thawed layer of ice down deep out there still. Nevertheless, we got in, we meaning my three-year-old (a child who has no issue with freezing temperatures apparently), me, and my soon-to-be brother-in-law. My daughter didn't go every day, but I did. My future brother-in-law Drew and I would routinely do shots of tequila and then carry a plastic bag full of beers down to the water; it's a classy look. You can get day-buzzed all you want but when you go waist-deep into 58-degree water, you sober right up. These day drinking lake days gave way to a food run that can only be done in this town.

Clare and Carl's. You've never heard of it, and that makes sense. Clare and Carl's is a sinking hot dog shack. Well, from what I could tell it's made of white bricks, maybe cinder blocks, but it is literally sinking. The ass of the store is literally going into the ground. I didn't look but the lore around the bathroom is that the rim of the toilet bowl is now ground level, like something out of Eastern Europe. I'm sure whomever I heard that from was exaggerating… then again it is possible. Naturally I asked, "Why not fix it?" but apparently, the shack owners don't own the land and have to "play it where it lies" so to speak. Clare and Carl's is famous, at least with my in-laws who no longer live in the town, for their Michigan's. (Michigan Red Hots as they're known.) I cannot describe the bun, I have tried and the closest I can come is that it looks like a miniature bread loaf that's been hollowed out in the middle, only the edges resemble something closer to a piece of white bread folded in half. But that's not really accurate either. I don't know what that damn thing was, but it was good. The Red Hot is a hot dog, and it is RED. It did not look like any dog I'd had before. The standard Michigan comes with meat sauce on top with raw diced onions. If you want to sound like you know your shit you order them buried. I would routinely order a brown bag's worth of "buried" Michigans. The onions go underneath the dog, meat sauce on top. The meat sauce is close to a no-bean chili sauce; only the meat has been ground and pounded into almost a paste, like wet sand. Delicious wet sand. I cannot recall now, but I believe they're finished off with a stroke of yellow mustard. They're individually wrapped and rolled tight in wax paper and off you go. They're locally known as Michigans, I call ‘em Plattsburgh Heroin; I ate a lot of those. Beer-fueled and hungry we would venture there routinely, about mid-day, warming up after a lake plunge. I never went over my head, Drew, and cousin Ben, did, they even swam out over their heads. I chose to keep my heart above the water line. Did I mention how cold the water was? A Michigan Red Hot will warm you right up.

There is not a lot to do in this town, aside from drink, swim, and eat. I'm told the locals, more so in the old days, also fought. I think that's common in isolated places, particularly hockey towns. You eat, drink, play and fight. I've never been so bored that I wanted to fist fight a stranger, or a friend, but I could imagine in the dead of winter in a town like Plattsburgh, you do what you need to, to pass the time. The military used to have a big presence in the town. Two branches I believe. I heard stories of the blue collar locals giving the Air Force guys shit for one reason or another, routinely causing fights to break out. There's a SUNY college in the town, I think that's what keeps it going now. The literal town was usually lively and buzzing with young people out to eat and drink. I'm sure there is more to do than what I experienced though, I don't want to seem like I'm putting the town down. We were there for a wedding. In this family, weddings also function as an excuse for a full family reunion. It's never quite everyone, but this visit only left us short three cousins. This being a reunion of sorts for my Irish-Catholic family-in-law, there was drinking, usually by lunch, and dancing, and socializing and eating and also drinking, did I mention drinking? No one gets out of hand, there are too many small children to look after, but the beer and wine flows.  

Everyone in this family is unique. They've all got interesting lives, and do interesting things. Some more than others, but everyone's got a personality for sure. Everyone inevitably breaks off into groups for doing various activities. Drew and I routinely break away when we're in the same place. He and my sister-in-law live on the west coast. On one day, early into the trip, he and I decided to venture into town for liquor and cigars. The tequila was easy to come by, but we had to go into the old city for the cigar hunt. We first wandered into a smoke shop. Smoke shops, ironically, no longer specialize in smoke. It's just wall-to-wall vape accessories. The pipes and water bongs are on display in glass cases like relics from the past. Do you want to feel old? Get a conversation going with a young millennial about how they take in grass or nicotine. They're into some space-age tech. They don't even carry lighters. We quickly realized that this was not where we needed to be and proceeded down the street to a real cigar shop. We were not prepared for how real it would be. The buildings in this town are old, really old, and this cigar shop was the ground floor of one of the many old buildings. I don't know if they had a ventilation system for the air, but if they did it must've been broken. I like cigars, I like the smell of cigar smoke, but this…this was awful. You couldn't breathe. The air was brown. There were 4 or 5 old men sitting in a circle just puffing away, I guess they were used to not breathing. Our eyes instantly watered, I caught a buzz within seconds. I was taking short shallow breaths, trying my best not to cough and look like a total wimp. We quickly escaped to the humidor, the only smoke-free safe haven in the store. It was here where Drew said, "I don't think I want one anymore…" I was in agreement, but I knew both A. that I didn't want to leave empty-handed, tail between my legs and B. that I would want one at the wedding reception the next day. We made our selection, took a deep breath, then headed back into the store; we did our best to make little to no small talk at this point. That smell stayed with us and on us the rest of the day. You would have thought we rolled in tobacco leaves in a burning barn. Nevertheless, I smoked mine at the reception. We would later share the other near the end of the trip, late at night sipping tequila and whiskey, talking about David Foster Wallace with Ben and the advantages of Fresco wool in the summertime. (That last part was all me.)

When we weren't having a family hang at the rental house, we were out eating. One or two nights after the wedding a group of us, about 7 or 8, went to the famous Monopole dive bar. A place I'm told was home to many fights back in the day, the kind of bar where elbow room is a luxury no one can afford. On this particular night, it was dead. Some of us were buzzed, the rest were getting started and we were there to eat pizza and hot wings. The pizza was decent, a Sicilian-style pie, mostly bread with some sauce and cheese on it like an afterthought. But the wings, my god the wings! The sauce the majority of us agreed on was the Stoner Sauce. A spicy, honey mustard-based BBQ style sauce, holy lord was this good, so good that Drew and I ordered a second basket. They were so good, Drew and I returned the next night to get more, 40 or 50 more to take back for the group. There were too many family members who had not gone on the trip the first night, too many relatives who didn't know what they were missing. Even my father-in-law's brother Mike, who said he didn't like hot wings, ate and enjoyed them. Outside of my favorite wing establishments in Atlanta, these were the best wings I've had in a long time. I ate very many. I will again when we go back.

Another food-related highlight of the trip was the cold cheese pizza, again with Drew. Naturally, we assumed we were being pranked when cousin Mathieson told us to order a large pie with a side of cold cheese from Pizza Bono. It was 2 in the morning, and as drunken luck would have it, they were still taking delivery orders. Getting the order placed was a bit of a chore. I don't think the girl working the phones knew how to use one, or to talk to people, or take food orders. She damn near hung up on us before Drew even gave her the address. He said she seemed very confused when he asked for a side of cold cheese, (put off even) like she suspected we were pranking her, when in reality if this was a prank by Matt, she was a 3rd generation prank victim. We decided to wait out front for the driver, it was now past 2 a.m. and we didn't want to wake the whole house with a pizza delivery. There was an ongoing uncertainty as to whether or not this food would arrive. The way the order went, the suspicion that the whole thing was a joke, the time of night, the general deadness of the small town we were in. We hoped for pizza, but I think we were prepared to go to bed hungry. It was a very happy moment indeed when the driver pulled up, large pie in one hand and a take-out container filled with thick shredded fresh mozzarella cheese in the other. Turns out, this was no joke. You sprinkle a heaping pile of cold fresh mozzarella on your slices and go to town. It doesn't add anything noteworthy to the slice, but it's great. I recently had this confirmed by a native Upstate New Yorker who cuts my hair, that yes, cold cheese pizza is indeed a thing and it was no joke. You could probably get this anywhere; you just might get looked at funny. Try it though if you're ever in Upstate.

One of the first things that struck me in Plattsburgh is its overall lack of air conditioning. I'm southern, Atlanta southern, I hate humidity and heat and deal with it far too often. Plattsburgh, though, is lucky to get six weeks of summer before it's jacket weather again, so AC is not a priority. This was an issue for me. To keep from sweating I need a cool, dry 72 or below. Anything above that and I start to melt. Fortunately for me, our room had a spot cooler, so it stayed relatively cool in there. Everywhere else though…I was bordering on miserable. I was alone in this though, I usually am. The lack of AC made my trip to local grease trap, Homestead, interesting. The food there was superb. I just had to eat while simultaneously wiping my forehead. This was basically a Yankee Waffle House. The crowd though could've easily been transplanted from Griffin, Georgia. I saw teased-up bangs on a woman that I haven't seen since my late 80s childhood. It's a total head scratcher to see red necks with northern accents. I was with my father-in-law, who has always said they were from a red neck town, turns out he was being serious. We both ordered the corned beef hash and eggs. I don't love corned beef hash, I generally like it, but this hash blew my mind. It was so tightly minced and just about over-fried, crisp and connected on the outside and soft and delectable in the middle. That, with some buttered toast to dip into my sunny-up eggs, I was in heaven, sweating and ready to leave, but heaven all the same.

I have to apologize now to every in-law relative who didn't get mentioned. There was a lot more on this trip and I could go on for pages and pages, though there are some things best left out. This was my first trip to their hometown and while I didn't love the drive the destination was great. I'm not pushing people over to go back tomorrow, but I will go back, maybe when my kids are out of diapers and my pockets are deep enough to afford the airfare. Funny enough, some of the selling points for visiting didn't even happen. You're an hour from Montreal; you can day trip to another country for crying out loud! We didn't make the journey though, no passports for the kiddos. Then, there's all of Burlington, Vermont, the Ben and Jerry's factory too. We didn't do any of it, just talked about it and ultimately decided to relax on the porch instead and have another beer. So when visiting Plattsburgh, New York, take a plane and go on an empty stomach. If you find yourself desperate to do something to occupy your time, there's great food, great beer at Valcour Brewing, you can swim in Lake Champlain, even if it's cold, and I guess if it comes down to it, head to the Monopole and pick a fight with one of the many grizzled, pickle-nosed regulars. You'll probably lose the fight, but oh what a story you'd have.