Memory #1

At Lindsey's house we played Nintendo games like Donkey Kong-- well, more like I watched Lindsey and Tyler play them, because I was a terrible player myself.

And then there was Rickers, which was a lot closer to her house than to mine. We'd scrounge for change to get food there.

Her garage felt secluded and a little frightening, the walls were partially covered in bare insulation material, and it was usually cold in the winter, but it was worth staying in there just to consume our food in privacy. And the computer was in the garage, and that meant Photo Safari, Mudball Wall, Stickerworld, and made-up games in Microsoft Paint and Word.

I distinctly remember, one afternoon, playing the Life game in the dim clutter of her room (she had a lot of knickknacks, many of them cat-related, and posters and pages torn from magazines, mostly of the Backstreet Boys). I would act embarrassed and make jokes if I ended up with a lot of the tiny blue and pink plastic pegs which represented children... but inwardly I was pleased with the idea. I definitely wanted to be a mom someday.

Sometimes we'd go outside until it got dark, and anywhere from one to four of the neighborhood kids would come out and we'd use chalk and play games on the street.

Once when it was snowy I threw a snowball toward a car, not meaning to hit it at all, but kind of experimenting with my own audacity. It brushed the back wheel on the right and rolled down the street. The driver backed up (a messy task in that weather) to tell me off, and I just kind of looked at him. I don't remember anything he said, because I didn't care much. After that one of the girls went home and told her mom, and the next time I went to that girl's house to meet her and Lindsey, their heads appeared at the door and told me I wasn't allowed to come in. That felt scummy.

I think it was the next year that Lindsey told me her winter gloves were always coming apart and her dad wouldn't buy her new ones, so I bought her some at Kohl's.