Reminiscing

So, since my computer exploded

And then I spent a butt load of money to get it fixed

But only half the amount I spent to get a brand new crappy one that still ran twice as slow as my computer

When I got it back, everything worked just fine. Just dandy. But I remember when I was back on the network with EJ that I locked down my pictures because I had some scandalous ones in there that I didn’t want him to see. No, I wasn’t smart in just creating a totally separate folder for them all and locking that one, I locked the whole god damned picture folder. All 20+ gigs of it. Excellent and beautiful photos. Videos that bring me back to that point. Bring a smile to my face. Bring a tinge of sadness to me from missing my last loved vehicle, or friends I haven’t talked to in years or girls that will never talk to me again. Trips we took to the gorge. To Cannon Beach. To Vancouver. Drunken parties at the condo. In California. In Vegas. Boxing, dunking, driving, singing, dancing, laughing…it’s all there. All good memories, even the sad ones. But now I can’t get access. I am going to try a lot of different things, because data retrieval would otherwise cost about a thousand dollars. Are my pictures worth that to me? Yes. They are priceless. I have had my camera since December of 2002, and my picture taking didn’t really drop off until about a year ago. I’m not sure why it dropped off. I just felt like I was taking too many pictures…at every opportunity I was asking people to pose…and was posing myself. So I let it drop off. But while I was living in Seattle…those were my pictures.

Just thinking about that, made me really want to look back at the time I spent in Seattle. And something that helped me continue on today was thinking about the summers I had in Seattle. Now there is the BEST SUMMER ever, the ones between my senior year of high school and my first year of college. But then there are the last few summers. And grouped together, thinking about each one, although they mud together I can still point out things and say “this was awesome. My life was great at these points”. And I’ve got the pictures up in my head. But I’m scared they’ll go gray or ever fade out as more pictures enter my head. That is what I’m afraid of.

What I remember from those summers: Getting home on a Thursday afternoon after school in May. Getting off the warm bus and having my MP3 player blast out something amazing while I watch the cherry blossoms fall to the slight breeze. Seeing girls walk around the quad in skirts and tank tops. Watching guys in sunglasses throw the Frisbee around. People out sunbathing.

Playing basketball. Playing basketball at Green lake as the sun goes down and is reflecting off of the water. The black hard top still warm from the days rays. Families, couples, children skating by and dogs panting, all stopped to sit and watch some basketball and lap in the rest of the day’s orange light. Sitting at Denny Court in the shade of the giant trees from the 1800s, drinking from a stone water fountain that is probably just as old. Watching sorority girls in bathing suits playing volleyball right next to the court. I remember sitting in the long warm, green gas with Don. Waiting for the next game to start up when a short boxer, a dog, came walking up to us out of nowhere. Before we knew it, we didn’t even care about the basketball because we were petting the dog, having him play fetch with a stick we had found. I remember one June afternoon, I had skipped out of a study session from the MSC (math study center) to go play ball. It was too nice of a day to stay locked in the basement…studying calculus. And I remember, it was me, and 3 of my guy friends from the class who I had convinced to go play. And that was 1:30 pm.

Usually Denny court didn’t pick up until the latest afternoon classes were over at 3:30 (before the evening group) but by the time we got to the court we had found that plenty of other guys had had the same idea as us. Screw finals, we’re young and you only get perfect June days like this to play ball with your friends so often. And we played. We played all night. I remember the lights coming on around 7 and being so hungry. But the games were so good, the weather so perfect, and every time I thought people were ready to be finished and go eat dinner, more guys showed up.

Then I found the games at BF Day. To me, they were like the little basketball oasis in the middle of nowhere. I knew there were courts down there. I just had no idea that there were 12 to 15 guys that were all friends. All knew each other. All understood their own “code”. It was like I had stumbled upon “The Sandlot” for adults, and instead of baseball, it was basketball. I guarantee to this day, you head down there on a Tuesday through Thursday afternoon, right about 5 pm? You’ll run in to these guys. And the best part about it is, they play every where. While I was in Seattle, I dreamed of finding other places like this. Little hole-in-the-wall courts where everyone knew how to play, and were all good friends by the end of the day. All looking for a competitive game, and knew how to enjoy the sun. I only found one other one, and that was at North Seattle Community College before they ripped that outdoor court down too. But I ran in to a few of the same guys at NSCC as I did at BF Day. Later on one summer during the 3 on 3 Hoop it up challenge I ran in to plenty of them.

But enough about basketball in the summer. I remember finding that perfect open parking spot in front of the first floor window, or waiting until it opened up. Then turning up the music on my computer, dumping the speakers off right on my window sill, parking the car, grabbing the hose and just spending hours washing and cleaning the Civic. For me there was almost no better feeling then having the cleanest car…windows rolled down, and just driving anywhere, for any excuse. Back then gas didn’t seem too expensive for me. And being broke was alright because I had everything I needed or wanted.

Playing golf at the 3 par. Eating happy hour at Duke’s. Eating a red mill burger with the sun setting on Phinney Hill. Wondering if the dry cleaners on that weird corner was ever open when I went running. Watching the lights twinkle below in Ballard as I drove towards Taco Bell in Ballard for an excellent and healthy dinner. The Aurora bridge and the slight wind that all those cars zooming by seemed to make. Blue Star chicken fried steak doused in gravy on an early Saturday morning. Nick finally getting his head shaved after so much coercing. July 4th atop the condo roof. So many memories are so vivid in my head. I fear I’m losing them slowly.

But hopefully this is what I’ll think of when I remember my summers in Seattle.