nostalgia times a million

k, I am the biggest goob ever (and today feels like it's been two separate days...curious). I was an hour early for panto today (ack!) so I decided to walk around a bit. Now panto is at the Bailey Theatre which is smack dab in the middle of my old neighborhood. I grew up alongside the Bailey Theatre. So as I was walking around I kept having all these memories of my childhood. Biking to Dawn or Colleen's houses the summer before Grade Five, walking to school with Amanda in Grade Seven, every Halloween ever since Grade Four. I kept thinking about what I felt back then, what my days were like, the things I thought about. I am so different now. It's astonishing.

Then I walked around in the Back 40 for a bit (and I don't CARE how much you guys make fun of me for calling it that, at one point in time it WAS forty acres, so kiss my bum), and I nearly cried. There are so many memories there from hanging out with Amanda, and Ryan in the first couple years of high school. In Grade Eight, me and her would go to the back 40 at least once every week, and sit on the Plateau and eat chips,a dn drink Slurpee, no matter what season it was. Playing Truth or Dare in the fort, or at the Arbutus Tree. (yes these places are all capitalized, and no I do not care what you think. I defy you all) walking around the track that people used for dirt biking endlessly, just talking about our impressions of high school, which was so new to us at the time. The rock that me and Amanda found, and decided to make our place where we burnt stuff (freaking pyros we were), and the fire pit where all the older kids partied (assumably from all the beer cans, and burnt couches we found there).

Just all these memories of the people I knew, and the things I did ran through my head the whole time. I decided to walk up to Co-op, and get a coffee, just like old times. And I walked past the tot lot where me and Amanda used to hide out, and talk about the guys we liked, and where I smoked pot for the second time in my life with some girl named Sarah. I used to walk to school through that tot lot. And I remember me, and *oh crap who was it...some guy friend of mine--maybe Greg or maybe Josh. can't remember* stole apples from some guys yard. They were the sweetest, yummiest, crispest apples I have ever tasted, and I have literally spent ever since trying to find more of those apples. But no store carries them, and that tree has stopped producing now, so no more yummy apples for me. Anyways, I also walked by the forest-y type area where Quinn spent an entire summer building the biggest bestest tree fort EVER. It was the coolest thing in the world...it was forty feet up between three pine trees, right in the thickest part of the foresty area. You would never have noticed it unless you knew it was there. Then he broke off almost all the branches leading up to it, so unless you knew where to step you couldn't get up to it. And once you knew where the steps were, it was so easy to get up; like I was a fraction of his height, but the branches he left in place were just perfect for even me to get up to the tree fort. Then when you got up there, it was three levels, not including the roof for the top level, and the middle level had a balcony reaching four feet away from the trees. I used to hang out with Quinn, and his friend Donnie, watching them build it. Quinn had the best balance and would always dance on one foot on the outer-most frame of the balcony while it was still half-finished, and I would always have a heart-attack. One day, though, he learnt his lesson because he actually did fall off! He fell forty feet, and landed right on his back, in a huge pile of pine needles. He didn't hurt himself other than knocking the breath out of himself, and knocking himself out cold for a couple seconds, but still he didn't casually dance around the frame again after that! Thankfully I wasn't there when that happened, or I would have shit myself. Yes. Shit myself. He showed me the crater of pine needles later, though, and it was enormous! Also one of them always saved me from spiders, or gave me their sweater if I was cold, or shared their junk food with me. I have the coolest big brother ever! I have so many stories of stuff that happened in that tree fort, it's awesome. Anyways, it was truly the absolute coolest tree fort ever, and my brother got advice from my Mom (who is an architect) about how to improve it, and give it really cool features, but then he went and met April (my sister-in-law) and production on the tree fort stalled into death. By now, city workers have probably torn it down.

Anyways, I went to the Co-op, and thought about how Mom and I used to buy coffee there every single day in the last two years of high school, and how we'd take the dogs for a walk adn leave them on their leashes outside Co-op's doors, while we got our coffee, and maybe a burritto if I pleaded hard enough. Then I went in, and got my typical large French Vanilla cappacino with three French Vanilla creamers unstirred, just poured in, and covered with a white lid, just like always. And I took it up to the counter, and Johnny was working! He wasn't looking at me at first, and I said his name, and he turned around, and his face just softened, and his tone completely changed! He had this huge smile on his face, and we talked about what each of us had been up to lately, and how all of my old neighbors had moved away, and what other Co-op employees were up to, but there were a lot of customers so I couldn't speak to him as much as I wanted to. Then I went to pay, and he waved me off, saying that it was on him, just like old times, and I nearly died with happiness!

So I took my coffee, and jaywalked across Labieux, right at the tricky spot, just because I knew how to do it without getting beaned by a car, and walked back to the Bailey Theatre. It was astonishing. I had my exact old coffee, and life smelled just like my childhood (OMG! Gator! I just realized! I understand what you meant now! *joy!*). I almost cried. As it was, I was so crazy I was talking to myself. Mostly relating things that I remembered about everything I passed.

Anyways, that's why I am a goob. I am sorry I made you sit through that speil about my childhood, I am sure that it was not entirely fun for you. But that was what my today was like, and maybe now you all have a little better idea of the times that made me who I am today. (oh, am a corndog! forgive me!)