I guess it’s a good day for picking up on memes — this one comes from Mike.
- 25 Years Ago (1980): Hmmm…seven years old. Kindergarden? I’d be living in Anchorage, probably at the Big Grey House. I’m not sure, but this may have been the year that I got chicken pox and, no matter what mom told me, scratched, and ended up leaving three small scars in a triangle on my forehead, just above my left eyebrow. They’re still there. Of course, that might not have happened that year, but I only remember a few things from that long ago.
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15 Years Ago (1990):
Sixteen years old, and a Junior at Bartlett High School. I had a small core group of friends, was working on tech crew for the school theatre, played one of the orphans in our production of Oliver!, playing violin in the school orchestra, and singing in the school choir. I was also one of the members of the Bartlett High School Apathy Club, a club spearheaded by Royce and Rod mostly to give us all an excuse to hang out after school and watch movies. In other words, yes — I was a geek. :) -
10 Years Ago (1995):
Twenty-one years old, legal to (in order) be drafted, live on my own, drive, smoke, and drink. I lived in no less than four places over the course of my 21st year…in January, I’d have been living in a horrid little apartment in Fairview, one of the more ghetto areas of Anchorage (our apartment was broken into less than two weeks after we moved in…while we were home), and was so uncomfortable with leaving my computers and music unattended that I took them with me when I went to my folks house across town for a few days over Christmas. This was right towards the beginning of my DJ career, during my time at City Lights. -
5 Years Ago (2000): Twenty-six. Getting more and more frustrated with Anchorage, and thinking more and more seriously about leaving, though it would take me another year or so to actually follow through with that plan. Living at The Pit, a huge basement apartment in Turnagain, one of Anchorage’s ritzier areas. Still DJing here and there around town and enjoying what little celebrity status I had. The main party years were done with, but I still had a fairly sizeable group of friends and acquaintances around town. Deeply embroiled in one of the more memorable of my many tumultuous relationships — those of you who know about the statuesque redhead in my life can fill in the blanks. Those of you who don’t…sorry, but some stories just aren’t safe to tell publicly yet….
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3 Years Ago (2002):
Twenty-eight. Finally out of Anchorage, midway through my first year in Seattle. Living in what I not-so-affectionately termed the Shoebox, dating Candice, and working through a temp agency, for Xerox, at Arthur Andersen (before that silly business with Enron did them in). Later in the year I’d lose the position at Arthur Andersen and Xerox would place me in the copy shop on the Microsoft campus, Candice and I would split up (amicably, we’re still friends — in fact, she was here with Prairie and I for New Years Eve this year), and I’d move over to the building I’m living in now. -
Last Year (2004): Thirty (and therefore past due for my time at Carousel). Dating Prairie (at least, I’m pretty sure we’d admitted that we were dating by this point…it was a question we danced around for a while, as each of us had dating histories that made us more than a little cautious about the whole relationship thing). At the beginning of the year it had only been a couple months since I did a spectacular job of losing my position at Microsoft, and I’d recently started working for my current company, bussing down to the Georgetown area of Seattle every day.
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Yesterday: Thirty-one. Yesterday was Tuesday, my usual pizza-and-movie night. Well, any night can be a movie night if I’ve actually made it through my reading list in NetNewsWire or if I’m just sick of sitting at the computer, but on Tuesdays, the local Dominos Pizza has a two-for-one special which can generally feed me for the next two or three days. I ended up watching a 37 year old historical drama and thoroughly enjoying it. Not a bad day.
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Today: I’m still thirty-one. Imagine that. Got up, skimmed a few things on the ‘puter while I tried to convince myself that I was anywhere close to conscious, showered, and wandered the six blocks to work. Passed DeAnna on the way and nodded hi — we happen to pass each other every few weeks, but as we’re both on our way to work, there’s generally not a lot of time for chit-chat. Seeing her reminded me that I promised to scan something for her weeks ago that I thought she’d get a grin out of (a letter she sent me before I went to Germany in the summer of ’91, as we lived just a few blocks away from each other, rode the same bus to school, and I made what were probably painfully clumsy attempts at flirting with her) — of course, I then promptly forgot again until just now as I was typing this out. Maybe I’ll actually remember to do that before I crash out tonight. Eeep. Worked, came home, chatted with Prairie until she wandered off to take a hot bath (temperatures in Ellensburg are apparently in the teens these days), and then got sucked into writing all this out.
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Tomorrow: Wow, I’ll still be thirty-one! Though I will be one day closer to thirty-two. Woohoo? No big plans — it’s Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
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Next Year (2006): Okay, thirty-two. Wow, I thought I’d never get there! By next January, I should be living somewhere else, as Prairie and I are planning on getting a place together this summer. Just where, we’re not entirely sure yet. She’s ready to get out of Ellensburg, and so is starting the process of applying to other schools to teach at (she currently teaches 100-level English courses at CWU). She’s planning on tossing applications out at schools in the Seattle and Portland areas, and possibly as far south as California, since we’ve heard that there may be good teaching opportunities down that direction. While I’m enjoying my time in Seattle, I figure that while I’ve just got a job, she’s got a Career, so if she finds a good opportunity in Seattle, wonderful…but if she finds one in Portland or California, it’ll be easy enough for me to pack up and try someplace new for a while. Besides, if she gets a good offer, I’ve always wanted to spend some time in San Francisco….
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3 Years Forward (2008): I’ll be thirty-four. By this point, I’d really like to be enrolled in college somewhere, working my way towards a degree in…well, in something. While I’ve had plenty of people tell me that I’d make a wonderful teacher, and it’s something that’s definitely worth giving some serious thought to, there are so many things that catch my interest from time to time (over the years, everything from architecture to linguistics and many, many things in between have sounded fascinating) that it’s hard to tell where I might end up. Pity I’m not independently wealthy, I’d love to just go the perma-student route.
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5 Years Forward (2010): Thirty-six. I should be well on my way to a master’s degree by this point, if all goes according to plan. I’d like to be out of debt (outside of school debts, at least) by this point, which is something I’ve been struggling with for years now. I’m not really all that far in debt — probably somewhere around four or five grand, not counting debts to parents (which could up to to, oh, seven or eight grand at least, I think), so it’s certainly doable within five years…I just suck at money management. Prairie’s promised to try to help me out with this, though. I wonder if she really knows what she’s getting into….
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10 Years Forward (2015): Forty-one. Let’s see — assuming I actually managed to get myself a degree, then I might be employed somewhere that I can consider a career by this stage. Or maybe not — careers these days often seem to involve a lot of office-speak and buzzwords that drive me up the wall. Heh — in a perfect world, I’d have stumbled into some substantial amount of money and/or cleaned up my credit, gotten a business loan, and opened up a sucessful dance club in whatever city I’m living in at this point. Even if I’m not DJing, I could handle being the guy in charge!
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15 Years Forward (2020): Forty-six. My nephew Noah will be midway through his teens by this point. Since Prairie and I are (at least at the current moment) in no hurry to either explore marriage or children, I’ll have had fifteen years to perfect being the uncle who spoils his nephew rotten and lets him get away with all the stuff his parents never do. That’s about as good as a goal as anything else for fifteen years on, I think.
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25 Years Forward (2030): Fifty-six. I really don’t know — I have difficulties planning things a week in advance, and I’m supposed to be thinking a quarter-century into the future? Hmm…I’ll just assume that I’ll have slid comfortably into “dirty old man” territory, and doing my best to enjoy the rest of my years. :)
“I Put A Spell On You” by Marilyn Manson from the album Lost Highway (1996, 3:30).