arctic club parking lot, seattle wa, 2009

I bought a really pretty vintage velvet dress from the 40s and wore it to the wedding of my Little Sis from the sorority. We spent the whole night twisting and shouting in the top room of the Arctic Club, quite possible one of the fanciest places I have ever been in. I was so pleased with my little dress, how it's 50 year old whalebone held up, how the velvet stayed in place, how it fit sooo perfectly and was older than my parents.

When I got into my car at around midnight, the entire back seam split in the time it took me to lift my leg. There I was, alone in the parking lot in downtown Seattle, with a bare butt and no more pretty dress.

neighborhood church, tacoma wa, 1985?

My dad's theater career began and ended one evening in a church play. He was supposed to be helping carry the Ark of the Covenant.
He tumbled.
He showed the whole church his tighty whiteys.
He hasn't been onstage since.

This memory is never repeated in my house without someone gasping for air from laughing too hard. I don't remember this event personally, but it is more clear in my mind than what I did this morning.

chuck e. cheese, tacoma wa, 1989

My grandma took me to my cousin Chelsea's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, and the jealousy that characterized my personality as a kid knew no bounds: I threw a fit and pouted the entire party because her birthday was before mine in May, and because I felt shy around that many kids in one place.

This is what I thought my memory was. Really, the birthday party was at the pool at my great grandma's house in Yakima and I was just so unbelievably shy that I could barely function. For some reason, my brain stored it as a Chuck E. Cheese event.

But one other time I really WAS at Chuck E. Cheese and perched myself on the side of the ball pool, carefully lining up all the brown balls I could find along the ledge. Absorbed in my own project, I was startled when a smiling couple outside the net asked me what I was doing. I scrambled all the balls back into the pool and dove in after them, my surprise was so complete. That pretty much summarizes how scared I was of getting in trouble as a kid.

purdy elementary, spruce quad, 1992

During Show and Tell in 3rd grade, my friend Mandy got up to talk about her new horse. Mandy's birthday was three days after mine (Cory Brickman's was three days before), we rode the same school bus, and she always had dirt under her fingernails.
"I'm getting a new horse this week," she announced. "It's either going to be pitch black, pitch white, or pitch brown. I'm still deciding."
She sat down.
I didn't know if "pitch white" and "pitch brown" were colors or superlatives.