Life Is Like A Roller Coaster

Lately, with my knee injury and trying to stay in school and find a new job, it's felt that way to me. My first memory of a coaster, however, is a little bit different than most. I've carried to this day a visceral but clear memory of in my head of the first "big kid" coaster I ever went on when I was probably no more than five. It wasn't a traditional coaster, but a toboggan that when vertically up a dark tube, then out into the sunlight and down and around in spiraling turns to a few gentle dips at the bottom. For some reason, the period in the tube, tilted onto my back staring up in anticipation, is the part I get visions of every now ant then.

That ride in Wildwood, NJ, is long gone, but thanks to the interwebs, I've found POV footage of an exact replica in Altoona, PA. Watch and enter deep into the recesses of Da Nator's mysterious psyche! (Or is that id? Apply your own school of psychology!)

What strikes me most about this now is how much it mimics being born. Seriously, you're put in an uncomfortable position, faced with an irreversible path into the dark where you don't know what will happen next, thrust through a scary tube into blinding light and whirled around in a vantage point you've never seen before. No wonder it's stuck in my subconsciousness!

That or, you know, it was just something I'd never done before and a very cool ride. Here's hoping your coaster ride doesn't malfunction and throw you off into space...

A Date at Barcade

More cell phone camera masterpieces!
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Saturday is my Friday, which means I've finished work and internship and am usually pooped. Mrs. Nator and I sometimes talk about going out when I'm done work, but it rarely happens because if we don't have a plan I don't have the energy to schlep home, discuss, shower, and go out again.

This past Saturday, however, Mrs. Nator fulfilled one of my wishes by calling me at work to say she was picking me up to take me out, and had the date all planned. It was a good night to do it, as we were celebrating both the illustrious birth of the Trucker (yay, oneofhismoms!) and my finally standing up to an aggravating co-worker. All I had to do was hop in the office shower and toss my scrubs in my bag.

Normally we avoid Williamsburg, Brooklyn, because we are not hipsters. However, there was a restaurant Mrs. N. wanted to try (Fiore, which was a bit disappointing to me, food-wise, but had great atmosphere and service,) and then there was Barcade.

Barcade is a large bar that specializes in two things: microbrewery beers and classic cabinet video games. Again, not being hipsters, we didn't hear about this place until four years after it opened. Once we did, however, we had to go.

It was the perfect date for us. Two drinks apiece and about ten bucks in quarters, and we whiled away several hours in an increasingly drunken festival of giggles and Game Overs. Many of the classic games we remembered were there, from Asteroids to Zaxxon. They had Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Centipede, and Tetris – hell yeah! Most of our time was spent playing Frogger, Moon Patrol, Q*Bert and Punch Out (Super Mario Bros. was sadly broken, and no-one seemed to be up to taking on Donkey Kong, possibly fearing the wrath of Billy Mitchell).

Of course, everyone's got their childhood favourites, so some might wonder why Berzerker but not Battlezone, Galaxian but not Space Invaders, Out Run but not Pole Position, Gauntlet but not Joust? Personally I'd also like to have tried early classics like Sea Wolf and Stunt Cycle, again, as well as the first laser disc game, Dragon's Lair. But in their place were games no doubt some people were glad to see that I'd never hear of before (Sinistar? Crystal Castles?).

There were no pinball games, alas, but there were pool and a varied jukebox. Being the old hags we are, when someone took it over with metalcore and the place got crowded, we headed out.

All in all, it was more fun than I've had in a while. Often after a couple drinks following a long day, I become paranoid and melancholy. Somehow, however, being around games I had played as a kid circumvented that by bringing back the excitement I felt then - and this time with no spending limits or heshers waiting outside to jump me! The combination was... oddly romantic.

Did You Ever Have One of Those Moments

... where an entire song you wrote when you were maybe seventeen years old, but had completely forgotten, comes back to you in its entirety, and you think "wow, that was actually a really good song," but you realize that, although you could put so many deeper nuances of emotion into it now that you are older, you probably can't sing all that well, anymore, and maybe weren't as good at the time as you thought, either?

No? Well, then.

P.S.: I had a really intriguing job interview yesterday. As in, I'm beginning to think it might be possible to have an interesting job I care about while going to school to study something else I care about. Hmmm.

Hello, Old Friend

One of my major problems has been that I seem to cling to negative emotions. There are stupid slights and embarrassing situations that happened to me as a child that no-one else would still remember, or hold against me if they did. Yet, excruciatingly detailed recollections of them will spring to my mind unbidden, and the rush of emotions that come with them will leave me stunned. It doesn't help that I had a rather odd childhood, with plenty of opportunities for bad feelings and embarrassment.

This is why, over the last couple years, I had decided it was alright that I had fallen out of touch with my closest childhood friend. Yes, we had taken different paths in a number of ways, and changed. She has become a great believer in and advocate of twelve-step programs and a mother of three, while I have a bohemian lifestyle of lesbian partnership, rejection of traditional work and religion and too many cats. But I came to feel that, as it seemed I would never be able to view my childhood calmly, from a distance, much less with affection, it was for the best that I detach from childhood friendships that remind me of it.

For a while, it seemed to work. I felt guilty about the ebbing of the friendship, but relieved to be able to blank out on memories that fed my angst. I tried to tell myself that this was a natural evolution and the way of the world.

But when I checked my voicemail and found a message from her while I was in the hospital, I was excited.

The truth is, I missed her. Not only was she my friend, but my stepsister. We shared a checkered and difficult past within our dysfunctional family, different in some ways but, in many, similar. And as many awful, disturbing memories and feelings we may share, we were also always there for each other from our single-digit years through our early twenties. Even though we have changed, we still know each other's cores better than perhaps anyone else, save our partners.

So, despite knowing it would dredge up old wounds, I called her back. We've been in contact many times over the last few weeks, and have shared some biographical writing we've both been working on. It has been difficult facing some issues, and I can't say it's been easy. I'm also not completely confident in the return of our relationship, yet. But I'm so glad to hear her voice on the phone, and I'm hoping that, together, we can put together the stories of our past and learn to be a little bit kinder to ourselves.

Late Registration

Well, there it is. At least for now. A few of the courses might change depending on what happens with drop/add later in the month. Also, I still haven't paid my tuition yet, as I have to get my final loan confirmation. Now that I know roughly what courses I'll be taking, I know that I have to add at least $550 per semester for the books I'll need. That's half again the tuition for this city college, people. Oy!

The biology and psychology courses aren't required, but I'm taking them because I want to see what grabs my interest. It may be that I get all excited about biology and decide to change my goal to a degree in that or zoology, or I like psych and decide to pursue becoming an animal behaviourist. Yes, I've taken those subjects before and enjoyed them (as I took Chemistry before and really struggled with the equations), but that was all 20-25 years ago. I think it would be best to brush up. Anyway, the bio course can also be used as a prereq for some vet tech courses later.

Speaking of a long time ago, I recently found my college ID cards from when I first registered in 1988 at just barely 18 years old. Good Lord.

"Hey. Wanna go out clubbing?"

Man. The hair. The makeup. The lack of fat. The enthusiasm. The youth. Who knew that nearly 20 years later I'd be dragging my sorry ass back to classes, to attend with kids fresh out of high school? Not that I'd have appreciated being called a kid at the time, what with going to live on my own in New York City and mingling nightly with the most drugged up adults Manhattan had to offer...

"New York City! Just like I pictured it... skyscrapers, and ev'rythang."

Yes, I had a fedora and a guitar pick earring. What of them? And no, I never throw anything out.

Keep laughing, people. Meanwhile, I'll keep cursing that my metabolism petered out and being grateful for my life experience since then.

I wonder if I can get my hair to swoop like that, again?