Tagged by Lolabola

I remember...

... in elementary school not being able to decide if I'd rather be Nancy Drew or one of the characters in Archie comics.

I remember when I first realised that A and I were friends. It was in grade 11. I was over helping him paint his basement with a few others and the two of us went to pick up some pizza in his Little Red Chevette. There was Chinese music on the radio. The music, the little car and our silly banter all made me giddy. I laughed the whole way. I felt like a normal person around him.

I remember my grandmother telling me about her stillbirth. She knew the baby would be stillborn because she had become jaundiced. She said they wrapped the baby in a napkin - that was the word she used. I remember how she looked small, sweet and strong all at the same time when she told me this.

I remember one day going down to the Wells. It was a hot and hazy day in September - not very typical Irish weather. I took Emily Carr's autobiography with me, which Lolabola had given to me. I remember thinking how much Emily Carr reminded me of her, my own best friend.

I remember looking at the world map from my cot at night when I was really small and thinking that North and South America looked like a diving bird and Italy looked like a boot. I haven't heard anything about the bird, but I hear the boot all the time.

I remember walking home for lunch with Mom when I was five and seeing the older girls walking by themselves and not being able to wait until I was old enough to walk by myself. I remember forgetting all about my craving for independence when we got home because we would put on this Mozart record with a dark blue cover and listen to the lovely music.

I remember the first time I went to B's, which was the second time we met. He had invited me over for a guitar lesson as a birthday present the first time we met. I didn't want to go to the lesson at all, but we had made the arrangement, so I went because I never stand people up, especially people I barely know. I walked up to his door, bass in hand. I remember that I felt like an idiot because I had no case. He said, you don't have a case? I had purposely put no effort into looking good because I didn't want him to like me. After the lesson, I wanted him to like me. He held his cat while he waved good-bye. I was sure he thought I was an idiot. Look at her, with no case.

I remember the telephone cake Denise made for Em's 7th or 8th birthday. It was a rotary phone. I don't remember what candies she used to decorate it, but it was the coolest cake ever. Everything Denise does is cool.

I remember stealing change from Mom's purse to buy Tahiti Treat from the vending machine in our townhouse complex in grade one. I think I did this twice.

I remember the only time I ever saw a spider spin a web. It was outside Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin in 1993. I was with Matt and we had just had an argument about Catholicism. The spider was a good tonic.

I remember when my best friend in grade three stole my green eyeliner. My aunt had given it to me for Christmas. When it went missing, I called my friend, in tears, to ask her if she had seen it. She hadn't. Em was convinced she had taken it and so accused her. She denied it. I looked for it in her room one day when she was in the bathroom and found it on her dresser. I grabbed the eyeliner and held it in my hand and put my hand into the pocket of my cream-coloured knit hoodie and kept it there until I got home. My hand got sweaty and my heart pounded the whole way down the hill. We never talked about it, but I knew she knew that I knew she took it, and I knew that she knew I took it back.

... and I can't remember the lyrics to the song that goes "I remember...blah bla dee dee da da dee da... come running ba-ack to meeeee". It's an old reggae song, and I've had it in my head the whole time I've been writing this post, which took a few days.