Summer of 2001. I had just turned 22. I'd just quit my job as a bike messenger & my buddy Chris (RIP) had come to live with me in Queens (NY). He had a car. My folks had never let me drive (I had no insurance under their car) so I'd never learned or gotten my license. But that didn't stop me from laying tracks all over New York City & New Jersey.
I used to time myself to see how fast I could make it from my apartment in Queens to Grand Central Station (where I'd pick my girlfriend up from the train - she lived in Westchester, about 40 minutes by train away). My record was about 12 minutes.
We went out to Six Flags (NJ) and the Jersey shore a few times. We'd take the car out of the highway and see how fast we could get away with it for at least 30 seconds without getting caught. I did 103 during working hours once so my other buddy one-upped me at 110.
My other friend was kind of a drag sometimes. He always wanted to tag along but sometimes Chris & I just wanted to hang out together. So one weekend we decided to leave the house at around 6AM. So we did. Went to the shore all day, had a great time. We didn't get back until around 10PM. When we did we found my firend, on his laptop, kinda pissed at us but totally absorbed in a computer game. Turned out it was Civilization 2, something I'd been meaning to get into (since I loved Civ 1) but never did. Eventually I became somewhat addicted also & set up tournaments online. I even joined a forum for the game (and ended up mired in the Off Topic subforum BSing with people).
But that got me into forums in general and... here I am today.
By the way, gas was 99cents a gallon in New Jersey that summer. It was kind of a magical time, that summer before 9/11. Alot changed after that (both in my personal life & in the world).
It was fun but it certainly wasn't sustainable (for myself or the world). It's been a lot lonelier since then. When you realize you want to really take care of yourself instead of just living for the moment you tend to go thru introspective phases & not really mesh with your old friends so well.
I moved away from New York in January '03 (and bounced all over the country for a little while). I felt bad leaving Chris alone, especially with my other friends who drank heavily. He got pretty fearfully depressed & depression + meds + drinking + a generally unhealthy lifestyle = bad news. He died in 2004 when I was living in my van in Florida. Poor SOB. He was a helluva unique guy, someone I would have always wanted to leave in a real sustainable community settings with. I think he really could've flourished in that type of situation. He had a lot going against him though. Pretty much everyone in this modern world does from the get go.
So much for the lighter side... sorry.
Anyway, good times! Here's to hoping for healthy, sustainable good times in the future! And to a society that doesn't try to make "healthy" a dirty word, so they can sell you a self-destructive lifestyle & then the "medicine" to make it all better.
Man, I'm just not so good at this "lighter side" stuff, am I?
