Fifth Grade, Listening to OAR

"I'm in fifth grade" I said to Puhg. We had turned down a quiet street in the neighborhood. It feels suburban even though traffic is behind the houses and the observatory is under the moon. It's so hot in LA, which made me cranky last summer. But this summer we have a new AC unit. Now the August mug feels right. I had my own body at 11. The playgrounds become equipment when they used to be castles. In three more years they'd be hangouts, places to lounge around and gossip. I remember when three of us were draped across the slides behind my old elementary school and someone brought up how N_____ S_______ had jumped up and down at a graduation party and exposed her tummy which was surprisingly soft and pudgy. We'd all honed in on the exact same moment, our collective hive brains humming, "But I thought she exercised." But in fifth grade there was only regular and fat.

I didn't know what middle school would look like and I never thought about it. I had signed up for four weeks of summer camp, but I didn't guess what would happen there. The future existed but I hadn't begun to consider it. In 6th grade when I went to the pool I looked at the lifeguards and wondered if I worked with them who would be my friend and if I would man snack bar or the deep end. I drew myself in a sketch pad holding one of the official red inner tubes. I had a nose ring. I don't know where that image came from, but it came to be, what, ten years later?

The future has been better and worse than expected. What sounds good on paper can be excruciating and what sounds terrible can be pretty good. And awareness can make it all the worse or better.

But so this feeling is here now, I notice. It certainly helps that in the evening we ate raspberry blue gummies, watched Last Action Hero, and ordered pizza. If that isn't 90s vibes. Nevermind the gummies were organic and the pizza vegan (delivered via application) and the movie digitally rented from a super conglomerate streamed straight to our Apple TV. Nevertheless. It was night and there were no plans for morning or forever for that matter. I couldn't hope if I tried. Swam in the afternoon and I'll do it again today.