So after the Placebo show I dropped Melissa off at her apt.
Now in true Steph fashion, I thought I was going the right way & wasn't.
Battery Tunnel = Confusion to me.
So I end up on the Belt Parkway...not realizing I'm getting lead to Long Island.
After getting on the Southern whatever...I realize I shouldn't be here.

So I pull off at the first exit I see....
Which just so randomly happened to be in Elmont, where I grew up.
So I look at signs and see Meachum Ave.
Which is the street I'd walk to every day to go buy candy...I have this memory of getting a Chunk (or is it Chunky) bar one day and walking home eating it and spitting it out cuz it was gross.
Anyways...my body goes on auto pilot & I turn down Meachum and see R Street...
I grew up on M Street so I'm like WTF? how did I....get here?
Keep driving & there's M Street so I say what the hell I'm lost let me rock a trip down memory lane.
This is also weird because I was actually planning on taking a day trip there tomorrow or Friday to see the hood, I've been thinking about this for a while.

The street sign for M Street...looks like it should be Elm Street...(please catch the reference).


Anyways I turn the corner and recognize the house on the left, which I used to hang out at and eat those marshmellow ice cream cones at (not the cheap ones they have now a days, the ones with real cones from way back when)...
See Franks house, he was my grandmothers fake boyfriend we'd always tease her about.
Drive a little further & look right to see Kevin & Shawn's house.
Drive a little further & see Anthony & Joey's house, who when we were moving made us brownies and gave me this purple dinosaur with BFF on it that I DO still have.
Don't recognize my house so I drive past it and see Lynn's house, my old best friend from when I was like 6. Look on the door and it still says their last name.
The lights are on so I contemplate a surprise ambush but then I realize its 12:30am so prolly not a good idea.
Look left again and there's Elena's house, my other best friend from back when who I knew from when she was born. I then remember falling down her stairs and splitting my chin open.

Pause for commentary: All these things I am remembering I can honestly say I have NOT remembered over the past 15 years. I didn't remember anything before age 13 until now...and it's all pouring back at me at once and it's kinda freaking me out.

Go in reverse, cuz my friends houses were 1406 and 1409 and mine was 1401...
Stop in front of my old house and it looks exactly the same.



It looks so much the same that it's creepy.
That bay window, that is where I would sit all the time...after finding a Twister Sister cassette & thinking they were girls and buying it. I used to sit there with my radio when other kids were outside & blast the beginning of that album, which was Come out & play. If you don't know the beginning it's a creepy voice going "Come out and plaaaaaaaaaaaay, come on out and plaaaaaaaayyyyy", yes I was mean and liked to scare people even then.

That driveway, is where my brother & Christina across the street got married.
It's also where we'd have lemonade stands and garage sales.
Inside that garage is where I had a pet mouse, who bit me once.
The stop sign shaped window is where the laundry room was.
On those stairs we spent many nights just chillin on the stoop not drinking 40's cuz we were too young...but we did call Lynn a Ewok causing her to cry and go home.
In the back yard was a pool and a deck, and my dog spot...who was my brothers dog but I call him mine.We would dig really deep ditches me and my bro, fill them with water, and play in mud.
I think we had an orange tree too.
There was also a cat named Mittens who I loved oh so much...that one day got stuck in a tree and a bitch named Priscilla got her down & stole her. I STILL hate that bitch.
Also on that driveway was where I fell off my bike and again, had to get chin stitches.
Elena's house always had a slip and slide, and one of her siblings I think was the ice cream man.
Theres a house at the end of the road I used to hang out at, I just realized it was #666....we used to pour salt on slugs there.
Around the street on "N" street we'd rip the wings off locusts for fun & step on beatles cuz it looked like rice pudding came out of them.
We were mean.
Next door to me there was an older man (was prolly my age now, then) I was convinced I was going to marry one day, he had a motorcycle and his name was Vinny. He was a bamf.
His mom made the most awesome cookies, I think she was Sicillian.
There's an apt. downstairs at my house where this old couple lived and around Easter they'd make this cake with colored easter eggs inside of it.
When they moved I took over the apt. to improve my dancing skills (yes, I was in Ballet for 8 years, played soccer, was a twirler (with batons) and a cheer leader (though both of the last two didnt happen until I moved to NJ in 3rd grade)....go ahead, laugh cuz it's so unstereotypical of who I am now)...
There was a cat lady around the corner, who literally had about 50 cats. I liked her.

Pause for commentary: if you're still reading this, I credit you for taking interest in my old life.

I drove down Oakley Ave, which I remember skateboarding down on these tacky plastic orange and purple swirled skate boards.
I drove down L Street cuz I remember Kevin who had a house with a tree growing out of it...but it was too dark to see if it was still there.
I don't remember but I think he was mildly retarded.

On the way down I remember the lady's house, who we thought was a witch because she had it painted like the gingerbread house from Hansel & Gretyl.
We were all scared to go to her door on Halloween, but one year I did it...I was dressed as a princess.
Sadly while driving around a bit I wasn't able to find it, but my goal is to do so next time I take a planned trip out there.
In the day time.

Anyways this is all so weird to me.
Just the fact that I randomly ended up there completely out of the lost blue and still remembered exactly how to get to a house I haven't even been near in over 20 years - weird. The fact that I remembered how to get to my friends houses - even weirder.

The fact that I tried to find one friends house, after knowing she burned herself down in it - weird. The fact that I suddenly rememberd memories I for some reason had blocked out for the past 15 years - weird.

It's just...all so weird when your childhood comes rushing back at you full force just because you accidently end up right where you began (technically).

So many other little silly things came to me.
I guess all I needed, to remember my childhood was to put myself back into it.
And walk down the street...and maybe if I was on drugs the vivid memories would produce movie like images of me as a child riding a bike down the street giggling with all my friends.

Either way, it was all a very weird experience overall.
EVERYTHING looked the same as it did the day I left.
I kid you not when I say I don't remember anything even slightly different.
The only difference was, that it all looked smaller, which it should since I was smaller then too.

But wow...that was surreal in a sense.
It also makes me want to get in touch with a lot of people I don't speak to anymore, not to becomes B.F.F.'s with them but I'd just like to know what happens in life after Steph (cuz I'm that important) so if any of you ppl are lurking on my page and read this...hit me up....yo.

Really, I miss childhood more tonight than I ever have. I think it took me going there to remember & realize just how great things were then.

And off that topic, can I kindly tell a certian someone to STOP INVADING MY DREAMS...it's making me uncomfortable.

If you read this whole thing here's a duuuuuuurty e-cookie for you:

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XXX-Posted to MySpizzle & Perhaps Facebook haha..
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