LASR blog

I speed-walk from the University to Neeb with a stomach full of food and a brain full of
scattered thoughts. Even though I didn’t have midterms, I’m overwhelmed with how much work I
want to complete before spring break, the goals I want to accomplish during the break, and
what’s to come when I return from vacation.
I arrive at the LASR studio with 10 minutes to set up Spinitron and queue my playlist. I
look over my notes and my feedback from the previous week. My mind races as I try to
remember twenty million different components of the show. I remind myself of the segues I
practiced in my room. I double-check that my song choices aren’t explicit (I’ve made that
mistake a lot). I look at the responses I receive from Instagram. And as I turn on the microphone
to start the next episode of “The Fruit Basket,” I think to myself…
Is it spring break yet?
“Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Fruit Basket.” I start strong, but my mind
draws a blank. What’s the next part of the introduction? What day is it? I couldn’t remember the
topic of the episode. Everything I practiced before the show left my brain. Instead of stuttering or
turning off the microphone and crying myself to sleep, I stopped talking. I close my eyes and
say,
“Let’s forget the last 15 seconds and take a moment to refocus. To everyone listening,
let’s take a deep breath in, then out.” I tell the audience to inhale and exhale on my count. I
open my eyes.
“Let me reintroduce myself. Welcome to ‘The Fruit Basket.’ Every week, I discuss a
variety of topics, like a fruit basket has a variety of fruit.”
I didn’t expect to do a deep breathing exercise live on air, but the activity helped me succeed in
the rest of the episode.

The playlist’s theme is songs that remind me of spring in celebration of the upcoming
break. “Kyoto” by Phoebe Bridgers plays through the speakers. I jam out, spinning in the swivel
chair and singing along. I relax and prepare to crush it in the next segment: News Bowl.
I practiced each transition before the show and checked the order of the bullet points to
make everything flow. When the segment starts, I’m confident in my ability to smoothly go from
each piece of news, from Taylor Swift’s eras tour to Trump’s potential arrest. I aim to hit 10
minutes or less each episode, which rarely happens. That day, a miracle occurs. I hit 10
minutes on the dot and have time to play 3 songs from the playlist.
After the songs, I begin my Mold ‘N Rot rant section. The previous week was long for
me, so I tell my audience why and get vulnerable without entering too personal territory.
The rant is long, but I keep my thoughts as concise as possible. I have time to play 3 more
songs before I reach the interactive segment.
I’ve had the most success with the interactive segment. People always answer my
questions, and it gives a way for people to participate in the show, even if they can’t tune into
the episode. This episode, I ask my Instagram followers about their spring break plans. Some
people are traveling out of the state. I mention my plans of going to Bellingham, and thank
people for responding. Each episode, the segment is short, but exciting to do. I play one last
song, an unreleased track from my upcoming project, and end the episode at 3:30 pm when I
tend to go over.
I don’t think the episode would have gone so well if I didn’t take a deep breath. Even
without having tests, my stress was understandable. I had a lot going on. I still do. And that’s ok.
I could refocus and put everything I’m dealing with outside of the studio. I had a lot going on. I
still do. And that’s ok. However, I could refocus and concentrate on putting on a fantastic show,
not on outside stressors. Taking a deep breath before jumping right in is something I plan to
continue as I continue the show.

By Zari Warden

I walked into the Neeb Center at 2:20 pm on Tuesday, February 14th: Valentine’s Day. I
hadn’t been in that building since December. I missed the silence as I entered the center. I
missed pushing the door that was double my weight. I missed hearing the songs SAM played
that I didn’t know. I sat at the board and thought, how do I do this again?
It had been about seven weeks since I did an episode of “The Fruit Basket.” I needed to
shake off the pounds of rust I collected in the winter. I queued my Valentine’s Day playlist,
reviewed the sound board’s functions, and at 2:30 pm, I turned on the microphone and said,
“Hi, everyone! My name is Zari Alexandria, and welcome back to my show, ‘The Fruit
Basket.’ We’re back, baby!”
I thought I was on a roll as I explained the new time slot (the show was on Saturdays last
semester) and the Valentine’s Day theme of the playlist. When I clicked on the first song and
turned off the microphone, I realized I’d forgotten to do my consistent opening line.
“…where every week, I play a variety of songs, and a fruit basket has a variety of fruit.” OOPS.
After making the first mistake, I was nervous. What if the rest of the show fell apart?
What if I forgot other details? I tend to catastrophize anything. And boy, did I think of the worst.

It wasn’t that bad, though.

In between songs, I have three segments on my show. There’s the “News Bowl” (like a
fruit bowl), where I highlight pieces of news that pique my interest. I focus on
entertainment/drama/pop culture news the most. There’s “Mold ‘N Rot” (because fruit can do
that), where I rant about anything that has bothered me over the past week. I always end on a

positive note because “on the other side of the aisle, there’s some fresh fruit.” The final segment
is where I read responses to a prompt I pose on my Instagram and Twitter, and the prompt
connect to the playlist’s theme.
For the Valentines Day Episode, I wanted to highlight a lot of news. Even though the
segment lasted longer than I had hoped, five to ten news stories would suffice for future
episodes. When I ranted about how my J-Term went, I started to speed up as I spoke, but I
caught myself before I flew too close to the sun. I was worried I didn’t get enough responses for
my interactive segment, where I asked listeners for their “Valentine’s Day plans.” However, the
length was perfect! Through my worries and mistakes, I realized things that went well and things
I could improve on for my next episode.
After the episode ended, I discovered other pieces I wanted to fix. I noticed the playlist
was one song too long. The show ended at about 3:35 pm. I wrote a note to myself to start
making a 30-minute-long playlist to the best of my ability and to stick with ten songs instead of
eleven. I also realized I did not promote the following show, so I wrote a reminder to do that next
time. One final piece I noticed was that I needed a cleaner, more permanent outro so I wouldn’t
ramble on for minutes on end. I’m still brainstorming ideas and hope to finalize that as soon as
possible.
Was the first episode back perfect? No! And expecting perfection is unrealistic.
However, I’m here to learn and grow as a DJ and content creator. Reflecting on my experiences
is one method I’m using to grow. This month, I hope to take my feedback and advice to improve
and amplify “The Fruit Basket” and make the show smoother and cleaner.
So, here’s to wiping off the rest of the rust! The next time I walk into Neeb, I know I’ll be
ready to go.

By Zari Warden
We’re back, baby!

No snow lined the roads of Whidbey Island in Winter 2019 when I first heard about the Grateful Dead. It wasn’t a winter wonderland, rather rain, obscure cloud cover, and a plethora of hallowed winds plaguing every disc, cyclist, and power line. I remember the sun setting as we tossed the disc—that discraft ultrastar had a USAU pro’s touch and a friendly smile from the girl on the other side of the circle. Wearing my Russell shorts which are now replaced with Five (context) we cut hard and hucked bombs all for fun. The grass was wet and my toes were shivering and red but we found refuge in your early 2000s BMW. I tossed it on and you made the recommendation, this into “El Paso” or the other way around, shuffle is one cruel individual. Heating up beside my rust bucket, the other arrived, and it was time to play with a piece of plastic. That day I learned to throw with and against the wind (to an extent) and how to throw across a table. All important skills that help me navigate today and tomorrow but something else clicked. It was the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia’s spacious lead lines, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart chasing each other, Bob Weir’s jazz centered rhythms, Donna and Keith Godchaux’s relationship, and Phil Lesh’s angular Bach inspired bass playing. A unit, an absolute unit that’s on or off. Now like those before me and after me, I say with cringe, “what a long strange trip it’s been.”

By Fulton Bryant-Anderson

I dedicate this one to my wonderful mama for so many reasons, but let’s start this story how stories are often started, at the beginning. When I was 12 or so my family and one friend(Isabella) took a trip to Disneyland and California adventure for my birthday. Disneyland was a blast, but Disneyland did, what Disneyland does, and nothing groundbreaking happened. Then the next day we went to California Adventure, and ran around all day. In the chaos of a three day adventure at some of the most famous amusement parks one memory stands out from the rest. My brother, father, and Bella went on a big scary ride, so mama stayed behind with me. We found our way near the entrance looking for something entertaining, and there is was. A theater, that appeared more like a warehouse. We went in, in a box seat to the upper right were the two old men from the Muppets, then on the stage were the Muppets. We sat there for who knows how long and smiled and laughed and watched the show that the Muppets wanted to share with us. What a special moment I got to share with my mama. 

Flash forward many years to sophomore year of college. I don’t know where I found it, or why I found it, except that it contains the word rainbow. I was prepping for my rain into rainbows radio show, and there he was, Kermit the frog. I love how Spotify doesn’t want to crush dreams, so the actor is not the one who sings the song, but Kermit the frog himself. During my rain into rainbows show I made a speech about how sometimes we don’t dramatic but at the same time everyone deserves cute and happy. My mom called me directly after the show to tell me what a dork I am and how much she enjoyed it. 

The last part to this story takes place on June 23rd 2022, the night I left California for my summer job. I had plans to spend the night at my dads house, so I drove over to my moms to say goodbye. At the very end of the night right before I left I was going to say good bye and my mama asked for one last dance. We put on this song and danced, and cried, and lived in that moment. Sometimes you take a little psychological screenshot of a moment. Dancing in the living room with my mama to Kermit the frog was one of them. 

By Duffy Anderson

The first time I heard this song was when it popped up as a background track in a random internet video. The only way to describe the song is painfully nostalgic for memories you never had with a bittersweet melody that makes you feel good despite missing a piece of yourself. This song fits the album title of Alone at Prom and gives off a distinct throwback vibe despite being released in late 2021. This is also Tory Lanez’ first exploration into this pop-wave genre, a successful endeavor to be sure. This song makes you feel as if you’ve been driving in the rain because you need to get your mind off of something and perhaps that driving was not as safe as it could have been. You feel hopeless and angry, yet sympathetic at the same time because you know that you caused the problem. All these complex emotions mixed into a fun track that is fun to sing along to creates a song that is really easy to listen to on repeat. The rest of Tory Lanez’ album contains similar vibes, songs I’d recommend are Pink Dolphin Sunset, The Color Violet, and Pluto’s Last Comet. ‘87 Stingray is by far my favorite track however, and it pains me that this song is barely over two minutes long. Regardless of your mood or mental state, this song always makes you feel something, whether that be joy for freedom or regret that you didn’t ask your crush out to the prom. I highly recommend you give this song and the album a listen if you enjoy throwback vibes and strong catchy melodies with good emotions tied in.

by Jimmy

Montana trip, story number two. For story one see “You’re Sexy I’m Sexy” by Eric Nam. Over spring break I went to DeBorgia Montana. Before we left I messaged everyone and said they should bring a nice outfit just in case we wanted to a fancy dinner. Upon arriving we looked at the indoor racquetball court and realized it would be perfect for a dance. We refer to it as a school dance because it felt very freshman year of high school homecoming dance. Every one of them was hyped up on caffeine and trying to come up with excuses to be chaotic, I didn’t need either of those things I was coasting on life. I got to jump up and down to everyone’s favorite 2012 hits. I got to slow dance to “Take my Breath Away”. I knew that day, as the night approached, I would want to be as present as I could. I wanted nothing more than to be there, to be somewhere where we can all be dorky kids and no one will give us looks like we are less than them. We were chaos together, appreciating a perfect day. I remember standing in the corner, watching Maddy and Ehukai dance together in a sarcastically provocative disaster of fun. Watching Elijah, wearing a dress that we found in the costume box over his clothes, attempt to twerk with a goofy smile on his face because he knew he wasn’t really succeeding. Matthew, Ben, McCaulley, Sarah, Livv, Simon, and Iris, the whole lot of them, and each was smiling and laughing, and dancing their hearts out. Some didn’t want to dance as much as others, but when the cha cha slide came on and I really wanted everyone to participate, they did. Just a group of college kids, alone in the woods, being chaotic, and dancing their little hearts out. It was a perfect night. Something about the trip made it difficult to pair events together, each event was its own unique adventure. Our makeup prom may have not been perfect, but I had the time of my life. 

Spring break 2022, an adventure and a half. There is so much to say and so little that can be said. It was a many hour drive but as we pushed forward the minutes turned to hours and the hours turned to minutes. I don’t know exactly when we left, or when we got there, or how long we stopped for. We did get there. I’m a big fan of road trips and this one was extra fun, I got to drive for portions but didn’t have to for too long. In the car was Livv, Iris, Simon and I. I thought it would be awkward, but it wasn’t. We made conversation but were also quiet when we needed to be. This isn’t a story about car rides, this is a story about wild Montana skies. There were two moments on the trip that were truly spectacular, the first was just a moment in passing, the other was the school dance. I will save the latter for another day. On the third afternoon of the trip, after we had truly settled in, I went off into the woods to go hammocking with a friend. And we just laid in hammocks and breathed in the Montana air. The sky was breathtaking, there was still snow on the ground but the weather wasn’t too cold. It was perfect. A very specific moment I remember. We were sitting there quietly, they said something, a question I suppose, and I couldn’t answer, instead I just sighed and stared off into the distance. A perfect moment, so perfect that I couldn’t speak. They worried for a second and when I snapped out of it I explained that the moment was too perfect for words. Looking out on the Montana mountains, with the forest and the snow peaks. After all the spectacular fun on the trip, there was something about that moment. Looking out on the beauty, having interesting conversations about life, and just breathing in the mountain air, was the best moment on the trip. I was truly in my element.

By Duffy Anderson

I recently participated in a International Math Modeling Competition. It’s as cool as it sounds. Just kidding, it was much cooler. I had such an awesome time. Madeline Rue, Matthew Helmer and I obtained ourselves a conference room on the first floor of Morken and lived our silly little lives. There is something so exciting and liberating about sleeping on a table, or singing Sweet Caroline at full volume in the hallways at 1 in the morning. We were given a prompt and told to make a plan. A theoretical in which someone takes up asteroid mining and uses the benefit to fix overall global equity. We had to calculate global equity. The world’s equity is currently at 59.83% which is not awesome, but I guess we saw that coming. At the time Maddy and Matthew were dating, and I don’t know if they did it on purpose, but they did everything in their power to not make me feel left out. The same energy happen with some good friends in high school, there is nothing better than having friends who care enough to make you feel welcome under all circumstances. There was something magical about sleep deprivation and not leaving each others sides that made me feel safe with only them. We went out into public to grab food and it was so scary. I wasn’t prepared to interact with the world, and I was scared. Then we back into a little corner of the world and all was well again. I would not trade the experience for anything.

By Duffy Anderson

“I don’t necessarily need to be here for this, I’m gonna keep the headphones.” This song is such a throwback. In elementary school, I was maybe 8, my brother(Finn) was two years older and my cousins two years older than that. This song came out and m cousins loved it, so to be cool like my cousins, my brother liked it, and to be cool like my brother I liked it. We all memorized all the words. We laughed, I didn’t say the cuss words, but I was there singing along. Then many years passed.  My brother and I got older and began to grow apart. As brother got older, happy kids, turned to broody tweens, who turned into arrogant young adults, the distance between us grew greater. We went from good friends, to passing ships on a turbulent sea, barely catching glimpses of one another. Then my brother turned 16 and got a girlfriend; something changed.  On some random Tuesday in November, mom had him pick me up from tennis practice. Before he puts the car in drive he turns on his phone to select something to play on the drive home. He put on a secret goofy smile. I hear him mumble to himself, and then laugh a small quiet laugh. He clicks a button sets his phone down and switches into drive. The car is quiet for moment, He turns slightly towards me and with a look on his face as if he has a joke that the whole world is in on. Completely straight faced and monotone he he says, “I don’t necessarily need to be here for this, I’m gonna keep the headphones.” His words are immediately followed by the words of spose repeating back what Finny had just said. Finn’s goofy smile grew, as we both sang along to this silly rap song. For the first time in years, I shared a perfect moment with my big brother. 

by Duffy Anderson

I can hear the clickety clack of my keyboard as I sit in near silence in a library study room, but then I hear a breath and I look up. I remember I am not alone. It’s funny the way life works like that, you are sitting in silence typing away and you remember you aren’t alone in the world and you are pulled back to reality. In this moment I remember reality. I asked him his favorite song and this is what he picked. It’s a little cheesy he says, and cant help but to think that the world could use a little more cheesy. I am supposed to be studying for my physics exam tomorrow, but I need a break. I have been in the library since eleven am. It is nearly 5 o’clock, I am overwhelmed by life these days, but a friendly face to make small talk with from across the table, really makes the fifth consecutive hour of studying more tolerable. I want to look up and say something. My eyes will drift up time and time again, but after the long week into weekend into week I’ve had, I’ve started to lose my voice, and beginning a sentence is just too exhausting to tolerate. Instead I will sit in silence, and write my silly little blog. From time to time, I will look up and see a happy face, and I will smile. That is enough. 

By Duffy Anderson

This is an ode to Miss Madeline Genevieve Rue. Usually I pick a song that someone really likes to be the song for their blog post, but not this one. I am choosing a song she hates. Maddy HATES Hello Seattle, but because of it, it reminds me of her. I really love the song, and now that I think about it, it might be because it reminds me of Maddy that I love it so much. That and the fact that  its Owl City. Frequently throughout the day someone in my little squad with say “Hello Seattle,” and everyone sings, “ I am an albatross on the dock.” I’m not really sure why it became the line that stayed in everyone’s minds, but it has become a trademark of our collective. Maddy loathes the song, which just adds to the charm of singing it. I have this thing where I have two best friends back home, and who are both just referred to as my best friend. There have never been other contenders. These days I am challenging that very rule. Maddy is a light in my corner of the world. That is the requirement for best friend, you must truly light up my life. I have so many wonderful people who bring me joy and mean the world to me. There are few people that I feel I can tell anything, who I call when I’m scared, and who I don’t feel mildly exhausted after interacting with. Maddy sometimes feels like an extension of myself. She is everything I need in a next friend. She makes me feel safe and welcome and I could spend all the time in the world with her. She deserves ia seat at the table. I am building an army, one best friend at a time. Welcome to the ranks Miss Madeline Genevieve Rue.

By Duffy Anderson

I didn’t want to deteriorate the quality of this blog just to produce content, which it sometimes feels like I am, but this post is going to hurt to write, at least a little because I know he is hurting. Somewhat recently came the end of my first relationship. It hurt. I cried a lot. I followed this up with a weird conversation with my parents and a surprise road trip. Those who know me might be worried about my sanity at that moment(me too). The thing I wasn’t expecting was that my strongest emotion afterward was not sadness, though I was sad, the strongest emotion was confusion. I don’t mean the psychological state of being “Confusion.” I mean good old fashion emotional confusion. This leads to a state of consciousness that is lost. I realized that I wasn’t honest with myself during the relationship which meant I wasn’t being honest with him. This broke my heart. I have been lied to a lot in my life; I promised myself I wouldn’t be that way. Yet I find myself on the edge of a precipice, looking down on the life I’ve been trying to live. The life I have been telling myself I wouldn’t live with regret. I don’t regret the relationship at all. I regret hurting him. I regret the confusion. I regret my life infused lack of communication skills and inability to feel content. I loved him, but even saying that do I know what love is? Am I capable of love? If I am, which I sure hope I am, that’s what we had. I have poor communication skills because I am constantly on the ledge of a cliff, looking down and trying to understand what the word means. Conclusions are rare in my life. I wish I had answers. What I do know, what we had mattered. This song will always remind me of him. My first boyfriend. My honey bee. 

By Duffy Anderson

Sophomore Year of high school chugged on till the end of time as one thing after the other went wrong, but finally, it came to an end and it took all summer to recover. This set Junior Year, which is notoriously the most difficult of high school, off to a strange start. By the time Halloween rolled around everyone was in a haze. After barely recovering from the worst year of my life, I was overwhelmed with work. Seven-page essays every week were more than 16-year-old Duffy was ready to handle. We needed chaotic fun. We threw a little Halloween party. We were just kids, so it was a kid’s party. No jolly jumper(bounce house), but there were snacks and soda, and movies and costumes. It was a really good time. My first successful party. It didn’t feel like a little kid birthday party. It felt like a big kid party. I felt really cool. It was so fun that several kids, called more kids, and the party grew. There were 25-30 of us. Oh to be back in that pre-corona chaos, but I wouldn’t relive sophomore year for anything. 

By Duffy Anderson

I can see it now, my mom and aunt, they’re together in the living room. Like most families they fight constantly, but when they aren’t at each other’s throats, they are best friends. They love each other more than just about anything. This song comes on; they are both on the verge of tears. A heart overwhelmed and overflowing with love, with joy. Two sisters, standing across the room from each other, then they stop, look over at each other, and smile. That smile is this song. This song was sung for a moment like that. My guess is that this song reminds them of their childhood because my grandmother likes this song. They often reminisce about childhood memories in a less than positive light, but their friendship grew strong over those years. My mom always says Andrea is her best friend if you don’t count her sister. This is the song I think of when I think of their friendship. It’s not the song they think of, but this blog isn’t written from their perceptive and through the bright, curious, eyes of a seven-year-old Duffy; this song is love. Leonard Cohen as a whole reminds me of my childhood, but hallelujah is an embodiment of sisterly love. In a small room, in a memory palace somewhere, are sisters, dancing the night away, in a special kind of love, the love between family.

By Duffy Anderson

This song is funny, and a joke, but also so good. There are so many stories that I want to tell but I can’t because this is a public forum. So I’m going to. If any of my family sees this, don’t tell each other. I like boys, I like girls … etc. I have never liked the idea of bi-sexuality. Mostly because it makes me uncomfortable but also because it has implications that there are only two genders, but I like the idea of being pan even less, so that’s what we are going with. This post is in honor of yesterday. Happy pride month. To anyone who sees this, I am bisexual, I think. I don’t know. What I do know is that I have had gnarly crushes on several girls in my life. One of them had a male alter ego in the school play, which very much confused my psyche. I thought I was just invested in an elaborate joke. That I made a fan page for her, to add to the confusion they now use all the pronouns. So that didn’t help me psychologically at an ATL(all-time low). Along with this, I was madly in love with one of my friends for many years. I can give no details in case she reads, and if anyone asks I will lie, but I was very invested. I had a dream once we robbed a bank together and were the perfect duo. I have always wanted to share these things, but this is scary. Writing it down makes it real. I want to be straight, which is terrible to say, and I have only ever said to a few people. Life is scary enough as is. I always said I would come out if I ever dated a girl. I don’t think I could get a girl, so that was the plan, stay straight. Lies aren’t funny and mess you up mentally, so here I am. Listening to Mitski, drinking iced coffee, avoiding intrusive questions, and being generally confused. Happy Pride Day. 

By Duffy Anderson

It’s funny how things look so different when you take a step back. The pink sunsets begin to look like red flags and the comfortable silences begin to look like a lack of connection. The line “you never knew me like you thought you did” plays in my mind like a broken record. Maybe you liked the idea of me, but did you ever like me for who I actually was? Sometimes I wonder if you just took the parts of me that you liked and left the rest behind. We saw what we wanted to see and we morphed into each other’s lives in ways that maybe we shouldn’t have. We didn’t know “left from right from wrong.” You’ll hug me one last time and I’ll walk myself home, “it’s only a couple miles.”

By Lauren Wetzel

Today was terrible. I had physics. Just kidding. Unless… 

It was rainy this morning, but let’s not start there. It began on a dark and stormy night, I had 5 hours of consecutive physics, I was tired but had so much work to do. I needed a break. When I arrive at dinner I can finally relax. Garrett and I chat and hang out, but talking while eating just didn’t count as enough of a break. So I decided I had a little time and hung out for two more hours. This was my first mistake. I arrive back at TStad(Tingelstad) at 8:00 pm, Ehukai and Elijah are sitting working through the assignments. I realize I still have 90% of my Programming Assignment(PA) to do and it is due in the morning. That was my second mistake. The next morning I emailed my professor and found out I had till midnight, but as to the fact that I am not an omnipresent being viewing myself from the third person in the future, I did not know this.  I was under the impression that the assignment was due at 9:30 am. I sat down and began coding. Midnight rolls around and I realize that I need sleep or I will lose my sanity. I went to bed but because of the stress, it took an hour to get ready for bed and fall asleep. My eyes open, it is four am, I lay there for 35 minutes contemplating getting up. My eyes open for a second time to the sound of that stupid alarm. It is 5:30 in the morning; I am not a morning person. I get out of bed, get dressed, and head to the study lounge, but because of the ridiculous new wifi I don’t connect, so I head to the lounge, then I head to the lobby. I code for 40 minutes before realizing this will never get done in time and send him an email. This is when I realize I have till midnight. I grab breakfast but forgot my keys so I have to force Garrett to get dressed and meet me at the cafeteria, so I can get in the building(and so I don’t have to eat alone). When I get to class, I start talking to Ehukai and she gives me the best advice I’d heard in weeks, throw the method out. Eventually, the project gets done. The day goes on for years and I am up till midnight again doing homework. I don’t know how I’m going to survive the year, but thanks to Maddy, Tam, McCaulley, Elijah, and Ehukai at least doing homework is entertaining.

By Duffy Anderson

Here’s the thing I’m in love. It sounds silly, and realistically it is ridiculous. I love him a lot, so much it’s ridiculous, but this isn’t a diary it is for stories so let me tell you a story. Before we started dating, I was describing him to someone and pulled up his Instagram to show them, then I realized I wasn’t following him. I clicked the follow button before realizing that I was on my spam, not my main Instagram and that’s why I wasn’t following him. I immediately sent him a message explaining the accident but that he seemed cool and could stay if he wanted. Then several days I made a fake poster saying how much I wanted to go for a picnic. We had plans to hang out after talking for a couple of days. It was not at all romantic, we were both just looking for new friends and he seemed like someone I would like to befriend. The morning we were hanging out we both snagged some food from the AUC and walked to my car. I was in an awesome mood, probably because I was wearing my overalls and those always bring me joy. We began by driving to Wolf club, the best coffee shop near PLU, in my humble opinion. Quickly after, we pulled into Spanaway park in my dangerously messy pickup truck(Shakira). I hopped out of the car and immediately started chasing squirrels. The better moods sometimes make me overly silly and chasing squirrels is way more fun than people make it out to be. We walked through the park and then found a nice place to lay down a blanket and hang out. We sat and ate our omelets that had started to get cold, but we didn’t mind, good company and a beautiful day are all it takes. We strolled through the park and watched the boats for a little bit longer before walking back to the car. We were brainstorming things to do with the rest of the day when we thought of frisbee. I think of it frequently, laughing and jumping and playing, chasing and enjoying a beautiful day. He later told me that that goofy smile running in my overalls is one of his favorite things, and not to be conceited but me too. I miss frisbee.

By Duffy Anderson

Let me tell you a story about how someone walked into my life. I had fallen madly in love with him, like a fairy tale end, loving him was Red. See that the thing about life, you never know who’s going to be your Red. One of Taylor Swift’s songs called Red, explains just what happened.  It’s crazy how one person can change your whole thinking on what love should be until they walk into your life, show you what love should be, and then they just walk away without looking back. You hear how people talk about how someone is their “yellow,” well, he was my Red. The way that I felt about him was crazy, fast, and dangerous but when the wind blew that summer, everything was faster than I wanted it to be. The feeling was, “faster than the wind, passionate as sin but it ended so suddenly.” In Taylor’s song, she recalls how loving was Red. It was all in the moment but then like all story tales, everything must come to an end. We must feel the pain, the sadness and hurt that comes with the story ends. There were good memories with that person but in the end, it was red, it was lust. It’s what I thought I wanted but not what I needed. I thought what I wanted was a fairytale, a storybook ending but that’s not what happened. When he left, I lost myself. He would come in “flashbacks, and echo’s”. I knew that I had to move on, but I didn’t know how, it was dark for a long time. I lost myself, I found that I was looking for something to replace how I felt, but at that moment two years ago, I didn’t know how to feel. All I knew was the person after he broke my heart without any warning, it felt like he had taken me down a dead-end street and then left me. And to me, he was my Red. It was fast, adventurous, daring but in the end lonely.

By Atlantis Fronsman

I love to stop and appreciate the small moments of joy, and I do my best to do so. The day after I got out of quarantine for college, I sat in Shari’s diner, a booth on the edge of the room, a cup of coffee in hand, my delicious looking four-cheese mushroom omelet steaming in front of me. I looked up at the adorable 30 something woman, with her glitter eye shadow, and her hair up in red space buns. I took a deep breath; everything in that moment was perfect. I had been alone in my room for two weeks and let’s just say I refilled my social battery. I was there and a part of the world again. I felt amazing. I was happy for days. At this same time, I needed to be inspired so I had been listening to this song a lot. It made me feel the life in the world. I was listening to this on the drive to Shari’s and it made me happy but I was still missing this inspiration. I sat and that booth and sipped on my terrible, delicious, diner coffee, and found that special something. 

By Duffy Anderson

This one is for the boys. The main homie. My friend Camrin. She may be female, but I would not flinch before saying she is one of the boys. Maybe the most essential one of the boys. Boys nights without Camrin aren’t boys nights. Camrin and I had this one night during our coronacation (back when we called it coronacation), where my dad had been out of town for several days and would be gone for many more. We made chicken with cheese and spaghetti sauce and sat down and watched all three Fred movies. Then the night got later and we got caught up in the crazy spirit of what the youth call, “crackhead hours.” We opened the fridge searching for who knows what, and we found a bang energy drink quickly realizing what needed to be done. We tossed a bang in the blender with some fruit and chugged down some smoothies. This was before I really drank caffeine, so it hit like a truck. We walked over to a boy down the street house and invited him to run around with us. When I say we walked, I mean we skipped and leaped and ran. In the dead of night, we laid in the front lawn and laughed and watched the stars, making self-deprecating jokes and singing songs. That was part of Camrin’s energy, making jokes that were self-deprecating but also relatable in all ways. She has such a spirit in that way. 

My favorite thing about Camrin is her frog voice. She is wonderful and amazing in so many ways, but on top of it all, she knows how to cheer me up. I have had this puppet frog named Frank for all of my childhood. He looks like a regular stuffed animal, but one-day Camrin was sitting on my bed next to me while I was sad, and she realized that Frank was more than a frog, he was a puppet. I don’t know why but when Camrin does the frog voice and scrunches up his face, I can’t help but laugh. I would say that Camrin and the frog voice are the only things that guarantee to put a smile on my face. Thanks for everything Camrin.

The few times I skipped class were to go to concerts, this one was a dentist’s appointment that required ½ a days work. Sliding down the prison rails, and looking my friends in the eye, or lack thereof, I made my way to the front office. Vans sliding across the floor, squeaking from the buffing, and head high; ready to go. Slipping a secretary a note like an office water jug romance, I was on my way, catching the ferry, and to the KEXP Gathering Space to see the Boys from Bristol, IDLES. Pants and a long sleeve were a regret in the May sun, it peaked as I drove down Aurora Avenue and into the Seattle city limits. Taking exits near Aloha and Denny way, I found a parking garage as sweat dripped from my brow as I turned the key towards me, how I miss that manufactured duplicate with a split from my greyish-brown 1991 Subaru jalopy. My Vans no longer slid, rather they shuffled across the concrete through Seattle Center following signs to the EMP and KEXP. 

Arriving, my legs were wet and my mind was frazzled, heat stroke setting in as I browsed Light In The Attic and thought of my distant lover. End of the year regrets. Moving on, I took a position in the middle of the crowd, excusing myself to get a glimpse at the sweat stained, and relevant men from England. They all arrived except Joe Talbot. Cheryl Waters introduced them and a pugnacious, Brit waltzed onto the stage preaching relevant matters. Mercedes Marxist had just been released, Joy As An Act of Resistance was at its penultimate live form for America, and Brutalism was long forgotten. The noise destabilized my equilibrium as I hopped to crushing drums and the scream which belted, “MY FRIEND IS SO DEPRESSED.”

A couple of weeks back the girls and I were bored of just hanging out on campus every weekend, so we thought we would take a trip. At the time this was the song of the week so I played it constantly. We decided upon camping. On the drive there Juj kept telling us that she was worried and that she brought the bear spray but she wasn’t sure that was enough. Iris and I looked at her with confusion and made fun of her a little, but weren’t going to bash her too hard, because everyone has the right to be afraid of anything they wanted to be afraid of. When we arrived at an RV campground with water lawns and kids on bikes, she definitely felt a little silly. Then we decided to go to the waterfront. As we went for a short walk, we were laughing and talking about how we should come up with a group name. I always disliked the three musketeers. We were brainstorming, when I blurted out, “what about tres leches.” It sounded good but also meant three milks. I wanted to be 2%, Iris was evaporated milk, and Juj was Almond Milk. We walked and laughed. Then we decided we needed a catchphrase. “Milk is thiccker,” two Cs and a K. The whole brainstorming session lasted into the night as the joke never stopped. And thus, Tres Leches was born(Featuring Elijah as Baby Froyo). 

By Duffy Anderson

When I was in sixth grade I considered myself an amateur filmmaker. I would use iMovie’s trailer function to make these little movies. One time I tried to make an actual movie not using the trailer function, and it was SO bad. I made twelve minutes, worth of an absolute garbage monster movie. I filmed it poorly, the acting was bad, and the plot didn’t make sense, but I had an awesome time. Then one day I was hanging out with my best friend Amelie and we thought we would make a music video. Again, I would like to state that I have no cinematography skills. So we did it, instead of trying to edit it, I filmed the whole music video in one swoop. We asked the girl next door to join us, not Laura but her little sister. So now, somewhere on youtube, there is a video of my best friend and the girl next door, dancing through the entirety of Party in the USA.

By Duffy Anderson

This song reminds me of my grandmother(Lucy), but instead of telling that story, I called her and she gave me a story from her life. I am breaking this up into a three-part essay. First her childhood, then her chaotic young adulthood, finally where she is now. 

She tells me stories of her early childhood, she was one of seven, a middle child, smack dab in the middle. Her father was a firefighter, and her mother did her best to keep fed and clothed, and ready for life, shopping every single day to keep the family fed. Because of the way things were in the ’50s, her whole family ate lunch together every day, her father came home from work, and the kids walked home from school, so they could all sit together and share a meal. Her father was careful not to forget the middle kids as many parents do. He took Lucy and her brother Georgie, who she was very close with because the gap in age was small, to the fire station with him. They would run around and talk to all the people in the station. As to the fact that they were from a small town and her father was a known fireman, the whole town knew them and adored them. She was very close with her younger siblings, helping them find their shoes, told them stories, and played games. She convinced them that there were dinosaurs hidden in the dunes and that if they could swim across the bay they would reach Europe, they would hang on every word. She was raised catholic, she even considered becoming a nun, but as soon as she could she came to California, and her world changed. 

Once touching down at the seashore, she was awakened to a world that was something she couldn’t have dreamt up, and she was inspired. The lifestyle was a whole new thing, she saw these people living without being under the thumb of society and the church. When the sixties arrived and she was coming into her own. They held fundraisers, for politics or helping change things, but she still didn’t feel she was doing enough. She realized that not having a job was still keeping her tied down so she went to school and became an RN(Registered Nurse). Then came the start of the Vietnam war, where she realized that we have to fight for what’s right, even if that means prison or putting herself in danger. Of course, there was the spirit of the sixties that drew her back into these protests. There were huge protests, followed by even bigger parties, as part of the spirit of the sixties. She still had to take certain precautions, as to the fact that she had two young children. That didn’t truly hold her back though. “Oil, lemon, and repression, congressman Teague that’s your obsession,” she chants as she drifts down the streets, protesting against a congressman, who is in power because of wealth and uses that power to underpay his farm workers, adding to the corrupt system. She read current biographies, and books of all kinds that inspired her to act on different world problems, protesting alongside Cesar Chavez. I decided to call that enough interview for one day, but the stories are definitely not over. 

Lastly, we ask where has this life lead her. She lives in a magnificent house made of wood that has burned down and been rebuilt. She has a wonderful husband, who is passionate about the unitarian church because he wants to help the world. She lives a block from one of her daughters. She has a passion for knowledge and doing what’s right, and will always be there for me. From Catholic schoolgirl to activist, and now she finds herself, just searching for the best life, and that’s all we can ask.

By Duffy Anderson

My beautiful, amazing, kind and fabulous Tia Heidi is a Buddhist, and once when I was in elementary school she asked us to come to her meeting. When I was young she would invite me to ring the bell while she did her prayers, chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, and it gave me a wonderful appreciation for Buddhism. I still don’t know much about it, but given the opportunity to go to a meeting I absolutely wanted to take her up on it. We arrived at someone’s home, which at first thought was because there weren’t enough people to have an actual building. As people poured in I realized this was not the case. Now that I am older, I realized they do this because the Buddhists do not believe in excess if not necessary. I was expecting it, but my aunt, my cousin, and I all sat at the front. A little while in we were prompted to begin. My cousin began to play his guitar and then we sang this song. After that, it kind of became our song. I can imagine us sitting in my grandma’s living room, and my aunt will ask me what song I want to sing, and we all know which I’m going to pick. We belt out the first verse at full volume but still take it mildly seriously because that’s part of the fun. 

By Duffy Anderson

Belts are spinning towards me, ambiguity is the root of me, and this story was hard for me. Attached below is a short piece composed for Rick Barot’s Writing 101 course contemplating a multigenerational favorite song. 

“I see you spinning and moving with a belt on your side. Two-sided and face down, you speak through magnets. I can read you, I can touch you and I can hear you. Your textured knotwork runs through my hands partially—a layer of plastic film separates us, I always wondered why. I wondered where you came from and how you were chosen. Why you hadn’t been spun in years and why I never heard you before. Until I heard footsteps and the door opening behind me just to say, “I’m so glad you’ve found it.”

At first, I saw three words, at the second I read “Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end” and third I heard it speak in tempo, timbre, melody, harmony, rhythm, dynamics and form. I sometimes wonder if he thought this too, thirty years ago in an Olympia record store looking for inspiration. 

At first, he’d say, “This brings back so much, I’d play this in the studio.”

At last, he’d say. “It’s yours.”

The Crimson King has led me down many rabbit holes. I find safety under the sheltering sky it provides, I find paranoia with the schizoid man and I find love with you Dad. The Crimson King is another link between him and I. King Crimson released Discipline the day before the fall equinox of 1981. Thirty-eight years ago on that day, I wonder where it was and how this piece of black vinyl chloride ended up in my father’s hands.  

I couldn’t describe my dad’s music taste to you, it’s hard to describe him to anyone. A little bit of this, some of that and a sprinkle of whatever. You just have to meet him. I couldn’t draw the look on his face when he first heard me playing Discipline. I found it on his shelf, I put it on my turntable. The sleeve left dust on my fingertips, the circular disc made pops but a familiar bassline resonated through my Polk T-15’s. Within one note I heard footsteps behind me and the door opened for him to say, “I’m so glad you’ve found it.”

While only twelve inches in diameter and thirty-eight minutes in length, that moment felt like a decade. With his eyes closed, his head swayed to the Chapman Stick while mouthing the howls of Adrian Belew, I knew we had been transported back to his studio at Evergreen State College. I was merely a fly on the wall to him while he constructed his latest piece for Marilyn Frasca. I could smell the cigarettes burning, he described them as not for smoking but for the aroma. The black drip coffee was brewing, I heard it pour into the pot as I shielded my eyes from his TIG welder’s glow. His long hair and mustache smiled and said goodbye to me when he flipped up his mask to inspect the weld. In reality, we hugged and continued our chores thirty-eight minutes later.”

By Fulton Bryant-Anderson

When I was in middle school, I heard this song, and the melody stuck in my mind. Then I started singing I don’t wanna do this no more, to the melody of the song. The week following that I was singing it all the time, and everyone told me it wasn’t a real song and I just made it up. True I did partially make it up, but not all the way. Then freshman year of college, I found it. It was a real song this whole time, that played on a loop in my head. I went on to sing that “I don’t wanna do this no more.” Sometimes school gets overwhelming, and I am on the verge of tears. I stop and sing that I don’t wanna do this no more. It kind of makes me feel better. 

By Duffy Anderson

I know I said I was going to do a series on people, but I want to tell this story while the moment is fresh in my mind. Right before I left for college from Winter Break, my friends and I started listening to this song. We are all aware that most of the song is trash, but there is something so silly about the opening line, “corvette corvette, hope in a MFing jet like that.” We would play the song just for that line and laugh. Then one afternoon I was in my room and I received two snap chats from Myles. The first a story about his day, and a question somewhere along the lines of why is life so hard sometimes. He followed this with the words, “I was sad, and then I thought of corvette corvette.” It was written over a photo of him smiling in a, I’m on the verge of laughter sort of way. His eyes still looked sad, because it’s not that easy to be happy, but for just a moment he had a respite from the pain that life is. There is something about this song that will make you smile even if everything goes to dumpster fires and cannibal sheep.

By Duffy Anderson

Back when I was in elementary school, and the only way to get movies was by going to blockbuster and renting or buying them, I spent a week at my Grammy Carol’s during winter Break. She hated being called grandma, it made her feel old. Over this break, we probably bought more than one movie but the only one I remember, and the one we watched over and over was Madagascar. And so, in turn, this song, from Madagascar, reminds me of my Grammy Carol. My Grammy Carol was one of those seemingly perfect people. As I got older and people talked about her I realized she wasn’t quite as perfect as I had made her out to be in my head, but I like to keep her as I remember her. The kind of grandma that makes cookies. You know what I mean. She was strict in an old-timey sense but she loved her grandchildren and spoiled us in the way that movie grandmothers do. I was still pretty young when she had to leave us, the cancer came quick. I don’t have a ton of memories of her, but I have some. I wish I had more. I remember this one very unremarkable night, everyone else was away doing things, and I sat on the couch in her living room. I sat between grammy Carol and papa, and we watched moonrise kingdom. I was too young to understand the beauty or the romance of the movie, but I remember being snuggled up there. A moment I will never forget. It’s strange what the brain chooses to remember. I remember this one afternoon where Grammy asked me if I wanted mustard eggs. When I looked at her confused the whole household gasped and then laughed. She smiled and crushed up hard-boiled eggs with mustard in a cup. They are Papa John’s favorite, she explained. I sat at the round wooden dining room table and ate my mustard eggs. When she passed I was just old enough to be upset but not old enough to really understand why I was upset. I wish I had more time with her. I started learning cursive junior year of high school, in honor of her. I now write primarily in a cursive with little sparkles of print mixed in. When I write, I think of her. When I send letters, I think of her. When I was having a hard time in high school and I wanted to tell people things, I thought of her and I began writing letters. Sometimes I would send the letters, and sometimes I wouldn’t. Those letters kept me going for a while, and it all started with her.

 By Duffy Anderson

There is this perfect chaotic energy that is produced when Camrin and I come together. It is possible she just produces that and I am simply there to participate, but either way, I am here for it. On one of the last days before I left after winter break Camrin and Myles were over, Myles was busily making onion rings, and I had just finished up making Jalapeno Poppers when Camrin walked into the room. She was sad, which meant the chaos would be next level. We hid in the kitchen because they both hate people and we had family friends over. When dinner arrived, we all sat at the table with me and Camrin sat at one end. There was this moment of mutual understanding, where we realized we were at the kids’ table. Along with the other things, I had made chicken and shish kabobs. We sat at the table, swords fighting and pretending to do magic tricks with our kabob sticks. Eventually, Camrin just began breaking them in half, and then in half again, and so on and so forth. After dinner, the chaotic energy was at its peak. When Camrin wasn’t looking. I jumped on her, throwing her onto the couch. We both laughed, and that was the new normal for the night. Myles kept trying to go on his phone while we were hanging out so I would take it, and then he would try to take it back and we would fight. I decided we should go to the beach. When we got there we spent maybe 15 minutes there before deciding to head home. We pulled up to my house, and I was embarrassed that we took so little time at the beach, so we sat in the car for a little while. Camrin sat with her feet up on the chair in the back saying things that I could barely comprehend. Then there was a lull. A moment of sadness where the chaotic energy slipped away from us and us sad in a cloud realizing that this was almost goodbye. I was excited about college but I didn’t want to leave them. After a couple of minutes of sadness, I took my Birkenstocks off and asked Myles if I could see his phone for a second. He timidly gave it to me. I leaped from the car racing towards the house, and in the front door. He was inches behind me I got to my room, and he tried to pry it from my hands and ran back to the front door standing on the edge of the lawn. Then in an unexpected turn of events, he grabbed the phone and tackled me. I tucked and rolled on to the lawn. I didn’t need to get up immediately, he had won. I laid on the floor laughing. Somehow Camrin’s sad chaotic energy ended with me getting tackled in the front lawn at 10 pm on a Wednesday. This is not the first or last time that Camrin’s chaotic energy changed the events of an evening. You will hear from her again. I eventually did rise from the lawn and make it back to my room. We all laid on the bed. If someone tried to sleep they got tickled. To create the perfect final anarchy, Camrin grabbed my frog puppet(Frank), whom I’ve had since preschool. For some reason he always makes me laugh, which Camrin knows. For forty-five minutes the three of us lay together in that bed. Camrin pretending she is a talking frog, me, laughing hysterically, and Myles judging me for laughing hysterically. Eventually, the night faded away and Camrin drove alone to the McDonalds by the beach to get sprite. I fell into a deep sleep. Content with an evening of absolute bedlam.

By Duffy Anderson

I met my best-friend Myles Sophomore year of high school. He was dating Lindsey so he got invited to the b*tch and stitch. Then the b*tch and stitch turned into d and d, and the group expanded. We never really spoke. Eventually, he broke up with Lindsey. Then everything went wrong at once (6-5-18), and the school year came to an end.  That was the summer I went crazy. A week or two into summer, I was gone to my cousins. When I got there Myles had added me on Snapchat. So as the strange person I was, and in an attempt to make conversation, I made a statement. It was somewhere along the lines of “What if animal farm was an allegory for Mario.” Sophomore year of high school, I said things like this a lot. My brain was often confused, and chaotic thoughts were the only ones that made sense. I had become accustomed to everyone in my life, ignoring me or laughing, because the things I said could be considered jokes I guess. He didn’t do this. I was expecting it, but it didn’t happen. He started to elaborately plan how this could be true, giving each animal farm character a Mario character. He was the first person who listened to me when I got like that. Amelie always tried to listen, but it always felt like she thought I was crazy. She loved me anyway, but she thinks I’m crazy. Which is fair I am. Myles never treated me li8ke I was crazy. He always treated my metaphors as if they were a valid thought process that was just a little more cluttered than normal peoples. That’s where the friendship started. After about a month I returned to California and I was afraid the friendship would die there, but it didn’t. That summer was sad, and when I returned home I was extra sad, so we were sad together. He was a music kid, and this was my favorite song from my favorite movie. It made me cry, but if we were both crying anyway, it might as well be to an awesome song. I remember this one night, I texted him, while I laid in tears on the living room floor, on the rug, in the dark. Most friendships morph over time to change the way they are. This one never morphed, it was as if every time we hung out we just got a bonus level or a power-up. At first, we talked about silly things. As time went by we started talking about serious things, but we never stopped talking about the silly things. Then after a while, we started telling secrets, but we kept the sad and the silly. Finally, we surpassed words and would just sit together watching a show or driving in comfortable quiet. I would say things occasionally that could be sad or silly or secrets, but we were also comfortable in silence. The Ses of friendship. I burned a couple of bridges because of him, and I would say that it’s absolutely worth it. Now don’t get me wrong, he’s a disaster, but we love him for it(and sometimes in spite of it). We can hang out at 2 am or 2 pm, we can loud or we can be quiet, we can be smart or a ball of absolute chaos, but either way, it’s perfect. That’s what best friends should be. Love you.

By Duffy Anderson

About a year back my grandpa Frank broke his hip really bad. After he got surgery they put him in a community for about two weeks so he could help get rehabilitated. My grandmother would go and visit him during the days. One afternoon, my grandmother and I went to visit my grandfather. My grandma brought him, books and cookies, which she played off as he asked for and she had to. When we got there she immediately started asking nurse questions(because she worked as a registered nurse most of her life) and complaining about him not getting up and walking around enough. I see now that she does that because she wants nothing more than for him to be happy and healthy. Secondly, because I think she understands that the thing Frank hates more than anything else is being patronized. I never put much thought into it about really how much she loves him. The interaction between them that I usually ee are always a little abrupt and chaotic. When I really think about it though even when she yells at him and he doesn’t do what she says or can’t hear her, she is never angry. Sometimes she is sad, by his inability to hear her. Sometimes she is frustrated when he tries to fix things himself, but even then I think she enjoys him taking control of his own life. I always think it’s crazy when she asks an 89-year-old to sort through boxes or replace the bricks on the driveway, and though he sometimes gives up, it seems that he likes being useful. 

Once my grandmother accessed my grandpa and told him he needed to get up and exercise. She didn’t listen to anything he had to say and got him up out of bed. We went for a short walk through the building and headed to the courtyard. When we got there, my grandfather sat down at a table under an umbrella and out of the sun. Grandma smiled and sat up on the table facing him with her legs hanging down next to him, and she looked him in the eyes, and for a single moment, it all made sense. At that moment I could see back into the past. I saw grandpa, a young man, a marine, sitting there looking up at his beautiful bride, who is laughing about some silly joke and lightly kicking him in the leg. That moment was the first time I realized everything they did, and no matter how much she complained, it was because she loves him and he loves her.

 A couple of weeks ago I was helping her carry bricks from the basement up to the garage, and I turned to her and tried to explain that grandpa can’t do what he did before. For a moment I saw sadness cross her face, “I know, it’s just hard to see him like that.” All the complaints, and frustration she feels are because she is sad and scared to watch him growing old. Afraid of the idea that someday she will lose him.

By Duffy Anderson

Sophomore year of high school I spent the summer in Lake Oswego Oregon, with my aunt and uncle, and my cousin Hunter. Spending four weeks living with someone who actually wants to hang with you, will almost guarantee a close relationship. I was already kind of close with my cousin, but that summer we grew even closer. At the time he had a job at the McDonalds a couple of miles from their house, so sometimes at night time, I would drive the 2.5 miles from his house on the water to his work on the highway. The trip isn’t that long if you take the main roads, but as to the fact that I had gotten my license twenty-four hours before I got there, I refused to take anything but back roads, making the trip longer by both time and distance. He once told me a story about the only person he had ever heard of getting fired was a woman who pretended to have cancer to con people into “giving to her charity”. Because of this, he was pretty gosh darn sure he couldn’t get fired. When I got there, he would ring me up for a small M&M McFlurry that would cost me zero dollars and zero cents. After doing that maybe half a dozen times, he got called out by his boss and had to stop. I love a good McFlurry, but the best part was that I felt like I was in this secret club only Hunter could get me into. Hunter was special that way. He always made me feel like I was something special and I deserved something special. One day we woke up and Hunter didn’t have to work, so we thought we would go out to coffee and run around. Though it was only like three blocks to the Starbucks we drove. I remember him telling me that we were going to drive. He said it like a secret only I could know. Like we were part of an undercover team that would have to sneak off a government base.  When we got in the car, he turns to me and says that he has the perfect song. Then blasting through the speakers Ariana Grande begins. I’m not sure what we would call the club. I’m not sure if he knew he was in it, let alone the commander and chief. The only thing that I knew about the club was that it existed, and if we were gonna have an anthem, this would be it.

By Duffy Anderson

When I first arrived at college I had a group of friends, because Savannah (whom I had met on a California zoom for PLU students), had already put together a friend group. Now that group quickly disintegrated, which I now realize is something friend groups just do. As I began to realize that the friend group was falling apart I decided I wanted to make friends of my own. Julia showed up on the first day of class and there was a second Julia so she said she would go by Juj. When someone tells me I have a call from Julia I tell them I don’t know a Julia. She organized an IHON group chat and then invited anyone on campus to come to hang out on the lawn together. I met them and knew that whatever friend group I was making, she would need to be in it. After a couple of days of hanging out, she started talking about Aidan Gallagher, and the joke is just that he’s a horrible singer, but she wanted so badly to like him. There is something so charming and characteristic in liking something, not because it’s good but because you want to like it. It’s probably more of a hubris than a superpower, but can’t we just call it both and then call it quits.

By Duffy Anderson

Sorry about the last entry, late nights hit hard. It was wonderful to have some time off, but I have been excited about his new series I’m starting. For the next … however long it takes, I would like to each day talk about an important person in my life, whether past or present. Today I would like to bring up my brother. Finn and I have gone through the wave that most siblings go through. When we were really young we were best friends, or at least through the eyes of six-year-old Duffy we were. Don’t get me wrong, we were always at each other’s throats, but I loved him, and we would explore the world together. We would move our mattresses and make forts. We would play legos in the basement or make hot wheels tracks down the stairs.  If I look back really hard, he often barely tolerated my presence, but I could feel the love. When we were in late elementary school, my dad bought us a Gamecube. We got Surfs Up the game. I have yet to figure out why Surf’s Up feels so much like Finn but it does. Maybe he liked that movie so much, but so does seventeen again and hot rod, but I don’t remember a single song from either. I think the game added to the top of it, just makes this movie hit so close to home. He loved the movie. He loved the game. He loved the soundtrack. As we aged, we grew apart. I didn’t want to, but when Finn turned thirteen he moved to his own room away from our little cocoon upstairs. He got broody and stopped opening his door. From the ages thirteen to sixteen he left his room maybe twice. Then one week before his sixteenth birthday, he was sitting on the couch, and he spoke directly to me. I assume he had probably spoken to me in the last three years, but it never really felt like he cared till that exact moment. In the end, I think it was because he had just gotten a girlfriend, but at that moment It felt good. About a week later he made a playlist. My family shared an apple music account, and so I could listen to this playlist. The first song was this one. This moment where I realized, that moody teen Finn wasn’t gone, but neither was nine-year-old Finn who I used to play Surf’s Up with. We can never really change, we can just add on top of what we already have.

By Duffy Anderson

Hey all, sorry it has been a while. I intended on coming back sooner, but as the time slipped through my fingers, I was tired and then sad, and now J-term is here and ready to kick me while I’m down. This song has really been hitting hard lately and I’m not sure why. I miss the kids back home, and I know it has only been one day. School feels distant and I feel alone, but I will continue on and the days will turn to weeks and the feeling will fade. This song is so happy in a way that makes me sad. He makes me want to cry because of the wholesome perfection. I want this for everyone. I understand not everyone can  have or wants romantic love, but everyone deserves someone who would “bet the house on you.” I can’t seem to find something to put my heart into. I want to be passionate about school but I’m not. Last semester, some days I would sit in Professor Strum’s class, on the edge of my chair. Excited about what was in store. Today was good, but I am not excited. Maybe I just need to sleep. Hey you, I miss you. Good Night

-Duffy

Every year, a week or two before Christmas, my family goes to a Christmas party, in order to make tamales. Tamale Day is a family tradition in which we all go to a family friend’s house and make tamales that will be eaten on Christmas. Every time we make an insane quantity of tamales. The only thing is after a long day we still aren’t allowed to eat any of the tamales because we have to save them for Christmas. So Natalie, our beautiful hostess, would save a handful of last Christmas’ tamales in the freezer. Now, well-rested, I realized that it’s a little strange we are eating year-old tamales, but after hours of labor, we are all tired and hungry. The smell of tamales wafts through the kitchen and branches out across the house. Everyone flocks and stands around the dining room, staring over the half wall into the kitchen. We watch as Natalie heats up beans and tortillas, and then it’s ready. The house gets very loud as everyone bustles around making plates, and then just as quickly the house quiets to a collection of murmurs and we scarf down mountains of food. Yet we never run out.

By Duffy Anderson

The year is 2020, so I would say the Christmas Spirit is definitely in short supply. I am doing my best to appreciate this time in my life. I awoke this morning three minutes before church, my dad thought I could use the sleep. My bed is so nice here, I didn’t quite realize how much I missed a nice bed. I awoke and something just felt right in the Christmas spirit. I attended zoom church and then decided it was time to do something that felt Christmas-y. I laid all the Christmas wrapping papers and bows and presents out on the floor and got to it. Everyone got books this year, which made things easy and fun to wrap. It really started to feel like the spirit was in the air. I snap-chatted Lola and asked if she wanted to go to the 99 and Michaels. I bought candy to give to my dad and my best friend Amelie for Christmas, but even more exciting, we took a stop at Michaels and got beads. The other day I got an ad for the new Marc Jacobs collection and saw these hoop earrings with beads that said Marc Jacobs on them. So I made them, and they are fabulous. Now I am sitting on the couch waiting for the sugar cookie dough to chill, and Lola and I are rewatching Shameless. The Christmas tree glows with ornaments of red and gold, and the show plays loudly, and something just feels like Christmas.

By Duffy Anderson

The last day before Winter Break was a really big deal in elementary through high school. The last day before Winter Break almost always meant craft. We would make paper trees or color in Santa Clauses. Often we would watch movies. Sometimes the teachers tried to pretend it related to school, sometimes they didn’t. I remember, Mr. Diebolt, in Math two honors, told the whole class that the movie was about calculus and aerodynamics. It took till the last five minutes of the movie for me to realize that it was not. I mean it was a movie about a plane crash so I guess those things relate, but he was making a joke that it was related to school. When I was in eighth grade the teacher put on October something, and in all honesty, that one might have even been related to science but it went right over my head. The most fun, last day of class activity, that didn’t even end up falling on the last day of class, was mask making in Sophomore English. My Sophomore English teacher, Mr. Locher, was in love with Joseph Campbell, and after talking at length, and hearing interview excerpts from (Joseph Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces), we were told to make masks. I still don’t really see how they relate, but I guess it makes sense that a Sophomore class is going to need some things just for fun. Now that I am in college, the last days before Christmas will be different. The days before the break will most definitely include. hard studying, finals, and mild panic. The upside is the university gives out free treats, and it is a great excuse to drink way too much coffee.

By Duffy Anderson

I look out the window and watch the clouds reflect on the wings of the plane. The sun hurts my eyes but I ignore the ache because of the overwhelming stoicism of my world of white. Living in a cloud. There is a psychological survey, in which the interviewer asks the participants how they would feel if they were in a white room with no windows and no doors. This is supposed to tell how you fear death. Up high, in my box in the sky, there is something charming and safe, about knowing there is nowhere to go, and no way to escape the contraption created for me. But my appreciation of the peace of having nothing to do does not completely reflect death. One of the main reasons this test says something, is because it provokes fear of the unknown. In that same thought, there is something yet again intriguing about the unknown. If you know a little bit about something, but there is a lot of unknown it can be scary. But how can you be afraid of something if you have no information? How can I fear what happens after that room? I can simply live in that room until time passes and something changes. I can simply make the most of my time. I am often called out for complacency, or what my friends in high school called having a “pro-cult mentality.” I have found that the best way for me to be happy with life, is to do my best to accept whatever life throws at me. Sometimes this means to accept and then attempt to improve, but most of the time it just means accept, changing nothing. I understand this could put me in a sticky situation, and if something is truly intolerable I will fight for something better, but most of the time, if I accept reality, I am happier. Well, at least I try. It’s not as easy as it sounds to accept everything life gives to you. I just have to remember, that the things that I can’t accept, are usually the things I can’t change. I am fighting an unwinnable battle.

By Duffy Anderson

My mother’s birthday is five days after Christmas. When I was in elementary school, maybe third grade, I went to Pier One Imports and bought my mother a glass rooster for Christmas. She loved it. Then the next year I went again to pier one and found her a chicken. I don’t remember if I did it for her birthday or Christmas, but after that year after year, she got little glass animals. A rooster, a pig with wings, a unicorn, but then I realized it would be fun to make a little family of glass animals. A rooster, a chicken, a chick, another rooster, but smaller. A collection she accumulated over the years. Christmas after Christmas, birthday after birthday.

By Duffy Anderson

Freshman year of high school, right before Christmas we got a lot of rain. On a dark and stormy night I went out into the night in my swimsuit, and me and the girl next store(Holland), danced in the rain. Holland was a couple of years younger than me, but as a freshman, in high school, I wasn’t ready to grow up and it seemed everyone else was, so I hung out with her a lot. It was nice to pretend that I was still young and carefree. I know I am going to get hate for saying that by freshman year of high school I was no longer young and carefree. Freshman year I was still pretty alright, but I could feel the storm coming, something not so pleasant brewing in my heart, that I was just doing my very best not to face at that very moment. So, freshman of high school, I spent a lot of time with the younger siblings next door, hell-bent on not growing up, just quite yet. I fought off that tipping point and could still have moments like this one. I spent hours dancing and screaming and singing, out in the cold. Just appreciating a stormy night, because in Southern California we got few. After playing for hours, I came inside, feeling like ice. I got in a hot shower, and then put on footie pajamas and watched Austin Powers. I know that’s not a Christmas movie, but sometimes it tis’ the season for Austin Powers, you know?

By Duffy Anderson

Freshman Year of High School, I really wanted to get into the Christmas spirit. I went to the thrift store and bought a coat and a couple of sweaters. Then I went to the ninety-nine cents store and purchased pretty much everything they had. I bought one of every kind of headband, I bought a couple of ornaments, and some necklaces, etc. Then December first I showed up to class dressed to the nines. I realized that if I got ninety-nine cents store ornaments I could bend the metal around the back of my ear and wear them like earrings even though my ears weren’t pierced. I also got this long Santa coat, with lace and everything. It sorta looked like a pirate coat. I dressed up every morning and went to school, vibrant in spirit knowing that I had put in the effort to be fabulous, and they all knew it. The only problem with this is that one week before we got off for Christmas break. I was exhausted from Christmas. You can only be fabulous for so long without needing a nap. But because I am a holiday person, I managed to get the spirits up to a reasonable place before the season ended. I really live my life from holiday to holiday. November is just the lull between and Christmas and Halloween with food in the middle.

By Duffy Anderson

Every year, several days before Christmas, our family friends meet at Cemetery Park at dark. That sounds like I’m taking this in another direction. We meet up, and Natalie passes out silly instruments and lyrics. Then we set off. We walk up into the neighborhoods above the park, everyone preparing their songs. It goes really well for two houses, and then we realize there are only three songs everyone knows the words to. Every year we set out to carol for two-plus hours, and after forty-five minutes we have been to six houses and decide it’s time to quit. Even though the caroling itself only takes forty- five minutes, the preparation and hanging out in the park before, and the time we spend together after, made the whole thing take, probably three hours. I don’t really remember going as a kid with my whole family, but I went several times while in high school, on my own and it was a great time.

By Duffy Anderson

Every Christmas Eve my family would attend a party at our family friend’s house. When we arrived we walked through the front door and partways. Adults would go to the right and up the stairs, kids would go to the left and hang out downstairs. There was something significant about the divide because it didn’t matter how old you were, whether or not you went upstairs. The younger generation went downstairs. As some of the older boys hit 18, and then 21, I waited to watch them make the transition to upstairs. I later realized it wasn’t age that moved you up the ladder, it was a mindset. It reminded me of the movie the little prince, in which the old man explains that you can choose to never grow up because even when you age, there is a special feeling, a hope/joy, that you can choose to never let go of. Slowly I would see one or two kids, grow up, and start to settle down with life. They no longer wanted to run in the dunes or play Wii, which is understandable, but when you moved upstairs the joke was over because no jokes were made. My goal is to move upstairs, while never really leaving the kids corner. 

By Duffy Anderson

Junior Year of High School was the first year that I was religious for the Christmas season, so I decided I was going to go all out. My best friend Amelie had been coming to church with me, on and off for a while, so I got the opportunity to drag her around with me. One morning, several days before Christmas, in the morning there was the usual Sunday morning church service, but then that night at seven there was another service, and there might have even been a service in the afternoon. All I know for sure is that the major part of the day Amelie and I were alone in the church. We considered going on a walk to the mall which was only a couple of blocks, but I had never really spent any time in a church. We ran up and down the pews. We went up into the loft and sang loudly into the world. We spent hours just hanging out and running around. We went to the playground on campus. We did it all. It was a super fun day. This all reminds me of my first religious easter, but we will have to save that for another day.

By Duffy Anderson

The 2020 Christmas season is a little different than anticipated because I didn’t anticipate a nationwide pandemic. But you know what, we all got tested and I got to spend Thanksgiving with family, and then wake up the next morning and do something I wasn’t sure I was going to get the opportunity to do, cut down my own tree. The only problem with the whole situation is most of my family had a couple, the night before. Driving down the road I hear from the seat, “pull over,” and then he yacked, and then again when he got there, and then again and again and again. It was kind of funny in all honesty and I will be able to remember the first time cutting down my own tree. I got to pull out the saw and watch it fall, and I also got to see my cousin vomit into a target bag. Let’s just say memories were made. 

By Duffy Anderson

Sophomore Year of high school. It must have been one of the first days of the month before the fires started. I had been feeling kind of down and had been coming home from school due to illness, a lot, for reason we had yet to access. I guess my dad was searching to be the light in my day. I was laying in bed on a Tuesday morning, about to get up to get ready for school. As I roll out of bed I hear something strange in the hallway. When I’m almost ready for school, my dad walks in the room. He carries a to-go cup filled with coffee and hot chocolate mix. I finally figured out what the noise was. The entire morning my dad had been singing Oh Christmas Tree but replacing the word Christmas with either whatever he was doing or whatever he saw. “Oh, Mocha Tree, O Mocha Tree,” He sings the song as he walks in the room with a big goofy smile on his face. I smile and shake my head, acknowledging that he’s a dweeb, but also acknowledging that we love him for it. For some reason, that moment stuck with me. Something about his spirit that morning left a certain kind of Christmas magic in the air. I walked through the day with a kick in my step.

By Duffy Anderson

This is definitely my favorite Christmas song. I just feel that, though the words appear sad, the spirit really embodies a very specific Christmas vibe. The moment, on Christmas Eve, where everyone goes off to their own room, after the Christmas Eve festivities, and there is just a feeling of hollowness. It seems as if we should do some grand sleepover together, but there is something magnificent about going off to your own room and lying alone. At first, you think that you will never sleep because the excitement overwhelms you, but after all the excitement from the day, you are unconscious in a matter of minutes. 

By Duffy Anderson

I can’t quite remember if this was one specific day, or a series of days, or just a figment of my imagination, but I have decided it doesn’t matter either way. So I’ll set the scene, it’s two weeks before Christmas but we are most definitely in the Christmas spirit. My best friend Amelie and I are in the kitchen, I think we had school that day. It’s probably a Friday. I decided that it is absolutely necessary to make an obtusely large batch of sugar cookies. I don’t know if I like sugar cookies the best as cookies, but they are super easy to make and just embody the Christmas spirit. We are in the kitchen in our school clothes. Amelie’s backpack, with all her essential belongings, sits atop my bed. We begin to bake. A disaster of a kitchen is imminent but we do our best not to let things get out of hand. Once the batter is made and the first two cookie sheets of dough are in the oven. “[We] had an idea. An awful idea. [We] got a wonderful, awful idea.” We wanted, no, needed to watch our favorite Christmas movie. The live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas. So we went and put on our PJs, made hot chocolate, grabbed some cookies, and went to the TV room. The kitchen was not clean, the cookies were not made, but the Grinch was more important. 

By Duffy Anderson

Please read the previous post for background. So now, we have set the scene. Stockings poured out on the couch, we have picked through them and are setting impatiently eating candy. Staring out on the Sierra’s of presents that will come crumbling down at the drop of a hat, but most importantly at the gold wrapped present set apart from the others, knowing that they will be the first and the best. None of that saves the best for last nonsense for us. After several minutes of eating and chatting we grow impatient, and both turn towards the stairs. Dad in the kitchen making coffee and bringing it up. He heads back down and laughs as we look like we are going to explode waiting on the queen to ascend from her throne and grace us with her presence. We wait for what feels like forever until I hear light footsteps and see Bernoulli crash down the stairs in front of her. She turns the corner wearing pajamas, hair a mess, but a beautiful sight to see. Nothing clouding my eyes from a beautiful Christmas morning. This song reminds me of that moment. Mom, wearing pajamas, hair in chaos, coffee in hand. She turns the corner, feet first, then heads, and finally her eyes look out on Finn and I. A small smile. It’s really Christmas.

By Duffy Anderson

When I was young and would awake on Christmas morning, my brother and I would rush to the living room in our brand new pajamas, a gift we always got on Christmas Eve. When we entered the living room we would look about. Hanging from the mantel was scooby doo and reindeer hooks, holding stocking that my grandmother got made for us, with our names engraved in them. Underneath were two presents wrapped in gold paper, and in fanciful cursive written on a small name-tag was Finn and on the other Duffy. As I scan my eyes past the fireplace, sitting to the left was a large tree decorated with lights and ornaments of every color. I think back to the moment days ago when my brother and I fought over who got to put the nutcrackers on the tree. Deep down we both knew I only wanted to because he wanted to, but grew to love it. Below the tree was a mountain of presents to compete with Everest. The rule was that we could open our stockings, but no one could start presents until mom was downstairs (because dad was, as always, up at dawn). Stockings poured out on the couch, we enjoyed the morning.

By Duffy Anderson

This Sunday was the first Sunday of advent. The theme for the first Sunday of Advent is hope. I didn’t think much of it or feel very hopeful after church or the sermon, but then last night as I was doing my computer science homework I was listening to cello music, and this song came on. Now I later looked it up and apparently, the song is religious. The version I heard had no words and was just cello, so I don’t know how I could feel that uniquely religious hope but I could. Upon hearing this song I felt hopeful. It reminded me of the summer before senior year when I went to a young life camp. I was at a decent place in my life but was still often struggling to be happy. Right before I went to camp, I said to myself, “Look up child, it’s a beautiful day.” That became my motto. Whenever life held me down, I would just remind myself, that no matter how bad I mess up, as long as I survive, in the long run, it doesn’t matter. The sun will still rise tomorrow. Whenever I got overwhelmed, I would say to myself, “Look up child, it’s a beautiful day.” I would take a moment, a deep breath, and just let the trouble melt away because all that really mattered in the world I couldn’t mess up anyway. This song was a special kind of hope. A lost past leaves more room for hope in the future. Optimism is seeing hope where others see fear.

By Duffy Anderson

This is less of an anecdote and more of a pet peeve. I found over my short while on this earth that I am comfortable being friends with and rarely dislike people, as long as I feel they are being honest with others and themselves, and also that they can listen. I know that I sometimes struggle with this, but when someone speaks I do my best to listen and act upon those words. I talk too much, I am aware of this, and when I’m rambling I don’t expect you to listen to it all, but more than anything if you are going to react to my words you must first take the time to hear them. If you don’t want to listen to me when I speak, that fine I can learn to be okay with that. But it drives me crazy when someone hears the first five words out of my mouth and then goes into their own head to try and solve the problem and does not listen to the rest. I just figured out that this is what upsets me, probably more than anything else, and wanted to make a note of it here. I will try and get back to the normal theme tomorrow, but I just wanted to say to everyone out there, before you offer advice, or go to fix a problem, wait for them to finish speaking and hear what they have to say.

By Duffy Anderson

When I was in elementary school, once a year we would take a trip to Oregon to stay with my cousins for a couple of days. When we would take these trips, we would also take a day or two and drive to my aunt and uncle’s house(Wynn and Jefe). They lived in a floating house on the Columbia River, as a part of Tomahawk Island. When my family, immediate and extended, would take these trips, it was almost always during the summer. When we arrived everyone would throw on their swimsuits. The aunts and my mother would lounge about on the back deck. The rest of us would swim, kayak, or paddleboard. With every trip to Wynn and Jefe’s house, we would take a boating trip, a trip to the small nothing but beach islands that would pop up all up and down the Columbia. We would take the big boat, and because it wouldn’t go all the way to shore, we would get really close, and then everyone would jump off the boat into the water and swim to shore. The island was the perfect size for me and my cousins to run up and down the sand dunes or to run up into the handful of trees and play tag. Those were some of my favorite family trip memories.

By Duffy Anderson

I wanted to pick a song to showcase Thanksgiving 2020. I was going to pick Country Roads by John Denver, because at 10 pm after the whole family had been celebrating for a while. In the heat of the chaos we decided to play music and I recommended John Denver. Directly after asking Alexa for John Denver radio, Country Roads begins to blast through the overhead speakers. Almost everyone sings along, and those who don’t are quietly laughing at the wholesome pandamonium. I, however, did not pick that song, A) because there is already so much John Denver on here, and B) because Hunter played this song in the car a little while after thanksgiving and I liked it a lot, it will definitely remind me of this trip. I really enjoyed Thanksgiving. I ate too many appetizers and too much dinner and ended up feeling super sick. After about an hour the feeling passed, and I yet again began to contribute to the absolute bedlam. Directly following dinner, we decided it would be fun to play the name game. Everyone wrote names down and threw them into the bowl, then we split into four teams, knowing who was gonna win the second the teams were made. As the night went on, and the game went on, brain cells began to deteriorate, and the game got less organized and more chaotic, and eventually just stopped working. That is when the game ended. The night carried, on and on and on. Everyone over thirty crashed by 11 but the youth seized the night. I eventually fell into the bed, and into a deep sleep, at 3:45 am. I loved this year’s thanksgiving. I loved the spirit of the season.

By Duffy Anderson

When Mai Thi first arrived from Germany, and we took one of the first weird drives to somewhere where the destination didn’t really matter(which we did a lot). Mai Thi said she wanted to pick the next song so we handed her the aux, auxiliary cord for those out of the loop. She played a song called Hoes Come Easy by RJ, and everyone was a little shocked not knowing what we were listening to, but when the chorus played and this interesting little German girl sits in the middle seat singing, “I give no Fs, hoes are easy.” Which no one realized, until days later, aren’t even the words to the song. It didn’t matter that became Mai Thi’s song. After a handful more car trips, whenever Hoes Come Easy would play the chorus would arrive and we would all scream in unison. Even when Mai Thi left to go back to Germany we would play the song and sing along and send her recordings of us singing on Snapchat. The song always brings a smile to my face. Reminding me of Mai Thi. 

By Duffy Anderson

“I had a dream. I had everything I wanted.” Whenever I start to have a rough time, I take a deep breath, stop doing everything, and take a moment to acknowledge that I have everything I could ever need. Many people don’t have this, and I most definitely didn’t earn it. I am thankful for my dogs and my school. I am thankful for my sanity and my health. I would like to take a moment to thank my parents for giving me these opportunities, and their ancestors for giving them those opportunities, and those from who my ancestors, at some point long ago, took those opportunities from. I am not lucky, I am privileged. Thank you for giving me these things.

By Duffy Anderson

This song reminds me of this one day near Christmas, a time where Mai-Thi and I decided we wanted to bake cookies (If you don’t know Mai-Thi read the two previous posts). We went into the kitchen and spent hours making the dough and baking them. I made a double batch because I always make a double batch. It wasn’t anything particularly special, but something about that day made it wonderful. At the same time, Kailey and I had recently been talking a lot about trying to throw a nerd rager. She was kind of in a weird relationship with one of the nerdy boys from our school, and we thought it would be super fun if we could throw a party with just us and them. Now the nerds at my school aren’t like your normal nerds. They are just a group of boys who are really smart and don’t have the need to be anything but that, but on top of that, they were attractive and decent social skills which are uncommon for nerds. Someone out there might get angry at me for classifying them as nerds because obviously there were kids at my school who were totally social outcasts and just loved their games and school, but these boys were the face of the operation, they made the rest of the nerds approachable. Now Mai-Thi and I were talking and I brought up how epic it would be if we could have a nerd rager, and Mai- Thi says, “What are they going to do, play with their calculators and Rubix cubes.” This is most definitely the funniest thing I ever heard Mai-Thi say, and she often said funny things. This is my most prominent memory from that day baking. I could keep going but this post is already getting quite long. I miss you Mai-Thi.

By Duffy Anderson

Junior year a student at my school got a foreign exchange student, I am not sure exactly which student got the exchange student, and throughout the year she got traded around a lot so we often felt like she might be running out of days, but Mai-Thi was one of my best friends that year. We were constantly trying to have fun, but also give her the American, the Californian, but even more the Ventura Experience. We would frequently go on “chicken nugget runs,” in which we spend an unholy amount 0of time just in the process of getting chicken nuggets. One evening, on a Friday, after a chicken nugget run, we decided that part of the Ventura experience, at least from our perspective, was marina after closing. So we picked up our chicken nuggets at about 9:30 and got to marina park by 10:00. The park is closed, but the key to going there at night is to go straight down to the beach or up in the lifeguard towers. We were sitting atop a guard tower watching the lights from oil riggers sway on the horizon when Mai Thi plays this song. I don’t listen to the radio anymore, so dumb teen music is never overplayed in my world. “Wake up in the sky,” which in all honesty, looking back, isn’t a great song, but that day in the tower we were laughing and hanging out, and this song only made it better. There is something about being cold but feeling safe and fun. It’s as if you could never be really cold, because even when you’re freezing your laughing about it, so your mind and heart stay warm. 

By Duffy Anderson

First semester Junior year was the first school semester that I had a car, and also the first time my brother was gone to college so Serena was all mine, that’s what we named my brother’s Volvo cross country. Because she was my brother’s car I thought it would be funny to get specially made license plate borders. I brought it up offhand to my dad, and he said, “Yah I’ll pay.” I went on amazon and for twenty dollars I could get a border for both license plates that said Duffy Anderson- the hype never dies, which was a catchphrase I had Sophomore year. I was a Junior with an epic car and a need for speed, just kidding. I did like to drive though, so my friends and I would go on adventures. We went on an adventure wanting to do something fun. In the end, I don’t remember what we ended up doing, but I remember at the end we decided to get Wendy’s ice cream. We drove through the drive-through, but when we got to the window the man handed us four regular-sized cups and one large. I was rightly confused, we had ordered five medium soft-serves. He stumbles over, “Sorry we ran out of medium cups, so I just filled up a large partway.” As we drive away from the window Emily says, “What is this wack @$$ establishment.” We all broke into laughter. From that day forward, Wendy’s was referred to as “that wack @$$ establishment.” As we drove towards a parking spot I hear Mai-Thi, our German foreign exchange student, repeating my name over and over, “ Duffy Duffy Duffy.” “One-second Mai-Thi,” I say as I’m attempting to park. “Duffy Duffy Duffy,” I drew in a long breath and sighed put the car in the park position, “Yes, Mai-Thi.” “Do you know Carter?” the whole car yet again broke out in laughter. We chatted in the car for maybe five minutes before we realized Sydney had to be home in fifteen minutes. I turned on the car and slowly pulled out of the parking lot. As we pulled into the neighborhoods, I picked up my ice cream yet again. One hand on the wheel my ice cream in the other, but I quickly realized eating ice cream is a two-handed activity. I lined up the car on a long straight road and took a nice effort at the no-hands game driving very slowly forward. Eating my ice cream with both hands, as this song played.

By Duffy Anderson

Second Semester of Junior year of high school, my high school friend group solidified into four people including, Josefina, Kailey, Emily, and me. We took a lot of adventures, ran around causing chaos, and faced more than your fair share of drama, like to any high schoolers. In the end, that bridge got burned, and no regrets, but we did have some fun adventures. One day at the beginning of the summer of Junior year, we decided to take a trip to Zuma beach, because someone wanted to try and be aesthetic and take photos and there is something so exciting about Zuma like we are in a movie. We took cute photos, and then Kailey and I went swimming, but as we hit the water the waves grew larger, I managed to get far enough out that the waves couldn’t get me, but Kailey got swept up by a wave. She was under the water for more than a minute. We were all afraid, but as the lifeguard stood at the shore he didn’t even take off his sweatshirt. Well, I guess we can assume he knew she would survive, because she did eventually resurface, and quickly escaped the water. After we got out of the water and shook off the scare, we decided we wanted to get dinner in Malibu, but knew that none of us could afford to go to 99% of restaurants. Well not none of us, Emily called her father and he amazingly offered to buy us dinner. We went to a hipster collection of stores, everyone dressed reasonably cute. I had even gone out of my way to bring an extra outfit, dress, heels, and hair in a ponytail, feeling like I look fine AF. Directly following our awkward outfit change in the beach bathrooms, we began to drive out of the parking lot towards the nice restaurant that we were going to get dinner at, and I spoke. “You know what this reminds me of,” I began, “that song from the movie starstruck.” Then I broke into song, “There’s something about the sunshine baby. I’m seeing you in a whole new light. Out of this world for the first time baby. Oh, it’s so right. It’s so right.” They all laughed and then Emily, who was driving, put on the song. We drove to dinner and ate something that I remember being good but the food itself wasn’t worth noting as a memory, just the fact that it was good. After dinner, we got in the car. The sun was beginning to set on our picturesque corner of the universe as we drove in the setting sun as if chasing an invisible something, but definitely something worth chasing. We played that song over and over again, laughing and talking about how we must watch it again before Josefina left to spend the summer at her family farm in Mexico. The moment was beautiful, just like a scene from some silly movie. We drove along the coast looking at all the famous sights. Appreciating a truly, teen, high school memory. Definitely a memory worth noting.

By Duffy Anderson

When I was in fifth grade, my class got to take a three day trip to CIMI(The Catalina Island Marine Institute). We drove in a bus for four and a half hours and then got on a boat for two hours to arrive at a camp of sorts. There were counselors and cabins, we each got an uncomfortable plastic bunk. My two strongest memories were, one in which a boy in my class was horrified by the water, but by the end of the day, they had him floating in his wetsuit. The other is, after two days of hiking and swimming and kayaking, I got back to my cabin, the leader hit the lights, and then almost immediately hit them again. My teacher opened the door to yell at us for having the lights on and nearly screamed. I was hanging my head over the edge of my bed with a pool of blood under my head. As I child I only drank water when I was told to. At camp, no one thought to tell me to drink water, so I didn’t and ended up getting a horrible bloody nose.  The reason this song reminds me of that trip is that at the end of the three days, after the boat ride, we all got on the bus for the four and half hour drive home. My teacher turns around and says that we can do whatever we like as long as we stay in our seats. The entire bus decides we should sing, the only problem was for four and half hours we realized the whole bus-only knew the words to two songs, We Are Never Getting Back Together and The Duck Song, so that is what we sang… the whole trip.

By Duffy Anderson

In all honesty, this song isn’t that good, but because of the memories it has, it is an amazing song. This song got really popular over one Christmas break that I spent at my Grammy carol’s house. She had a beautiful house in a gated neighborhood on the Oregon coast. My brother and I would always sleep in the twin beds upstairs in the loft. One Christmas, my aunt got me and my cousin’s projectors for Christmas, and my brother was being mean so my cousin Hunter and I locked ourselves in the upstairs bathroom and watched movies with our projector on the bathroom. My aunt wynn, who bought us the projector, snuck us cookies, that my grandmother had just baked. It was amazing. The day before Christmas me and my cousin, teamed up against my brother and my other cousin to make forts in the forest. We went to the beach and pulled logs up to make chairs in our new home. I took vines bark and moss and made cute little hanging plants as my cousin got a large log for a table in our fort. We spent all day there it was wonderful. The day before that we went to the park near Grammy’s house and brought jars to collect tadpoles in the pond. It was a wonderful trip to Grammy’s house, as they all were.

By Duffy Anderson

The dry heat beat upon my neck as the Columbia River Gorge flowed in front of me. It was another day on another planet. First, it was Moses Lake, second it was Desert Aire, and third: George. Moreover, the Gorge in George. As Ryan, Jamie, Shawn, and myself sat on the freshly clipped grass, anticipation had overwhelmed me. I had been hearing of this band for weeks now from co-workers and friends and family—TOOL. The mysterious band from my youth, the CD case that scared me, and frightened me even when I played the first track of their 2001 album Lateralus. Unknown to me, they’d open with “The Grudge.” A bone-crushing primordial rhythm section embellished with the harmonious ambiguity of lyrics about Saturn and the music itself. My feet began to dig into the Earth and the long, strange trip had begun. Scattered colors, accomplished musicianship, and most importantly, the solidification of a friendship that transgresses state lines had emerged. Encapsulated in the track Merkaba, this was “Some kind of psychedelic experience.” 

By Fulton Bryant-Anderson

I have decided to make a series in which I write about the summer after my sophomore year. Please read Heart of Glass first. As I spent that summer going crazy in one of the most beautiful places on earth, my cousin (Hunter) spent the summer at home, and some nights we would be crazy together. He had a job at the McDonalds down the road. I would drive there and he would steal me McFlurries because he was pretty convinced it was impossible to get fired. I remember one night after he got off work, hours past dark, we sat on the dock at the water’s edge, and just watched the lights from all the houses glimmer on the lake’s surface. We decided we needed to take a walk. We drifted through the neighborhoods on foot, making some conversation but also appreciating the silence. We eventually found a house with a large house with a side yard that was more of a mini side forest. We decided to lay down amongst the leaves and stare up through the canopy of pine trees. We laughed at nothing and did our to appreciate a beautiful night.

By Duffy Anderson

At the end of my Sophomore year after all the chaos that occurred, I needed to get away, I just couldn’t stay in that town any longer. So my father bought me a one-way ticket out of there. I needed somewhere to go, and my aunt and uncle had a house on lake Oswego right outside of Portland. I spent the summer in a weird haze, my pocketful of sunshine, but in a much more real sense I was living in a fog, and could not see beyond the tip of my nose, but for the time being, that was perfect. Everyone is always fighting to see everything, but there is a certain beauty to the extent that you can not think minutes ahead. Almost every day I woke up and took the dog to the park, I listened to the same playlist and drove my truck, on the same route. When I arrived back, I did simple, low energy activities, I journaled, I kayaked, and I drew houses on graph paper. I, one afternoon, sat down at the dining room table and spent seven hours drawing on graph paper a perfect house. That summer, I lost my mind, but it was okay because sometimes, the mind is not a necessary thing.

By Duffy Anderson

My mother loves this song. It reminds me of my mother, but even more than that it reminds me of late nights at Andrea’s. My mother’s best friend’s name(besides her sister) is Andrea she is a spritely statistics professor who enjoys watching football and ordering an order of nachos but only eating a third of it. She has a nice apartment, right near the beach. When I was a Junior and Senior in high school, some nights past ten, I would arrive to find her and my mom pretending to grade but secretly just watching SNL, or something else silly but entertaining. I would always arrive after I finished everything else for the day, except often my homework. I would sit down with the rest of them and make an active effort to get the work done, but it rarely did any good. Unless I had no homework or wasn’t driving. I always had to be out by 10:30, so I could have time to do homework and wouldn’t die driving home due to exhaustion. But those late nights at Andrea’s are some of my favorite memories. Sitting on the black leather couch, laughing at some dumb show that we were simultaneously very invested in and didn’t care about at all. We would sit, it was comfortable and safe when the town caught on fire, that is where we went. I was scared I had lost it all, but I felt safe because it felt like it was just another late night at Andrea’s house.

By Duffy Anderson

Okay so let’s imagine this,  you’re riding in the car with three crazy gay men, one who spends way too much money on shirts(Josh), one who spends forty-five minutes blow-drying his hair(Jackson), and one who’s family(Hunter). These are boys who you know, when the street lights come on they are going to hit the ground running. Driving down the downtown streets, going to get fancy pastries I’d never heard, and coffee from a place where you know they will make it too sour because that’s what the hipsters want, Jackson calls for aux, and plugs in some tunes. First, they play Alice by Lady Gaga, which Hunter has already played for me at least a dozen times because Gaga just released the album, so I know all the words. Then he plays this song. In the back seat, I sing along, “I wanna rock with you.” They all look at each, apparently stunned. I guess it’s a strange thing for an eighteen-year-old girl to know the lyrics to Rock With U, but obviously not that strange. I dedicate this one to the girls and the gays.

By Duffy Anderson

I don’t know how much hope I have left for humanity, and especially for love, but slowly life is finding opportunities to give me hope. I had to interview someone who had been married 25+ years for an essay for my writing class. I interviewed my uncle, he and my aunt have been married for 29 years. “Thirty in May,” he tells me as if it’s his favorite holiday, that he is counting the days till. I asked him maybe three questions, before asking him if he believed in soul mates. I was so expecting the answer to be no. When he didn’t stop to think before answering “absolutely”, I was both caught off guard and instantly out of questions. Relationships are a give and take, but he made me realize, that it isn’t about giving when they pull and ask for it, but when they don’t think they need it all, or when they are too scared to ask for it. Give and take doesn’t mean conceding in a fight, but always wanting to offer something just because you can, and you know it will make them happy, and that will make you happy. My uncle gives me hope for love, he believes he has found soul mate, and that in and of itself is hope. 

By Duffy Anderson

On the first day of kindergarten, I made a best friend, Amelie. Then near the end of the year, she left for France and did not return for three years. Even still she was my best friend. When she came, back we were friends again, but another person took her away, and wouldn’t let us be friends. Now thirteen plus years later, she is my best friend. This song reminds me of her, and the late nights we spent during Christmas time, doing arts and crafts, to give to people for Christmas. I would paint a whale, and she would make bracelets, or whatever else we decided to do. We sit at the dining room table watching the Taylor Swift music videos off of my laptop, laughing because of absolutely nothing. Talking about how the You Belong With Me, Taylor Swift music video is definitely the best music video ever made. It makes me sad to think of how Taylor Swift lost how she used to be because that was the best. If you’re reading this, I miss you, Amelie. I can’t wait for us to bake sugar cookies and hang out in someone else’s hot tub. 🙂

By Duffy Anderson

The week before I left for college, I was on apple music and began to wonder to myself, “What if apple music was like social media.” So I began to explore. I looked up college playlists, then I clicked on the person who made the playlist, then I clicked on one of the followers who seemed cool. Then I went to their followers and found Tofu. That was either their first name, or that’s what they told Apple Music their first name was, either way, their playlists popped off. So I listened to a couple of their playlists, and they were awesome. So I put together a playlist of my own. Dear tofu, I named it, then in the playlist I put Hello by Adele, followed by How are you by Kayden. Then You seem cool by Mike Birbiglia, and lastly, Let’s be friends by Emily Osment. All in all, I accomplished nothing through this process, they never followed me or messaged me, but it didn’t matter. I had a good time doing it, and I was laughing with my friends about it, and I will always have the memories of the fun times, laughing about my attempts to make friends through social media, that isn’t social media. 

By Duffy Anderson

When I was in third grade, my extended family came to my house for Christmas. I was super excited for my family to be in town, but as a nine-year-old, I was more overwhelmed by the excitement for the mountains of presents that I saw under the tree and knew I was going to receive. When Christmas morning came, my cousins and I all sat around the base of the tree on the floor, and the first present we all got was my gift from Santa, that was always wrapped in a specific shiny gold paper. I opened, nit an idea in the world what I was going to get. I got pink, over the ear, headphones, which were perfect because my parents got an iPod touch. At first, that night and even the next day, I was just excited to have a device so I downloaded and played games. My aunt and uncle however got me a gift card for apple music(amongst other things), so I bought the Lady Gaga album, the fame monster. For days, which turned into weeks, I danced around the house singing, accomplishing nothing. I was mocked by my family, for being ridiculous and dancing for days, but I didn’t care. Everything was awesome. A wonderful Christmas.

By Duffy Anderson

When I was in middle school I didn’t have very many friends, and to anyone who’s been to middle school, it isn’t very easy to make them. By the end of sixth grade, I was mostly by myself. I still had my neighbor Laura. I still had my best friend Amelie but she was always being pulled away. One special night, while my brother was away at boy scout camp, Amelie came over, and then we invited Laura. My parents weren’t paying attention to what we were doing, so we snuck into my Finn’s room(my brother) because he had a tv. We put on Glee at maybe six-thirty pm and then watched and laughed and talked all night. We didn’t watch the clock and we didn’t care. It was fall break. Then I heard my dad in the hallway getting up for work. We laughed and snuck back to my room and fell asleep. It was a night for the books.

By Duffy Anderson

This song reminds me of a specific period of time in my life, where the excitement for college was at its max and I just wanted to squeeze every ounce out of life back home, knowing a summer like that would never come again. A summer with no responsibilities and an endless abundance of free time. Camrin, Lindsey, and I, reading books, drinking an obviously unhealthy quantity of McDonald’s iced coffee, and taking every opportunity to go to the beach and appreciate the sunshine. There’s is a road that one can take, a long simple road along the coast, and if you keep driving past where you can see the houses, you come to an awkward dirt parking lot. If you continue on to the last couple feet of road, you notice that the road curves under the bridge. On the other side of the bridge was enough road to park ten cars in either direction and then to the right what looked like an endless strip of beach. The trick was to not be fooled by the obvious choice, I turn left. I drive to the end and park and then climb awkwardly down the rocks. I tiny strip of beach all of my own, ours. We place our chairs in a small cove, where the rocks create a second barrier, and the mountains a first, to protect from the wind. The water is always crystal clear, and we are far enough from the piers that the waves stay small. I take a deep breath, and dive in the waters, that stay crystal clear twice as long as any other beach in my county. I sit in a chair and dig my toes into the warm sand, and pull out some silly teen book about romance, space wars, or dystopian societies. I’ve got a pocketful of sunshine, SeaCliff.

By Duffy Anderson

This song was my favorite song for the entirety of my young childhood. It reminds me of long car drives and going on adventures with my family. It reminds me most strongly of a memory I am never able to quite place. I am in fourth or fifth grade. I am sitting in the car next to my brother. It is dark out, and as I look out the window I can see the stars float out in space, on the radio Weezer starts playing and my brother starts laughing with parents about how the is not called ”half-pipe” as they always told him it was. It was a good moment. I don’t where we were or what we were doing, but I could look out on the headlights glowing across the trees to the right and sharp hillside to our left, and just appreciate life.  You may be asking yourself what this song has to do with this memory, and the surface level answer is little to nothing. If I dig a little deeper I realize that this was the moment, after several years, that I thought of this song again, because this tranquil family moment felt like I was five again, and everything was perfect. Once I was old enough to be aware, I realized everything in life wasn’t perfect, but at that moment, it was.

By Duffy Anderson

This song has tons of memories behind it, which is strange because it’s reasonably new. It reminds me of the time I spent with my cousin this summer, but I am now choosing to hold it as a memory for my great accomplishment of this year. I have a radio show, two actually, and a blog. It all takes me back several weeks, maybe even months at this point, I was sitting on Amelia’s couch/bed and thinking about random stuff, when she mentions that she wants to check out the club fair. I thought sure that sounds alright. I saw the LASR link and clicked sign up, thinking I would go to some big zoom call where they would explain the club, but no. I was sent to a one on one video call with the club president. I freaked out and hit cancel thinking that was that my dream of being a radio star was down the drain, but several days later I received an email from the student apologizing for hanging up, so I wrote them back explaining how much I wanted to be part of the whole thing and how I had an idea for an audiobook radio show. They loved it. From there it was all uphill. I got the first show running and just finished reading Alice in Wonderland. Then I started my second show, in which every episode has a different theme. Finally, I started a blog, I have been posting every day. True it has only been two weeks, but that still pretty cool. I made my dream come true. Who knew you can just send emails and make things happen. 

By Duffy Anderson

Last Christmas was the first Christmas in which I officially decided I was religious. So Christmas morning I wanted to go to church, of course no one told me that little to no one goes to church on Christmas morning, so when I arrived they had no one to read and I got to read both of the gospels. Along with having a nice morning at church, I asked my grandmother to come with me, so after church we went back to my house and opened presents with my mother and brother. After almost two hours opening presents, I decided to put in my John Denver cd, and my grandmother asked me to dance. We laughed and danced around the living room for quite some time before deciding we should do something with the day. My grandmother had several boxes of cookies and chocolates, and we swung by and ATM and picked up some cash. We then went to the park and ran around giving strangers in need, chocolates and money to buy a warm meal. It was a wonderful Christmas all in all. This song will always remind me of ballroom dancing, getting to read in church, and running around the park giving strangers candy.

By Duffy Anderson

This song reminds me less of a memory, and more of a feeling. The moments where it’s late at night on a Saturday, and I just got off the plane and into the car. We drive over that one long hill with the fancy car store on the other side. The sun begins to set and we crest over the mountain top. This song comes on. I’m not sad, really, just tired and appreciating an adventure that has come to its end. I find a sort of contentment in the sadness of the end of a good thing. I sigh and look out the window with a quiet smile, just appreciating my moment of peace and tranquility.

By Duffy Anderson

The summer before my Junior year of HighSchool, I got my driver’s license, and very soon after my brother left for his Freshman year of college. I had a car and a license and loved to drive. So I was always the friend in charge of leading the adventures. The Christmas before that, my mother gave me the “essentials of John Denver” cd. The only other cd I had that I enjoyed was the Pitbull Global Warming cd, so when someone got in the car we were usually listening to John Denver. After a while, I fell in love with the Wild Montana Skies and very quickly memorized all the words. So then as a right of passage, every new person had to memorize the chorus. This was just the beginning. After I started making a level system, being in my car was like being a member of an elite club. Just by getting invited to ride in my car, you were a bronze member. If you memorized Wild Montana Skies you were a silver member, but gold is when it started to get a little wacky. I was driving through the harbor one day and there was construction; I dared my best friend to steal a brick. Then it became a thing. Brick stealing became the only way to become a gold member. Sometimes we stole them from under stairwells, or off of piles, occasionally even directly off walls. A secret Organization all my own.

By Duffy Anderson

I heard this song for the first time, at 11 pm, at a campground in the forest, at the end of a very long road in upper Ojai. I was there with two friends to celebrate the birthday party of a friend. Hours past dark, we spent several hours dancing and celebrating, but it was a very long drive from home. When the night came to an end, it was too long of a drive to return home, so my two friends(Orli and Myles) and I decided to spend the night in Myle’s car. Unfortunately, we did not think this thoroughly through. That night, with every coming hour, the temperature dropped. The forties to thirties, and down and down. For the first several hours we slept, exhausted by the fun of the day, but as the days went on we had to find a new plan. At threeish in the morning, we were all awake, we began to talk quietly, “Are you awake?” and in response, “It’s too cold to sleep,” with a small chuckle. We decided in order to stay warm we would lay down the seats and all curl up on top of the back seats, there was not enough room for us to fit, and we quickly ran out of, the body warmth to keep each other temperate. Though we were frozen and the change did little good, the exhaustion took over fifteen minutes at a time, small conversation breaking through the frost. As four-thirty drew nearer, a collection of laughter began to brew in each of us together, each of us coming to an understanding over the absurdity of the whole situation. I crawled over the center console and into the passenger seat, Myles and Orli, crawled about, struggling to flip up the seats, afraid that if we open the doors the cold may take our last breath. We were in a perfect state of mild hysteria. As we drove down through the mountains and pulled into a gas station, 5:15 had approached more quickly than anticipated. We were nearly out of gas, but the gas station was closed till six, and it was too cold to wait around. We drove towards the ocean, deciding then to watch the sunrise. When we reached the beach, we filled up the tank. At last, when we slid into the harbor park parking lot, we decided we were too tired to care if there was a supernova let alone watch the sunrise. We all drove to my house, and curled up under blankets, falling into a deep deep sleep. A perfect night. One for the books.

By Duffy Anderson

I apologize for putting two, mildly trash songs in a row, but this song reminds me of so many good times. When I was in fifth grade my mother would pick me up from school every day, and then half an hour my brother’s class would end at the middle school down the road, and we would pick him up. One day, I was sitting in the car with my mother outside the middle school, and it came to me. I started to sing, “apple bottom jeans, boots with fur.” My mom began to laugh, a real bottom of the stomach laugh. I guess she didn’t expect her ten-year-old daughter, in her dress and pigtails, to start, singing Flo Rida, unprompted. From that day on she would tell the story, and we would laugh, and dance. At family gatherings, we would all laugh together. It was wonderful to hear my mom laugh, and see her smiling. The song is ridiculous, but it reminds me of my mother’s smile.

By Duffy Anderson

Happy Halloween! So this song may seem silly, and though I will get mocked for it, I think I like the regular version better than the remix. I will acknowledge that this song is ridiculous, but it has great memories embedded in it. When I was a junior in high school, over fall break, I took a trip to Seattle with my father. I had never been to Seattle and was very excited. We were there right before Halloween so I made a playlist, and in the process found this song. It made me happy so I played the whole trip. It reminds me of the day that we went to a huge park and had a competition to see who could catch the most leaves before they hit the ground. It reminds me of the day that I dressed up as a unicorn and carved pumpkins. It reminds me of the night we curled up on the couch and started watching The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. It reminds me of the night I was surprised with tickets to see Come From Away, the broadway show. It reminds me of exploring pike place, and snap chatting my brother from the hipster coffee shops. Spooky Scary Skeletons is silly, but I still hold it close to my heart. Stay safe out there tonight.

By Duffy Anderson

This song is, let’s say relatable. I remember, senior year of high school, about a month after the pandemic began, we all realized it might last forever, and all the kids truly were depressed. During the month of March, on an average Friday night, Camrin and I would hop in my 2001 clunky little truck, which we named Shakira. At 7 pm we would drive to the McDonalds on the beach and pick up large iced coffees, one Carmel, and one with no liquid sweetener. Then we would drive aimlessly up the coast and listen to music that often didn’t match the complete lack of hype, but after a while, we realized we needed music that was just as bummed out as we were, and found Jeremy Zucker was perfect. With him, we could sing along as we drove by and watch the lights from the oil riggers, or we could cry quietly as we acknowledged little of the world around us. When the world went dark, and our ship went under, Jeremy Zucker was a lifeboat to hold onto.

By Duffy Anderson

This song always reminds me of spending late nights with my grandmother in elementary school. We would go for a swim in the pool and watch the sunset through the glass windows. On the drive back, we would pick up a whole roasted chicken and a baguette. Then we would drive up the road to her house and she would begin to sing, not constantly but every once and a while you would hear another line to the song. Then we arrived at her home. She had a hammock on the back deck, that looked out over the whole cityscape. As the night got later I would lay in the hammock and look out over the city, over the ocean, and listen to my grandmother sings as I slowly nodded off to sleep. This song makes me feel safe, like I’m back at that time, on those long nights spent at grandmother’s house.

By Duffy Anderson