land of the dorks

Even in high school I spent a lot of time in Kai’s band’s studio. Where ‘studio’ is ‘condemned structure containing couches and miles of wires and cables’. Smidgen practiced in a two-story building at the back of someone’s mom’s lot. The first time I went there I was warned not to fall through the floor and to watch out for raccoons.

But I wasn’t there to watch the band practice, and I wasn’t even there to see Kai. I was there to spend time with my boyfriend who played Dungeons and Dragon-esque role-playing games with Kai. I was there at night, picking my way through the cables and drums by flashlight with a bag of Fritos and a liter of Mountain Dew under my arm so that I could watch four high school boys roll 12-sided dice all night. And as I recall, I couldn’t make fun or I’d be asked to leave.

Yes, I did eventually participate in a campaign. And it was super fun. But that doesn’t make it any less dorky that you did it–Kai, Reuben, Chris, and Jake!

r.o.c.k. in the u.s.a.

Seattle, 2000s

I had fallen asleep on a couch while Kai was playing in a friend’s living room on New Year’s Eve. The party seemed to be dying down, people had started leaving and it was well past midnight. I had no competition left for the couch.

When I woke up, there were people sitting on my feet, people sitting on the arm rest, and people leaning over the back of the couch. There were dancers and tambourine players and at least two accordions. There was a two-year-old with a bottle clapping out a polka, and no one was speaking English.

For a minute I felt like I was having my own “It’s a Wonderful Life” and, as it turned out, had I never been born, the cold war would have ended very differently. It was four o’clock in the morning and I didn’t know it yet, but I had just started a new chapter of my life with the band–this was the Bucharest Drinking Team.