What the New Millenium brought

I can still remember that it was the first snow of the winter in Baltimore. Come to think of it, it was the first snow of the new MILLENIUM in Baltimore. That’s something to get your head around. I was out playing in the snow with “the girls from Australia”. That’s what I remember them as. They were making snow angels and were ecstatic because they had never seen snow in their entire lives before (in case you didn’t know, it doesn’t snow much in Australia, NO I don’t mean Austria even though I’ve made that mistake before). That was the morning my parents told me that we would be visiting Charlottesville in the spring. I didn’t really care. Why should I care about us visiting Charlottesville? I had visited the Zoo before, don’t get me wrong the Zoo rocked, but it wasn’t life changing. Little did I know we would be visiting the house we were moving in to. Those tricksy parents of mine fooled me again.
That spring I remember that my brother and I had acquired a good amount of gifts from my parents. I grew even more suspicious when my parents announced that we would be getting a new television AND a Playstation. After that my parents finally officially announced that we would be moving to Charlottesville, Virginia that summer. I was shockingly apathetic to the situation.
I was trying desperately to find my pre-pre-teen angst but I just couldn’t find it. I wasn’t mad at my parents I just felt empty. I felt like when if I left the city then that part of my soul would die. I loved that city with my whole heart, I didn’t even mind that much that we lived in what the white people here would call Da Hood. We lived in the artsy part of the Hood though, that’s different. So whenever someone says that I’m the whitest person in the room which happens a lot and is totally false I say “Get Back! You know the show The Wire ? That’s based on my exploits as a 6 year old!”I even thought it comical that our car got stolen about once a month. One time some dude broke into our car and stole my sisters diaper bag. THAT was awesome. Talk about Karma.
My dad was a professor at Loyola College in Baltimore. His book “Gods Longs Summer” got some attention (he won some fancy award) and as a result the University of Virginia was interested in him. Obviously he got the job and that is why we moved to Charlottesville.
My first impression of Charlottesville was that there were many attractive ladies jogging around my neighborhood. That part wasn’t too bad after all. I didn’t really have any expectations of Charlottesville though and it didn’t sink in that we were moving until it was too late to protest. Only that my parents promised that our house would be bigger, education would be better and that we would not get our stuff jacked all the time. Ironically enough the very first month that we moved here some chump broke into our house and stole my mom’s purse. He was apparently an idiot because he left it all in our back yard. That kills two birds with one stone. He was a moron and a criminal. Maybe it was just for kicks.
My dad knew some professor at UVA who had a kid my age so I met him before school started. He liked Pokemon and Harry Potter books. What could go wrong? He introduced me to his friends Michael, Travis and Paolo. I remember the first thing Michael said to me was “its monkey business” when he was on the monkey bars. For some reason I thought that it was really funny. Travis struck me as a funny looking guy. That was my impression of him. You can tell him I said that too. That leads us to Paolo, the over-emotional Italian –Israeli. He was always whining or laughing about something. Never the middle ground. I was best friends with all of them within 10 minutes. It was a good first day of school.