To cover three birthdays (Pat’s, Aaron’s, and Karen’s respectively), we all met up at McEwen along the river. The merriment consisted of some light drinking, friendly poker playing, and rather serious photo taking.

They say that the ruder you are, the better a photographer it makes you. Since being rude goes against the very basis of my personality, getting candids of people with a large camera and flash becomes quite a mental challenge. Some people really don’t like to have their picture taken, and they signal this by blinking rapidly with bewilderment, combined with the furrowing of their brows in annoyance. This reminds me that I primarily bought a camera to have memories of my friends, who are all comfortable with my paparazzo tendencies. It certainly makes me appreciate the strangers or acquaintances who don’t mind.

It was also a happenstance meeting of the four bosses, although definitely not the private affair that it usually is.

I’m on my way home. It’s early morning, and the air is clean and clear. Everyone on the bus is asleep, and eventually I succumb to the drowsiness.

Half-way through is the Log Cabin, a Greyhound authorized stop that’s a combination convenience store and restaurant. Out of the dozens of times I’ve traveled this route, I never get off the bus. It’s some phobia I have of losing my seat, or losing my place, or forgetting to get back on, but this day I grab my camera and step off, giving up to my wanderlust.

This shaggy, old building, located on the side of a two-lane asphalt road stretching endlessly, is surrounded by wilting trees and grass. There’s nothing else around but an abandoned red structure 50 metres away. I walk behind. To my surprise is a frozen river running parallel to the highway, a stark winter scene I rarely get to see. The elevation and vegetation keeps this hidden from my view on the bus.

And once again, I’ve taken a chance, and this is my reward.

The campus life when you’re just a number, when you choose not to party with all the brainless idiots, when university is just another awkward transition out of high school.

I remember this.

Darren and I had originally planned on driving up together, but the timing didn’t work out, so we arrived when we could and played it by ear. Bronny was the point of my visit, while Darren was there to see Lindsay. After a driving from pub to pub, each one full of St. Patty’s day partiers adorned with green horns and holding green pints, the four of us ended up at a small restaurant, and eventually at Lindsay’s house.

It was Bronny who made the most interesting comment to me afterwards. “Darren needs to be with someone…deep”, she said, “Someone intellectual”. I still wonder what made her think so. What did we talk about? As far as I could remember, there was no particularly interesting discussion, just a bunch of us hanging out.

But she was right.

Some of this movie comes from, you know, from me, sure. But it’s not, you know, I’m never going to be able to make a movie that doesn’t, you know. Even if I’m making a movie about the turn of the century, I think you’re gonna, it’s always going to be personal. It’s just in the detailed stuff; the horses in Sheryl Lynn’s bedroom, with the ribbons on the wall, and you got sisters or you got a girlfriend who loves to ride horses and all this stuff. And those little details that you remember, I’ve been loving to put those in a movie.

I think, you know what, when I grew up in the valley, I lived there, I was really embarrassed for the longest time that that’s where I lived and that’s where I grew up, cause I knew I wanted to make movies. And I would look back to my favourite directors, and think, okay, there’s Howard Hawks, and boy, he served in the war. And there’s Ernst Lubich who escaped Germany, you know, and all these wonderful sort of things going on in our lives that you could, you’re supposed to bring to a movie, you know. But, I don’t have shit to bring, I was like, I’m from the fucking valley, you know. And, I was really embarrassed about that for a long time, I guess, until one day I just woke up and said, “Well, I’m from the valley, and I remember things like little plastic horses and the blue ribbon on the wall with the fucking girlfriend, and you know, I guess that’s what I have to make movies about.”

—Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Nights director’s commentary

A girl and her things.

Memories of burning candles, shampoo scents. The colours and the smells give me a total overwhelming sense of poignant nostalgia.

Admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve been in a real girls room, and being there, in the middle of all the dainty things and the different fabrics, I didn’t know what was more embarrassing: the fact that I felt like I was 17 again, or the realization of how much I’ve missed it.

And this is all I can write about.