Courtney Floats Your Boat: Tonight

I loved the humidity tonight. I biked to the middle school, the one I attended at the turn of the century. In seventh grade, I had a tradition in the afternoon of doing my math homework right when I got home and then biking to school to deliver the hulking book to my locker, so I wouldn’t have to lug it the next day with all the other books. I biked that route tonight listening to Brand New. I needed the muggy air, the smell of honeysuckle coming at me at certain points along the way, the creek before the school full because of recent rain, the shock of magenta azaleas on the golf course. I needed these sights, the old sights, the steep dirt path I used to take from the bike path to the basketball court. The first time Blondie hung out at my house we biked to the middle school and stood at the court. I remember there was a funny conversation—already a perfect circle, the way they are now with a thousand funny revelations that we both understand in the same way. When I pumped my way up the hill behind the school tonight and stood at the top, about to cruise around the building, I opted for Vanessa Carlton’s White Houses, a perfect song for nostalgia. I don’t know, guys. Nostalgia is sometimes my medicine.