About Five - a retrospective

1970
I am 3 going on 4. I live on Spence Avenue in Milpitas, California with my mom, who is a waitress at Denny’s, and my dad, who teaches middle school math. I learn to snow ski and am learning to read. I like listening to my Disney 45’s on a little record player in my bedroom. My favorite is “Peter and the Wolf.“ We have three television channels on a color TV and nobody’s even heard of remote control.

1980
I am 13 going on 14 and I don't have a boyfriend. We live beyond our means on Rosemar Drive in the east foothills of San Jose. This is my fourth home. I snow ski and water ski (slalom) behind my dad’s jet boat. I have traveled to 20 states. I like Disco and Michael Jackson (Off the Wall) and I listen to long-playing records on this stereo/TV component system in our living room. We have four channels but we will soon have cable. The same year that MTV changes my musical tastes forever I will get my first car, a 1972 VW bug.

1990
I am 23 going on 24, living in San Francisco with my boyfriend Cameron Moller in my eighth home, an apartment next to to the Levi's Factory in the Mission. I have been working as a word processor in a huge and soulless corporate law firm while majoring in Creative Writing at San Francisco State. I have traveled to 26 states and three countries and I will drop out this year to spend some months in Europe. I like the B52s and REM and Billie Holiday and Thelonius Monk. I listen to them on cassette tapes on a Walkman. I don’t own a car or a TV.

2000
I am 33 going on 34 and married to Neil McQueen. I am on my 29th job (at UC Santa Cruz) and my 28th home (a boat). I have a bachelor’s in English and I’ve traveled to 33 states and 13 countries. I have taken up mountain biking, snowboarding, and surfing in the last decade. We will set sail this fall and spend nearly three years traveling on our 32-foot sloop, Tranquilo. I don’t own a TV or a car (but I’ve had five of those by now). I like Sheryl Crow and Jane’s Addiction, still listen to Billie and Monk plus some Texas blues and Seattle grunge on CDs.

2010
I am 43 going on 44 and divorced, living in Columbia, South Carolina and teaching at a Title I elementary school. I have a master’s in Special Education and I teach reading, math, and social skills to kids with learning disabilities, autism, and emotional disturbance (my 36th job and first career). I have been to 46 states and 22 countries. I mountain bike, hike, dance and run for pleasure. I like the White Stripes and old Nirvana and Jason Mraz and Sheryl Crow (still) and Michael Jackson (again) and I download this music off the internet and play it on my MP3 player. I have a 37” flat screen TV on which I get something like 500 channels. I own a 2009 Nissan Versa and my own home, my 33rd residence. I want to have a baby with my partner, Paul Price.