Five Years Ago

Last Wednesday, Miranda, Peter, and I all chilled together. (Black John didn’t come because he was in Santa Cruz.) We first met up at my house and discussed making spinach turnovers, which, at that point, was still only a memory from the past. And it remained a memory, because we decided, “Screw this, too complicated,” and got dinner at Chevy’s instead. Over dinner, we caught up.



I look at today’s date. I look at the date of old journal entries about the Oakridge crew. And then I subtract the years. I can’t believe it’s been five years.

I first met Peter in early 2004 when I used to go to San Jose Golfland and Oakridge mall alone to play DDR all morning and afternoon long. Peter always wore a baseball cap, but his curly hair would always leak out. At that point, we had not yet established a solid friendship. We only knew each other’s DDR scores.

When summer came that year, I was on the verge of quitting DDR. I felt like I had reached the best that I could ever get and there wasn’t really any aspect of DDR left for me to explore. I went to San Jose Golfland in the morning for one last session, but then I ran into Peter and met Miranda and her boyfriend at the time, DJ. The three of them were all friends, and they all met through playing DDR at the arcades. Miranda’s hair was tied tightly down into two pigtails, Peter was now sporting a Hamtaro backpack. And they all wore beaded bracelets. A hell lot of them. I ended up hanging out with them that day, and I continued to hang out with them. Because of them, I didn’t quit playing DDR yet.

A week later, Peter gave me my first beaded bracelet. Each bead alternated between sky blue and royal blue. And that was when I considered myself to finally be a part of their crew. We didn’t really have a name for our crew during that time, but to me now, we were the Oakridge crew, or quite simply, Oakridge.

Eventually, black John, who was one year older than me, joined the crew. Miranda, Peter, John, and I were the core for a while, and throughout all the years, different people joined us and left us: siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends, high school friends, more DDR players, other arcade goers, etc. (And even at one point in early 2007, I was gone from the core group.)

In my old blog, I wrote over 150 entries about Oakridge and the Oakridge crew. Peter, John, and Miranda all became very well established people (characters) in my blog, and I don’t think anyone else, even Trung, had ever carried as much presence as they did in my writing.

At first, we were all about DDR. Passing this song, getting these scores, whatever. Throughout 2004 to most of 2006, it seemed like all that really mattered in the world, besides our friendship, was DDR. But we slowly expanded as our interest in DDR diminished slowly. Here we are in 2009 now, the game and Oakridge mall long forgotten.

Miranda, now 22 years old, works for a car company; she files invoices and does other paperwork stuff. Peter, 21, works a summer internship at IBM and makes $400 a week. (Too ridiculous.) His girlfriend is surveying owls in Tahoe as part of another internship. A few weeks ago, I finished up a teaching internship for the second summer in a row, and, probably somehow inspired by all the years of DDR, I’m currently pursuing real dancing.

Peter’s been with his girlfriend I think for a year and a half now I think. Miranda’s having an interesting relationship with another guy who’s currently in Japan (or was) for a fighting game tournament. And I’m in first place for longest running relationship, which still probably surprises them based off of all my past guy drama that I used to drag them through for years.

Miranda’s hair is very wavy, red, and pretty now, and it has been for a while. Peter’s is still looking good, a lot better than it did five years ago at least. Mine went from gelled and spiky, to failed Korean popstar wannabe, and down to buzzed.



After dinner at Chevy’s, we went back to my house to chill for a bit longer. Miranda told us the millionth horror story about her feet. (Her horror stories have always been parables about why doing things barefoot is bad, especially in arcades.) Eventually, Trung showed up, and shortly after, Miranda and Peter left. Trung and I watched some X-Files, and I practiced some dancing.

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“Tournament Part 2”
Written July 21st, 2004 (Excerpted)

When I first arrived at the mall, I knew to not bother checking the arcades for friends; I went straight to Gamester [a kiosk that specialized in selling all things DDR-related]. Peter, Matt [Peter’s younger brother]—those two—and now never featured before, Melissa. She was the random girl in the “perfect attack” tourney on Monday, but today I learned her name.

[From left to right: Matt’s knee, Melissa, Peter, and DJ.]

We played a few games…before we got a call saying the famous DJ was on his way. And then we marched all the way to Metropolis just to meet him? Wow. We went back to Gamester to transfer all our needed DDR equipment to the back of the theatre in Metropolis, but found that the door to the back was locked. So in the mean time… we sat down inside the dark theatre making bead bracelets, which I was a newbie to.

Our DDR gang is like… beadful. I luckily had a few that Peter gave me, so I wasn’t left out. After attempting to make a bracelet, I ended up with a beaded pinky ring, which I didn’t use.

Finally, about an hour before the [freestyle] tournament, we got the Ps2 and DDRMax2 game set up and watched DJ practice his routine…After quickly getting bored of Max2 (and my hump-rave routine to Secret Rendezvous), we abandoned Metropolis, just leaving the DDR setup, to go back to the cart, where we played a few games.

We were well distracted for over an hour, and we returned to Metropolis a few minutes late. There we [met up with] Miranda. And so here was where I realized there was no real freestyle tournament. First of all, there were no judges; next, no prizes; also, we had no list of participants or anything that attempts organization; and lastly, DJ was the only real good one. DJ just picked few several random songs and freestyled. I have no idea what happen to this picture; the camera messed it up.

[That’s Miranda on the left and Peter’s Hamtaro backpack behind her.]

We soon got kicked out of the metropolis at 3 and went back to the cart, where we played some more~. Then me, Miranda, DJ and Melissa decided to drive over to Golfland…Our stay was short, and we soon went back to rejoin Peter and Matt at the Gamester cart, where we put down all DDR and instead…made bead bracelets! Ah fun! And where’d we make them? Sitting on the DDR pads in the middle of the mall, ‘cause we all “work” there, and there was no one else really to stop us.

But, after fun and merriment, mall police came by and broke up our beading group. D: Well, we were “loitering” in a way, and that for some reason is always against a rule. But what one officer said was just priceless~. “The mall is not a place to hang out.” wtf?

When they left and we got back to playing DDR, but then decided to go the food court, where, we MADE BEADS~ And DJ got his funk on with Miranda, We...then got hungry, and moved around buying some food, while DJ continued to get his funk on with Miranda. Then we all randomly decided to go to Metropolis, where I spent most of the last hour of my day…My brother called me around 6 and said he was on his way. :/

Damn great day, but since I can’t really go to the mall a lot (I only could go these two days ‘cause of the tournament), I’ll really be missing a lot of fun. :/