Sunday, 15 July 2001 | Rink

Between the ages of 8 and 11, I had wheels attached to my feet almost every Saturday morning, racing around in a pointless circle to music by Men at Work and Rick Springfield. My friend Nicole would usually go with me; we'd put on matching skates, Izod shirts, and leg warmers, and each wear one braided-ribbon barrette that pinned up one side of our hair. Though there was an element of socializing at the rink, and probably some vague social hierarchy linked to skating ability, I think most of our drive to skate stemmed from just wanting to be good at something that required some coordination, to be able to showcase a practiced skill while bleeding some of our young energy.

Last night I revisited that place that I'd forgotten existed, really. It wasn't the same rink, but it might as well have been. Of course the music and fashion had changed in the last 15 years—I heard lots of boy-band music, the t-shirts had more glitter, some people wore in-line skates—but it still had the same feel, the same rituals ("Coupleskate!"), the same ratio of show-offs and rail-huggers. I didn't fall, but I'm definitely less fearless and more awkward than I was in 1985.

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For the past two days, the father of the kittens has been hanging around, trying to coax mother out of the house for another go at parenting. She seems pretty convinced, but I'm certainly not about to let her out. It's strange, seeing him, after getting to know his offspring rather well. Of course I can't be certain it's him, but he looks distinctly like the gray striped kittens, and he seems to have a undying affinity for their mother. I took a few pictures of him through the screen door before he noticed me and ran away. By the way, the last of the kittens was given away today. I'm still housing one, and the mother is still homeless, but that's one step closer toward where I was at the beginning of April.