So I was recently sitting down with my 5-year old niece, helping her scoop water from one pail into another one, when we had the following conversation.
HER: I’m planting my toys in my purple bucket.
ME: Oh? Are you going to grow toy trees?
HER: No! I’m going to grow huge toys.
ME: Really? How big are we talking here? Like the size of this house?
HER: No! Like the size of our Earth.
For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is. Enjoy the trip down memory lane. (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)
Drunk Roommates
Date: December 28, 2000
Location: North Haledon, NJ
Description: Here, I am guilty of false advertising, as Cyrus and I weren’t roommates at the time this picture was taken, nor were we particularly drunk. This was the evening of the now-famous Drunk Party. Surely, since this was college, it was just an ordinary weekend, right? Not exactly. I was pretty adamantly straightedge during college. In fact, before the drunk party, I’d only ever had a total of 1 one wine cooler (that my sister snuck me when I was in my mid-teens), one and a half light beers (that was given to me at a frat party I found myself at, only for me to give it up and go down to the store to get some Dew), one glass of wine (in England) and a few sips of warm Schlitts from my dad when I was a kid. However, I decided to finally try alcohol proper in the form of the drunk party. I called all my friends who, for whatever reason, had never gotten drunk before and invited them, with a few drinking regulars as ‘chaperones.’ A few friends declined and decided to stay straightedge, but the rest of us gave booze a go. What ended up happening was a whole lot of rookies (myself included) drinking Butter Shots and thinking they were knocked on their ass after two of them. However, we did have an entire evening of people having a good time, with nobody really getting very drunk (except Scott, one of the chaperones, who had a deuce of a time trying to explain the rules to One Fat Fin through his inebriation.) Cyrus was one of the friends who came, and this picture was snapped at the beginning of the evening. If I could be roommates of Cyrus today, I would. He’s just that cool.
For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is. Enjoy the trip down memory lane. (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)
Sun Pillar
Date: September, 2003
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Description: For years, I refused to buy a real camera, and would buy a stream of disposable ones. The reason? I would tend to lose/break/otherwise incapacitate any camera I owned, including some of the throw-aways. Why, then, would I spend a lot of money on something that is doomed to die? Answer: I wouldn’t. I’d let other people take pictures for me. Case in point – Susan and I went to check out Veterans Stadium, the former home of the Philadelphia Phillies, before it was destroyed. I think we saw the 5th-to-last game there. In addition to catching a good game (the Mets beat them if I remember), we also managed to see a pretty stellar sunset. With my disposable cameras, I think you were able to make out a bit of luminescence and a rough horizon line. Here, you see pretty magnificent colors, and even a weak sun pillar. It is fitting that I ripped off NASA’s Picture of the Day idea, since they are all over the sun pillars. In all the years I’ve followed that site, though, this was the only sun pillar I’ve managed to catch on camera. And by “I”, I clearly don’t mean I.
Every so often, Landen’s daycare hosts theme weeks with their clothes. They’ve had “silly hat” day and “blue day.” This week is no different. And since Ashley was gone most of the week on vacation, that left me in charge (except for Tuesday, which will be pictured) Here they are, ending with my favorite. First was today, Red Day. Not much to be done, so I slapped him in some red. (His red jacket was much too small, so we’ll have to make due with what we got.
Next up, while Ashley was still around, we had crazy hair day. Now, as most people are well aware, I have pretty crazy hair to begin with. So it would follow that Landen has crazy hair? Not really – Ash really had to work to get it to look like it did, and by the time he got to daycare (after a doctor’s appointment and a visit with granny) it looked perfectly groomed, as if Will Hickey’s hair gnomes had done their work. Here’s what it looked like early on:
And then of course, there was my absolute favorite: mismatch day. But before we get there, a scary story.
For over a week now, Landen has been waking up in the mornings and, instead of simply standing in his crib and shaking the front rail as he normally does, he’s been crawling onto the dresser part, trying to figure out how to get down. It’s quite a tall crib – the dresser part is probably about 4+ feet tall. So this morning he got up extra early (around 6) and starting calling for his mom. He didn’t seem particularly distressed, so I just let him be for five minutes, seeing if he would soothe himself back to sleep. Suddenly I hear a THUD and bolt into his room to see him getting up off the floor. He has officially figured out how to get out of the crib. He wasn’t hurt, but he did seem a bit shaken by it. Time will tell if that uncomfortable landing will prevent him from trying it, or if this weekend we lower the crib and turn it into a small toddler bed (it is a convertible.) Either way, it was an unsettling start to the day.
Now for my favorite moment – a moment it seems I practiced for for 4 years in college – I got to dress my son purposely bad. And here we go.
Hanging his head in baby-shame… or is that modest pride?
He “won the award” at daycare, and apparently one of his teachers said they snapped a great photo while I’ll post if we get it soon.
For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is. Enjoy the trip down memory lane. (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)
$1 Visor
Date: 2005
Location: Somewhere in NJ
Description: In honor of my entering (and winning) a 180 person online tournament last night, we’re going to stick with the poker theme. While many of my friends are casual poker players and didn’t care much for tournaments, we would often get together for some cheap ring games, usually while something was on television. This was one of the first, and to prepare, I figured I’d have to look the part. So I went to the dollar store to find a plastic visor and to my surprise, I couldn’t locate one. I ended up going to a crafts store and found a Styrofoam hat for $1 that was about as fashionable as it was comfortable (which is to say, not very much.) Not to be outdone, Aaron attacked my hat collection and dressed up in a way that made my $1 visor and fake eyeglasses look downright sophisticated. For a long time, I thought this picture was taken at our apartment in Fair Lawn, but since I don’t recognize the chairs, I have to say that I have no idea where this was, and the only reason I can deduce that it was 2005 was that was when I owned those particular fake glasses. They met their demise at a party at the end of that year. I still miss them.
For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is. Enjoy the trip down memory lane. (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)
Ballet Doppleganger
Date: November 2000
Location: London, England
Description: England is part of Europe which, as Eddie Izzard put it is “where the history comes from.” Indeed, there are countless examples of stunning architecture, exquisite art and sculpture, and, when not obscured by the United Kingdom’s hourly rainstorms, picturesque landscapes. A decade’s worth of important artifacts are strewn about the city, and you can’t chuck a kitten without hitting something of either historical significance or understated beauty. Of course, as Americans living there for three months (and actors to boot), our class tried our best to flex our muscles of ignorance and insolence wherever possible. Often times, this was quite funny – especially when we were almost asked to leave the Tate Britain museum because there were too many of us doing James Brown impressions. This picture is one example, and certainly not the best, as classmate Lico felt a certain kinsmanship with this piece of art. You’ll notice the grace of Lico’s pose and how it sublimates the tension of the musculature all while purporting a deeper subconscious undermining of that oeuvre. Or something like that.
Here are some pictures of the many sides of Landen:
The curious side (this is now almost 100% of the time)
The musical side (he plays solo sometimes too)
The samurai side (assuming all it takes to be a samurai is a certain hairstyle)
The helpful side (he balances this by also making messes – he IS a toddler after all)
The hungry side (which is also almost all the time)
The silly side (I think I got him into a bad habit of putting stuff on his head)
The adventurous side (venturing into the utter blackness of inside)
The darn adorable side (he set his drink, got up on his chair, and sat and drank all on his own – the mugging for the camera was all him too.)
For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is. Enjoy the trip down memory lane. (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)
Top of the Mountain 1
Date: Autumn, 1997
Location: Sloatsburg, NY
Description: In addition to our frequenting of the Cheesequake Rest Stop, our friends had a few other destinations we would often visit. One of these, tucked away in the Bear Mountain system is Harriman State Park, where we would spend many a weekend afternoon hiking up to the famed Perpendicular Point. While it wasn’t a particularly grueling hike – it took about 30 minutes to get to the top, and that was if you took your time – the view was pretty spectacular without having to give up an entire day to see it. Particularly appealing was the view in the autumn, when leaves were exploding in a borderline unnatural magnificence. Quite often, we wouldn’t even bother to go further on the hike, which was another hour or so to a fabled ‘Indian Rock’ (complete bollocks, by the way); we would be content to hike, enjoy some food, and head back. Sometimes we’d stay to watch a sunset. But it seemed that we would have some sort of triumphant pose atop the mountain, and methinks this won’t be the last picture that is put up here of Perpendicular Point, especially since it’s numbered 1.
For each day in 2010 (give or take) I’ll be showing a picture from somewhere in my life with a little explanation as to what it is. Enjoy the trip down memory lane. (CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ARCHIVES!)
Musketeers
Date: April 1, 2010
Location: Pompton Plains, NJ
Description: When I began this project, I figured I would start with the first picture ever taken of us. That was, I’m sorry to say, not entirely true. The first picture taken almost immediately after birth is the one posted above. For years, I kept hidden that Mitch and I had a sister, far left, who my mother had not yet named. I was told by my aunt that she would have named her Abbey. While I was never able to pry the entire story out of my mother, what I do know is that, shortly after delivery, a very frazzled woman in a nurse’s outfit came in and said there was some confusion and the girl wasn’t my mother’s. I do know my mother argued, having seen it come out of her herself, but the nurse was insistent that it was simply a clerical error. She took Abbey away. My mother, thoroughly exhausted from having gone through the delivery of triplets, didn’t argue, but planned to go to the nursery as soon as she was able to take it up with the hospital staff. Less than two hours later, she hobbled to the nursery, only to find there was no record of a girl delivered within the last two hours, and no nurse who matched the description my mother gave. I didn’t learn about this for years, until one day my sister finally broke down after a few wine coolers, claiming that she was robbed of finally having a sister. This is the only picture that remains of the three of us, though I secretly hope that, in posting this publicly, “Abbey” might stumble on it and contact us on Facebook.