Thursday, July 30, 2009

The Old Me: A Retrospective

My dear friend and sister-in-law, Emily, has just moved to Los Angeles and is staying at our place for a bit. Bringing a new addition to our humble home requires much shifting about and much shuffling to and from our garage. Upon one of these garage trips- which started as a search for another cat litter box- I found the "me" box. You know, one of those parcels that contains all the main books, cds, letters, journals and bobbles from a certian time in your life. Well- I found it!

It contained:

-many cds (including PJ Harvey (ANGST!!!), Miranda Lee Richards (HIPPY!), Simon & Garfunkel (SMART HIPPY!!), Postal Service (HIPSTER ROMANCE!!!), PETE YORN (HOT!) and Aphex Twin [DRUGS! DANCE!])




-A photo of the awkwardly pubescent me at age 13...again- yikes. It was the summer between sixth and seventh grade and my mom, who's from Tennessee, took me to North Carolina and other parts of the South. While there, we came to see an old college friend of hers who was a single mom with a daughter my age. While I was popping zits in hotel bathrooms and applying oil-absorbing rice paper sheets to my face every five minutes- this other girl- "Jessica"- was loftily gliding her 5'10 willowy frame down streets while every man in eye distance rubbernecked to get a view of this future supermodel. She was also on her 5th boyfriend while I had just started talking to boys on the phone.
That weekend sucked.




-many books (such as Ken Follet's "Pillars of the Earth," which I have read several times despite its hefty 1,000 page count, "Paris Trance-" a book that I never read and bought because I liked the cover, and "The Elixir" by Robert Nathan- one of my absolute favorites that my junior high librarian gave to me)



-My High School yearbook- where a friend wrote for me to remember "the time we got drunk at your house and were looking in the mirror and said I'd be so hot if it weren't for my face." Yikes.
(and yes that's a picture of my high school gym class doing yoga...it was a weird school...we did tai chi, as well...and built a racial pyramid...)



-A crystal clock whose origin I cannot tell. I think it was probably a gift to my parents and I swiped it when I moved out.



-A toy Yellow Submarine with George Harrison figurine. After spending my childhood rebelling against my father's love for The Beatles, I became a fanatic in High School and feverishly collected anything "Yellow Submarine-y."
Remember when they used to sell the paraphernalia at Tower Records?




-One of the many journals that Rachel and I used to trade off after we went our separate ways for high school. We'd write in the journal for weeks and then trade and have plenty of reading material for math class. I remember them being rife with mean sketches of annoying teachers and mutual enemies. And we were pretty funny, if I do say so myself.



-A hot pink bustier top that I thought was so cute when I was 18. One last time...Yikes!



FIN.

3 comments:

parcel post said...

I love this post and hope that you will give the pink top one last go!

*A

audrey said...

I like journals. neat that you put a picture up of one.

Anonymous said...

where can i get this