08/08: The First Time I Ever Met Annie

My girl best friend is the most amazing person in the world.
She is lovely in all social situations
and totally lights up every room she enters.
She is the person that everyone wants to be friends with
because she is into all the coolest stuff.
She is super talented and knows how to play tons of instrumets
plus her voice is just beautiful.
She has a cool sense of fashion
and I kind of wish I still lived with her
so we could swap clothes.

All that said,
she was wearing a white sweatshirt
with the logo
"Shopasaurs"
that had a pink dinosaur, loaded with shopping bags
emblazoned on the front.
Her naturally curly hair was puffed to the max
and had a large bow in it.
I think stretch leggings may have completed the outfit.
Understand that this was still pretty fashionable for the times.
Shit, it's probably currently ironically fashionable.
Anyway, it was the third grade,
she was new,
I was new
and I think we may have sort have hung out a little bit.
We really became friends in the 9th grade more so.
Now I'm completely in love with her and all she does.
Fucking Shopasaurus.

08/07: Flowers for Mom

I love my mom.
I loved her when I was a child.
So much so that me and my
childhood friend Nick Winkler
gathered flowers for our mothers
as a sign of our 4 year old appreciation.
We went to the cemetary next to their house
and gathered as many flowers
as our little fists could carry.
We proudly presented them to our mothers,
who's reaction I cannot quite recall,
but I'm sure there was some shock,
amusement and flattery
in our doting gesture.

Our mothers marched us back to the graveyard
and had us replace the flowers the best we could remember.
I don't think they were all that entirely hard on us about it.

The picture is of me and Nick
in our first love scene.


Oh, and blogging every day is hard.
So I'm doing some make-up work right now.
This is not really going as well as I planned.

08/06: Putt and Bang

My maternal grandpa's name was Roger.
I have many great memories of him
being a fun grandpa that let us kids get away with everything.
He ran a post office and general store in the ground level of his home.
Being a kid I thought it was the coolest thing in the world
and we would often play in the store.
He had a lot of difficulties with diabetes
and had one of those chair lift things on the stairs
to help him get up and down the narrow steep passageway,
I used to love riding that thing whenever we visited.

At some point he had crutches,
and at others a cane or something.
When he was playing around with us grandkids,
he would point the crutches or can at us and say
"Putt and Bang"


Right now, thinking of him,
it makes me feel bad not knowing the date that he passed away.
I know it's around Thanksgiving.
There is something about the death of grandparents
that makes me feel more deeply sad for my parents
than it makes me sad for myself.
I put myself in their shoes
and I think about how much it will hurt someday when I lose my parents
and it makes me really sad that they have to experience that pain.
I know my heart will break the day I lose my parents.
I would want someone to know the date of my father's passing.
Sorry mom.
I should know that.
I know how much it would mean to me if I were you.

08/05: The Purple Sweater

My great grandma Dorthy gave me a purple sweater
when I was about 6 or 7 years old.
All my cousins and my brother received toys.
But I got a sweater.
I pitched the biggest tantrum the world has ever seen
and sulked for the remainder of the
family Christmas party.
My grandma thought the color would look nice o me.

I still feel bad for being such a little shit.
Sorry grandma.

08/03: Sleep Walker

I was a sleep walker.

One time when I was 6 or 7

while my family was living in the city at our Rochester house,
I actually sleep-walked right out the front door.
I had unlocked the main door and opened the screen door and walked out.
My parents woke up when they heard the door open
and rushed out to find me taking the last few steps off the stoop.

My mom said they'd usually hear me bumping around downstairs.
My room and my brother's rooms were on the main floor,
my parents had the top floor for their room.
She said they'd wake up after hearing something fall to the ground,
or me bump into something or other,
then one of them would come down and guide me back to bed.
They could tell I was sleep walking because my eyes would be half open.
How fucking creepy is that?
I think if my kid ever does that, I'll lock my bedroom door
because I shudder to think of some zombie-walking, half-open eyed kid
wandering around the house in their sleep.
That is what child-proofing the house is all about.
Round off corners on tables and shit
so when your creepy ass kid starts sleep walking
around in the middle of the night,
you don't have to deal with corralling them back to their room.
Elgh.
Just weirds me out.

08/02: Dad Singing

I can remember only a few times of my dad singing.
And it was only to Ozzy Osbourne songs.
The first time, he was driving me home sick from school,
I think I was maybe 5 or 6 at the time,
when Iron Man came on the radio.
My dad totally sang along to the first few verses...
"Ozzy lost his mind"
"da-da-da-dah-dah-dun-da-dun-dun"
I remember just staring at him in awe.
Who was this man????
I had never heard those noises coming out of his mouth!!!
The other time he sang along Crazy Train.
I can't remember how old I was, I was a teenager, I know that.

I love my freaking dad.

08/01: Birthday

Today is my 30th birthday.
Also the birthday of MTV.
I'm going to kick off this
blog idea I've been holding onto.
A year of 30's.
Each month will have a
different theme
and I will try my damnedest
to choose a topic I can
potentially blog about for
30 freaking days.
Being that this is my birth month,
I feel like doing something
that represents the nostalgic,
existential brooding, reminiscent
side of me that birthdays
always seem to bring out.
So, although this could be
the hardest topic to start with,
I want to do a month of memories.
I'll try to spread it out
enough to last all month.
I'll try to blog each day.
Whew- here we go!

08/01: Memories

Birthday Cakes

My mom used to bake me the most amazing birthday cakes.
She probably still would
if I didn't live
an hour and a half away.
She made me a yummy
chocolate and creme de menthe
cake that was bright green
and dark fudgey brown swirls.
She baked a boxed cake with
store bought frosting-
but tracked down a handful
of New Kids On The Block
pins to decorate the cake with.
She's gotten me Dairy Queen
ice cream cakes
or Rainbow Bright and Barbie cakes or done toppers for
whatever ridiculous thing
I was into.
She always did an amazing job
putting together birthday parties
and picking out great birthday
presents
(of course always giving Dad
partial credit in signing the card)
My birthdays,
for all of my 30 years,
have been spectacular events
because my mom has always
made them so.
Thanks, Mom!