Category: family

I’m sorry. I can’t stop. It’s crack, people, CRACK!! I am one step away from forsaking family, friends, prestigious career, eating, sleeping, and bathing just to sustain my sorry addiction. And after that comes the intervention where I act clueless and defiant and mumble things like “Whuh?” and “So?” and “Wull, I doan do it that much” while family and friends read quavery-voiced from little papers clutched in their hands. Then after that comes my long and twitchy rehab with group sessions led by a woman named Mona and her flowy tunics and crinkle skirts and jade necklaces where I sit, slumped and alienated, making high-pitched scanning noises, “vvvvvvvtt. vvvvvvvtt. vvvvvvvtt,” while Mona clicks her tongue and chides, “Tracey, I realllly don’t think you’re doing the necessary worrrk,” and I mutter, “Whuh? Whuh?? Shuddup, Mona. Your skirt sucks …. vvvvvvvtt …. vvvvvvtt …. vvvvvvtt ….”

Eh. Sounds okay to me.

All righty! Denial — O-ON!!

This series is from older nephew’s 3rd (?) birthday party. I am a strange auntie, as you will see:

Here I am with nephew, where, just seconds before, I was meticulously demonstrating the proper way to play with fire. I had taken one of his LIT birthday candles, stuck it in some Play-Doh, and smushed it on my nose. So I had a flaming birthday candle on my face — whatever — and he saw that, bugged his eyes out, and started giggling hysterically. Seconds later, he climbed into the chair next to me and blew out my flaming nose. THANK GOD!! Because of the DANGER, you see, of FIRE!! Good thing his father was there, Johnny-on-the-spot with the appropriate response: snapping pictures!

Oh, and then nephew wanted the candle back — so that’s this photo. WHEW! Y’all just missed the DANGER!

Funny thing is, I swear I can hear the world-weary sighs from family members — who WERE in the room with me — actually feel the apathetic vibe, “Oh, don’t bother. It’s hopeless to intervene. Let’s just eat some cake.”

Thankfully, he seems to have survived unscathed by my instructional vignettes on how to live his life. But God only knows what that hideous “antique yellow” beadboard might have done to his tender psyche. Do you see that? “Whuh??”

Um, where I take a colorful balloon arrangement and hold it on his head, because it makes a fetching hat, a balloon bouquet, and I obviously think he should know this. That’s my hand there. Oh, and that’s how the picture was actually taken — with the hand all chopped off and creepy like something out of “Saw,” but without the blood. No, no. That came later. (The horror was definitely there, though, ” ….. and it was allll yellow.”) But this is one of my absolute favorite pictures of his little face. I cannot look at it without dissolving into laughter. That smile! Those eyes! Those cheeks! Smooshysmooshy goodness.

(I did something wrong in the scan of this one. My lipstick cannot be THAT red. I can literally hear it screaming, “Look! LOOK at my redred lips!” No. NO. Scanner error. Gotta be.)

(But yes, my hair is red here; just not as red as my redred lips.)

Anyway …. here’s the poor, traumatized tyke, allowing “Trashy” — as he called me — to snuggle him.

See?

“I AM NOT AN ANIMAL!!”*

(* Yes, it’s in “The Elephant Man,” but it’s in “Spartacus,” too!)

And within 20 minutes, I was obsessed with it.

And, soooo ….. because you asked — well, someone, somewhere, once, that I remember, asked for pictures of me, other than the ones with me in the throes of a messy drunken rage.

All right. So here ya go. Pictures — yes! — of me and My Beloved on our wedding day, circa: a dozen years ago. Why did I scan these? They were nearby in a box and I’m lazy.

(Oh, I cannot BELIEVE I’m doing this because, ugh — my HAIR! my DRESS! LORD!! I would change many, man-n-n-nny things about that day if I could. But first — my HAIR! my DRESS! OH, WHY GOD?? WHY??? HORRIFYING!!!!)

But — I’m sorry — My Beloved looks amazing! Commentary under photos.

I’m posing by my parents’ front door. There’s too much light behind me, so I look rather ghostly. I know you’re probably thinking, Huh. Seems to me like that giant HAIR HAT of hers coulda blocked out more of that light. Good thought. You know, really good thought.

My parents and me in the back yard. It looks like I’m talking. Yup, I’m probably talking. I always chatter nervously when my picture’s being taken. I do not like it — the chattering OR the picture-taking. Oh, and there’s my dad, being all hubba-hubba again. And mom looks so lovely.

The long-suffering man who married me in spite of my giant HAIR HAT. He is beautiful.

Oh, man. I choke up at this picture. Two of my most beloved faces in the world. This is one of my little flower girls. She’s 4 in this picture. I lived with her family — theatre friends of mine — for two years while MB and I were dating, so we all became like one big family, her parents, older sister, younger brother, and me. I LOVED those kids as if they were my own; we were all just so hopelessly devoted to each other. And those girls just LOVED My Beloved, too. Look at the expression on her face. They’re ‘dancing,’ but he’s just swept her up in his arms and she’s just holding him so so close. She looked at us like that the whole night, that look of total love and trust on her face. She was so excited when she found out we were getting married because she thought it meant that he was moving in with all of us. Oh, I can’t write about it anymore. Starting to choke. Just look at her. And him.

Staring at the floor?? My shoes?? A bug?? Head bowed from the weight of my giant HAIR HAT??

Hilarity ensuing. (Because of my giant HAIR HAT??) I just love that man.

Mom looks soo happy. And dad …. um, yowza! Stop looking at us like that.

We are …. twitterpated.

(He always blushes when I tease him about how “hot” he was — and still is, frankly. My dad is in the choir at their church and I’m tellin’ you, there is more than one warbly-voiced woman, biding her old lady time, just waiting for mom to crump it, all the while loudly wheezing, “OH, How I LOVE, er …. Jesus!”)

I’m onto you, old biddies.

A picture from about 6 months ago.

Here we have Button Baby brazenly punching oldest nephew — her cousin — smack in the braces. Later, during intense interrogation, she claimed it was “all an accident,” but I remain unconvinced. She’s a wily one, that baby.

No charges are pending.

Younger nephew, as I recall, enjoyed his brother’s pain just a little too much. Is it possible he put The Button up to it? He’s DOES sport a certain self-satisfied glow in this photo. Hmm.

Perhaps the case should be reopened.

Then there’s Piper, exhibiting either a natural, open poise or a frightening immunity to real-life violence.

And what role do the adults play in this act of senseless brutality?

We take the pictures, of course!