remember

mamie

the summer after my freshman year of college, i lived with my boyfriend's grandmother, mamie. i loved her. she was nice company, and was very sweet to me. i had a bright room, in the back of her house, and when i opened the windows, it smelled of flowers.

[written 9 july; posted 10 july]

overlapping stamps

there was 800% inflation over the five months i lived in st petersburg, and--like much of the infrastructure--the postal service couldn't keep up. as a result, to send a letter to america, it took more than twenty stamps, which we affixed in an overlapping pattern covering nearly the entire surface of the envelope.  

eating ice cream with the mafia

once i was sitting on a curb in a little square in moscow, eating an ice cream with a friend, when men in dark suits came into the park, drew their guns and stood guard at each of the park's entrances. my friend and i, the only people in the square, decided it wasn't the best place for an ice cream. we got up and ran.

big bird is a girl

as a childhood viewer of sesame street, i thought big bird was a girl, and i was really disappointed when i found out i was wrong.

[written 28 june; posted on 29 june]

black and white

my family had a tiny black & white television long past the time when everyone else's tv was colour.

i always felt out of the loop when kids at school talked about tv shows, because we didn't watch much. in fact, our television viewing was restricted to a very short and somewhat embarrassing list: little house on the prarie, wonder woman, disney movies on sunday nights and anything on pbs.

halloween as a pencil

one year when i was a kid, i dressed up as a number 2 pencil for halloween. it was made from a huge cardboard tube that fit over my body. we added a cone for the lead, cut holes for my eyes, and my dad spraypainted it for me with metallic paint. it was perfect except for the fact that i couldn't bend my knees once it was lifted over my head so walking and climbing stairs was incredibly difficult. and, since my arms were also trapped by my sides, i couldn't hold a bucket for candy collection. and i couldn't ring any doorbells.

details, details. it was still an incredible costume.

blow out

i was in the back seat of my friend kim's car with kim and her two younger sisters, when one of the tires blew. we were coming back from some vacation, and we were on the highway going at least 55 miles an hour. i remember that we were singing songs in rounds when there was a loud sound, then we started swerving all over the road. we all started screaming.

kim's dad managed to stay calm and got the car back under control and pulled off to the side without an accident.

raleigh and shannon

you want it, you got it

when i lived in finland, i went with friends to helsinki to see bryan adams in concert. we bought official tour scarves and swung them around with wild abandon. it was a great night out.

encores only

once we were supposed to go to a concert at chateau ste. michelle where mary chapin carpenter was opening for shawn colvin but we got the time wrong and arrived for the encores and a glass of wine.