But Call Me Betsy

I've been working on a story recently that centers around a waitress in Chicago and so have been thinking nostalgically of those days, though I have not gone so far as to revisit my journals from that time, because I'm certain they would be full of depressing anecdotes; probably me obsessing over some guy whose name I no longer remember. What I do recall about Chicago is that the winters were dastardly cold, Lake Michigan was beautiful, they had great thrift stores, I was incredibly lonely most of the time, and I had a lot of really funny and talented friends. Here's Hancock Tower (thanks, Emily!). I don't think I ever went up in it and there were also entire neighborhoods in Chicago that I never visited.   My first apartment was a garden apartment in the Belmont area--pretty close to Wrigley Field and Gingerman Tavern. The apartment itself was okay, though it had a mushroom-y smell and clanking radiators. Below is my cat on the left (Gretel) and my roomm...

We watch all these cop shows of married people killing each other and then lying about it or Dr. Phil , where the daughter hires someone to kill her entire family, and it seems unfathomable that you can go from having all these days with someone, you know, like Christmas morning, and every single meal that you ate, or your partner--you loved that person at one time, you thought you couldn't live without her, and then one day, you decide that you've had enough and the only escape is murder. Usually, they're not very good at it either--like, this one guy killed his wife and daughter, and then brought their bodies into work in cardboard boxes and his co-workers saw him pushing these heavy boxes into the dumpster and said he was in a really bad mood. Don't bother me! I'm trying to dispose of these bodies. It's my lunch hour! And then this other guy who killed his wife and then cut her up and boiled her in giant pots to get rid of her corpse bit by bit (he was a ch...

I must apologize because I don't really know how to use the scanner on Dan's computer and so these old photos are really photos of photos; hence the crappy quality.  I guess they were all taken some time close to when I graduated from Florida State; so, like 1992? 1993? Decades ago now. Anyway, after graduation, I moved back to Clearwater and lived with my older boyfriend in an apartment complex off of a major highway. I also worked as a hostess at TGIFriday's and was a member of a children's theater group through Ruth Eckerd Hall, the performing arts center in the area. I didn't have any illusions that this would lead to fame. After just one or two shows in an elementary school cafeteria (smelled like spoiled milk) or gymnasium (smelled like sweaty feet), it was clear that I wasn't on the path to being discovered by like a visiting movie producer who would whisk me away to become Hollywood's darling.  But it was still fun, for the most part, and the kids w...

I took a class at Penn this past semester, and found myself having to think again about grades. Not worrying about them, exactly, but knowing that what I was turning in would them be evaluated and given some kind of concrete value. That doesn't happen so much in the working world. We get evaluated each year, and I guess raises are based on performance, but it's a different kind of incentive. It's odd to go from spending 16 years of your life and a few more years with grades in grad school then switching to an ungraded system and then back again. It's harder to take it seriously; especially in graduate school when it seems like unless you really screw up, you get an "A." At least I thought I was blase until the other day when I got an email from some ominous unnamed administrator saying I hadn't turned in my final paper and was in academic jeopardy. What? I knew it was a mistake, but I imagined it would be impossible to prove, I'd be kicked out of the...

I keep meaning to post more of these older photographs. But because I have a bad memory, two things make this a problem (1). I forget I have them; (2). I remember I have them but can't recall which ones I've already posted. So, you'll have to forgive me in advance if you've seen these already. Here we have my mother and two of the her brothers--I think it's Jodie and maybe David? They look like Jersey boys stuck in the middle of the Midwest.   Mother with cat-eye glasses and beehive hairdo with my two uncles, Jeff and Frannie. Curtains are closed.   Mom, younger, before classes--on a horse. I'm not sure if they owned this horse or if they just rented out space for it. I know they had one horse named Strata.   Mom, holy. This must be her first communion. She is a little bride to God.   More holiness and a family dog who likely got run over by a truck or shot by one of the neighbors for terrorizing their chickens.   I may have posted this one before. My mom sq...

Here is a picture of me in a nightie with a short haircut; probably age 8 or so. Step dad accurately caricatured in the background. Our entire family seems to wear glasses. And this is me in Laura Ingalls braids, age 10-ish. I eventually turned out okay. I mean, look at the genes I had to inherit. This is my mom wearing an outfit her brother Richard brought back from his travels in the Army. I believe she is posing without her glasses, next to a glamorous fir tree in the back yard of Grandpa's house. She was 18. Little did she know that in 8 short years, she would have me.

And mom will be there too! So here are a few photographs to prepare you for that visit. I am certain grandma will not approve of the one of her in her brassiere with a cigarette. Here she is as a young mom. Four more kids and countless grandchildren to follow.

This is the picture that makes my mom say, OMG, you had such brown eyes! They were really brown and now they're more not-brown than brown. My grandpa's legs. Note the overalls. He wore those every day.  Me learning early on that I was in no way athletic. Couldn't even roll a ball across the floor without injuring myself. I love this picture because even though I'm not exactly sure of the context, both Jeff and I have clearly just had our showers and are getting ready to go somewhere; probably church. But then you have my grandma in the background, in her bra, and smoking a cigarette. She would kill me if she knew this photo were out there, but she's in her nineties and only rarely gets online to tweet about her life. Here I am in ponytails next to a giant car. I think I'm holding a book, but it also looks as though I might be trying to self-tan. And then here I am practicing piano with Mr. Lockwood who never, ever suggested that I perform in a reci...

Just scanned a few more photos because I was having trouble coming up with a topic to write about today. Brain is semi on the fritz. Here is a photo of my mother and her brother, Richard in Nebraska. He already has his own pair of overalls. Mom to the left, squinting into the sun while tall, older sister Margaret stands by her, also squinting. I imagine that mom's dress is a hand-me-down. I call this one talking, because it looks like I'm holding forth on something. I started talking early and really have never shut up. My first nude shot. This is my cousin Charlie and me--looks like he's still in diapers. I think I'm about 2 or 3 years older than him, though I always felt much, much older. See how I have my hand on his knee, as though prepared to take care of him? Looks like he just finished eating a Swanson's meat pot pie. Those tins were excellent for making mud pies too. A terrible, terrible, no good, very bad haircut. I remember getting that hair cut, I think. ...