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This image is Copyrighted. No unauthorized reuse.
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This image is Copyrighted. No unauthorized reuse.
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This image is Copyrighted. No unauthorized reuse.
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This image is Copyrighted. No unauthorized reuse.
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Set this boy down in the center of any room and he will find the straightest and most economical path to any (1) power cord; (2) electrical outlet; (3) small choking hazard thrown on the floor by his sister (in that order).
I wish I could just attach a bungie cord to his belt and tie the other end to the ceiling. He'd still probably find a way to get into trouble.
He did eat an entire avocado the other day. I was proud of him. I didn't taste an avocado until I was in my twenties.
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This image is Copyrighted. No unauthorized reuse.
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This image is Copyrighted. No unauthorized reuse.
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More about the neighborhood here, including history of famous residents and current homes for sale. Just remember, you have to heat them in the winter (if they still have all their pipes).
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We still love the neighborhood and I really think it's amazing how the residents have banded together in the current crisis, mowing the lawns of foreclosed homes and parking their cars in other driveways to make vacant homes look occupied. Still, there are the tell-tale plywood and anti-scrapper windows on some of these beautiful old homes. Some of them, like this one on the edge of the neighborhood, are very Miss Havisham.
Some enterprising person should try to rent one of these and throw a kick-ass Grey Gardens party where no one is admitted without a head scarf.
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It's so weird having a child who actually grows out of its clothing.
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When I was taking pictures of the plants growing in the non-functioning Merrill Fountain, these girls asked if I would take their picture. I agreed and within 2 seconds they had positioned themselves in this wonderful pose on the fountain.
I promised to e-mail them a copy, but only one of them (the girl in the pink jacket) had an e-mail address. But nobody had a pen. "It's okay," she said. "You keep it. Someday it will be worth MONEY."
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We talked a lot all day before the party. "But what do princesses do?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "I don't think princesses do anything. I think that's the whole point."
We went through her dress-up clothes and found whatever had the most tulle. I even painted her fingernails and toenails. As much as I've tried to distract her from the princess industrial complex, I don't have a heart of stone.
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This image is Copyrighted. No unauthorized reuse.
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This image is Copyrighted. No unauthorized reuse.
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I used to skip church as a kid and run across the street to spend all of Sunday morning looking at comic books and Mad Magazine here, picking out candy, and watching the creepy guys come in to peruse the porno mags. Ms. Hauck never yelled at me that this wasn't a library. I walked into this store the other day and the sound of her voice and the smell of fresh periodicals and pipe tobacco hit me like a Proustian madeleine.
Every month my dad would drive downtown to pick up his copy of Hemmings Motor News here. He insisted that they got it before anyone else, so he never subscribed. As I grew older I moved on from the comic books and Mad Magazine to the real books and the real magazines. I would go with my dad and sometimes he would let me add something to the bill. He would buy Necco Wafers and hand them to me and my sister one by one on the way home. I spent so many hours in this store. It is a fine place for anyone who loves to read.
Ms. Hauck has always hired college students to work in the store, young kids who play cool music on the stereo and bring home outdated magazines for their friends. She fired my friend Sebastian on the day he graduated, telling him she only employs college students. At the time we thought this was illegal, done only so she wouldn't have to pay him for full-time work. I have since wondered if she didn't do it as a gesture of love, a way of saying: "Get out of here. Go out in the world. You have a degree now. Loafing about a bookstore is no job for you."
But it sure is a great way to spend a chunk of your childhood.
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