Tag: memories

Magnetic Poetry 365:296

I include myself in this, of course. See the bulge in that bottle? In late August, I went out shooting and bought that bottle of water, which I never opened. Upon arriving home, I put it in the freezer and forgot it. I found it the next day, a solid block of ice ready to split the container, and gave it to Tim, who was leaving for a night away. I figured by the time he arrived in Galveston, it would have melted enough for him to drink it.

At least it wasn’t a soft drink–over the years I’ve exploded my share of those in bottles and cans in the freezer. I’ll bet Lynne remembers the night her Sprite shattered in the freezer when we were having a sleepover as ‘tweens. That kind of noise when you’re telling scary stories: NOT FUNNY.

Joy at The Compound

That photo I used for Photo Friday–of the two dolls: Searching for it led to some interesting discoveries.

I knew I had a photo like it, although the one in my head is not exactly like the one I found. But I also knew it was an older picture. Although the computer I use now has access to all the photos stored on my old PC, when I’m looking for something without a specific date or file location, it can be daunting to approach thousands of photos. The photo I could see in my head seemed to predate the old PC, so I went first to my actual physical photo albums. I have a lot of them, and they’re well organized, but I came up with nothing. Then I have a lot of little random photo albums for pictures that aren’t something anyone would care about looking at–scenery from trips, state of The Compound grounds through the years, bad craft projects, TJB publicity shots. Those albums didn’t have what I was looking for either.

There are several wooden boxes on a shelf in the guest room (also known as the Lisa/Debby Suite) that I never open because they’re a reminder that I’m four years behind in photo organization. (I think a lot of people, like me, now depend heavily on their computer photos instead of having them printed to put into albums.) With trepidation, I started exploring the contents of those boxes.

First, I found a boatload of old family photos that I didn’t know I had. I remember one time my mother made Debby and me sit down with her extensive collection of photos and go through them to take what we wanted. At some point in that process, nostalgia kicked in, and she made us stop. Maybe these are photos that I was given before we stopped, but I don’t think so, because some of them are OLD. As in seventy to eighty years old. And they’re of relatives I don’t know. But some of them are of our immediate family, and those were exciting to rediscover.

I never found the particular doll photo I was seeking. But that’s okay, because: I have a journal that’s been missing for years. I’ve mentioned it on here, usually without identifying what it is, but it’s a journal of thoughts/memories I wrote about my friend Steve after he died. More importantly, it contains my few photos of him. And that journal was in one of those wooden boxes! I can finally stop driving myself crazy over its whereabouts.

During my search, I also found a few more of my mother’s buttons that can be featured on Button Sundays and some TJB-related items I didn’t even remember I had.

I think it’s time for me to take on the project of updating and reorganizing (and yes, to some degree, even purging) my photo and memento collections.

Photo Friday, No. 267

Current Photo Friday theme: My Baby

The doll in the back, Betsy Wetsy, is the one I’ve had longest, probably since I was four or five.
When I was around seven, I asked for and got a doll like the baby Betsy’s holding. That doll was later stolen by a neighborhood kid.
When I was in graduate school, my mother showed up at my house unexpectedly. She’d found the baby doll in this photo that was so much like my stolen baby that she got it for me.
I could never have been too old for a baby doll from my mother.

What’s in a name?


“Cleanliness is next to ramliness.”

When I was younger, even during times I was poorer, I was brand loyal. I remember when generic products first began hitting the shelves, and it would have made economical sense to buy those white packages with the black letters, but I just couldn’t. Was it aesthetics? Because I always justified my choice by saying, “But I know exactly what I’m getting with my Jif, Tide, Hellmann’s, Golden Flake, Heinz, Campbell’s, Nabisco, Bama, Comet, Dial, Coke,” blah blah blah. I was certain that if anyone ever put me in a blind taste test, I could pick my favorite product.

I’m not quite as bad as I used to be. I’ll buy store brands or different brands for a lot of products now. Okay, never a peanut butter that isn’t Jif or a mayonnaise that isn’t Hellmann’s. But I’ve drunk store-brand colas and eaten store-brand oatmeal. I broke with my mother on loyalty to Tide, but only because of the expense. I still think it’s the best detergent. Because cost is one of my main criteria, I’ve grown indifferent to brand names on paper products, and I’m more likely to pick cereals based on the nutritional information on their labels.

Still, when I shot this photo, I wondered, if I were still using bar soap, would I purchase this?

Are you brand loyal?

National Coming Out Day

National Coming Out Day has been recognized on October 11 since 1988, when it marked the first anniversary of the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. My friend Alan linked to a video of a newscast from that event in 1987, and as I watched it, I found myself thinking, In those days, because of AIDS, coming out, being visible, was a matter of life and death. When I finished watching the video, I realized–coming out is still a matter of life and death.

I’ve been thinking a lot about courage lately. It’s one of those words applied to a wide variety of human experiences: Her courageous battle with cancer… The fireman courageously entered the burning building… They have the courage of their convictions… The courage of our troops fighting in Afghanistan…

Is it an overused word? I don’t know that it is. Because I’ve always believed that many of our biggest words–courage, strength, honor, love, heroism, honesty, compassion–are shown in the smallest acts of our daily lives. For those people who showed up in Washington, D.C., in 1987, courage meant saying, publicly, “I am a lesbian.” It meant contributing a quilt panel with the name of a beloved someone who died of a disease that everyone had kept a secret. Or walking down a street with a sign even if you didn’t feel like it was “your” cause because you believed it was a right cause.

  • Courage is being visible when a lot of people would like for you to remain invisible so they can be comfortable.
  • Courage is knowing that not everyone who is gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgendered has the supportive environment you might enjoy, so you commend their first step toward visibility, whether it is taken gloriously or hesitantly.
  • Courage is not mocking people because they look or behave or express themselves in ways that aren’t your ways but are authentic to who they are.
  • Courage is understanding that some people are not ready to open that closet door and letting them know that when they are, you will stand with them against whatever comes their way.
  • Courage is using your voice for people whose voices have been silenced by hate, by fear, by death.
  • Courage is understanding that even if you can’t raise your voice loud and proud and publicly, you can say quietly to someone, “I love you for exactly who you are, and I always will.”

Magnetic Poetry 365:270

The old Juicy Fruit wasn’t yellow.

Did anyone else make chains with chewing gum wrappers? When you stretched the chain to its full length, it was supposed to be as tall as the man you’d marry.

Or if you could separate the white backing from the gum’s inner foil wrapping without tearing the foil, it was good luck.

Modern gum packaging makes these things archaic. LIKE ME.

This poem is for Debby, Jackie, and Jackie’s younger sister Sherry. I loved those mornings in that cold car feeling like one of the “big girls.”

Button Sunday


Another button from my days in the bookstore.

Last night I had a very long and complicated dream about working at Borders. Usually when I dream about working at a bookstore, it’s Bookstop, and I generally have those dreams when I’m under a lot of stress.

This time, however, I know the dream is because I’ve been reading articles about the last few days of the final Borders stores. It seems to me both chains followed pretty much the same trajectory. They were begun by people who had a passion for books. The unique approaches each founder bought to the bookselling world resulted in fast and furious success. They expanded to their breaking point, then sold out to a larger corporate entity who wanted to cash in on their success. Regardless of how passionate the chains’ booksellers, customers, and local management were, from the top down the stores were driven by profit without regard to the products and services provided. They lost all the qualities and practices that made them a success to begin with.

And in time, they failed and shuttered their stores.

The cities and towns where they once existed have lost a place to discover new books and rediscover familiar writers, meet authors at book signings, enjoy a community where a cup of coffee can be read over a newspaper or magazine, find knowledgable people who can help answer that plaintive question Can you tell me something good to read?, join readers’ groups for lively discussions, hook up a laptop and do some work in what many people (including me) feel is one of the best settings in the world–surrounded by walls and shelves of books.

For now, we still have Barnes & Noble, a few smaller chains, independent stores, and our libraries. If we lose those, too, and all reading is dependent on devices, will we be returning to an age when only the privileged have access to learning? Where reading is a luxury denied to a majority of people whose lives consist of work and more work and the struggle to provide food, clothing, and healthcare to their families? Where the newspapers are gone, and the magazines are gone, and maybe some entity just a little crazy and greedy and power mad can silence the fibers and air waves of our televisions, radios, computers, smart phones, and e-readers to keep us focused on whatever is needed to keep the crazy/greedy/power-mad at the top of the heap of humanity?

Maybe it was a stress dream after all…