In Which I Go All Ansel Adams on Your Shit

Christmas treated me well this year, bringing me an irresistably adorable little digicam, Trivial Pursuit (Genus VI!), a wad of sweet green, and some atomic alarm clock that my mother ordered from her Big Catalog of Needlessly Complicated Gadgets and Oddities. Considering that my morning routine consists of an hour long conversation with my snooze button, in which I trade off increasingly necessary hygienic-upkeep activities in exchange for nine minute naps, I'm not really sure I need a (radioactive) timepiece that utilizes the same technology used by the world's preeminent nuclear physicists, but gift horse/mouth, etc.

As I've only had the camera for a week, the only things I've had a chance to obtain pictures of, aside from a surprisingly entertaining experiment with stop-motion animation and a godawful New Year's Eve closeup taken by some renegade photographer in which I'm making a face that can only be described as "baby's first taste of pickled ass", are my childhood home in Northern NY, a microscopically small and unbelievably cluttered one-level that until two years ago had the distinction of being the only non-cartoon orange house in existence. Having lived away from home for ten years, it's always a treat to go through the pile of destruction that is the house and realize that when the 'rents do finally kick it, the will will most likely read "To Rubber: Your problem now. "


(Disclaimer: Yes, obviously the pictures conjure up the phrase "white trash". It's been open season on that joke for nigh a decade, but if you feel you have something new to contribute that isn't just a mangling of a Larry the Cable Guy routine, I'm nothing if not open to good insults)




Now that, that's a Northern NY garage if I ever saw one, and I didn't even capture the toolbench/weightlifting apparatus/punching bag half of the room. This was the scene of my father and mine's annual reunion upon coming back from the airport, where I was greeted with "Hey! Can you help me with this? It's a two-man job," and where I left with my jeans and sneakers soaked in gasoline. The moral here: Though the non-mouth end of the siphon may seem like the sweeter deal, looks can be deceiving.

Our couch. Rather, mine, as the parents have their own recliners, so this is more of a repository for AV equipment (361 days a year) and my ass (4 days a year). The latest in a long line of hand-me-down sofas, this couch has the distinction of a. being the most indescribably horrible piece of furniture I have ever seen in my entire life b. having had my grandmother die on it. You'd think this little tidbit of magical thinking would have precluded my father from accepting the donation, but hey, free couch.

My bedroom, now reappropriated for general storage and spillover from the rest of the house. A breakdown:

1. A stuffed animal ferret (gift from a friend). I do a terrific ferret impression. Seriously. The urge to throw me into a tub with the Dude is overwhelming.

2. This was the window spot that until two years ago housed this sticker:
Now, arson is no laughing matter (unless you set Steven Wright on fire- that guy's hilarious). But I always felt the slight twinge to strike up a match near the old oily rag pile just to see the look on the fireman's face when he heroically busted through the window and found a fully-grown 25 year-old woman asleep beneath the Carebear comforter.
3. Curio cabinets. Parents of the world, the best way to get your child to do anything you ask is to cultivate in them a desire to collect miniature unicorn figurines. As long as you remain their only means to the fix, they're putty in your hands.
4. Bug strip and Off. Thanks to a particularly severe family allergy to mosquitoes, these are fixtures in all four rooms of the house, and the smell of DEET still brings those awkward teenage years rushing back. I think this might even have been my baby mobile.
5. Bunk beds for an only child. Why? Still don't have a clue. Still fun to jump off of, though.
6. Light saber (dad's). I would ask why, but that would imply that there actually is a sensible answer to the question, beyond "The Rebel Alliance needed my help."
7. Precariously balanced telescope (dad's). When accidentally and somewhat painfully pinned beneath this while rifling through my suitcase, I remember thinking "Wow. Now this is a geeky way to go."

My childhood bookcase, bearer of years of fairy tales, Sweet Valley High novels, and maudlin teenage literature. A closeup, if you will:

Ah yes, I remember those cold winter nights when my dad would sit me down on his lap and read to me from my favorite book, "Urinalysis and Body Fluids". Isn't it every little girl's dream to meet her prince/overcome acute urate nephropathy?