In the Wake

I wanted to share pictures relevant to parts three through six. I'll split them up into a couple of entires so that this doesn't become overly unmanageable (like my past sometimes seemed.) This is the only picture I have of Brandy. In Part 3 I mentioned her tragedy, and how it affected our relati...

While looking for pictures, I dug up even more than I thought, meaning this is going to be three posts, not two. This is Janica. And my finger. This is Janica, again. Todd, a friend of mine at the time, used to host a yearly pool party at his grandparents' house. This is from one…

One thing people found cute--or nauseating--about us was that we had matching license plates.  This was my Cavalier, which was the car I had before my ill-fated Beretta.   This was her license plate: I mentioned the accident we had, but my description may not have done it justice. This ...

(Split into two entries because of length.)I fell in love with my best friend, and she with me. It would be impossible to determine what point either of our minds truly turned from friendship to romance; it simply happened, it was. Love is not a series of marks on the side of a doorframe, indicat...

(Part 2 of split entry.)Laura began working at a clothing store in the Galleria, one of the more fashionable malls in the St. Louis area. I can't remember the name of it, which has made me pause and blink at the screen for a good twenty seconds in disbelief. She liked the job, but was…

I often say I spent the first thirty years of my life in St. Louis, but that's not entirely true.  The bustling metropolis of Jacksonville, IL, as I have mentioned, was a far cry from urban.  I take pride in being born and bred in a town of millions, and have a mint of memories…

Obviously, I wasn't handling my first breakup well.  There's no excuse for it, perhaps, but there were reasons, which I gradually learned to mitigate over the course of several years.  It was a sledgehammer that pureed my heart.  I spent much of the next few months spooning through...

The summer of 1991 was really when I first learned what it was like to be poor.Remember, things always magically were there. Work a little bit, and you have what you need. I wasn't nearly as practical as I am today; not as wise, not as frugal, not as sensible in planning for the future.…

It occurs to me as I write this that as was probably to be expected, the background may eventually be longer than the actual story.  I do not mean to prolong it--and indeed, have tried to hone my words and pare them down to a passable size. I've become entranced, however, with my own history...

I haven't quite figured out how to resize these, so bear with me. Obviously, some of these pictures are old, so they didn't really scan that well. I'm not talented enough at photo editing to be able to get rid of all of the scratches and graininess. I ask your forgiveness.Oh, and please, don't la...