A few days ago, our basement flooded. Since my mother insists on having cats who live soley to eat, vomite, defecate, and urinate, and their shit box is down there, and after a number of years things just kind of get pushed in corners to multiply and grow bacteria, it was very disgusting and third-world-meets-a-bewildered-first-world. I spent 2 afternoons throwing things out and getting fifteen years of uncleaned basement all over me.

The basement is the haven for crap we never use, have forgotten about, could care less about. Jump ropes, excess dishware, 25 cent cookbooks, ugly dresses, cheap Chinese party favors that serve absolutely no purpose except to break, be forgotten about, then be stepped on with your bare feet three weeks later. What is also in the basement are the photo albums. These got wet like everthing else.

My mother has spent the last 4 days or so peeling them apart and leaving the photos out to dry. Our living room has become paved with all the different Sophies that every few years would show up and covertly wipe out the previous Sophie. So many of these Sophies have no idea what to do with curly hair. Most of them are chubby, at some point they seem to realize this. The very small ones are my favorite; if they scowl at the camera, they only become more appealing. The older ones that can't be bothered to smile I have a strong urge to smack. Joe shows up occassionally, but he has no sideburns and a chubby round little boy face that I don't remember, and he doesn't seem to be too fond of women. I remember almost every one of my outfits. I don't feel that I have anything in common with most of these Sophies. Some of them I want to hug, I want to make some of them cry. But they're all lost. They disappeared into the various stages of puberty. To be honest, I don't really miss the ones I lost to puberty. The ones I miss are mostly the ones I barely remember.


My parents are also featured in this. You can see my dad's hair fading and disappearing almost chronologically. My mom looks young and happy, and there are all these people drinking, laughing, and being silly who I've only seen much later, when they seemed much more tired and didn't smile so easily. I don't recognize the places or outfits. These pictures really create more questions than they answer.

Spent last night with a really strange combination of people, some of whom obviously weren't used to hanging out with girls. It was fun. And Tori's dad is getting married. Huzzah.