i've never done something this egomaniacal before. shit, no, i probably have. but i figured out how to scan stuff! i'm a tech idiot, so this is big. i couldn't find photos of Richard, my late husband, which means they are buried in a moving box, one that's too heavy to move. i'll find them. so here goes with narrating the pics:

this first one is me when i was little. can't determine my age. please note the short short bangs. so popular back in the 50s. i have no explanation for the hairnet type bonnet. none, except that my ex-con sociopath of a mother has always had strange taste. but check me out wearing a crop top tied underneath my non-existent breasts. it's cute though, think. oh, wow, we were in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, back when we rented houses for the summer. i gave so many pics to my sister who hates me. not my smartest move ever.

me as Snow White, who is still a favorite of mine. she was independent as hell and she survived a monster mother, not to mention her motley posse of Dwarves. i have always wanted a motley posse, people! i've written this before but first grade was where i peaked, man. my nose was small then, my hair was dark and long, i could freaking sing!!! i was Snow Fucking White! i think that's the wishing well behind me. i had three boyfriends. Bobby Morrison named his mice after me and him. no one has done that for me since! it's all been downhill from there. but i still have my snow white collectibles: trolls, miniatures, animation cell, etc. i'll give the links to my Early Kindergarten decor/stuff posts later on.

okay, this one is hard to look at. i have no idea how old i was. i'm the oldest of 4, obviously. my nose was still small. you can't see it because this didn't scan well, but i'm wear a dress with a little bow at the top. it's my "I'm perfect and nothing horrific is happening to me in the middle of the night, in my bed. " dress and demeanor. my sister Dorothy is to the left. she's a lawyer now and loathes me because of the lawsuit. brother Rick to the right. he's a lieutenant on the San Diego PD and used to be a trainer for SWAT. if you're held hostage there, ask for a Lt. named Rick. he'll save you bigtime. the youngest brother is on my lap. okay, i'm probably 7 or 8 then. James is a Real Estate Broker extraordinaire, well maybe not these days, and probably other things i dont' know about, will never know about because they never want to see me, talk to me, or even be in touch with me, ever. Ever. i have many nieces and nephews whom i will never meet. that's life in the big city, as brother Rick would say.

okay, there is a HUGE gap here. my nose grew and grew and grew and i eventually got half of it taken off. Pinocchio is another mentor of mine. and then there was the terminal acne. i believe that the skin care industry owe me a freaking Volume discount for my decades of zits and now Millia.

there are some pics in between but i can't find the photo album that houses all of them. i went to horrible private WASP day school where i was a JEW while they were NOT. we had to go to separate dancing school from the WASPs, for those of you who don't know about anti-semitism in Boston and other places. there were 6 Jews and 50 future Debutantes. so many painful stories for another time. i went to harvard on the hippie plan, every other year, and traveled in between to Oxford, Paris, La Jolla, Bethel and Kwethluk, Alaska, Pakistan and Afghanistan (pre soviet invasion in 1971. it was a real place with a middle class and a nightclub. shit. ) and more. my c--- of mother called my travels My Vacations, and she wasn't working herself.

there a lot in between about going to MBA school at UC Berkeley and hating it and coming out in 1983 when Reagan had killed the economy and how i became an accountant because there wasn't another good job to be had. well, there wasn't a good job for me because it turns out that i HATE businesss. hence me becoming an accountant and eventually a recovering accountant. and then falling into screenwriting by serendipity...

okay, this pisses me off royally and more. this is a gorgeous colorful photo in person. but it didn't scan well. fuck. this is another high point of my life. i've posted about it and will find the link later on. i was in Hell Lay doing finance shit for the studios: paramount pictures and Universal too. i fell into screenwriting (i will share this story soon. it's a great story.) and fucked a whole lot of beautiful men because i was a 'ho back then. well, a serious sex addict really, but i didn't know that until later.

i mean, look at my old body, guys!! not only that, that's the Red Hair that can be seen from Space that i LOVE. and my red cowboy boots and my aged levis. and then there is my great friend Algernon the rat, standing on my right boot!!! she wants to climb up to my shoulder and i will let her do that after the photo taking. we went to a class for cats and other critters who wanted to be in the movies: Appalonia the Rabbit, and Pinocchio the Possum and then my ratlette Algie and a room full of very ambitious felines. Algernon was so freaking brave. i adored her. life was very strange and funny and sexy and i loved all of it. i was a screenwriter NOT AN ACCOUNTANT. hallelujah!

cool, you can see the hair color here. and my great hair back then. me holding Algernon in my hands with Andy. long long long story about me and my many Gay Gay Gay Gay best friends. i am Gay-less now and i HATE it. there are lesbians every two feet here in Portland but no gay men. no fun queens for me to hang with. Andy was one of them. it's a weird top i was wearing, so you can't really see how fabulous my upper body was. but seriously, i was hot and i was a 'ho and i was a WRITER AND NOT AN ACCOUNTANT. Thank you, Godiverse.

a decade or so later. i'm in my mid-forties, i think. the colors don't read for this one. shit. i'm wearing my How the Grinch Stole Christmas sweater that was a gift from the woman in the next photo. too long and sad a story for now. and my Disney chapeau. and my library headboard that i ended up giving away. shit. most importantly, that is Good Willa Hunting, my first service dog for the agoraphobia. she saved my life. i rescued her when she was 9 years old and a hot hot mess. she lived until age 13 and then died of a brain tumor. yes, i know. i had one too, about a year after she died. she left me very soon after my Richard gave up the ghost. Willa loved me but she LOOOOOOVVVED Richard. my love is lying next to her Kitty Pillow. she loved that pillow. actually, she didn't mind cats either. i had 4 of them. sorry. this is boring shit. sorry.

again, very weird colors. i am NOT wearing black lipstick. i only wear that when i'm dressed as Elvira's older and chubbier sister Elvina for Halloween. that one is coming up. Willa went as a Devil Dog. this is a former friend who completely glommed on to me, no that's wrong, she was a Caregiver to her quadraplegic husband and had to care for someone all the time. long story of her using her Xmas vacation to shepherd me back and forth to the hospital for Electro Convulsive/Shock therapy because the agoraphobia fried me and i got frighteningly depressed.

i think it worked some but it was hideous. she and her parents would tell me about bad things that i said and did that i could not remember and never would. i couldn't even apologize. i couldn't stand hearing about that carp every day. Carrie Fisher is bipolar 1 and also had ECT. she's lost a big chunk of her memory too. Good Willa Hunting was there at her decrepit aged best, with her gold ribbon decorated collar! I called her Mom. she was 70 something in people years. she was my Good Mom. the one i never had. the one so many of us never had either.

see Willa's senior smile? what a decrepit doll she was. me as Elvina. lots of cleavage. best strategy is to wear a bra a size or more smaller and then the girls just sit up and salute. that night i was propositioned by a couple. first and last time. cute couple too. i kept explaining about my manufactured Cleavage but they didn't care. oh, shit, no, that happened when i went as Jessica Rabbit!! out of control Big Tits that time. Willa as a Devil Dog and just as thrilled as i was when the kids came by for candy! no siren like barking as some of my interspecies family members are wont to produce now...

 i was in my early 50s, my husband was barely alive, but whatever. i looked good and ella let me put her pink goggles on, and also her Service Dog cape. this was when i began to focus on small miracles and abundances, when all our money was going to the 800K of medical bills and there was nothing but loss loss loss. i will always be grateful that i overlapped Ella Fitzgerald with Willa. she was 2 lbs. and she adored my hot mess of a yellow Lab. it wasn't a fly on an elephant but it was pretty freaking sweet. Willa's death blew me away, but i did have a tiny canine-american companion to help ease some of the terrible horrible pain.

now we have the late 50s and my bipolar 2 meds have put 23 pounds on me!!!! if you get this diagnosis, you have to choose between being sane or fat. it's a hard hard choice.

so there is the Fatitude and the missing of that former body and its sexual antics and just plain pleasure in knowing it was a good body and fit and sexy. shit, we women with our issues. i believe that the minute girls are born, they should be whisked into another room and given a self-image workshop: "sweetheart, you are not fat. you need to accept yourself as you are. those are not wrinkles on your inner thighs. that is baby fat wonderfully crinkling. you are gorgeous!!! gurgle it with me, girls. i am gorgeous and wonderful just as i am."

yes, there is the Fatitude and the Crazy but there is also the wisdom and the knowing exactly who you are, for better or worse, and the freedom of being invisible because you are old and fat. but i've always wanted to be Maude in that movie. well, i wanted to be Ruth Gordon. i would love love love to get into acting when i'm 80. they treasure you if you have all your faculties and can act a bit. well, we'll see. that's still a looong as time away.

okay, this is my very brief photo essay of my life. well, so far. somewhere i must have documented the travels and the husbands and the stepkids. we'll see. now, no more nagging me for photos, people!!

"okay, this is my new policy because i'm tired and cranky and this is too epidemic on here. if you don't rate my post, then i don't write you a lovely comment. it's that simple. of course, when several people comment at the time, i can't tell who the deadbeat is, so you guys get a pass. people, most of us like getting ratings. it's like the Gold Stars in elementary school. writing is lonely and hard hard work, even when it's casual. we owe it to each other to give props to a written piece that you like. love love love but not so much with the gratitude because i'm really really tired of this. it's not rocket science, people. i worked hard on this."

Theodora L'Engle Knight

October 10, 2009 01:03 AM