Baby Book

When I was home last week for Thanksgiving - with the cold sore the left side of my lower lip - I found my baby book. I can't remember quite if it was Saturday or Sunday. I know that when I woke up it was Sunday, but I can't remember if I found it after midnight or not. I know that I had just signed off from AIM and told Gina I was going to take a shower and go to sleep, but for some reason when I went to my room I really wanted to look through my old yearbooks and see if I could find old pictures of Gina. I found a couple of my yearbooks on the right side of my bed - I think the middle school ones - and then I found some more on the left side of my bed. I think I only found one of them that had Gina and I in it. I think it was when I was putting them back in that I noticed a book I had never seen on the right side of my bedstand. Its outside was a mix of pastel green, yellow, and pink, thickly bound with some papers sticking out of it. I opened it up. I can't remember exactly what I saw first, but I knew immediately that it was my baby book! I was so excited! Even though I knew Gina would be dead tired I kept texting her to tell her all the crazy things I found, even though we agreed to look through it tomorrow [which we did... sort of].

Somewhere in the beginning was a picture of me, which I'm not sure I saw until the next day when we looked through it again. There was the name of the doctor that delivered me - I think Kalzan or something along those lines. I guess I'm started to forget some of the specific parts but I'll try for what I can still remember. I found out that I used to call my blanket "Gocky." I don't know why, it doesn't make any sense to me at all. I also used to say "gaboon" instead of "balloon," and I said "bemorrow" instead of "tomorrow." One time my parents found me in the bathroom drinking water out of my shoe. One time, they told me that if I ate my Easter candy too fast they would take my Easter basket away; later they found me in the hallway closet eating candy out of my basket. Once my mom asked me if I was her baby, and I said, "No! I'm your little guy!" I apparently loved to go anywhere, at any time - I called it "going bye-bye" - even to boats that made me sleepy. I also really liked our cat Pepper, and wanted her to lay with me all the time. The first time I pulled myself up in my crib, I looked shocked (!).

At the end of the book there were a ton of pieces of "art" that I had made. Mostly it looked like watercolors on crinkled paper. One of them, I think, looked like I was trying to make a landscape. I know I loved dinosaurs so maybe it was from that period. Most of the time I just drew lines, though. There were a couple things in there that I had drawn, including one thing we had ripped off from a paper menu at Friendly's. I had no idea my parents kept so much stuff. There was also a birthday card or Christmas card that I just took and scribbled aaaaaaaaall over. I'm sure I was really proud of myself. There were also two copies of a picture of me soon after I was born. I had my eyes closed and hands up and I looked like an alien.

At the end of that section, behind the pictures and paintings, I found an envelope. It was closed. On the outside, it said, "Jessica, Ryan, & Jeffrey // My 3 Angels from Heaven." I didn't know what to do - should I open it? Should I not? I don't know exactly why, but I couldn't resist opening it. I made sure to mess up the envelope as little as possible because I would probably want to keep it for later. Inside there was a letter that my mom wrote in 1989, and apparently no one had seen since. She was going on a "four-day trip" - but she didn't say where, and I have no idea whether or not it was a trip. I know my pregnancy included complications so it might have been some medical problem. She was afraid that she wouldn't come back for some reason, so she wrote this to us all just in case. She wrote a little bit to Jess, then to Ryan, then to me. She said she'd hardly gotten a chance to know me yet, but that I was just as gorgeous as Ryan and Jessica were, and she loved to see me smile and she loved my eyes.

The very end was the saddest part, though. She just said, "Please don't forget me, and look at my picture sometimes."

How tragic!

And to think that, had she not come back, I never would have forgotten her because I would not have remembered her.

Peace out.

Writing

All I want to do right now is write. I have class tomorrow at 10:30AM, which I think would be good, because I think that's about when I would be done writing if I started right now. I considered staying up all night to write but I decided maybe that wasn't the best idea right now. I just want to write for so many reasons, I can't even say. Lines and notes and letters and messages and apologies and elegies and entries and stories and anything else I could think of. Ironically, today is the first day at Brown where I didn't contact everyone I meant to. I'm sorry to all of you.

Peace out.

it

I always try to remember the very last time I can see you. So I watched you walk home today from my bay window. Jeans, slippers, brown crocheted/knitted thing on. Your bag slung across you. Two white papers in your left hand. Hair down. And you walked in the garage door and I missed you.

Peace out.

Yellow Leaves

Yellow leaves in the fall are definitely my favorite. That doesn't really make any sense because I hate the color yellow. It makes me feel tense and rushed most of the time, and I never liked that our house was mostly yellow. But this week, when I was at home, I noticed yellow leaves a lot more than ever. I don't know why they struck me. They were so nice to look at, though.

I remember there was a tree on the main green here, a couple weeks ago, the week that we sat outside and a man got attacked by a squirrel, that had leaves that were turning a very bright yellow and I thought that tree looked incredible, too.

I think I first noticed the yellow leaves at home, though, on the way home from school on Wednesday. I was driving Gina [and myself] back home on Smithbridge Road, and just after we passed the middle school, we saw a line of trees with beautiful yellow leaves. They're the ones that line the awkward bend of the running path that goes in a big circle near Kid's Dream Playground, between the school and the house with a grey steel chicken outside of it. So we just looked and appreciated them for a moment.

And then when we got home, we noticed that in Gina's back yard, the big tree was covered in bright yellow leaves, too. But it didn't look like any of them had fallen yet; the tree was still very full. I don't remember why, but Gina had her camera on her at some point that day and took a couple pictures of the tree.

I meant to take pictures when I went home this time. I really did. I meant to take pictures of that tree when the leaves were still yellow. I was even going to take the picture in color. Maybe even vivid color. But for some reason I never got around to it, and by the time I finally decided I would make myself take that picture, on Sunday morning, all the leaves had fallen.

Peace out.