holidays memories the family

A Birthmas Story

I wasn’t supposed to be born on Christmas. I was due Dec. 12, but my mom didn’t go into labor until Christmas Eve. And she kept laboring for 23 hours, walking and walking and walking around the hospital floors to try to make the labor go faster. She made 49 trips, she said, many of them with my grandmother by her side. Mom says she remembers the click of Grandmaw’s cowgirl boots on the sterile…

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friends memories

More Flashbackery

The Sidelines crew, circa 2001 (photos by Matthew Starling, if memory serves): And what group photo would be complete without a group display of rude gestures? I’d been wondering what I’d done with these photos for a while. They were tucked inside a shoebox in my storage trunk. These people are more than partially responsible for my completely unhealthy addiction to newspapering. Also mom jokes.

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memories

This is the place I come from

My grandmother e-mailed me this photo, taken yesterday at the Dodge Store on Wayne Road in Savannah, Tenn., where, as high schoolers, Phil and I would go and get pizza sticks, jojo potatoes, chicken strips, a roll, and Golden Flake sourdough butter pretzels — a fine spread to take home to consume in the pulsing glow of a television. I like to think that I would be entirely overqualified for the advertised position.

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memories music

Soundtrack for today: ‘Been rubbing a bad charm with holy fingers’

This Promise Ring cover was my first introduction to the Pixies in 1999. It was on Where Is My Mind: A Tribute to the Pixies, which featured a ton of bands I was really into at the time (Get Up Kids, Promise Ring, Weezer, Reel Big Fish, Superdrag). I remember taking Phil’s CD and making a cassette-tape copy of several of the songs and just playing that damn tape over and over at the video…

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memories why am I telling you this?

Internet, you can’t say I never gave you anything

Back in 2002 or 2003 before Dane Cook was very well known ubiquitous (and widely reviled by comedy snobs non-fratboys), he was busy building an online army of fans via his website (this was pre-MySpace, even) and AIM and other internet hoozits and whatnots. I had seen his Comedy Central special and bought his first comedy CD and was a pretty big fan (I still admit that he makes me laugh with alarming regularity; suck…

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memories project 365 (2009) the family

Day 177: Casey

My oldest nephew is about to turn fourteen years old. I remember the kind of shit I was plotting when I was fourteen and I am horrified, proactively, about all the shit this boy is going to get into. Ahhh, memories. So my mom and my oldest nephew came to visit me Friday. We had lunch and went and saw Up. Casey was gobsmacked when we were waiting for our food at Soul Fish and…

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memories movies shameless self-promotion

The young moviegoer

I posted just now over at The Memphis Blog about first moviegoing experiences, and I’ve sat here for roughly three seconds trying to dredge up my own memory of my first time at a movie theater, only to thoroughly confuse myself. I guess I’m going to have to ask my parents, because I can only narrow it down to four contenders (one of which I’m not even sure happened): The Abyss, The Little Mermaid, Driving…

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Beale Street Music Festival memories people are dumb work

Day 121: The Wall of Death

I’ve already recounted this harrowing tale here at the BSMF blog. The only thing I wish to add is this: Is there any irony in a band that’s straight edge and vegetarian and super into PETA encouraging its crowd to beat the shit out of each other? No irony? Just dumb? Okay. Oh and one more thing. When I was recounting this story to my mom today, she was, of course, horrified (and relayed the…

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friends memories musings randomosity

My youth, topographically speaking

So Randal has a post up about memory-mapping, which is a concept I just love because I am constantly trying to grab onto ways to bank my memories before my brain kicks them out or muddies them too much, so and I have jumped on board with all my baggage and made my own memory map. It’s just such a lovely little concept, I think, to find yourself combing over topography and allowing specific memories…

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memories project 365 (2009)

Day 55: Mardi Gras

I’m fairly indifferent about Mardi Gras in general, and lean toward curmudgeonly since it’s pretty much a free-for-all exploit-o-gropefest, but far be it from me to rain on anyone else’s weirdo parade. My second-grade teacher brought back beads for the class one year she went to Mardi Gras, and I’ve hung on to them ever since. I remember wearing them until the clasp broke. I do not want to know how my teacher got them.…

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