PICTURE POST II!

[Greylock Crescent]

An amazing tribute! I love how your mom (and you) have remained grounded through it all. I am sorry to hear about your brother ... I simply cannot fathom having to endure something like that.

But to turn technical for a moment, I think those two B&W photos (of your mom and your brother) are brilliant. And that you took them at such an early age is fantastic!

 

[Tom Hendricks]

Wonderful pictures TSQ, thank you for sharing. You may want to encourage your mother to write her memoir, even if its only for herself. I have found that writing down significant portions of your life can bring a real peace. I'm not a real sharer of intimate information, even with family or friends. However being able to expelle your feelings onto a blank page, even a terrible writer like myself is super cathartic.

 

[cooleddie74]

I like the new pics you posted, tsq. Your mom's very pretty, and when she was your age she looked quite a lot like actress JoBeth Williams.

 

[thestrangequark]

An amazing tribute! I love how your mom (and you) have remained grounded through it all. I am sorry to hear about your brother ... I simply cannot fathom having to endure something like that.

It was a long time ago -- he died at 16 and would have been 33 now. Missing the chance to grow up is the hardest thing, but I'm just happy that he had 16 good years. I've posted some pictures of him before, he was a cutie:

We looked almost exactly alike when we were little:

But as we got older, I stopped wearing dresses, and he started :

No matter what, he was always stylin':

But to turn technical for a moment, I think those two B&W photos (of your mom and your brother) are brilliant. And that you took them at such an early age is fantastic!

Thanks -- must be the artist in me.

Wonderful pictures TSQ, thank you for sharing. You may want to encourage your mother to write her memoir, even if its only for herself. I have found that writing down significant portions of your life can bring a real peace. I'm not a real sharer of intimate information, even with family or friends. However being able to expelle your feelings onto a blank page, even a terrible writer like myself is super cathartic.

I think she wrote journals in her 20s and 30s. She's done with reflection now, though, I think. She's said she knows she will never get over everything that happened to her but she's accepting that and moving on. I think it's a really smart choice. Evaluating one's childhood traumas and working through issues is valuable, but at some point you just have to let the past be what it will and get on with living.

I like the new pics you posted, tsq. Your mom's very pretty, and when she was your age she looked quite a lot like actress JoBeth Williams.

She bleached her hair once, in her early thirties, and looked exactly like a very tanned Kyra Sedgewick. So much, in fact, that she got such frequent autograph requests she just gave up and started signing Kyra Sedgewick's name.

 

[Emher]

Your brother is owning that dress! And I totally see how people could confuse your mother with Kyra Sedgewick when she had her hair bleached.

 

[Australis]

Really nice pics, tsq

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Wonderful pictures, TSQ! Your family is amazing.

 

[Kestra]

A friend was kind enough to visit me and we drove up to Sonoma for a day and night. I have been to Napa and St. Helena before, but never Sonoma and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. We also went to Alcatraz because my friend has a "thing" for prisons. Crazy! Here's a bunch of random pics I took on my phone.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Great photos, Kestra! I love the way you captured the beauty of the countryside and the grittiness of the prison. I'd say #s 3 & 4 are my favorites ... though #7 ... I always have a soft spot for landscape shots!

 

[cooleddie74]

That part of California always looks amazing. Thanks for sharing, Kes.

 

[Kestra]

Great photos, Kestra! I love the way you captured the beauty of the countryside and the grittiness of the prison. I'd say #s 3 & 4 are my favorites ... though #7 ... I always have a soft spot for landscape shots!

Thanks! Alcatraz was weirdly creepy. I don't easily get creeped out, but there's something about the way it was all sort of broken and run down and you have all these people snapping pictures and listening to an audio tour and you remember that people actually lived there.

That part of California always looks amazing. Thanks for sharing, Kes.

If you've never visited, you definitely should come to Northern California at some point. I've travelled a decent amount but it's just beautiful out here. Not just wine country but everywhere you turn there is something amazing.

So I hope you guys don't mind me posting some more pics, but I've been in the process of scanning our old family photos and I love some of the older pics. It's really interesting because some of the great ones are ones that I'd probably quickly delete on a digital camera now.

This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of my dad and my brother:

My gorgeous mom and my brother:

My brother being a month old and looking very suspiciously at Santa:

Me in a chair/swing in our old basement:

Me at my third birthday party in my favorite dress with my new favorite toy:

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Those are fraking adorable, Kestra!

And yeah, I, too, would get a bit weirded out by walking through a place so haunted (figuratively, at least) as Alcatraz. Your photos definitely did a good job of capturing that vibe.

 

[cooleddie74]

Those are terrific and super-cute photos, Kes! At first I thought the toy doll you were holding was a Glow Worm but it doesn't look like it.

Your mom looks stunning.

 

[Kestra]

At first I thought the toy doll you were holding was a Glow Worm but it doesn't look like it.

No, it totally was a Glow Worm! I was crazy about that thing.

 

[cooleddie74]

Oh, it was? My eyes and memory were failing me, then! I forgot not all Glow Worms were dressed in green.

 

[RoJoHen]

My roommate went out for his birthday the other night, and I, after going back and forth about it all night long, eventually decided to go out and join him around 1am. And here we are. I was very sober. He has no recollection of this picture even being taken.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Hedonists!

Seriously. I'm jealous.

 

[RoJoHen]

Unfortunately, we both had to work the next morning. I was exhausted all day. I don't even want to imagine how he felt.

 

[cooleddie74]

Nice!

Beard and the Forehead.

Coming to TNT. We Know Drama.™

 

[RoJoHen]

And now for something awesome.

This is a watercolor painting that my friend did for me. I said, as a joke, that she should make me a painting of an awesome bearded spaceman. I was not actually expecting her to do anything, and then she showed up to my job today carrying this. The actual painting is roughly 4 feet long.