Reverend: our house burned down when I was five and my mom had already gone through a separation from biological-papa, so there are only about a half-dozen pictures of me as a child. Lately I’ve discovered– and have been flickring for posterity– a treasure trove of photos of my mom and her sibs, grandma and her sibs, and some of me from 7-17. I may be the only person I know who gets depressed looking at such pictures, particularly of myself….

One of the few things I kept was letters I had never sent. I’m not sure why. But occassionally when I got haughty I’d read these insanely supercilious letters overfull of Rilke and Pound references — and it would just creep me out that I was such an uppity prick.

Of course, over the years I forgot that these were the letters I decided *not* to send, and started to see myself as a person who had been in that period detached from people, and that luckily I’d gotten over that and become a more friendly outgoing person sometime around Grad School.

Now that pictures of that period emerge, they are shocking. I’m holding up a funnel for someone in one, I’m always engaged in a conversation with someone or another, usually smiling in a way that has nothing to do with Critical Theory.

In a way I don’t like that — I liked my old narrative where I got seduced by a life of the mind and came back to the real and the social. It had an ARC, you know?

But I’m relieved to find out that I wasn’t a dick.

I agree entirely, the way this stuff finds you again with these networks is wild. I recently had a picture find me that I would much rather have forgotten, and yet I think it is important it is there. It actually makes me come to terms with a past I really can’t entirely control because others own a piece of it as well, and they can attest and testify to much of my character I never would.

See, that’s why I like the baby pictures, there are so few of them which makes the interpretations and counter narratives far less likely. Funny how with dgital identity and social networking we are keen on framing our online identity, but we also should note it provides a space for others to inject realities from our person we aren;t always ready to include or admit to. Which for me makes it real and complex.

So I had, until recently, not one picture of my outside a family event from around 1987 to my wedding in 1997. It’s been a hoot to see those pics reappear via facebook. And enjoyable for my kids as well.

Yeah, the girl in the top row, far right is my sister Daryel Ann. The kid who looks all mad is my best friend Tim O’Hare, and his sister is on the bottom row, far right, Alicia. The other two are sisters, Mary and Jeanie–it was Jeanie’s 3rd birthday.

HA!

That absolutely hysterical, can’t believe you found that one. I have been trying to disremember my days as a NYC street urchin, but this brings it all back in glorious black and white. You’re a psycho!

As for everyone else, you indulge me far too much, and if I had another image of me as a baby (besides those dark days as a cigarette smoking baby hooligan) I would abuse you with such self-centered nostalgia on a regular basis

I hope you appreciate the amount of time I spend in the historical archives of NYC to find this.