happy birthday, happy birthday

i woke up this morning feeling nostalgic and inspired. i think echo and the bunnymen, strong coffee, and a decent bagel will do that to a person.

it's time to describe the first trailer life at 1001 gina place, in sioux falls south dakota. this was my home from 1992 to 1999.

(side note: the lyrics to new order's "age of consent" are so appropriate right n0w)

anyway.

the first thing that comes to mind is cats. my mother and i colllected siamese cats. at one time, we had six different varietals. a blue-point, a seal-point, a chocolate-point, a tonkinese, a silver-point, and a burmese. fucking insane, right? when i was 18 i got a siamese cat tattooed on my left calf as an homage to the clan.

what else...

oh. right.

other collections. let's talk about little black sambo. if you aren't familiar, little black sambo was a children's book character created in the late 1800's. it was popularized later, maybe in the 1930's. the books caused a lot of controversy because the character was a "pickaninny" and the word sambo itself has been used a racial slur. anyway, my mom was obsessed with finding and displaying these books. they were set out like a shrine in our dining room, and when i was in high school i remember my friends would see them and say things like, "dude. is your mom a racist? what the fuck?". trying to explain the collection to people was always difficult, mostly because i was as baffled about the obsession as they were.