Bee Lavender

From the archives: my kid with Stevie, 1999.

My unexpected, amazing, wild and unkempt Brooklyn garden. I bought the house in winter and had no idea this would happen.

Portraits of my ancestors. Nyland, Laakso, and Frederickson clans fully represented.

More of my collections, including antique breast pump and hearing aids.

Some of my collections (my own teeth, extracted under duress, included).

I have no fucking idea.

I really do not want to open any more boxes.

Bet you can’t guess what is in this box.

Hint: my great-grandfather was a union enforcer.

In a word, why?

I know I own the magazines because I attempted to peddle them second-hand to pay for Governors’ School in 1988. I know I bought the condoms out of the vending machine in the toilets at the Port Orchard bowling alley in 1986. But why exactly do I still have these items in my possession, and why did I just pay to ship it all across the country?

The sheer volume of ephemera in the boxes is sufficiently overwhelming, but the particulars are enough to drive me insane. For instance: apparently I still own some tights manufactured in an era before SKU and sold in a store that vanished decades ago. WTF.