of treehouses and peehouses

no trespassing! keep out! this means you, cats!

in preparation for gutting our second floor, we cleaned our garage and crawl space. cleaning a garage is not unlike building a fort when you were a kid: you staple gun the sagging cardboard back up, jerry-rig some hooks and shelving, and try to find cool places to put your cds. like you're gonna hang out there or something.

cleaning the crawlspace which is actually connected to our house left us less than triumphant -- it was a cat urine soaked labyrinth of boxes filled with memorabilia from our respective pasts. great bouts of energy and progress were slowed by occasional reminiscing. i have three shallow varsity boxes full of high school dance team pictures, gorgeous costumes, and big puffy college photo albums full of those overpriced 4x6 sorority pics. i tried paring the pile down with minimal success.

young readers: don't throw out those pictures of yourself because you look chubby, or you have bad hair. i can promise you that, one day, fifteen years later, you will look at yourself and marvel at your youth. you will covet the body you taunted, pinched, and scolded. i have photos of myself when i ran six miles a day that make me want to weep, but i love the freshman-fifteen shots even more. such a round, smooth face! my mom stopped me from tossing a photo of myself taken on the bullet train from tokyo to kyoto because i had no makeup on and i begrudgingly conceded. looking at it now, i'm glad i kept it!