Pictures in my mother’s office

So, Miami sucks. For real. Apparently the only week it’s worth being around here ever is Art Basel, the first week of December, and of course, I’m stuck here the week before and the week after. I’ve decided that I am going to pretend I never left Spartanburg and just paint all the time. I’ve set up a pathetic little studio in one of the many “guest rooms” in my mother’s house (she could’ve just told us that they were “our” rooms and we’d be none the wiser, and we probably wouldn’t resent her so much, but no, they’re “guest rooms”) with a giant tarp laid over everything. My mother is still awake nights worrying about the carpet. Trying to paint in this house is like…what’s the phrase…letting out a bull in an antique shop?

It is warm, I will say that for it.

Anyway, one of the many plusses in this monstrosity of a home-that’s-not-mine is that it does not get wireless internet, so my mother’s computer is the only one that is hooked up in the entire, humongous, useless apartment. This means I spend a lot of time in her office. The office is full of pictures, and I thought I would share some with you.

So apparently, I’m related to these people. I guess we are all Jewish.

It’s too bad you can’t see the pictures too well, but the frame is really the kicker when it comes to this one. Me (dressed as a cat as a young child) and Mushy the Cat in conjoined hearts. Yep, we’re regular twins, best buddies. Let me tell you a little bit about Mushy. She was given to my mother as a gift before I was born. My relationship with Mushy is one of fear and hatred. She was like my anti-social, often violent older sister. As she got older, she hid most of the time, when she came out, my brother and I regarded her as a monster, and tried our hardest to steer entirely clear of any room she was last sighted in. Oh boy, was she evil. But look at us– hearts.

This is my brother at Hebrew Day School. Believe it or not, this is the closest he has come to an actual smile in any picture we have of him. My father and step-mother used to complain that he ruined all their wedding pictures with his train-wreck of a happy face. I suppose the whole family is better at sad faces, angry faces, and faces of general malaise and discontent. Except my mother. She’s fabulous.

This is my sister when she was little. She was the cutest.

She soon became this person. My mother thinks this is the funniest picture ever. It’s kind of a popular thing for people to make picture videos of their child’s life thus far for their Bar or Bat-Mitzvahs and play them on a big screen for all the guests. Well, my mother liked this picture so much that it was included in the big screen slide show at my sister’s Bat-Mitzvah, right before the one of her giving the middle finger to the camera. How do you like that one, rabbi? “Oh, come on, it’s funny. Anyone who doesn’t think so is uptight,” said my mother.

(This picture has been removed at the request of my mother.  She is very upset about the “invasion of her privacy.”)

This is my mother. Look at those shoes. I don’t even want to know the circumstances in which this picture was taken.

And then there are the following pictures of me. I am posting these mostly for Derya’s enjoyment (but feel free to enjoy them if you are everyone else):

Uh-huh, Glamour Shots. That hair is glamorous. And so is the material of that jacket, just glamorous.