You always hear about a "teacher who inspired" someone. It usually sounds like bullcrap.
This woman proves to me that it can be true. This woman, Ms. Susan Ray, my 6th grade teacher,
taught me how to write. Not just spelling and grammar, I knew all that, but she taught me how
to be creative and inspiring in writing. She really made a difference in my otherwise hellish
childhood. Thank you, Ms. Ray. |
Yeah, I used to be thin and tan. This picture of me and my cousins David and Lisa was taken
when I visited them in San Diego in 1987. It was about half a year since my mother died, and about
four months since my hospitalization. I was about 160 pounds then, and looked terrible. This
is at my Uncle Charles's and Aunt Angela's house. |
My room was my dungeon and my haven. Pictured here are articles too numerous to mention, but this was
my room at the height of its semi-organized clutter in 1986. Daisy is by the 35 gal fish tank,
watching the fish, and later, she'll jump on the top to drink the water. Posters all over the
walls hide huge chunks of rotting drywall. My room was damp from years of non-waterproofed foundations,
and the windows were up high just to be above ground level. Sun rarely entered this room, since bushes
covered my windows. I had a lot of bug problems, too, usually the kinds of bugs one finds in caves,
like pill bugs, cave crickets, spiders, and cave centipedes. Everything from my room would take on a
damp, musty, moldy smell. Still it was home, and a place to hide. |
Because I want to know. Oddly enough, it used to be my bed comforter, and when I got a new
one, my mother made the old one curtains. This was before her heavy drinking. |
Having a damp room meant my fish tanks thrived. I had four, but I only had two or
less filled at any one time in my life. I had a this 5-gal, a 10-gal, this 20-gal, and
later the 35-gal pictured above. I loved the white noise made by the fish pumps, it would
drown out my parent's arguing at night. |
Before fish tanks, I had massive Lego structures. I still have all my Legos and thensome.
My plans will dwarf this structure, which still holds the record for the most complex thing I
even built with Legos. It had trap doors, secret doors, trick staircases, a full kitchen,
a royal hall, about 6 towers, two catapults, and two drawbridges. It also came apart in sections so I could
stage mini dioramas inside (that you could see through the windows). It also had some motor-driven
stuff on it (using wheels and rubber bands, I didn't have many Technic sets then), and two sets
of Lego lights, so it was lit from the inside at night. Really cool. |
