Monthly Archives: January 2011

Jan 30 2011

Bill Zeller

Lately many friends and others on the internet have been writing about Bill Zeller, a 27 year old victim of child sexual abuse who committed suicide this month. His suicide letter is available everywhere on the internet, just google him if you would like to read it. He started writing it a year ago, and had been thinking about his suicide for that long.

Here is an excerpt from The Daily Princetonian on January 7, 2011:

Friends and colleagues said they were shocked by the note’s contents.

“Even to us, his closest friends here, we didn’t know about 80 percent of what he wrote in the note or how he was feeling,” said Harlan Yu GS, one of Zeller’s roommates for the past two years. “I never had any hints living with him for a year and half that this was what he was experiencing on a daily basis. That’s why it was so shocking that he could have hid it so well … Reading the note it was in his voice, but the things that he was saying is such a far cry from everything that we knew about him.”

In contrast to the troubled person portrayed in the note, those closest to him remembered Zeller as a brilliant programmer, talented chef, devoted Boston Red Sox fan and someone who put his friends first.

“One of the hardest parts for me to read in all that was the fact that he didn’t seem to see himself as being a good person. He just went out of his way so many times for me that there’s no way you could have faked what he was doing or who he was,” said Joe Calandrino GS, a close friend who worked with Zeller on a number of computer science projects. “He showed a level of caring that I don’t think I see out of most people. And I don’t know how he could have even achieved that.”

While at Princeton, Zeller conducted computer security research at the Center for Information Technology Policy under his adviser Ed Felten, a computer science and Wilson School professor and director of CITP.

During that time, Zeller completed several high-profile projects. He and Felten published research exposing serious security vulnerabilities of websites such as The New York Times, YouTube and ING Direct. Zeller also co-authored an influential paper arguing for increased government transparency online.

When asked to discuss Zeller’s work, however, colleagues focused on the dozens of smaller projects that he completed in the past few years, which ranged from the practical — such as Graph Your Inbox, a tool to analyze and visualize Gmail activity over time — to IsItChristmas.com, which reads “no” 364 days of the year.

“I think he was just one of the most creative people that I knew,” Yu said. “A lot of the software he did certainly touched millions of people. He was always coming up with ingenious ideas that would often be funny and practical and also useful to those around him.”

“He would come up with an idea and he would dedicate his next week just because he was so motivated and excited about building something that lots of people could use, that people would find useful,” he added.

Before coming to Princeton, Zeller had already established himself as a young star in computer programming.

As a sophomore at Trinity College, where he graduated with honors in computer science in 2006, Zeller created myTunes, a free program that allows music purchased from iTunes to be downloaded to other computers. It was downloaded more than 3 million times.

Other early work included the open-source blogging platform Zempt, which has since been integrated into the widely used Moveable Type blog software.

“Bill’s work really grew out of his basic approach to life and to his interactions with his friends and colleagues, which was to look for concrete things he could do that could help people,” said Felten, who is serving in a yearlong post in Washington as the Federal Trade Commission’s chief technologist and returned to campus after the incident. On Thursday, Felten published a post in tribute to Zeller on the CITP blog, Freedom to Tinker.

Felten also emphasized Zeller’s commitment to mentoring undergraduates.

“I might not be in computer science but for him. He definitely had a major impact on my life, and I know that he’s had a major impact on a lot of others,” said Jennifer King ’11, who became a close friend of Zeller’s after he advised her work at a campus summer research program. “He’s not someone that I will ever forget because he was so instrumental in directing my life here. He’s not going to disappear into oblivion, which I think is one of the most important signs of a great life.”

According to friends, once Zeller set a goal, he would not rest until he was finished. “Once he decided he wanted to do something, he was almost obsessive with his desire to complete that and see it through,” said Joal Mendonsa, Zeller’s sophomore-year roommate at Trinity. “He basically wrote [myTunes] in a month without really sleeping. He would decide to work out more and would work out every single day for the next seven months.”

In his note, Zeller wrote that intense computer coding allowed him to escape his troubled thoughts for brief periods.

“As a computer scientist, he was an implementer; he was a doer,” King said. “He had this unbelievable creativity that allowed him to come up with crazy ideas, but then he’d actually go and do the crazy ideas, which is something that a lot of people don’t necessarily [do]. Those two qualities aren’t necessarily found in the same person.”

He was also heavily involved in the Graduate Student Government and chaired its facilities committee. “GSG is just one place among many on campus where Bill had many friends and will be missed,” said Kevin Collins, GSG president.

Jeff Dwoskin GS ’10, who co-chaired the facilities committee with Zeller last year, said Zeller’s many contributions included creating a program that tracked University shuttles’ locations and noted whether they were on schedule, a project he completed in a day.

“That was kind of his style, just to do something and make it work in a timeframe that was unbelievable to anyone else. He always impressed us with his ideas and abilities, no matter what the task,” Dwoskin said.

Zeller set himself apart from fellow graduate students in the number of people he reached with his work. “Grad school is the kind of place where you do work that only a few people see or you develop an idea so you can write about it and get it published, but he went the extra step to get things to the public that people used, real tools that had many real users. That’s something that a lot of graduate students can’t say,” said Ari Feldman GS, who worked with Zeller at CITP.

Posts about Zeller’s death on the prominent technology blog Gizmodo and the online community MetaFilter have drawn hundreds of comments, including testimony from those who use his programs.

Despite the positive impact Zeller had on his friends and those who used his programs, he wrote in his note that he chose to end his life to stop hurting those around him, as well as to end 23 years of pain caused by childhood sexual abuse.

“Maybe there’s nothing that could have been done,” said Joseph Hall, a postdoctoral researcher at CITP. “But I like to think in some parallel universe there’s a Bill Zeller out there who found a way to begin to heal himself. It’s a great loss for us.”

Sounds like a real competent guy, doesn’t he? He could do everything! And he did everything well, and quickly, and cheerfully, and wanted to help people. People were “impressed” by him. No one would ever think there was anything wrong with him, because he was so “competent” and “impressive”. He was larger than life.

After being competent and impressive for so long, how could a person reveal what is really going on? And let people down? No way. Better to just suffer in silence until you can’t take it anymore, and then just end it.

Unfortunately his death was not very easy. I am not sure how Bill attempted to end his life, but he was left on life support for three days, until it was determined that the best thing to do was to remove him from this artificial way of living and allow him to do what he wanted to do – die.

I hate giving unasked for advice. But if you know someone who is incredibly competent, someone who you are constantly impressed by, you might want to ask him every once in a while – “Hey, are you ok?” Ask him what he is thinking about, ask him what makes him sad or anxious or fearful. Tell him it’s ok to be less than perfect with you, that you don’t need to be impressed by him, that the fact that he is a human being gives him value in your eyes. That’s all.

Jan 29 2011

Nothing Much Going On

Thank you everyone who has sent me emails in the last few days. You are all so special, and I really appreciate your care and concern.

Yesterday my boss didn’t have electricity due to the snowstorm, so I didn’t go to work. I didn’t do much of anything, let’s see: I scanned more old photos, hung out on the computer facebooking, did some knitting and went out to dinner with my husband and son. Usually I light a candle in memory of the anniversary of my dad’s death, but I always get mad when my husband ignores it and doesn’t say a word about my dad. So this year I didn’t light the candle.

Usually I also talk to my sister, but since we aren’t really speaking I didn’t do that.

I didn’t call my mother, because in previous years she has never remembered that January 28th is the day my dad died, and that would annoy me. So I avoided calling her.

Avoidance – my new middle name!

What did I do today? Nothing really. Hung out on the computer. Knit. Came up with a Super Bowl menu (we are having some friends over to watch the game). Made a pound cake. Did a load of laundry.

My daughter told me that she got invited into an honor society at her university. It is a national collegiate honor society, and supposedly the highest honor a first year student can get. She is already a member of the women’s honor society. She also got a bid for the professional business fraternity; I didn’t even know she was interested in joining. She went to a few of their events and had an interview yesterday.

Then while we were talking she said she had to go, she and her friends were going to look for Miley Cyrus who is filming a movie in town. That made me laugh. First she tells me about her honor society and business fraternity, all very professional sounding, then in the next breath she tells me she has to find Miley Cyrus.

Oh, and I am watching VH1 which is showing music videos from the 80′s. Last week I mentioned to my son that no one is coming out with any good music these days, and he said, “That’s because no one is writing 80′s music anymore.” Clever kid.

Jan 28 2011

Thirteen Years

Today is the day my dad died, thirteen years ago. Last night I was going through old photos and many of them were from 1996, 1997, and 1998. The worst years of my dad’s life, but some of the most fun years of my children’s lives. How ironic.

Jan 27 2011

Snow

We had a very bad snowstorm last night. My usual 20 to 30 minute commute (8.5 miles) took two hours. I had to turn around at one point because so many cars were stuck trying to get up a hill. I had a slight panic episode right then. But I called my boss a couple of times while I was on the way home and he said I could always turn around and come back to his house. Which I am glad I didn’t because he lost power at 7:00PM and it was out for 12 hours. Our power went out briefly in the middle of the night, but by morning it was back on.

Unfortunately my beautiful cherry tree did not fare well. Here is what it looks like in the spring:

tree

Here is what it looks like now:

tree

You might have noticed that my posts lately are not accepting comments. The reason for this is because I have found myself becoming somewhat dependent on the comments, as well as feeling sensitive about them at times. Can you believe that I would wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and check my email on my blackberry to see if anyone has left me a comment? Well, realistically my blog is for myself. To think about my life, my behaviors and my emotions. I love the people I have met through my blog and I would never want to lose them, but I have to take a step back from the comments for a while. I’m sure I’ll open my posts up to comments again very soon.

I’ve also been feeling a little bit down. You know, bad thoughts. I’m not watching the Bourne Identity, but I am watching the Bourne Ultimatum. Which is actually a scary movie – lots of mind games, torture, brainwashing. The Bourne Identity is frightening in that the main character has no idea what is going on, which is scary, but ignorance can be bliss. By the time he gets to the Bourne Ultimatum his memory is coming back, and they are not good things to remember. And I probably should not be watching, but there are probably a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing.

Jan 27 2011

Top 10 Best and Worst Things About Therapy

Best Things:

1. T going out of the box and doing weird things I ask – leaving me voice mails, reading scripts, holding my box, having rubber bands for the times I don’t have my own.
2. T helping me by doing things I don’t even ask for – putting a clock on the desk because I couldn’t see the other two clocks, turning up the heat because I am always cold, attempting to be less intimidating by not wearing a tie (p.s. – it doesn’t work), not using the Purell.
3. Feeling understood and connected.
4. T thanking me for sharing something personal.
5. T remembering something I have told him in the past.
6. T being reliable and having strong boundaries.
7. T letting me email.
8. T continuously trying to make me see what is realistic and logical even if I don’t believe it.
9. T not telling me I am a loser and he can’t work with me anymore.
10. T’s self-disclosure.

Worst Things:

1. Not knowing the rules even after two years. Not knowing what topics are allowed or discouraged – “real” issues/weekly issues vs. what has already happened in previous weeks. Not being encouraged to talk about things that we talked about last week.
2. Inconsistency – never knowing what the response will be/Confusing – sometimes the response is validating, sometimes challenging, sometimes, probably due to my own sensitivity, judgmental.
3. Every week is a new week – nothing ever gets resolved, there is not continuity from week to week, would like to continue talking about things from last week, but since therapy is not “linear” I don’t feel comfortable talking about last week; feeling pressure to come up with something new every week, feeling like everything that came before today was forgotten.
4. Feeling judged when t gives his own opinion on his life, or tells me his feeling about himself.
5. Not feeling like I will ever be good enough at therapy even though I try to be a good client by showing up on time, paying quickly, never bouncing checks, leaving on time, respecting boundaries. The talking part is difficult for me and it is frustrating.
6. Feeling a pattern of connect/disconnect and not knowing whether that is coming from me or t and not wanting to talk about it due to #1.
7. Feeling misunderstood and not being able to clear up misunderstandings after the fact due to #3.
8. Bringing up big feelings and bad things and then having to leave and deal with them by myself because t disappears.
9. Not knowing what is real and what is projection/transference/resistance/rationalizing.
10. T not understanding my desire to be philosophical/abstract/deep sometimes (or is my desire a way to avoid dealing with current issues?)
11. Me always being the one who is wrong due to #9.
12. Not being able to do therapy in real time, having to process it after the fact, t not understanding that and wanting me to be different than I am, not understanding that I need to be able to think about/process/analyze things slowly and not necessarily in the moment and that is the way I am and I don’t necessarily want to change that and I don’t think it is a bad thing, just different than him.
13. When t reminds me he is “perfect” and doesn’t explain why he is reminding me of this.
14. T’s self-disclosure.
15. Being afraid every single week because of #1- 14.

Jan 26 2011

Therapy Recap 1/25/11

I printed out the part of my weekend blog post about therapy to bring with me yesterday and maybe give to J, but I didn’t give it to him. I didn’t even talk about it with him.

He asked what I wanted to talk about and I had nothing. Well, nothing came out anyway. There was a lot in my head. So he asked if we could go through my box of ideas. I said that would be fine, those things in there probably aren’t relevant anymore (we had done this box of ideas quite a while ago).

So he was going through the box reading the items one by one and I would say, “Oh, nothing I could do about that”, “Oh you can’t help me with that”, etc. One was about running and I told him I don’t run anymore. He asked me if that is because of the weather, and I said no. One was about my sister and I said that I don’t talk to her anymore. He didn’t say anything. One was about feeling guilty about isolating myself and I said I don’t feel guilty anymore.

So after we went through all of that and I had an answer for every one, he asked if I had accepted everything and moved on, or if I am pessimistic about life, or if I have just given up. I told him that I thought pessimistic is a judgmental word, then he had to explain in detail that it is just a word, it is not judgmental, that if a dog has been beaten by a man with a beard the dog would probably be pessimistic about men with beards. Frankly I don’t even think that is the correct use of the word, but I didn’t want to pursue this discussion of linguistics.

I can’t even remember how I answered. J asked about times that I am happy and I said that I am most happy when I connect with people. He said, “So you have been isolating yourself from people, but being with people is the one way to bring you happiness.” I told him it is better to avoid people and avoid the anxiety of whether I will connect with them. It is not worth the risk. He said it’s like I am backing myself into a corner, and I said I have backed into a corner and I actually kind of like it there. It is safe and no one can bother me. It is cozy. He asked if anyone else can come in and I said no they cannot. He said I would have to make space for someone else if I wanted them to come in and I said I would not let anyone in because I need my space. He said, “So you think it might be hard to get rid of them if you wanted to?” And I said, “No, getting rid of them would not be a problem, they would run away if they saw what my corner is really like.” He said he thought it was cozy. I said it is cozy because I distract myself there with bad coping mechanisms and no one else would want to see that behavior.

He asked why I would think that I wouldn’t connect with people and I told him because I don’t have anything to offer anyone, I have no value. I said, “We have had this discussion so many times, and I know that you value people for what they do, and you said society values people for what they do and we will never agree on this.” He said that he thinks that society feels that way, but he doesn’t, that he thinks people have value just for being alive. That if a 6 year old gets killed by a train it would probably make the papers, but if a 66 year old man got killed by a train he probably would not get into the paper, even though the 66 year old man has done a lot more in his life that the 6 year old.

Then he told me how much he likes his mailman, not just because he delivers the mail well, but because he is nice and has integrity, they have had lots of conversations. So I guess that proves his point!

J asked me why I wouldn’t find a new career. I told him I am too old, it costs too much, I don’t know what I would want to do and what if I do all of that and it still doesn’t make me happy? He said I am not too old, there are career paths I could take that wouldn’t cost a lot of money.

Then he went into how the people I work for value me. I told him I could be replaced in a second. He asked why I am not being replaced. I told him it is easier to keep someone in a job than to train someone new. He pointed out that I have relationships with the people I work for and no one can get that level of a relationship really quickly. He asked me what qualities I have that make me a good employee and I said I am honest, reliable and I respect confidentiality.

He asked if those same qualities are ones my friends would say I have. I said that qualities that are important to friendships are different than ones used for a job. He asked what is an important characteristic in a friend and I said authenticity, and I don’t show my true self to anyone. He asked how often I am authentic in therapy and I said I am sometimes, but other times it doesn’t feel safe. At that moment something must have fallen in a room next door because there was the sound of crashing or thumping. I said, “See – it’s not safe in here.” He said, “That was next door.” I told him it didn’t feel very safe last week, that I felt he was being judgmental because he was offering his viewpoint and negating mine. He said he hopes we could discuss things like this as they happen (sigh….he just doesn’t get that I am not a person who can do that, things move fast in therapy, and I am a person who needs time to process). He said he wasn’t judgmental, that he sometimes challenges me. Like today when he said that in order to be happy I want to connect with people, but instead I am isolating myself. He meant that to be a challenge to my thinking, not a judgment. I said that I did not take that as a judgment.

About a half hour into the session I realized that J did not ask me why I never sent him the things I wrote that I had told him I would send him in order to help explain my feelings about our subject matter from last week. And I didn’t mention it either.

So that was it. I’m sure there was more, but I don’t remember anything else right now.

Jan 25 2011

Writing Class Recap 1/24/11

Last night’s writing class reunion was really wonderful. We met in a lovely home belonging to one of the women who was in a class previous to my class. She had a really cool fireplace, it was gas, but it looked like dirt on fire. There were seventeen people there, plus the teacher, which is quite a crowd considering everyone reads a story. There wasn’t much time for feedback unfortunately, the question and answer period after each story is really nice normally, I feel we can really get to know each other that way. On the other hand, it is very encouraging that so many people come out to these meetings; it’s like having a bunch of people with whom to have a common bond.

I read my story about my grandmother, and passed around a collage of photos I had made of her. Everyone seemed to like the story, the teacher commented on my use of dialogue. I have never really written dialogue before and it is a little tricky. I didn’t know whether or not to use “She said”….”She replied” etc, so I didn’t. While reading the story I was able to use my tone of voice and timing to convey who was talking, but I don’t know if it would work if someone is reading it.

There is an 83 year old woman in the group. She took a bad fall a couple of months ago and ended up in rehab. She wrote a story about it, and it was quite amazing. I would never want to go through what she went through, but she came out the other end and is able to still attend writing class reunions. Some other people wrote about friends and family members who are ill, or who have died after long illnesses. These circumstances seem like ones that NEED to be written about. I admire anyone who can read their stories without crying, like I do. I made it through my whole story without crying, until the last sentence. I couldn’t read it, so I just pretended it wasn’t there.

I did cry during some of the other stories. Sigh. Just too emotional I guess.

One of the women in the class wrote about her career as a flight attendant. The first time I met her she read a story about her experience volunteering in Burma. She is going to Cambodia in the middle of February for three months. Today I emailed her to find out more about her volunteer work overseas and she invited me out to lunch with her this weekend to learn more about the organization for whom she works. This is an NGO and the commitment is no less than three months. She said she will bring photos too and explain the whole process to me. I am actually looking forward to it.

Jan 23 2011

Weekend Update

Hi! I’m still here. Life has been progressing. Here is what is going on:

1. My daughter IM’d me Friday and said she dropped out of sorority rush. She did not get invited back to either of the two sororities that she wanted, but she did get an invitation back to a house that she was not interested in joining. So she dropped out. She said that many of her friends also did not get invited back to their first or second choices, so they also dropped out. There were more girls than usual rushing this year. 600 girls went through rush, and 450 got bids. This year’s freshman class is very girl heavy. Most universities in the US are girl heavy, but this year’s class at her school is even more girl heavy than average. She seemed sad, although that could be my perception. It is hard to judge emotion through aol instant messenger.

2. I spent the day yesterday and today going through old photos and scanning them, uploading them to flickr and facebook. What started this was an email from my writing class teacher – tomorrow is our meeting and one of the topics is to write about a person in our life. This is good because I had already written a story about my grandmother (I posted it here a while ago). The teacher mentioned that if we do tackle this subject that we bring in photos of the person we are writing about, so I have been weeding through many many albums and boxes of photos that I have in my house. I ended up not only scanning photos of grandma, but other relatives and lots of pics of my children. This led to lots of conversation on facebook with relatives and friends. Kind of nice. My daughter, who is not my friend on facebook, saw the pics through my son’s facebook, with whom I am a friend on facebook. She requested that I open my photos to “friends of friends” so that she could see all of the photos and tag herself.

3. This led to me looking at her photos, which she has open to “friends of friends” and I noticed lots of pics of her and her friends at school, including one with a boy. They are sitting on someone’s bed and he has his arm around her. Hmmmm….. She has many photos of herself with lots of girls, and few boys. I’m glad that she has a strong social network, especially considering the fact that she did not get into the sororities that she wanted.

4. One thing particularly bothering me about the sorority situation is that one of the sororities that she wanted is a Jewish sorority – an official Jewish sorority. The fact that they deny entry to girls who are not pretty enough, or not popular enough, is bothering me. It is one thing for a purely social sorority to do this, but an official religious sorority excluding people because of their lack of random qualifications, is troubling to me. Maybe it is sour grapes, I do not know.

5. Therapy is coming up in two days. There may be snow, so perhaps I won’t be able to get there. I have been thinking about therapy this weekend, how a few weeks ago I showed J my slideshow and told him my feelings about how my life has changed since my children have grown. I felt very connected to him that day; he seemed to really understand what I was saying. But the next two sessions didn’t feel as connected. The first session after the connected one was a “problem solving” session – where J told me his ideas about what I can do with my life (volunteer until I become a grandmother). Last week’s session was about my view about aging, and I felt he was somewhat judgmental and that he didn’t understand me at all. This is sometimes a pattern with us – feeling that connection one week, and then a total disconnect for a few weeks afterwards. Is this me or him? Is he intimidated by the connection, and sabotages it in order to keep his distance? Or am I intimidated by it, and I sabotage it in order to keep my distance? Of course, I think it is him. But I am at the point in therapy where I know that this could totally be me and not him. I am, unfortunately, not at the point where I can tell the difference. I had told J last week that I was going to send him some stories I had written about growing up with illness in my family, and about my nephew’s illness, so that I could explain my feelings about sickness and aging. But I didn’t send him those stories. Why? I am afraid of what might happen if I send them and he still doesn’t understand. If I don’t send them, I have a good excuse for his not understanding my issues. But if I send them and he still doesn’t understand I will have sadness and frustration and emotional pain. So I will revert to my default mode – which is denial. I think this might be something good to talk about in therapy, but on the other hand I am afraid J will not want to talk about this. That he wants to talk about my “real” issues and my weekly experiences, not about my feelings about therapy and about him. Sigh. I want to go back to two weeks ago when I felt understood and even relief about having shared a painful part of my life with a positive result.

6. Tomorrow is writing class reunion. I am looking forward to it. I will share the story of my grandmother and pass around some photos of her. I found a photo of her with me as a baby, and I have selected a couple of her as I remember her – in her 80’s and 90’s. My mother’s cousin K, whose father was a brother to my mother’s father, and I had an email exchange today after I posted pics of her on facebook. He related some stories and feelings that he had about my grandfather, who died when I was 6 months old, so I don’t remember him at all. K was 10 years old when my grandfather died and he loved my grandfather. He said he was his favorite uncle, and his father’s favorite brother. I sent him the story I wrote about my grandmother and he wrote back right away saying he read it and how much he loved the story – that the love I had for my grandmother came through in every word. K lives in Canada, and I haven’t seen him in years and years. I would love to go visit him, of all of our family members I think he and I have the most in common. I should plan a trip to see him.

Jan 21 2011

Nephew Update #2

My nephew’s pediatric endocrinologist says that he almost definitely has the disease that my father had – pseudohypoparathyroidism. And that it is almost definitely the genetic type, because it is such a rare disorder that it could not be a coincidence that they both have it. They will have genetic testing to be sure – the doctor says that the males in the family are affected and the females are carriers.

But, because they caught it early, they can control my nephew’s calcium and vitamin D levels with oral medications, and he shouldn’t have any of the problems that my father had.

Since the doctors got his calcium levels into the normal range my nephew has been feeling quite good. He didn’t even know that he felt bad actually. You know how when you feel bad for so long you think that is normal? You can’t remember what feeling good should feel like? So he thought that was his baseline, but he is feeling a lot better now.

And he has been homeschooled for about two years now, and he is going back to regular school on Monday. He is in the middle of eighth grade, and my sister wants him to transition back to school before high school starts in September. It’s great that he is feeling better before this big change in his life. It’s so difficult to make transitions with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Who knows what will happen with my sister and me now. Why do relationships have to be so screwed up? And why do people have to get sick? Especially children. I guess that is another hard question that will never be answered. Yeah, I’m too philosophical.

Jan 20 2011

A Couple of Odds and Ends

Yesterday I mentioned my dream from a couple of nights ago. That my son drowned in the ocean, but then I found him and he was a little boy. I guess this means that when our kids grow up we lose them in a way, but we always have our memories of them, from when they were little and as they grow. I just wish he hadn’t drowned in the dream. I had a dream hangover all day.

My father’s cousin found some home movies in her basement. Her father bought a movie camera in the 1940’s and took movies for over 20 years. She has started to put them on DVDs for everyone in the family. Recently I got one that had me in it. I always thought I was the ugliest kid ever; all I had to go on was photos. I was watching the movie with my aunt and I said, “Who is that cute little girl in the movie?” She said, “That is you.” Wow. I was a cute little girl when I was 2. I was an ugly baby, and ugly most of my childhood. I say “most” because I guess I was cute when I was 2.

Here is a clip of the video. I’m the little girl waving a lot and kissing the boy at the end.

[cincopa AcGA_Z6L5ru5]