My parents were high school sweethearts in Woburn Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. At 17, my dad (lied about his age, in the era you could get away with that) joined the Air Force and lived in the Sahara Desert. By the time he came back, my mom married someone else and moved to the West Coast. My dad then also married someone else. My mom had two sons and a daughter with her husband. My dad had 3 sons and a daughter with his wife. Both marriages ended, sending both my dad and mom home to Boston Massachusetts. They got back together and had me, their one and only child together. Out of all my siblings, Bobby was closest to my age and he was ten years older than me when he died June 4, 1984.

My history of journals and their destruction which brings me here, to try that mess again. Why not do it in a public forum. I was inspired to start with a crazed story from my life leading to permanent PTSD around dating. It just kept going and going...The picture is of my bedroom when I was in my early 20's. I had a wrought iron sleigh bed my mom gifted me when I was in high school. It held a futon mattress. I loved that bed and had it for nearly ten years though when I moved into an apartment, I discovered putting it together solo was the pits. My bedding was also pretty great. I was in two decorating 'worlds'. In high school and then college, I loved black and white - my high school bedroom was gun metal grey exterior paint with black and white artwork in black gloss frames. Most of my furniture was black with touches of white and also red. I saved up money to buy an insanely large black and white photograph for my college apartment which had been sold by the time I had the money. I HAD to buy something. I looked in the bins of this shop and found a equally large scale print of Idyll by Gustav Klimt from 1884. This completely changed my style, slowly. In this photo was some of the artwork I loved. I still have that M.C. Escher print ('Drawing Hands, 1948) which is now set in a much better black mat wood frame behind the most beautiful burgundy mating with black core and prominently featured in one of my hallways. I hang it incorrectly, according to the experts but I approve. This photo also features a print I forgot I had long ago and gifted to a friend who probably destroyed it. Betty Boop herself as an Obsession, Calvin Klein perfume ad. It was pretty perfect in the bedroom of a gal in her 20's I feel.