meet the parents

i've been thinking about my parents a lot lately. thanks in part to the end-of-semester stress, i miss those crazies, even though they usually drive me crazy. in my family, we consider this a positive attribute. anyway, i have often been told that i favor niether of my parents, but that i look, instead, like the unlikely but exact 50/50 genetic reproduction of them. literally, like mixing red and blue to produce purple.



here's my mom, on the right, with her friend Pris. my mother is a book antiquarian. i guess that's like a geriatric specialist for books. she buys, sells, researches, and restores old books. she also works in the library on wednesday nights. her best friend is my aunt Pat. she takes one of her cats with her when she visits my grandparents 3 times a week. she can stop a child from throwing a temper tantrum better than anyone i know, although curiously she often has the opposite effect on me.



say hello to my dad. he used to be a photographer, then he produced documentaries, and now he directs commercials, public service announcements, and corporate/industrial films. in this picture he's napping on his couch with frenchy, who used to be my cat. my dad spends a lot of time ministering to his cats, taking walks, and planning trips. he also enjoys gardening and keeps a spotless house. he loves that couch as if it were a member of the family. he has been smoke-free for over a year. he goes to bed ridiculously early.

conclusion: not only do i look like an equal amount of each parent, but also i am a literature grad student who studies documentary, particularly photo and video narratives, and who enjoys napping, small children, a clean house, and trips. diagnosis ? as i suspected. i have, in fact, become my parents (at so young an age ?!?).