I open the photographic pages to Dad’s birthday,
December 27th, to determine things that have
happened on his birthday. For this exercise, I make
nothing of the fact that he has been gone for nearly
twenty-five years. These are just things that happened
on December 27th. Which is not entirely accurate, nor
even likely hardly accurate, given that the dates on so
many of my many photographs are incorrect, have been
waiting to be corrected, a process I’ve been going through
for what seems decades now. Has it been that long? Here
are some things that occurred on Dad’s birthday. A man sits
at a desk in a home I resided for thirteen years. The man
is awaiting his transition into the enemy, into evil. In 2018,
an unidentified person, a blur, really, passes two trees decor
ated for Christmas in what appears to be a mall. This shows
up handwritten on the date January 7th, 1961, written by his
mother-in-law at the time (my maternal grandmother): Glenn
came in tonite with his family Thurlow’s Dad had passed away.
On that date in what is noted as 2014, Hiro and I are in line to
enter the Endup to dance. Hiro is visiting. Between and behind
our faces in the picture is the face of a gentleman with whom we
were both flirting for the duration of standing in the slowly moving
line into the club. All smiles. 2023, a nicely made up bed in my
last apartment, everything so clean and tidy it for a moment re
moves the nastiness that I now associate with that over six year
home of mine. 2016 – in a apartment building I’d never been before,
on a jaunt with a friend of mine, a photo of me with my phone apparently
taking photographs of this apartment building lobby in which I had set
foot for only the first time. My stance is more that of someone who has
a gun in his hand and is ready to use it. But I’m smiling. And I’d never.
At a Mexican restaurant in Dallas, Texas, it says, with my friend Don and
his partner, Patrick, who passed away several years ago. Big tipsy smiles.
I’m at a grocery store, perhaps in Chinatown, the photo is entitled “Copy of
Green Vegetables” – nothing can be seen in the photograph except for
what appears to be zucchini, or possibly cucumbers. Most likely zucchini.
A photo of me in a peacoat and with a mask, during the pandemic, a bit
of an unhappy look can be discerned upon what you can see of my face,
and there is a caption in yellow: “have i mentioned that i’m hungry?” 2011,
photographs of depictions of critters, likely in some department store, of:
a dragonfly, a blue and white bird, a sleek dog or maybe a fox, a turtle, a
ladybug, a parrot, it appears, wearing a top hat, I can make out parts of
additional dragonflies and turtles. Probably a completely incorrect date,
but it says 2016 (has to be 1999 or 1998, probably closer to summertime)
me standing out on what would be the land’s tip at Provincetown, Mass.
No depictions of my father appear on the pages in which I used the simple
search of “December 27” – there seem to be only a couple of photographs
even from before his passing in 2001. The exercise feels a need to be twinned,
what appears to be zucchini, or possibly cucumbers. Most likely zucchini.
A photo of me in a peacoat and with a mask, during the pandemic, a bit
of an unhappy look can be discerned upon what you can see of my face,
and there is a caption in yellow: “have i mentioned that i’m hungry?” 2011,
photographs of depictions of critters, likely in some department store, of:
a dragonfly, a blue and white bird, a sleek dog or maybe a fox, a turtle, a
ladybug, a parrot, it appears, wearing a top hat, I can make out parts of
additional dragonflies and turtles. Probably a completely incorrect date,
but it says 2016 (has to be 1999 or 1998, probably closer to summertime)
me standing out on what would be the land’s tip at Provincetown, Mass.
No depictions of my father appear on the pages in which I used the simple
search of “December 27” – there seem to be only a couple of photographs
even from before his passing in 2001. The exercise feels a need to be twinned,
I would think for better purpose, with photos from another search of his name,
