July 19, 2003 | 3:43 am
today i thought about laura t. i remembered how we went to her grandmother's house in st. francisville and spent the weekend every year for her birthday. i remember how only her closest friends went and i was one of them. i remember how i was told i had a "perfect nose" and how self-conscious i was about my nose for the rest of the trip.

i was in sixth grade. i was eleven. but i remember.

i brought a bright yellow and green and silver bathing suit and black cut offs to wear to the river. i remember swinging into the water. i never thought she would die in nine years. i never thought that at eleven she was more than half way through with her life.

but it was a moment. i thought about it as i was driving in the rain and i realized how simple life and death is. simple, that is, if you think that anything could start or end it at any moment, be it humans or other animals or anything, for that matter.

i wonder if there is this curse that follows me that beings death upon anything special or good in my life. it started with my grandmother, when i was a child. after reporting her missing for days, the police called her apartment (where we were living at the time) and informed my mother that her dead body was found by a boat in the mississippi river. it could not be concluded if she jumped or drowned or how she died. i like to think that she jumped -- that maybe for that brief moment she felt free as she flew through the air. i tell it as if she jumped. i was afraid of bridges for years, and i cross the same bridge over the mississippi six times a week. i think of her every time. shortly thereafter, tickles was hit by a viechle, maybe an 18-wheeler truck (?) tickles was my dog. tickles two, actually. he was the second of two black mutts we had. i lived at 2309 horace street, which i was convinced was on three streets (even though it was a corner - the street changed names at the curve, so i always impressed my friends by saying i lived on the corner of ovid and virgil and horace. they couldn't figure it out.) tickles died and i was sad. i had a picture of him in a frame on my dresser until i was about 12.

i wasn't but thirteen when james took his life. he hanged himself from his closet and etched into his buletin board were lyrics of songs about death and "I hate life" -- things i didn't see until the day of his funeral when his parents had us over to attempt to eat afterwards. i sat on a swing in front of his house with timothy reed and tim told me of what a loss he felt. andrya was supposed to come to eat icecream with me and my friend amie but her mom wouldn't let her. my mom wanted to bring me back to her work because she was too scared i would hang myself to leave me at home alone. that's what andrya ended up doing, later that night, when her parents left HER alone. hanged herself in her closet, copycat to james.

and thomas duvic, a week later, took his mom's car out for a joyride and wrapped it around a tree. i was 13 and he was a year older, but i knew him from school.

my sophomore year in highschool, one of my close friend's boyfriend was in a fatal accident coming back to louisiana from mississippi. one of his tires blew out and he died before he was brought to the hospital. i relived the losses of my loved ones as kristen told me the torment she felt from mike's death.

a year later, that same timothy reed decided he had enough of his life, and he hanged himself, copycat to james and andrya. as much as i thought the terror was over, it was indeed not. tim died the same month as the third anniversaries of both james, andrya, and thomas.

this past year, i was informed of the death of laura t. driving home from her first boyfriend's house, laura was nearly run over by eight drunks in an suv. she has the same car i do. we share the same name and our birthdays are two months apart.

and then my fish died. and many since then. only a foreshadowing of the things to come.

i wonder if i'm just too drunk tonight.

before | after

miss me?

make a difference - July 12, 2007
in short - February 20, 2007
gameday - October 14, 2006
quickie - October 02, 2006
roxie bear - July 06, 2006