1.2
My earliest memories are of being in my crib, although my mother always insisted that was impossible. But I remember the Bizzy Bees mobile over my head - Mom said that I talked to them, constantly, in my own baby language - and I remember pulling myself up to my feet, holding onto the chin-high rail for support, and watching my mother kiss my dad goodbye before he left for work in his fireman’s uniform. To this day, firemen and policemen seem bigger-than-life to me, and the smell of polished leather combined with a man in uniform inspires a creepy mix of emotions, mashing up Freudian horniness with yes-Daddy supplication and a vague sense of dread.
I suffered my first childhood falling-on-my-head incident as a baby, somehow clambering out of my high chair and plummeting, forehead first, onto the stone kitchen floor. Naturally, this became a legendary touchstone for my mother to recall whenever I did anything especially stupid - “Well, you did fall on your head when you were a baby.” And she might have had something there, in retrospect - perhaps I landed on the part of my developing brain that allows one to do math, because I’ve always been sort of retarded in that area.
Until I was five, we lived in a Spanish-style house in Manhattan Beach, California, with a huge enclosed patio. You had to walk up a path, through the patio - which had a brick barbecue that my father built, and deep planters along the whitewashed plaster walls that were full of Birds of Paradise - then down a balcony and enter the house upstairs. It was a small house, despite looking impressive from the street - a living room, kitchen and bathroom upstairs, a bedroom, laundry room and garage downstairs. As a baby, my crib (and then my first, small bed) was in my parents’ room. My father turned the garage into a bedroom for me, and I moved into my own room when I was a toddler.
My memories of living in that house are disjointed and dreamlike. I remember kids who lived behind us shooting rocks at me with an airgun until my mom stormed over and scared the hell out of them. I remember going down the carpeted stairs on my butt, thump-thump-thump-thump-thump and thinking that was hilarious. I remember eating Trix cereal and my mom pretending to be the Trix Rabbit and me, giggling, telling her Silly Rabbit! Trix are for kids!
I remember playing house under a card table with a blanket draped over it, with my bear and stuffed monkey and dolls, while Mom watched the afternoon movie-matinee show and did the ironing, the smell of her steam iron wafting through the living room. When she brought me my lunch, she’d knock on the top of the table and say, Chicken Delight!, which was what the guy said in the commercials for the local fried-chicken delivery chain. I would give her play money in exchange for my lunch, then share it with my bear, monkey and dolls.
Most of all, I remember my parents loving each other. It didn't seem significant, really, because they were all I knew. They hugged and kissed and held hands and snuggled together on the couch. But I only remember them doing this when I was very little -- it wasn't long before they started growing apart and, by the time I was an older child, they were cool and sarcastic with each other most of the time.
I suffered my first childhood falling-on-my-head incident as a baby, somehow clambering out of my high chair and plummeting, forehead first, onto the stone kitchen floor. Naturally, this became a legendary touchstone for my mother to recall whenever I did anything especially stupid - “Well, you did fall on your head when you were a baby.” And she might have had something there, in retrospect - perhaps I landed on the part of my developing brain that allows one to do math, because I’ve always been sort of retarded in that area.
Until I was five, we lived in a Spanish-style house in Manhattan Beach, California, with a huge enclosed patio. You had to walk up a path, through the patio - which had a brick barbecue that my father built, and deep planters along the whitewashed plaster walls that were full of Birds of Paradise - then down a balcony and enter the house upstairs. It was a small house, despite looking impressive from the street - a living room, kitchen and bathroom upstairs, a bedroom, laundry room and garage downstairs. As a baby, my crib (and then my first, small bed) was in my parents’ room. My father turned the garage into a bedroom for me, and I moved into my own room when I was a toddler.
My memories of living in that house are disjointed and dreamlike. I remember kids who lived behind us shooting rocks at me with an airgun until my mom stormed over and scared the hell out of them. I remember going down the carpeted stairs on my butt, thump-thump-thump-thump-thump and thinking that was hilarious. I remember eating Trix cereal and my mom pretending to be the Trix Rabbit and me, giggling, telling her Silly Rabbit! Trix are for kids!
I remember playing house under a card table with a blanket draped over it, with my bear and stuffed monkey and dolls, while Mom watched the afternoon movie-matinee show and did the ironing, the smell of her steam iron wafting through the living room. When she brought me my lunch, she’d knock on the top of the table and say, Chicken Delight!, which was what the guy said in the commercials for the local fried-chicken delivery chain. I would give her play money in exchange for my lunch, then share it with my bear, monkey and dolls.
Most of all, I remember my parents loving each other. It didn't seem significant, really, because they were all I knew. They hugged and kissed and held hands and snuggled together on the couch. But I only remember them doing this when I was very little -- it wasn't long before they started growing apart and, by the time I was an older child, they were cool and sarcastic with each other most of the time.