Iron Fist

I finally got around to cleaning out some old filing cabinets (read: throwing away large volumes of crap I had been carrying around for years) when I discovered that for one reason or another the proofs from my senior photo shoot had been stuffed in a folder with some old tax documents and a random birthday card.  I tweeted about the discovery, and then a few people totally wanted evidence so I snapped a quick picture with my phone and uploaded it to the Flickr.  For those of you out there who aren’t stalking me on either of those other networks I might as well throw the photo up here along with a quick post about it.

Kerri asked why I was wearing a tux in one of them, and the answer is this: I don’t know how senior photos worked for all y’alls, but at my high school we were sent the name of a photo studio in the mail and a date and time on when we were expected to show up.  You were supposed to wear something sort of nice, and the photographer would snap a few pictures of you doing some unnatural silly things like sitting on a chair backwards and looking all serene or whatever, and then everyone had to get a few shots in with this silly half-tuxedo shirt with the tie already attached and a jacket thrown on over it.  These were the photos that ended up being used in the yearbook.  I really don’t know who decided these things.

It’s funny, looking back — I remember being the pudgy kid all through middle school and high school, but looking now at the sixteen year old version of me I don’t think I was fat at all.  If anything, fleshing out over the course of the years has meant that I’ve “grown into” my super-sized head, and finally coming to terms with having curly hair and letting it grow out longer than an inch has worked wonders for camouflaging my massive forehead.

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I took a (very brief) road trip to Montana the other day, and discovered that just like in the Pacific Northwest they are still getting rain as late as July.  I spent about twelve hours total there, which is a whole different story, but for now really I just wanted to show you a few pictures I took while driving home during the day.

And also to tell you this: Montana rest stops have some of the friendliest rodents around.  We pulled over just prior to crossing back through Idaho to stretch our legs, and I noted what looked like thirty or more chipmunks or squirrels running riot all over the lawn near the restrooms.  I wondered aloud whether it was mating season, but soon realized that these rodents had just keyed into a crucial secret of survival: if you hang out near where humans are passing by and are cute and fuzzy, humans will go crazy over you and shower you with food for your time.

I got a little closer to try and get a picture of one, and as I bent down with my phone to get a closer shot, the little bugger turned and ran right at me.  I backed up a step or too, trying to keep my feet away from him while trying to keep my phone close enough for a decent shot.  Thinking that surely I must be holding out some form of foodstuff for him, the little guy sat straight up and looked at me to let me know he was ready to receive his due.

Almost made me wish I had a cracker for him.

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