We should have that framed

Tracy is an only child. We commiserate about many things.

One day when I was in her living room, she pointed out, "We have a lot of pictures. Of me." This would prove to be an understatement akin to "Men In Black II is not a good movie" or "hot tar roofing is a bit messy." There are pictures of Tracy everywhere in her parents' house. I had never noticed it before, but of course as soon as she said it, it was all I saw. Tracy as a baby. Tracy at gymnastics. Tracy at the prom. Tracy at graduation. Tracy and the dog. If she wasn't standing next to me, I would have thought that Tracy had died in a tragic accident and her parents, overcome with grief, had turned their home into a shrine. It was a little JonBenet, to be honest.

I mean, I guess it makes sense. OK, well, maybe "sense" is overstating. But there's an expected amount of parental crazy that you put up with when you don't have any siblings to whom you can delegate it. You are simultaneously the most wonderful, special child in the whole word and the biggest fuck up. There is no little brother doing meth or older sister getting knocked up by her teaching assistant to which you can point and say, "Well, I might have cut 3rd period chem lab once or twice, but at least I'm not that bad." And there's no one else to distract them when they keep taking pictures of you. Some people have kitchens that are chicken-themed (this is true, I've been in one). The parents of one kid can have entire interior design schemes that are child-themed. It happens.

Except in my house. We had pictures of the cats (past and present), pictures of my aunt and uncle, and lots of ceramic animals on display. No one would ever come over and think that I had died in a terrible scooter accident and that my mother could only assuage her grief by surrounding herself with my image. Or that, you know, she had kids.

My living room only ever contained one picture of me. It was the 8x10 that came in package with my senior pictures. All of the packages of any school picture I've ever had included an 8x10. Why is that? At the time it was taken, my hair was too long, and I had recently been initiated into the cult of blond highlights, in the grand tradition of the Evans women. I am hugging a tree (not my idea), sort of smiling, and I look a little dazed. Dead in the eyes. You never look in pictures like you think you do in real life. So we framed it and put it in the living room, next to the ceramic fish. When I got my prom pictures back, I tried to frame the inevitable 8x10 and put it in the living room. Mom's response: "Jesus Christ, do we need to put the big one in a frame? Why do you keep getting the 8x10s?"

The last time I had a professional picture taken (not including the DMV) it was for my college graduation. I remember thinking precisely that at the time - this was the last time I would ever have a professional picture taken, unless I ever made Employee of the Month at the Costco I was sure I would end up working at. It was relief, really, since I never know what to wear for those things. They always tell you not to wear white, which isn't too hard when pretty much everything I've owned since 1994 has been in varying shades of black and brown. For picture day in my sophomore year of high school, I wore a Co-Ed Naked Volleyball t-shirt. It wasn't white, but I think they still ought to put that on the What Not To Wear list. Some people just don't know any better. Honestly, I have no idea what happened to my graduation pictures. I certainly don't have them, and I've never seen them hanging anywhere in Mom's house. It's probably for the best, since I look like a Stepford wife with the way they made me tilt my head.

A few months ago, I was standing in my mother's kitchen while we were cleaning up Christmas dinner. On the side of the fridge, there was a large picture of me leaning over a pool table, lining up a shot. Not a particularly flattering angle. Cooper had taken a bunch of shots at Crash Mansion one night, as he's wont to do, and I had forwarded some of them to Mom. Not thinking, of course, that she was going to print them out and decorate the kitchen.

"Mom, why the hell do you have this hanging up?"

"Well," she said, handing me a dish towel, "you never send me any pictures."

Then I noticed something on the bulletin board. It was a picture of Tracy.