memories…light the corners of my mind

I had a big scrapbook when I was a teenager — one into which I would lovingly paste concert ticket stubs, pictures, letters, notes, hospital bracelets, friendship bracelets, pressed flowers, report cards, dance bids, fast food napkins, and other assorted and ridiculous teenaged girl treasures that I wished to preserve for forever. Jesus, I loved that thing; I still have it, buried in a box somewhere in the garage. It contains the tactile mementos of my youth and coming of age. In fact, if I remember correctly, the condom wrapper from the first time I fucked is ensconced there for all time, dutifully scotch-taped between some mortifying love poem in which “june” truly is rhymed with “moon”, and the program from a Bay City Rollers concert I attended with my best friends Susie and April when we were still but wee lassies. Goddamnit, I loved the Bay City Rollers! We were going to marry those boys, move to Scotland, and go on a Rock N’ Roll Honeymoon until the end of time. Keep on Rollin’! It didn’t quite work out that way, of course — but my cute true love jew boy in Los Angeles suits me just fine, thank you very much.

At any rate, I am starting to piece together Christmas lists for the babies and am thinking that I would love to get each of the girls a scrapbook of their very own. I started scouring the web in search of them, but the issue I face is that when you plug the word “scrapbook” into herr google, what comes up is completely overwhelming. With the apparent metamorphosis of the word “scrapbook” from noun to verb over the past decade or so, it seems that there is no end to the paraphernalia available — including special scissors, paper, glue, glitter, and all other assorted sundries related to what now appears to be a veritable cottage industry. So, my question to the brilliant collective that is my friends list is…do you know of any companies that just sell scrapbooks oe memory albums or whatever the hell they’re called? Or rather, do you know of any companies that sell VERY COOL, VERY HIP scrapbooks that don’t look like they are manufactured and marketed for the midwest soccer-mom puffy-paint blue geese kitchen decor craft-fair crowd? Do any indie companies out there even make these?

Thanks!

About muffybolding

Muffy Bolding is a mother/writer/actor/knitter/feminist/withered debutante who likes the smell of asparagus pee, and remains obsessed with the bathroom hygiene of her three children -- despite the fact that they are 23, 19, and 16. She is blissfully married to a cute Jewish boy who looks like Willie Wonka, but remains tragically in love with the dead poet, Ted Hughes. She has the mouth of a Teamster, and her patron saint is Rocco (pestilence relief.) Ms. Bolding lives in Southern California, where she enjoys typing words, making movies, and plucking the rings from the fingers of the dead. She was the co-creator and Editor-in-Chief of the award winning satire zine, Fresno Lampoon, and in between writing screenplays, carnival barking, and savagely threatening her trio of darling larvae with a wooden spoon, she currently publishes the zine, "Withered Debutante." More of her work can also be found in the anthology, "Mamaphonic: Balancing Motherhood and Other Creative Acts", the compilation zine, "Mamaphiles III: Coming Home", as well as in The Cortland Review and hipmama.com. She is currently writing and producing for film and television, and working on a book of essays entitled, "Inside A Chinese Dragon." She has slept around, but not nearly as much as she would have liked.

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