Thanks for the nice comments everyone! I'm glad that I finally got the nerve to contribute... it's nice to have an outlet. :)

I've got one more, for Picture Five:

It started with a book. Stefan read “On the Road” (translated because his English was terrible) and swore that he “finally got it.” He and Fred would sit on that wall for hours, talking their nonsense. Fred wrote poetry, and it made no sense (and I never thought it terribly profound) but we snapped and fawned. Smoked too much and acted old, and though I never felt edgy or modern, I was happy with my friends. We were closest that summer, our summer of Beat. I still wonder if Ginsburg thought Kerouac was a nut, but just liked to listen.

and, because everyone gets one... omgdeblikedwhatiwrotefangirlsquee!!1!1!

Also, yes, the woman in #10 just has that look on her face. Makes you think she said something vicious just before the camera snapped.

erika, I thought she looked pregnant too... just didn't know how to work it in.

I just love this whole thread. Everyone knows how to turn a phrase just so so that it really hits home. Love it, love it, love it!

I couldn't resist...

Picture 4: Everything is laid out in the next room. After all, every funeral deserves a feast. As we waited for sunset, Alex insisted that he needed a picture of the whole family. Most of us are a little uneasy with photographs, but we hadn't taken a family picture since the little ones came over. I had the girls cleaned up for the picture, but they couldn't resist the spread in the next room. They've always been messy eaters.

The girl chained to the table has cried herself out now, and only whimpers and moans occasionally. Thomas will be with us soon.

Aww, man, Ginger. That is teh creepy.

My take on #10. The momma's getting stomped on with combat boots today, isn't she?

I wish Mama would stop dragging me to these things: Junior League, the Rotary Wives Club Ball. She knows how I hate them. Other girls make me feel so ill-at-ease. Mama says she’s invested too much in me to stop now. First, it was dance and deportment lessons; then, elocution and French. Now, it’s all these damn balls and club meetings. I spend hours getting ready. There’s so many extra things to do: pad my girdle, pad my bra, shave twice so the make-up hides the shadow. Mama, I don’t want to be a girl, I want to date girls.

HA! Ailleann, I was about to do one called "The Unbearable Lightness of Ferlinghetti and you just saved me the trouble. Woot!

Look At Me Drabble for Picture #8

In Re A Sudden Suspicious Death

I don't know anything about it. I wish you'd stop asking all these questions.

So you have the photo - what does that prove? Of course I know who they are, they're my cousin Janice and her friend Rosie. Don't talk to me as if I was stupid.

What? No, I wasn't mad at Rosie. Just because Janice died doesn't mean I'd do anything to Rosie. What? Do I think it was Rosie's fault Janice killed herself, Rosie stealing her boyfriend? That isn't my business.

They're both dead now anyway. You can't prove I did anything.

I want to go home.

Ha. Girlfriend wants the Out. But of course, it doesn't exist.

I was actually mentally linking to my second favourite Shirley Jackson novel, "We Have Always Lived in the Castle."

Scary as shit, funny as hell, deeply twisted, and with the best "the townspeople hate us and we've had a mass murder in the family, so they sing this about us" ditty ever:

Merricat, said Constance, would you like a cup of tea?
No no no, said Merricat, you'll poison me.
Merricat, said Constance, would you like to go to sleep?
Down in the boneyard, ten feet deep?

I love Shirley Jackson.

I think I'm going to have to pick up some Shirley Jackson one of these days. Where would you recommend starting with her, Deb?

Photo #7.

Look at his face! Jaime was so proud of that car. He wanted nothing more than to own it. He said with that car, he could start his own taxicab company. What if it was only one car to start with? He worked four different jobs for two years so he could buy that car. He and his friend, Manolo, drove it 24 hours a day the first year. They bought a second car and hired two more drivers. When we got married, we drove it to Cancun for the honeymoon.

Someday, I wish he’d look at me that way.

Nice, Deb! I absolutely love We Have Always Lived in the Castle -- it might even be my favorite Jackson.

I can't decide which photo to do next.