write down as many of my earliest memories from childhood as I can remember

My mom and I had just gotten out of the theater having seen Purple Rain. I was 12 years old. My mom was a huge Prince fan, and hence was I.

We decided to go get something to eat on the way back to the car. Somewhere in Westwood/Century City, where we saw the movie, there was this new type of place… a place that sold frozen yogurt instead of ice cream. To make it even crazier, they had a video jukebox. So we just put in our money to see every Prince video on the jukebox, from “Let’s Go Crazy” to “Controversy”. Anyway, yup, a video jukebox in a frozen yogurt place. Ah, the 80s.

(Next early memory, something very painful for me as kid, but hilarious to recall now, also involving show business.)

Around the time, acc. to my grandmother, my mom was in the hospital for a long while due to a serious car accident she had. So, I was being babysat by an older friend of my mom’s and grandmother’s.

Anyway, I was taking a bath, and - being a kid - I decided to goof around and just stick my mouth underneath the faucet and try to gargle the water. Well, thankfully, the water didn’t funnel straight into my body, but I remember having a hard time trying to get my mouth off the faucet and I was struggling. I couldn’t really scream, as there was a rush of water preventing any utterances from being heard by my babysitter.

The next thing I know, my babysitter or grandmother noticed my predicament, so they remove my mouth from the faucet. It turned out that I pierced that thin layer of skin that bridges the center of the area underneath my tongue. I remember looking down at the bathtub and seeing a small sea of red mixed with the bath water. I remember having a big towel stuffed into my mouth when I was crying.

I don’t remember much after that, but I do know that I ended up going to the emergency room to have surgery done to fuse the broken bridge underneath my tongue. I’m shocked that, to this day, the work done has proven to hold up. And it doesn’t look bad underneath my tongue at all. Whoever was the hospital that dealt with me when I was a very stupid 2 or 3 year old, thumbs up!

I consider that the best years of my life started once I started college. Seriously. I have zero people I can call “long time friends” before then. You’d figure this is a symptom of moving around a lot as a kid, right? My situation couldn’t be more opposite. I stayed in the same west L.A. neighborhood until I was 17. In fact, I rarely left the house—which wasn’t my choice, unfortunately.

So, I want to adopt this goal as well. I do want to balance this out alternating between one funny/pleasant memory mixed with one painful memory - mainly because the painful memories are all too easy to remember, but it will be a challenge - and possible a bit healing—to cull all the good times as well.