They say that I was born in February, in a hospital in Midtown, while it snowed. It is legend. There are photographs. They say the blue bathing suit with the little green frogs was my favorite. They say that those are my mother’s sunglasses, pointing at a naked boy wearing nothing else, in a Polaroid, laughing. My first birthday and the big stuffed dog? I remember that dog but I don’t remember getting that dog. It seems like I always had that dog. She would sleep in bed with me—endlessly vigilant, black plastic eyes flashing hallway light if anyone opened the bedroom door—along with a real cat named Good-For-Nothing Layabout Cat. That’s you, they say, pointing at a photograph—a little boy at his first rodeo, in a baby-blue cowboy outfit with suede fringe, standing awkwardly and squinting into the sun—but they aren’t pointing at a photograph, they are pointing at a story, how this and that and something something. What does it take to own the myth? Why build a self from this? It makes me uncomfortable, my story—part insight, part anecdote—started by unreliable people at cross-purposes. And which photographs didn’t get saved? And which photographs didn’t get taken? I never figured out who named the cat but everyone took credit for it.