way down yonder by the A & P."
The first lines of a great Lynda Barry comic strip. Remember "Ernie Pook's Commeek?" This strip was titled "Free Dog," and it's the story of a little girl who finds an old sick dog and brings it home. And her mother flips out, and the girl tries to find a home for the dog, but in the end the dog just walks off on its own. Free dog.
I have this yellowed, encrusted piece of newsprint on my bulletin board at home. It has traveled for years and years, between states even, showing intermittently on refrigerators and doors and bulletin boards near and far. I love this particular comic, and particularly, that opening line. "Way down yonder in the yonder of yonder..." This was written in 1994. I think it might have been published in the City Pages, here in Minneapolis. I should get this thing framed -- it has candle wax and cooking splatters and who knows what else stuck to it. And I'll be sad if it's ever lost. Why am I so attached to this thing? No idea.
The last line is, "And I knew how he felt about everything. Free dog. Free dog where ever you are."
PS Lynda Barry just put a new book out! In May. I hear it's the bomb.
laptop confessional
Friday, July 18, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Las Legitimas y Acreditadas
Kraft Easy Mac, Mission brand Cilantro-Lime Tortilla Triangles and a bottle of VitaWater. MMMmmm. Dinner.
On a related note, I'm a big fan of Ines Rosales' sweet olive oil crisps -- "Las legitimas y acreditadas tortas de aceite de Ines Rosales" -- sold in Lunds stores and co-ops and whatnot. A thin, crisp pastry with a little sugar and a touch of fennel. Comes in an oily white wax-papery wrapper, sold five or six to the package. I've started saving the wrappers, like Tootsie-Pop Indians, and maybe I'll do something clever with them. (See the experimental little quilt above, made from upholstery, fabric scraps, printed cotton, felt, magazine clippings and Tootsie Pop wrappers. Old item here. not so successful, but fun.)
Warning: Mission chips are liberally coated with black pepper too, and endow one with the Breath of Unbelievable Potency. Here, have a sucker. I always keep a few of them around.
What shall I cry?
I'm wading through the grad school application. Let it be said that I waited until after the deadline to start this, very nearly intentionally; and still the Admissions assistant said "oh that's fine, we'll work with you." I thought this might be divine intervention, at first; but my buddy Dean says it's because the seminary has 27 applicants for every 50 available openings. Ah, yes. SO, now I'm revising my Vocational Statement. Revising and revising and revising. Because they want to know, in one or two pages, what business I have applying to seminary. And I am an expert at filling up the exact word-count limit for any assignment. Brevity is not my thing. I must work at this. Plus, the Director of Admissions says he'll consider letting me in without a bachelor's degree. But there's no place in the application to make a case for it. So, I feel I must at least reference the issue in my Vocational Statement. How come I never got a BFA? Because art school is an incredible waste of money and time -- and I should know, having wasted PLENTY of both. No, I'm not writing that.
Actually, I'm not working on it RIGHT now (obviously), because I've had about two glasses of wine and I'm sure, certain, that not only is my brevity switch set to OFF but I'm also in danger of being pointless and emotional. Not to mention prone to bad grammar and excessive punctuation. And all those unnecessary adjectives that my husband likes to complain about. I tell him hey, I'm an Artist: I'm all about description. He doesn't buy it for a second. He reads academic papers for a living and he knows self-indulgence when he sees it.
OK, I should eat something.
What shall I cry, Lord?
Actually, I'm not working on it RIGHT now (obviously), because I've had about two glasses of wine and I'm sure, certain, that not only is my brevity switch set to OFF but I'm also in danger of being pointless and emotional. Not to mention prone to bad grammar and excessive punctuation. And all those unnecessary adjectives that my husband likes to complain about. I tell him hey, I'm an Artist: I'm all about description. He doesn't buy it for a second. He reads academic papers for a living and he knows self-indulgence when he sees it.
OK, I should eat something.
What shall I cry, Lord?
Sunday, July 13, 2008
My house smells like onions.
I did three loads laundry this morning and hung them on the line; but if I don't get those clothes put away, pretty soon they'll smell like onions.
Hangover Man made jambalaya today, and didn't even get to eat any. A sad tale.
He went to bed at 8 o'clock.
I hope he really is Hangover Man (serves him right) and not Contagious Man.
A long time ago, an artist whose name was I think Gwen Avant created an installation for an art show I produced, which involved many many many many yellow onions, and a typewriter. The onions were in a semi-enclosed area, heaped in a corner and sort of spilling out across the floor. The typewriter, an old Selectric, was held up by a small metal stand. Next to it was an ancient Rolodex, the kind that really roll, with big blank index cards -- the viewer's task was to consider the memories or thoughts evoked by the pungent onions and their papery skins, and type those onto the index cards. An additive process, simple but enjoyable, with the smell of onions and the clacking of the typewriter keys. But I digress.
Someone to the east of us is having a big fireworks display on a Sunday night. I can feel it in the floorboards, though I can't see anything since our house is perched on the side of a hill that slopes west.
In other news...the cursor is finally working again, and I can select items in the post composer pane as well as move my cursor from sentence to sentence. It was weeks, WEEKS, where the damned thing wouldn't work in Explorer for much of anything. What's up with that? At least it's fixed. Like a bad cold that you finally shake.
Which brings us back to Hangover Man. With any luck these hangovers will become a common consequence (for the first time in his life, and him in his forties). Maybe it'll inspire him to cut down a little. I hope. That way I might get some sleep, instead of dividing my nights between comforting my recently nightmare-prone son and listening to my husband snore like a jackhammer.
Ok, time to get back to the grad school application. Where am I applying, you might ask? Click here for more info.
I did three loads laundry this morning and hung them on the line; but if I don't get those clothes put away, pretty soon they'll smell like onions.
Hangover Man made jambalaya today, and didn't even get to eat any. A sad tale.
He went to bed at 8 o'clock.
I hope he really is Hangover Man (serves him right) and not Contagious Man.
A long time ago, an artist whose name was I think Gwen Avant created an installation for an art show I produced, which involved many many many many yellow onions, and a typewriter. The onions were in a semi-enclosed area, heaped in a corner and sort of spilling out across the floor. The typewriter, an old Selectric, was held up by a small metal stand. Next to it was an ancient Rolodex, the kind that really roll, with big blank index cards -- the viewer's task was to consider the memories or thoughts evoked by the pungent onions and their papery skins, and type those onto the index cards. An additive process, simple but enjoyable, with the smell of onions and the clacking of the typewriter keys. But I digress.
Someone to the east of us is having a big fireworks display on a Sunday night. I can feel it in the floorboards, though I can't see anything since our house is perched on the side of a hill that slopes west.
In other news...the cursor is finally working again, and I can select items in the post composer pane as well as move my cursor from sentence to sentence. It was weeks, WEEKS, where the damned thing wouldn't work in Explorer for much of anything. What's up with that? At least it's fixed. Like a bad cold that you finally shake.
Which brings us back to Hangover Man. With any luck these hangovers will become a common consequence (for the first time in his life, and him in his forties). Maybe it'll inspire him to cut down a little. I hope. That way I might get some sleep, instead of dividing my nights between comforting my recently nightmare-prone son and listening to my husband snore like a jackhammer.
Ok, time to get back to the grad school application. Where am I applying, you might ask? Click here for more info.
BIG
"The Big Show" tonight on channel 2 was, appropriately, "Big" -- the 80's film with Tom Hanks and Elizabeth Perkins, about the 13-year-old boy who wakes up one morning to find he's a 23-year-old man. This was a favorite of mine for a short time, long ago. Now, as the mother of a young boy, my take on this picture was notably different. Laughably, maybe.
The kid makes a wish at the command of a possessed fortune-telling machine called Zoltan, a carnival relic that only works when you unplug it and kick it a few times. Creepy thing -- at any rate the kid wishes "to be big," and the next day he's 12 inches taller and a whole lot hairier, thanks to Tom Hanks and his perpetually woolly pate. "Josh" the kid doesn't want his parents to see him transformed (he's imagining serious trouble when they realize he's too old to start 7th grade in the fall). After convincing his initially freaked-out best friend to help him hide in nearby New York City, the two decide Josh only has to find the now-missing Zoltan machine and make a wish to return to his rightful size and shape. Unfortunately, the New York department of Consumer Affairs says it will take six weeks to generate a list of potential locations for Zoltan. Meanwhile, Josh visits all the NYC hot spots, including FAO Schwarz (one of the first places I landed on my inaugural trip to New York.) At Schwarz he meets an entertainment mogul who offers Josh a job testing and designing toys (a big leap of faith is required for this plot point, but this is obviously a fantasy anyway.) Working for said mogul Josh gets a taste of the big time (complete with Peter Gabriel soundtrack) and meets a girl besides. Here's where Jen the Mom starts to feel a little squicked-out.
It's not that I can't believe a 13-year-old boy would have sex with a pretty 30-year-old woman, given the opportunity to do so. It's more the reverse: imagine what happens when poor Elizabeth Perkins realizes, at the end, that she's inspired the next ten years of adolescent lust for this kid. And holy crap, what if he were MY kid? Setting aside for the moment the six weeks of anguish poor Josh's mom goes through (we never see it) waiting for her son to return from God knows where -- if my kid told me at 13 that he had actually slept with a Woman, I think I'd turn myself in to the police as a complete failure of a parent. Right after I awoke from a dead faint. This is a realm I am in no way ready to contemplate -- my son as a sexual being. His father assures me this starts young, and I simply do not want to hear it. And this was the 80's, this movie -- Josh and his Woman are TOTALLY having unprotected sex. (Though I'm sure she's on the pill.) Good Lord. You can only hope that in the unwritten script of what happens after Josh returns home normal-sized, he simply refuses to tell his mother anything; and she spends the next ten years sending him to analysis instead.
All that having been said -- this film brings back memories of another kind. At 13 I was nothing to look at, having no natural sense of style or interest in girly-girl diversions. I was a nerd, tall and I thought plain, though looking back I see that I was simply cute by adult standards rather than attractive by the impossibly unrealistic standards of junior high. I was reading at the college level, questioning my teachers rather too often, skipping class a bit and getting spit on in the halls occasionally. But it wasn't all bad -- I had nerdy 14-year-old boyfriends, a new one every other month, and I was the undeniable queen of the art department ( a title I held into high school.) My boyfriends were generally nice guys, outcasts like me but not morons like so many of the jerks who roamed the halls (trying to look like Scott Baio.) Apart from the fact that my parents couldn't buy me nice clothes, I never really understood why I was doomed not to fit in. I frequently overstepped the bounds of a mysterious caste structure. By 16 I had an impressive thrift-store wardrobe, a perm and a hunky boyfriend who drove one of those phony hotrod-slash-pickup trucks. In fact, he asked me to marry him. I still have the ring.
The kid makes a wish at the command of a possessed fortune-telling machine called Zoltan, a carnival relic that only works when you unplug it and kick it a few times. Creepy thing -- at any rate the kid wishes "to be big," and the next day he's 12 inches taller and a whole lot hairier, thanks to Tom Hanks and his perpetually woolly pate. "Josh" the kid doesn't want his parents to see him transformed (he's imagining serious trouble when they realize he's too old to start 7th grade in the fall). After convincing his initially freaked-out best friend to help him hide in nearby New York City, the two decide Josh only has to find the now-missing Zoltan machine and make a wish to return to his rightful size and shape. Unfortunately, the New York department of Consumer Affairs says it will take six weeks to generate a list of potential locations for Zoltan. Meanwhile, Josh visits all the NYC hot spots, including FAO Schwarz (one of the first places I landed on my inaugural trip to New York.) At Schwarz he meets an entertainment mogul who offers Josh a job testing and designing toys (a big leap of faith is required for this plot point, but this is obviously a fantasy anyway.) Working for said mogul Josh gets a taste of the big time (complete with Peter Gabriel soundtrack) and meets a girl besides. Here's where Jen the Mom starts to feel a little squicked-out.
It's not that I can't believe a 13-year-old boy would have sex with a pretty 30-year-old woman, given the opportunity to do so. It's more the reverse: imagine what happens when poor Elizabeth Perkins realizes, at the end, that she's inspired the next ten years of adolescent lust for this kid. And holy crap, what if he were MY kid? Setting aside for the moment the six weeks of anguish poor Josh's mom goes through (we never see it) waiting for her son to return from God knows where -- if my kid told me at 13 that he had actually slept with a Woman, I think I'd turn myself in to the police as a complete failure of a parent. Right after I awoke from a dead faint. This is a realm I am in no way ready to contemplate -- my son as a sexual being. His father assures me this starts young, and I simply do not want to hear it. And this was the 80's, this movie -- Josh and his Woman are TOTALLY having unprotected sex. (Though I'm sure she's on the pill.) Good Lord. You can only hope that in the unwritten script of what happens after Josh returns home normal-sized, he simply refuses to tell his mother anything; and she spends the next ten years sending him to analysis instead.
All that having been said -- this film brings back memories of another kind. At 13 I was nothing to look at, having no natural sense of style or interest in girly-girl diversions. I was a nerd, tall and I thought plain, though looking back I see that I was simply cute by adult standards rather than attractive by the impossibly unrealistic standards of junior high. I was reading at the college level, questioning my teachers rather too often, skipping class a bit and getting spit on in the halls occasionally. But it wasn't all bad -- I had nerdy 14-year-old boyfriends, a new one every other month, and I was the undeniable queen of the art department ( a title I held into high school.) My boyfriends were generally nice guys, outcasts like me but not morons like so many of the jerks who roamed the halls (trying to look like Scott Baio.) Apart from the fact that my parents couldn't buy me nice clothes, I never really understood why I was doomed not to fit in. I frequently overstepped the bounds of a mysterious caste structure. By 16 I had an impressive thrift-store wardrobe, a perm and a hunky boyfriend who drove one of those phony hotrod-slash-pickup trucks. In fact, he asked me to marry him. I still have the ring.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
morning
Just arriving at the office after lingering too long at home this morning. Such a breezy cool morning, after an evening of violent storms that in the end did no real damage in Northeast.
As happens when I wait too long to leave on a Saturday, I was already anxious on the ride over here, worrying for no reason about leaving the guys on their own. As I was unlocking the church door, a man of indeterminate age approached me on the sidewalk. "Do you work for the church?"
Charles was obviously looking older than his years, too thin, missing teeth. He'd been here before and spoken to one of the pastors. He needed to use the phone, to borrow some money for a bus pass.
After the phone call we chatted a little. His medical condition is his biggest concern -- he has a failing liver. As the conversation progresses, we talked about platelets and esophogeal bleeding, visiting the methadone clinic around the corner, not having a roof over his head... I noticed a few things as he spoke, and surmised that he probably has AIDS, or is at least positive. So I did what I could, and then he went on.
Now I'm in my office with the music turned up. The SDA congregation that uses our church on Saturdays includes many small children, and they're always yelling, crying -- tired of church, no doubt. I'm sure parents care for them; but I get so tense with the crying, wanting to find out what's wrong and fix it, no matter how small the concern. It's easier just to turn up the music, God knows there are enough responsible adults in the building right now.
Time to start the bookkeeping. I didn't sleep well last night, because H. didn't; we all stayed in bed until 9am as a result. Another reason I'm so late. Already exhausted with this day, but I'll have to get over it -- :-) As Charles said, it could be worse.
As happens when I wait too long to leave on a Saturday, I was already anxious on the ride over here, worrying for no reason about leaving the guys on their own. As I was unlocking the church door, a man of indeterminate age approached me on the sidewalk. "Do you work for the church?"
Charles was obviously looking older than his years, too thin, missing teeth. He'd been here before and spoken to one of the pastors. He needed to use the phone, to borrow some money for a bus pass.
After the phone call we chatted a little. His medical condition is his biggest concern -- he has a failing liver. As the conversation progresses, we talked about platelets and esophogeal bleeding, visiting the methadone clinic around the corner, not having a roof over his head... I noticed a few things as he spoke, and surmised that he probably has AIDS, or is at least positive. So I did what I could, and then he went on.
Now I'm in my office with the music turned up. The SDA congregation that uses our church on Saturdays includes many small children, and they're always yelling, crying -- tired of church, no doubt. I'm sure parents care for them; but I get so tense with the crying, wanting to find out what's wrong and fix it, no matter how small the concern. It's easier just to turn up the music, God knows there are enough responsible adults in the building right now.
Time to start the bookkeeping. I didn't sleep well last night, because H. didn't; we all stayed in bed until 9am as a result. Another reason I'm so late. Already exhausted with this day, but I'll have to get over it -- :-) As Charles said, it could be worse.
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