Truckin'

I dream of trucks. Big, beautiful, boastful trucks from the decade in which I came into the world. A blue tick healer in the bed named Timber, the windows down, and the AM radio providing the soundtrack to my trucking dreams...

Unbelievable

I share an office at work with nine other members of management. Most of the time my little area of our headquarters is organized. The others tend to let their work mingle in the office. On the cork board above my area of the desk hung various little pieces of inspiration from my life...as a way to keep me going. Pictures of my art, family members, zany birthday cards and postcards of artist I adore often spark conversations with other associates and visitors. Even my market manager thought my holographic image of the Mona Lisa that turns into a skeleton was cool...something different to look at...to think about. I arrive to work after my days off to discover the office has been cleaned. All the miscellaneous manager paperwork is gone. And my inspiration board was taken down and put into a box for me to take home. I was so hurt and angry that someone threw my stuff in a box. I agree the office needed to be more organized...but now we are only allowed to have one picture frame on our shelf, one wire cup for writing utensils and one wire basket for "in" papers. It was apparent that the time to re-arrange the office was more important than cleaning our backroom or taking care of inventory issues that are effecting our current negative sales in the store. As I looked at my box full of stuff I felt really disjointed from the company I have given 13 years of my working life. The world can be such an amazing beautiful place....just not in my store. They pack it into a box and tell you to take it home.

A List

List 10 things that swirl:

1. sprouting fern
2. water down a drain
3. drill bit
4. rose blossom
5. electric stove top
6. our galaxy
7. the curl in her hair
8. this seasons hurricanes
9. the barber sign
10. black hole

...this was a tiny insert in a fashion magazine that arrived today in the post....to me it felt like poetry...what would you add to the list? (me?...crown of a newborn)

Max Fisher was waiting for me in the Post this morning. He is the creation of random flickr meeting with a student from Michigan. She does the most amazing collage work...often featuring the characters and details from Wes Anderson films. I asked if she could do one of Rushmore for me... I sent her some prints of my Tenenbaum Pet Portraits and received this in return. I am over the moon with this bit of art...I do love a Max Fisher in his red beret...Stephanie you are amazing!

Survivor

This somewhat scrawny tropical plant lives on our lilac bathroom. He was a gift to me four years ago from my peers at work. Four years ago I had an emergency appendectomy on the eve before Halloween. I was in the hospital for five days instead of the modern overnight stay. The husband tells stories of how costumed people were hanging out in the waiting room with them as I waited over 13 hours for the hospital people to decide what was my issue. My husband arranged for the League of Woman voters to come to the hospital so I could cast my ballot...and I was still pretty drugged up by the time the husband's birthday rolled around. I remember very little of my life from that November four years ago...other than how great it was to finally take a shower without any help washing my hair. The story goes that my appendix had popped during the week and had turned gang green (I know---yuck). By the time my family drug me to the hospital the infection had started to travel to other body organs---my doctor told me much later how serious the situation actually was. As I forgot to water the little fellow today (again) I am amazed at his tenacity to survive in our little bathroom over these past years...and at all the changes that have come in and out of our lives over these years together. I am happy to greet him every morning....me and my little green survivor.

The birthday is at the end of this month. Above is a photograph of my parents before my arrival. Below is a short piece I wrote during a different birthday...reflecting on the meaning of it all. (Note: I think my parents are beautiful in this picture...their apparent tenderness caught in a moment of photo booth antics...it has always been my favorite picture of them before other things happened in life...)

The Snapshot

They hopped into a photo booth to capture a flash of their young selves. It’s black, white and a thousand shades of gray. So his eyes are not blue and his hair is not wheat blond. Her rectangle glasses read black instead of tortoiseshell. The true colors of her eyelet blouse and his dark football t-shirt forever in mystery grays. Her long black hippie hair is in their with his bushy mustache before the scissors of responsibility found them both. They’re heads are close together to fit their smiles into the frame. She’s sitting on his lap. They look wrapped in a warm secret of comfortable joy. It was taken a year or so before I was born. It’s my mirror to knowing that my genetic contributors were once happy and truly in love, if even for a moment in a thirty-something year old snapshot of summer romance.