Blog - Birthday

This blog turned three yesterday. If I weren’t so self-involved, I would have sent it a card and filled a piñata with entrails. But today, to celebrate, I invited the squirrel into my kitchen

to share an avocado and sat in someone’s urine on a concrete bench. It’s sinful to be jealous of my charmed life.

I could tell Winter was over when my gutter broke and rain poured into the basement, soaking the carpet.  Thank goodness we love damp and smelly rooms or we’d be super mad. Another sign of Spring: I found Classic Pam (the kitten) under the tree in the backyard trying to act adorable. When will she realize that we only kept her because we felt sorry for her?

So sad.

These events inspired a new card. Perfect for a birthday?

It was only a matter of time because we were standing outside their office.

METRO home is a new special section in METRO. The cover of this months issue is intriguing and frightening. It might be a photograph of a bedroom/torture chamber. What’s behind those curtains?Yikes! This room comes with shackles and nightmares.

Urban Living Manifesto sounds really serious. Do people really take themselves that seriously?? Two words for them: settle. down.

Oh, but here’s something cheerful – it’s about Zeichen Press:
Those Room & Board prints were sure worth all of the sweat I dripped on them last Summer!

I am reflective as I sit, sipping my Hill Bros. latte and picking popcorn hulls out of my teeth. Lucky for me I was born right in the middle of the most optimistic month of the year. People (in Minnesota) born in April are sunny and full of, what the French call, naiveté. C’est vrai!

Embrace it, you Spring Chickens!

Here’s a new birthday card I just gave myself:

There seems to be something gnawing on the chicken-bone of my subconscious. Not just gnawing, but dipping it in creamy, blu-cheese dressing and sucking on it.

Thank goodness for the wet-nap, or whatever is doing the gnawing would contaminate the rest of my psyche. I like my non-physical parts to be separate. Like a melamine hot-lunch tray. Everything stays within it’s little-walled-area and nobody gets fussy.

Unfortunately, or maybe not, there does seem to be some breach in the Dreaming ~ Day Dreaming compartments. Sandbagging might help. Or a thick, mashed-potato partition – the mashed potatoes finally living up to their destiny.

Great writers are great ruminators but great ruminators are not necessarily great writers. I think that’s what I’m talking about. Or was I talking about my days in the cafeteria? Ah, the cafeteria…“Lunch Lady? Would you mind being careful to keep the gravy in its… No? Yes, you’re right. It all ends up in the same place…”  In the toilet. Which is, of course, a metaphor. That’s what happens when you give children mixed-messages.

So, anyway. I have a growing collection of printer’s cuts and for some reason I feel compelled to give each of them something to say. I realize that the New Yorker’s Caption Contest is eerily similar to what I do. Except I always win. That’s the nice thing about owning the company. Thatand the hugs I get from complete strangers. Why do strangers hug me? They might be trying to squeeze the life out of me. I’m not sure. They tell me not to resist – I’m always like, “Resist? Resist what? Who am I to stifle this bizarre act of love?”

Where was I? … Right. A line I wrote for a lonely cut:

PSSST,

are you coming to my funeral?

Only my fellow Minnesotans and residents of Chicken, Alaska can truly understand what it means to be cold. I am intrigued by deadly weather. Cold that can freeze a limb solid. Cold that flattens your car tires. Cold that makes your eyeballs feel funny. I braved the extreme cold today.

Twice.

-21° is COLD. But a Mexican Omelette was whispering my name with such longing… I put on every bit of clothing I own and headed outside. The car actually told me to F – Off. I reminded it that we were both in this together and that if it cooperated I would fill it up with Premium Gasoline. Foolish car, choosing gasoline over Mexican Omelette!

When I was safely inside of Hot Plate I laughed… Oh, how I laughed – and saluted the outdoors for being a worthy adversary. Later that day (that SAME day) I went outside again. I actually ran to the studio. It took 1.5 seconds. Luckily my exposed body part (my bottom) was unharmed.

Where was I? Oh, yes. I risked my limbs (and bottom) to run to the studio and lay out previously written cards. Three birthday cards. The metal type was awfully cold. I wanted to lick it but I exercised restraint.

The low magenta toner has put a hold on the catalog production. I am really, really upset about it. I’d like to spend more time with the new laser printer. Understanding its quirks, its likes and dislikes. What makes it get out of bed every morning? Does it enjoy being my slave? Don’t worry, Brother HL-4070CDW – this is only temporary. Jen paid the extra $3.99 for shipping and your toner will be here Wednesday. Thank you, Jen. I mean it. 

So I spent the day in the shop. Despite my tears I was able to lay out some previously written cards. I think the anguish really comes through. I am, after all, an artist. My soul is appropriately tortured. Whoa is me.

Uh. December is, like, over. I don’t even care. Good riddance you ungrateful pig. You think you’re so great with your Christmas and your Hanukkah and your Britney Spears’ birthday. I’ve had it. I think we all have. Even with all of these Feast Days I managed to squeeze in our long-awaited catalog creation. And don’t think I forgot about my 25-birthday-cards. Self-imposed deadlines are the only way to get anything done. You know what else works? Pretending someone is going to kill you if you don’t get something done. SO, I scrounged up some images and wrote some lines. Yeah, yeah – I’ve not set the type or done layouts or pulled any proofs – mere formalities. And anyway, my shop elves will do it while I’m ringing in the New Year in lovely Brainerd, Minnesota. Here are a few images/lines – they’ll be 15% funnier after I’ve had my way with them. And another thing: they’re not all birthday cards. I’m not some sort of one-trick pony.

You make this, you live.

Good luck.

Shhhh. Nobody’ll even notice us.

 

…and in conclusion – quit calling me a pussy.

Sincerely,

Pevenshire Wiffynuts

x=get me the f*ck out of here.

Congratulations.

I said, CONGRATULATIONS!

If you’re old enough to remember this game
you are probably sitting in your own urine.

Thanks for coming to my birthday party, my tiny friends.

••••••••••••

Alright, that’ll do. I’ll post more after the elves work it out. Oh, and if you see a woman running around Brainerd in giant underpants and Sorel Boots it’s not me. Happy New Year!!!

 

 

 

 

I’ve set a goal for myself. 25 birthday cards by January 1. Patina wants more birthday cards and dammit they are going to get more birthday cards. Why am I sucking up to that cutesy pootsy boutique? Because I LOVE IT. Oh, how I love it… If Patina carried a coffin, I would kill myself just to be buried in it.

Here’s a new card. – Designed on the computer, soon to be a plate, soon to be inked, soon to be part of our illustrious line.

By the way, I AM counting the Trader Joe’s rejects in my 25. So, 25-8=17. I used a calculator. Seriously.