Blog - Freaks

Our 1983 Field Trip to the Art Institute ended tragically when some naughty eighth-grade boys smuggled in their skateboards and much to the museum docents dismay, rode them up and down the herringbone wood-floored hallways. These same boys also smoked cigarettes and at least one of them had a super-tall mohawk… Lucky for everyone, I looked like this:

My Mom threw caution to the wind and signed ANOTHER permission slip for me the very next year. This time it was to Como Zoo/Park. I made sure to pack my tunafish sandwich and wrap my Shasta in tinfoil just like my sister. It went off without a hitch. For me. One boy in our class was not so fortunate because he decided to avoid the gate and slipped while climbing over the pointy, cast-iron fence. His corduroy pants and bottom were never the same… He walked around holding his derriere and I was, of course, scandalized.

Speaking of school… I made some graduation cards:

And speaking of Field Trips… without permission slips (WHAT??), Lucy and I went to the Arboretum yesterday with Aunt Clare to see the Dahlias and have a picnic. (WITH NO SHASTA?!) Also, we saw Edward Scissorhands stumble out of this grapevine-creation:

And PER TRADITION, I made Jen a birthday card and PER TRADITION we avoided seeing each other. DON’T BE JEALOUS!! 

If only someone would spray paint a clown riding a unicycle on the Washburn Water Tower. 

Wait, someone did that in 1989 and I spied it on my bicycle while I wasn’t procrastinating writing a paper on the Shroud of Turin!

Here is an an artist’s rendering (mine) because I didn’t have my fanny-pak (Franny-pak) filled with an iPhone/camera and, sadly, only had the image seared into my brain via synaptic plasticity:

The only difference between the artist-rendering and the real graffiti is that the clown’s legs didn’t end with feet and were just magically stuffed into the wheel-hub. Did this give me nightmares??  Why would it??

I haven’t even thought of it for the past 30 years.

We sat on the rug every day while Ms. Stringer read a story to our second grade class — I felt jealous of the girls that planted themselves behind other girls so they could “play” with their hair. Why don’t they ever play with my hair? Sigh… Oh, well… Hey, WAIT!! Someone IS playing with my hair today!! Okay… Don’t move or they might stop… Just listen to the story… This feels pretty nice!… Okay, story is over… Turn around and see which girl it was… ACT NATURAL… Waaaait, that is NOT a girl!!! That’s an icky boy!!! I casually walked back to my desk and felt my hair… Maybe he DID braid it?? It does feel kinda funny… Um, no. NOT braids. HE TIED IT IN KNOTS. KNOTS. 

I don’t know why that memory pulled this Mother’s Day card out of me. PULLED IT OUT OF ME JUST LIKE I PULLED THE KNOTTED HAIR OUT OF MY HEAD AND SECRETLY SHOVED IT IN MY DESK.

Facebook is so good at reminding me of important dates, LEST I FORGET. Normally I’d chisel a statue to honor a significant event, but I settled on creating a letterpress greeting card and ALLOWING the Intern and Jen to print it. 

It will be added to our much anticipated Spring Release. And I’m sure if Prince were still on Planet Earth, he’d whisper a thank you and dance away in his tiny high heels.

My lookalike bike was hiding in Seattle

and all it took was one woman (me), 543 days of determination, and searching all of Craigslist to find it. Oh, and one man who was willing to take it apart and ship it 1,645 miles. 

In your face, “Cara” from OfferUp.

And P.S. I KNOW that’s not your real name and I hope you cry yourself to sleep every night because you feel super lonely. P.P.S. Maybe you can’t read the two-inch-tall bike-brand ‘NOVARA‘ emblazoned on the frame because the crack-smoke is in your eyes?

I don’t question how I’m inspired, I ACCEPT IT. So, here’s a Mother’s Day card I made that I’m sure “Cara” will neither give nor receive.

It was 1979, so he only needed short shorts, roller skates, headphones, and passion. He skated, nay, DANCED, around Lake Calhoun — it was a performance for no one, or was it for everyone??

I’ll never know what came through the cans on his ears, but it must have been something funky because he danced like the good folks of Soul Train.

Now here I sit, maybe someday I’ll don my roller-skates and boogie with my new headphones…

UNTIL THEN, I shall create. 

I spend my days and nights writing and designing… Feverish and barely stopping to eat, I create.

If only I had my own Antonio Salieri. IF ONLY. I wrote a Christmas card. Or whatever.

Remember when you were three years old and and ran down a hill and lost control of your legs and ran straight into a wooden post that holds up the picnic pavilion?

No??

My forehead wanted to meet that 4×4 so bad and who am I to stand in the way of destiny?? I don’t pretend to understand the stars! Wait, I do! I do pretend to understand the stars!

While Jen is on the Cape, and between my sobs because I miss her so much, the Intern and I box up orders. 

But what about that head-injury?? Hush your sweet mouth and spend the next ten minutes wondering why I am so in tune with the cosmos.

I sampled purgatory (again)… this time at Logan airport. I guess if I was jogging in place for five hours I’d like to be blasted with cold air from a ceiling vent. And if I wanted to watch a Surrealist film, I would have used my precious data and Boingo wifi to stream Volume I of the Anthology of Surreal Cinema on Netflix.

But like a group of shipwrecked strangers, bobbing in a life raft in the middle of the Atlantic, we were trapped together. Trapped and forced to watch a grown woman giving life to a humanoid using only her bare hands.

Anyway, flight 244 may have been delayed but it took off with little fanfare. Passengers boarded like zombies, sans bloody mouths.

I wish I would have thanked that needle-felting woman and I’ll probably never see again, but I’ll never forget her.

Here is a thank you card that has nothing to do with her or the travel odyssey.

I stopped going outside sometime in November because I’m waiting to try out my Earthing Sandals.

I am thinking (fingers crossed!) that April will be the lucky month. Maybe I can join my neighbor’s walking club… they use walking poles and I don’t want to look like a weirdo without them… I better order some today…

Oh, I have created a lil’ masterpiece for an insurance company in Florida.

A two-sided card that Jen will print and the Alltrust consultants will throw at CEO’s as they run out the door. It turns out that Floridians need to be insured for more than just sinkholes, gator-attacks, and flakka-induced cannibalism. Who knew??

All of the Walking Club Fantasies and Semaphore-Practicing, inspired two new cards. I tried to make a Valentine’s Day card and I might have succeeded. YOU TELL ME.

And this one is actually Based On A True Story.

Back to daydreaming…