October 2011
1 post
breadcrumb trails
I didn’t want to say anything until I felt like these things had roots, but I have two new seedling projects: fruityfantastica the third (with a real domain! at last!) and thingadingaday.
The new incarnation of fruityfantastica is meant to be a place for those of us who need a little steadying as we figure out how to do that one thing that gives us deep joy every day, whatever it is....
September 2011
1 post
addendum(b) - or, what the hell did I expect,...
I’m almost a year into my life as a truckstop refugee. What do you know, semi-automatic rage, hello again. Time to listen to the pinch. I’m being pushed back out into life, this life of mine that refuses to wait me out. Time to make good on making good stuff.
I’m still scared.
May 2011
2 posts
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February 2011
8 posts
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The Fudge That Got Away
I’m putting up some pictures of recent work (somewhat recent? recent-ish? No visible mold?). There isn’t a lot of it and may not be more for a while, for I am currently studio-free and time-free and a couple of other frees too.
But there’s no reason to let perfectly serviceable blog fodder go to waste.
I present to you: Remarkable Fudge.
Acrylic, oil and alkyd on primed...
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January 2011
1 post
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December 2010
2 posts
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and a partridge in a pear tree
This week in the extended Fantastica family, by the numbers:
flooded basement: 1
enemas: 1
chemotherapy rounds: 1
worrisome mother-daughter blowups: 1, but it felt like 4 because I am an efficient jerk
late night trips to the E.R.: 2
people slated for eye surgery: 3*
school fiascos, including band concert disasters due to faulty oboe reeds: 3 and counting
a child in tears: numerous
...
November 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Sometimes the Plot Doesn't Work
I don’t know how to put words on this thing. Maybe because it looks like failure from where you sit, flushes plot down the crapper, is grotesque on one side and completely ordinary on the other.
I got a part-time job as a grocery store clerk. I wear a red vest and a name tag.
(Okay, now I’m giggling.)
On the day I turned forty (FORTY!) I applied for a job on a whim, promptly got...
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October 2010
4 posts
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WatchOne of the regular features at the Hedge Society is Our Daily Bird; a tidbit of art or story or music that has something avian about it. I went hunting for Daily Birds the other day, and found this egg at the National Film Board’s online archive.
I would love to be adept with the personal blog. I don’t know how; the cat’s got my digital tongue. I blister with the...
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Uh oh. The Sketchbook Project.
I’ve joined up. Updates to follow.
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September 2010
2 posts
1 tag
overdue, underdone, this metaphor's gone on too...
So hello.
It’s been too long. I promised to bring back presents but all I have are these tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner, and a packet of ketchup. That’s pretty disappointing.
Yeah. Sorry.
Oh, one thing - I found out that there is a little donkey in the corral. It’s tired of the carrots and its flank is scarred from being hit with the stick and it refuses to go...
tannerblog asked: Hello,
I just wanted to say thanks for the follow and let you know that I started following you from my primary tumblr, mymomreviewsmyphotos.com
Oh, and I love the story of your Fruityfantastica name. I still might have to check in with Meaty Magnifico to verify though, haha.
Best,
Tanner
I just wanted to say thanks for the follow and let you know that I started following you from my primary tumblr, mymomreviewsmyphotos.com
Oh, and I love the story of your Fruityfantastica name. I still might have to check in with Meaty Magnifico to verify though, haha.
Best,
Tanner
August 2010
1 post
“I remember reading that when the writer Tracey Chevalier had her first baby,...”
– Frank Cottrell Boyce, The Parent Trap: art after children
(Too good not to share.)
July 2010
6 posts
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we are thirteen
This marriage took seed
in a red circus wagon
and gestated
like an elephant.
It was born to a fanfare of banjos,
a chorus line
of small brown women
in saris.
It grew stalwart
fed by your courtesy to waitresses
your talent for making old ladies glow;
bore the weight of our sick and our dead
was almost sunk
rose again
Hallelujah.
.
Now this miracle child is thirteen,
that...
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“That sounds like something Alf would do.”
– The Girl, upon hearing my description of Jana Sterbak’s meat dress.
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questions the girl asked me, July 28 - June 1
What's the difference between a good-quality pencil and a poor-quality pencil?
What's the difference between 4H, 2H, HB, 2B and 4B?
What is transsexuality?
Who produces the most diamonds in one year: Africa or the North West Territories?
What is a Ming vase?
Does a Ming vase cost a million dollars?
What would happen if you broke a Ming vase?
Would I make a good rock star?
Did you ever not believe in God?
What is Sharia?
How do you spell it?
Have you ever seen a stick bug, like, in real life?
June 2010
3 posts
2 tags
vacation plan
I will build a sturdy corral
with my collection of
ten foot poles
I will collapse
in its dusty heart
I will ask the sky,
“What is prayer?”
and wait
for the knowing chuckle
right before Madge says,
“You’re soaking in it.”
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piñata
Back when our house
took in nerve gas and breathed out fear
pumped water through varicose veins
of clotted lead
back when
you could catch a dose of
autism
from the toilet seat
or a wet kiss,
back in that raw time
a birthday party was a defiant act
shot through with risk (girl)
impossibility (boy).
.
We got a piñata anyhow.
Fringed wings and bulging eyes
begged mercy,...
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May 2010
9 posts
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Isolation, Despair, Compassion, Murder →
I don’t have a lot to say about this. I am trying not to buckle under the weight of it, because what good does that do anybody?
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April 2010
1 post
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March 2010
10 posts
2 tags
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“For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God...”
– An excerpt of Jubliate Agno, written by Christopher Smart during his time in an insane asylum, between 1758 and 1763. source
***
Our eighteen year old cat Zoe is dying. She’s been with me since art college, before marriage and before babies and before autism mayhem and before she had to...
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A Quick Brush of Wings →
It was Ariel Gore’s The Mother Trip: Hip Mama’s Guide to Staying Sane in the Chaos of Motherhood that I read and re-read as I trundled towards inevitablity: nine months, eight months, a half a year, just weeks away, any day now, OH MY GOD DAVE, GET IN THE CAR AND DRIVE.
Time stripped the Hip from my Mama descriptive pretty damn quick, but Ariel Gore can still knock me flat ten years...