After coughing the web of mucus from my throat, it was time to choose paper and envelope colors for the Spring Release.
Dinah told me later that she was plotting my murder while I took this photo.
Oh, Dinah! What will make you snap?!
Wait, tell us more about the web of mucus!
No! No more. Onto more important things.
Like frogs im Deutschland.
Who needs pants when you have legs like that? Amiright??
Miss Sherman was our 5th grade music teacher and aside from corporeal punishment and unruly hair, she was perfect. Every week, students were encouraged to bring in their favorite record album. And because lessons are best learned through repeated humiliation (read about First Picture Day at my new school), I brought in my favorite album.
…I wonder what the other kids brought! This is SO much fun!
…Wait…
Michael Jackson, Off The Wall…
The Cars, Panorama??…
Oh, Kermit! Nobody understands us/Miss Sherman forgot to call on me/oh look, this record barely sticks out between my stack of books/these darn Fall allergies make my eyes water!
I wouldn’t tell my mom about this while I stood by the piano as she played folk songs and I sang my little heart out. I WOULDN’T.
What I’m trying to say is that Jen and I picked cards for our Spring Release.
Here’s a teaser:
One of our many cats had chronic diarrhea. We kept her around because she produced litter after litter of adorable white kittens.
And because coming home was always a surprise – where would we find her poop today?? In the mitten-bin… in the laundry basket… under my daughter’s pillow??
Life is so full of surprises!
Like, when the vet called to say she died after he removed her ovaries. SURPRISE! Oh, but now she doesn’t send us on poop-hunts, because she’s buried in a shallow grave in the backyard.
First life zigs, and then it zags!
Nothing could come between a girl and her Etch A Sketch in 1981.
NOTHING.
Just look at that tight-lipped concentration… LOOK AT IT.
Maybe I was creating a message for my mom? Or a beautiful design? Or a note to my brother begging him to stop slowly poisoning my parakeet and calling me Oot Head.
WHO KNOWS?
My Etch A Sketch has been replaced with 10,000 pounds of letterpress equipment, a laptop, and Jen. (Sorry, Jen.)
Here’s a new Valentine’s Day card… Lead type and an antique cut can barely compare to the magic of my childhood.
When my daughter was small (until she became a giant),
she wrestled daily with Jungian archetypes… She was fascinated by the Actor/Storyteller… and the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf was a favorite.
Oh, that Boy!! She was disgusted and fascinated!
Ahh, there is nothing like a Midsummer Night’s Homebirth!
Oh, and here’s a card. I’VE BEEN BUSY, OKAY??
Don’t you hate looking at photographs when you’re not in them?
Me too!
Oh, and I made this for my gals.
We bought our house on the Cape in 1982…
this was the same year that The Go-Go’s penned their masterpiece.
Coincidence?? I THINK NOT.
Summers on the Cape were filled with so much adventure! There were trees to climb, sea-creatures to discover, rocks to paint (it’s complicated), and cans to return for 5˘ imagine returning an ENTIRE BAG of cans. Your very own money to spend on candy at the Barnstable News. I dragged a garbage bag of empty cans up Millway, past the dead bodies
to claim my prize. I did not anticipate this being such a great windfall… The Adult behind the counter counted all of my (mostly beer) cans (thanks Uncle Gary!) and the total staggered me.
“Two dollars and thirty-five cents.”
I gasped.
I walked past the wall of candy, right to the freezer full of ice cream treats. One box of six ice cream sandwiches, all for me. ALL FOR ME!!
I was a girl on a mission: Eat all six, share with no one, and never breathe a word of this to any of my siblings. 
I held the package to my (boyish) chest, and ran until I was sure I was alone. Across the street from the cemetery, and next to an abandoned house, I ripped open the box and started eating. 1…2…3… still going strong… 4… slowing down… 5… Five! Only FIVE! What a failure!
I staggered home, and benevolently offered the final sandwich to my little brother. (What a fool he was for not even questioning my backstory!)
Present day: Southwest Airline’s Boeing 737: 40,000 feet.
I made these:
Would a plate-smashing scene make this trip more authentic? Maybe. Oh, but here we are bored out of our minds…
It’s tiresome, really! Just ocean, ocean, ocean… day in and day out.
And nobody even documents my joie de vivre! Sadly, I must document myself.
Jen sent me her selfie all the way from Zeichen Press Headquarters:
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.
My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson
Back on the Cape again…
Aren’t the kids so sweet? They have so much fun… Wait… WHAT?! How did I miss that??
With the warm weather comes mating animals and flies covering the shop windows.
And nothing else. NOTHING ELSE.
One might ask, “I wonder why that window is so filthy?” And another might respond, “Shhh, just close your eyes while I slowly and firmly place this pillow over your face…”
There.
Now, onto the flies. I did all the research and learned that these are no ordinary flies. The internet told me that they are called Cluster Flies, so I vacuumed them up and made this card:
I think Tib The Cat is pregnant. I could have (should have?) put a stop to the coitus, but who am I to stand in the way of true love? WHO AM I? Wait, was that really true love??
Hmm… Zoom… Enhance…
GOOD LORD.
Speaking of Father’s Day…
Oh, and did this Father’s Day card ever make it on the blog? (Winky-face.)
PS: Apparently my SEO success could be better if I mention letterpress-related words IN my blog posts. Words like: tactile, vintage press, printing, ink, paper, mangled hand.
Sometimes (oftentimes) I wake in the middle of the night and tap messages to myself on my iPhone.
For example (and I quote):
“I just want to eat gobstoppers and take rearview mirror selfies… William Shatner in gladiator costume on 40′ stilts… A young Ben Franklin with a head full of dreams and a heart full of hate… Bromeo & Juliet… You Are Here –>brain…”
Upon thoroughly waking, my task is to decode this nocturnal rambling.
Sometimes I am successful.
In the Spring of 1990, I packed up a carton of cigarettes, a skillet, 4 forks, a sketch pad, and some Mexican jumping beans. Graduating high school means moving into a dormitory on the campus of the college of your dreams. OR moving into an apartment above a pizza place.
EITHER WAY, this card seems appropriate:
SPEAKING OF APPROPRIATE, is gluten-intolerance funny?
Broken femur?
SERIOUSLY???
and new designs for 
