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!
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Youth Is Wasted
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Don’t Look Away!
Ahh, there is nothing like a Midsummer Night’s Homebirth!
Oh, and here’s a card. I’VE BEEN BUSY, OKAY??
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Marinate & Ruminate & Distill & Purge
Don’t you hate looking at photographs when you’re not in them?
Me too!
Oh, and I made this for my gals.
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Deja Vu
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:
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July: Barnstable County
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:
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When I was down beside the sea
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??
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Gratitude For Summer Intern Expressed Through Semaphore (Etc.)
I wrapped myself in bacon yesterday for a phone interview with Mpls. St. Paul magazine.
I was, I’m sure, delicious.
She wanted to talk about the new book but I wanted to talk about the last episode of Long Island Medium.
She said she was too “busy” to talk about what I wanted to talk about. What? Too busy to care??
Moving on:
Zeichen Press found a new intern and she already promised to fold my laundry. I’ll give her this new card as soon as she puts my clothes away:
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This Blog Post Would Be Better If It Was Wrapped In Bacon
I live on a farm so I can swim through my gold coin-filled silos like Uncle Scrooge McDuck. My latest money-making scheme is sure to fill its very own silo: A downloadable collection of our cards turned cartoons!
I’ve requested that royalties be paid in gold doubloons.
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Hey, You Got Your Nature In My Peanut Butter
Clip-clop-clip-clop… I watched her gracefully stroll down 28th Street. She, a 125 pound White Tailed Deer, came towards me on the sidewalk. Her head turned left and right, taking in the scenery like a tourist. I sat as still as a frightened rabbit, hoping she would mistake me for something non-threatening. The air was perfectly calm and the smoke from my cigarette rose straight into the sky. Oh, but she noticed me! We were locked in a staring contest for what felt like forever, and then she bounced away. Faster than I knew a deer could run, she bounded across Hennepin Avenue.
And a bear wandered up to a strip mall last week in Cottage Grove. I felt it should be commemorated.
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Please Like This
Its time to free ourselves from the shackles of this social networking monster.
We are ignorant prisoners, dragging our metal cups across the bars while our warden stuffs his fat face with naturally-cased wieners.
We are school children, wandering like Wii avatars, waiting for the bell to ring only to be called in to diagram sentences.
We are the Israelites crushed by our taskmasters, waiting for the supernatural smiting of the Egyptians.
Rise up, people. Stop rowing the slave ship. The candy tasted so good before we got in the van, but now we must be deprogrammed. Make no mistake about it this is some sort of Stockholm Syndrome. Oh, the candy so sweet, so forbidden, so Turkish-Delighty.
Damn you, Facebook!
Ive flushed my precious time down the toilet. Time Ill never get back. Just like the year I got hooked on Party of Five those orphaned Salingers led by their gorgeous brother/carpenter, Matthew Fox
Oh, but its done now. No point in looking back. Friend requests, status updates, profile pictures word combinations unwittingly added to the English lexicon!
Ive got a word for you: insidious.
Never has there been such a tool, such a divisive tool. It wears a party hat and mixes the strongest drinks, watching the party-goers behave like jackasses. Why?
Ask son-of-a-dentist/billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg. Mr. Zuckerberg was unavailable for comment during the writing of this, and its no wonder. Hes in Palo Alto, counting his drug money. Im booking a flight to Palo Alto and am either going to personally punch him in the face or flatter him until he hires me as his personal secretary. The second scenario is obviously more lucrative. The point is, I will no longer be in this creepy symbiotic relationship.
I will be free. (cue the MLK footage)
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Living Near the Edge-ish
Print shops are full of danger.
Hands mangled, digits lost, clothes torn right off of bodies… (I better fact-check that last one).
Zeichen Press is no exception.
Behold:
Look if you must. Sometimes it is better to face the painful, it desensitizes the mind.That’s good, right?
Because I am so committed to my craft, I (by “I”, I mean “my son”) squished the spider, and finished laying out this card:
Mother’s Day is coming up but you don’t have to get your mom a card.
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Ever-Expanding Empire
Three new rep groups this Spring.
THREE.
These new (lucky) states are: Virginia, West Virginia, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and New Mexico. Each rep gets a box of goodies, packed by Jen:
I bet that’s a lot of work.
I wish I could help but I’m too busy watching Pam watch kittens on televison while I lay in bed.
I DID write/design some new cards I’ve heard that laughing is as good for your body as eating so I plan to airdrop some new cards to the starving people in the world.
I’m sure they’ll be grateful.
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Safe To Molt Now
Has Science gone too far?
Days and nights blurred as the scientist toiled alone well, not exactly alone his companions (experiments) lived in a collection of cages. His laboratory (pronounced: lah-boooar-atory) was nestled between the Russkoe Slovo Bookshop and the hydro-electric plant in Krasnoyarsk.
His mission?
To create super-species. Behold his first success… and his new friend:
Well, congratulations Doctor Hvorostovsky!And now on to my creations:
(not nearly as controversial)
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Such Strong Language
But how can I be tame when I am thrust into such an atmosphere?
I have only one thing to say:
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Purgatorio di Pesce
That sounds delicious!
If Spring would come I wouldn’t be forced to sit here and email sell sheets to hundreds of newspapers around the country.
I won’t complain about the weather because that’s about as interesting as listening to someone list their health problems. But I WILL say this:If I lived in Hawaii, there’d be no Zeichen Press.
See, I can always find the blessing in disguise.
Oh fine, here’s a new card inspired by the endless Winter:
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Always Winter but never Christmas (or Spring)
The woman gazes through her window. A window covered in dog-drool, a window with a view of only one season: Winter. She stares, slack-jawed, at the slow parade of life.
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area we call the Twilight Zone.
SERIOUSLY?!?
