The Day After We Attended a Royal Rumble Pay Per View Party.

"Mom, if I was a wrestler I'd be Smacker McSmacker, and I'd just keep smacking people in the face" ...commence Jack pantomiming super fast face smacking.

Is it Summer Yet?

I'm longing for warm summer night.  There was this time when I was a kid and we lived on the south side that my Dad and his pals would play Frisbee in the street in front of our house.  They'd be out there with a beer in one hand and skipping that disk off the street looking smooth.  Mostly us kids would be catching lightning bugs or playing tag in the yard.  Sometimes I think I remember sitting on the curb and being super happy when someone caught the Frisbee under their knee.  I think there may have been a radio somewhere - in my head there's a soundtrack to this scene with maybe Slow Ride and Rocket Man and probably some Stones.  These guys with their messy long hair and cut offs, sometimes with a short cigarette carefully shifting from hand to mouth just long enough to take a drag and return the throw. 

Art Institute of Chicago

I took the kids into see art today.  We started in the modern wing - mostly because that's where the valet parking was but also because we've been interested in modern.  I've been participating in abstract night at the studio and the kids have done some at school and in an outside art class.  We all seem to be a little enchanted by it.  Piet Mondrain is near the top my list of very favorites but later in another wing I was reminded how much I loved Edward Hopper and then I saw all the Renaissance stuff and forgot all about abstract.  I could spend years there and just stand around loving everything the best, for a slice of time. 

Everyone at the art museum is pretty.  Everyone is dressed like they're going to something important, some folks are speaking other languages.  Nobody is yelling at their children, they are all leaned over teaching their kids about art and history and asking each other's opinions. A whole day of looking at art museum goers made me feel wretched in my snow boots and my smelly, stained up shirt.  My youngest got car sick on the way into the museum and I of course put my hands out and caught all the barfs instead of  letting is spew all over our driver's back seat.  There was no way to turn around and drive home so we pushed on, ducking into the bathroom right away and washing up and then standing under the hair dryer for a minute.  Then I went on to spend the day looking outward and thinking about technique and colors as well as being on high alert for more sickness that never came.  It wasn't until I was getting a little overwrought with all the looking at art that I turned my attention to the people and then lastly myself. sigh.  Then I just wanted to be somewhere else and that was perfect because we left.

On the way home we saw smoke on the highway for miles and drover past a semi-truck on fire, like 20-foot flames and black smoke.  No body barfed, some of the kids slept. It was a crazy grey and sleepy ride home. 

Half Way

Halfway Down
By A. A. Milne

Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up
And it isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head.
It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!

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About half way through every project, I hate what I'm doing.  It's not turning out how I had it in my head and I've looked at it too long, it's feeling overworked and I want to literally kick it across the room.  Once I let go of what I thought it was going to be, finish and fix what I have, it usually turns out pretty good.

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Hello 2018!  Let's do better than last year.

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