Friday, January 04, 2019

mending or dismemberment


I put on the magic invisibility cloak this morning.

Several of the vintage damasks patches are evaporating. No other way to describe it.

I don't know if I'll be correcting this shabby chic-ness. I never wear it out of the house. It draws too much attention and I have no explanation for the time this took. Like maybe I was in prison, or the nuthouse or something??

Monday, December 31, 2018

the new year

I'm up in there just to the right of the window, working. Will be at the stroke of midnight. Hopefully, it will be a quiet night. I have opted to work on New Year's Eve for many years. No extra pay, since it's not a federal holiday, but it keeps me busy. Keeps me from brooding.

Jimmy and I almost never went out on the Eve. I'd never been to Times Square for New Year's Eve and he warned me that unless I was up to peeing in an alley in sub-zero weather with ten strangers cheering me on, I wouldn't like it.
The last time we went out on New Years was a toga party in the late 70's before the kids were born. Who gives a party in New York, in January that calls for wearing bedsheets? The company was strange, the drugs too copious, and the next day, we were both just grateful to have arrived in the new year alive.
After that, our celebrations were cozy and private.

My broodiness around the New Year stems from my parent's ongoing war. They always called a truce a week or so before Christmas, but I could be sure that the hostilities would resume on New Year's day or soon thereafter.

Back when they still entertained guests, I could tell the next morning what the day would bring. If the ashtrays were all emptied, glasses collected and washed, kitchen window left open to air the place out, I knew that my mother had been grinding her teeth and seething over the work alone rather than retire. It often seemed that the old man would appear mid-morning, having been elsewhere overnight. 




So, through the years, I busy myself with this pass of hours knowing that the new day will bring business, as usual. 

But these days, changes - new attitudes, new directions, progress of any kind - are entirely up to me.


Sunday, December 30, 2018

No text after all.


"It's the heart that makes the heat"

Except for something to protect the back and a maker's mark, it's finished.  20"x13".


The title is taken from my novel in progress. Jack is infatuated with a married woman. He thinks he's giving himself a good talking to, but he's actually listening to a ghost.


Jack took a deep breath and submerged himself, water slopping over the sides of the sink. The music distant, his heartbeat close. Cooze is cooze...but you know she’s different from all the rest. You know how, but you won’t know why unless she tells you. It’s not up to you anymore because it’s the heart that makes the heat. He lifted his head back out of the water, wet hair plastered down over his face, coughed for breath and said,
Awright, Jiminy Cricket. Awright. I fuckin’ heard ya.”  



Saturday, December 29, 2018

year's end

I'm still working on this little thing. It hasn't yet called for help even though I spent about two hours yesterday stitching text to it only to spend another chunk of time picking those words out.

I won't be happy with the text until I can get it to look like Heather's...so it looks like I'm going to be cranky for a while.

Our Christmas was small and sweet and I, for one, am glad the holidays are over.