MY BOOPS

I like shoes. Boots in particular. It started when I was very young. With a pair of Winne the Pooh blue galoshes. I was so excited about them that I peed my pants. Right into my boots, or boops as I called them then. Luckily you can hose out rain boots. Now, boots are more like a costume. I have old boots. Tall boots. Practical boots. Tough girl boots. And fancy boots. I picked up this pair almost 5 years ago in Memphis. Last Monday I took them out to Pres Pub for a little Honky Tonkin' and two-steppin. We had a wonderful time.

MERDE. IL PLEUT.

It's been doing this for days. I don't get much in the way of sunlight this time of year. It's dark when I get up. It's near dark when I get out of work, and my office doesn't have any windows. I haven't been doing my daily drawings for a while. Maybe I got lazy on the holidays. Maybe I've got the SADs. Regardless, I'm back in action with a little drawing of the house across the creek. The raging, flooded creek.

THE PEACE LIGHT IS ON

The street I grew up on was never really one for Christmas lights. A few people put them up, and we used to too, until untangling the ball of lights was more trouble that it was worth. Our azaleas have been naked since. However, there is one reliable holiday light fixture on our block. Without fail, every December the Mochows turn on a light in their attic and illuminate a small, street-facing, alcove window that had been blacked out to read "Peace" with a star under it.

Happy Holidays.

THE RABBIT'S LAST HURRAH

Before we got our cat, we had a real Christmas tree. When I was little, we always drove the Rabbit to pick out tree. The car was old and orange and my dad didn't care if the tree scratched any of the paint on the roof. After we picked out the fullest, best smelling tree, it got tied to the roof, and we drove on home. The car had a manual transmition so my dad needed both hands for driving. It fell to my mom to prevent the tree from flying off the car. She would put an old leather work glove on her left hand, stick her arm out of the sun roof and hold onto to the tree trunk for dear life. This was almost as ridiculous as the ordeal of getting the tree inside the house. Dad would attach the stand in the garage and cut it free from its plastic net. Then he would bear-hug the tree and carry it through the house, performing a loping waltz from room to room as mom ran before him moving end tables and breakable things out of the way.

I was really sad when we had to get rid of the Rabbit.  I had always imagined that it would be the car that I would learn to drive with. I might have even asked my dad if we could just leave it in the backyard and grow grass on it. That wasn't happening either. Its passing didn't go unnoticed. Dad compromised, and in its final winter we rimmed all of the Rabbit's windows with battery powered Christmas lights.  

LINES & SHAPES

I've just put up a batch of the latest A Drawing a Day images. Somewhere 11-29-12 must be hiding on my coffee table. 

THANKSGIVING

I traveled home to Memphis for Thanksgiving. As it's a very short very family holiday, none of my friends were in town. Apparently, all I did was eat with my family -- exactly what I was supposed to do. I learned this from my drawings and photos during my trip. Mostly about food....

I've only been away from my family for three Thanksgivings. I missed my first shortly after I turned 21. I was doing a semester abroad in London. The country voted least likely to celebrate Thanksgiving. Our program put on a dinner for us. It was on a boat anchored in the Thames, and while it was a nice dinner, it wasn't the Thanksgiving I knew. There were Yorkshire puddings. The next day, I took the Oxford Tube to visit my friend who was studying there. I was staying overnight for Thanksgiving dinner, so clearly I packed a toothbrush, fresh underwear, several pounds of potatoes and a potato masher. We ate an obscene amount of food prepared in a kitchen no larger than my parents' bathroom and tried to convince her English friends that millions of Americans played the classic after dinner game of Pin the Hat on the Turkey. They bought it.

After college, I moved to Pennsylvania and flying home for two days really wasn't practical. It took planes trains and automobiles to get me there and almost 12 hours of travel. I spent my second Thanksgiving with a friend, and we prepared a spread of sides.... but no turkey. Turkey for two is laughably impractical, and neither of us wanted to spend a whole day cooking, so we fried up a pound of bacon instead. There are no leftovers for days when a pound of bacon is involved. I took myself on a date to the Philadelphia Museum of Art the next day.

The next year I was adopted by my boss and joined a large and ragtag bunch of children, significant others, mothers, friends, dogs, and cats. I initially balked at the idea of spending it with someone else's family and not having the role of girlfriend or distant cousin to play, but it was really nice, and one of the largest Thanksgivings I've been to. After that, I drove to Boston to stay with a friend from high school. We made silly faces and ate cannolis. I went to two museums, Sunday services in the "One if by Land, Two if by Sea" church, and reunited with some old friends from my first family-less Thanksgiving.

You'll be my family for a little while, / Until we get to where we're goin'.

My favorite song about Thanksgiving, written by some folks from home.
Cornucopia by Scandaliz Vandalistz

I learned a while ago that Thanksgiving is what you make of it, and as long as you spend it with people you like, it will usually be a great time. 

SUMMER OF '89

 

True story. When I was three, we drove out to Arizona. We were supposed to make the trip in my Mom's Ford Escort. Instead we made the trip in my Dad's Volkswagen Rabbit. With no air conditioning. In the summer. It was 1989, and the car was 10.  I'm not sure why The Rabbit didn't break down on the way there. I guess it's that reliable German engineering. This little adventure should have been its last hurrah. But that would come much later, and that's another story.

I'm sure vomit smells wonderful in the dead of summer. Sorry Mom and Dad.

BIG TEXAS STYLE

My dad's Aunt Marion was always put together -- white shirts, black slacks, dyed red hair, and lipstick. She would probably qualify for a spot on the Advanced Style blog. I remember her as being petite, though I suppose you're always short when you're married to a man who was well over six feet tall, even into his eighties. But like any good Texan, she went big when it mattered. Aunt Marion had large, turquoise charms with big bales that could be slid onto necklaces and wires. And she had huge turquoise rings. They were as long as her fingers, and she always wore more than one. My favorite one was made of turquoise stones that had been cut and set into the shape of a woman.

DUST BOWL

 

Last night I saw the first episode of Ken Burns' new documentary on the Dust Bowl. Some parts of it were eerily similar to things that happen now. Banks foreclosed on houses, fathers and husbands committed suicide -- unable to earn a living, buy food, and unsure of what to do about it all. I was fascinated by pictures shown of children wearing masks and goggles just so they could leave the house and go to school and still be able to breathe.

I hadn't done my drawing for the day yet, so I drew this quick sketch of myself in Dust Bowl gear. I imagine this is how I would look, and my only identifying feature would be my braid. 

ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER CHALLENGE

This happened recently. I had a birthday, and probably the tastiest, best birthday cake I hadn't yet imagined could exist. I've been a little silent over here, not for any lack of productivity. Lately my daily creative juices have been going into little design projects for work. Here's a peep at part of one. I rather like that background I made.

BUT I've been gearing up for a new art goal. I began on my birthday, and for every day this year, I will do one small drawing and take at least one photograph.  Here are the first two of my small drawings. I won't be posting every single one on the blog, but they will all be up in albums on my Flickr page. It will be interesting to find out how I handle this goal, when I'm traveling, or if I get sick, OR, if I turn into a petulant child and just. don't. want. to. today.

Driving through East Tennessee, particularly on certain stretches of 75, is a constant reminder of my impending, eternal damnation. This is an ink sketch of my favorite homemade sign.

Just what happened to come out of my head yesterday. Some times I'll use a source for the drawing and other times, like this, it may just be a complicated doodle.