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we interrupt this blog game to bring you …

…. pictures from our trip to Zion in July!

I didn’t take them — my brother-in-law did — so they will actually be lookable.

(I was gonna say “watchable,” but these are pictures; not TV, not a movie. So if moving pictures can be labeled as “watchable” or “unwatchable,” why can’t a still picture can be called “lookable” or “unlookable”? It makes sense to me, but I am simmering here in 357-degree weather, a shiny flesh dumpling, so I may be experiencing some impairment.)

But still, we remain undaunted in the midst our mental incapacity.

So.

Allow me to introduce you to ….. Fearless Girl!

She climbs vertical walls of protruding rocks!
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She wears sweaty helmets and races ’round in bloaty-wheeled contraptions!
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She allows strangers to wrap flimsy straps around her little bum and release her into the sky — at 30,000 feet!
(Uhm, hello, parental neglect. Good LORD!)
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She bursts with joy no matter what she does or how she is abused by those who claim to love her!
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She wears pink and hold hands with wild Banshees who also wear pink to lull Fearless Girl into complacency before they strike!
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She wears paisley kerchiefs and holds the hands of giants, melting hearts everywhere!
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She is FEARLESS GIRL!!!

And she makes me blaze with love.

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more “fantasticks”

Let’s see. I have mentioned this production here. And here. And now here.

This photo. Lord. Years of romantic entanglements, disentanglements, and obsessions all collide in this one photo, this one moment from “The Fantasticks,” sophomore year in college.

The scene in a nutshell: Henry and Mortimer are attempting to abduct Luisa; Matt is fighting for his love with a xylophone mallet while The Mute looks on, ah, mute.
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Okay. That’s me in the middle, with the codfish mouth, giving the fellers a hernia. On the left of the photo is S. And during this show, he is just S. But a few magical years down the line, we will fall weirdly in love; he will take this photo of me; we will break up, get back together, break up FOR GOOD, dammit!; then he will stalk me all the way back to San Diego — which, naturally, will make me swoon and keep me swooning to the point where he becomes Fiance #2. One must never underestimate the allure of the stalker. Later, there will be a much-needed epiphany where I realize that our insanities are not compatible and I will send him packing back to Seattle.

In the middle, wielding the xylophone mallet of death, is Billy Tom Bobby. That is his name and you must just accept it. He was Matt to my Luisa and I fell so so so deeply in love with him. In fact, I’m sure I am in love with him even in this exact moment captured on film. I bet I’m thinking, “Ohhhhhh! How I wish stupid S and stupid M would just UNHAND me and that the audience would go away and quit bothering me and expecting me to do stuff so that I could make out RIGHT NOW behind the curtains with my future husband, Billy Tom Bobby!”

I mean, I was desperately, insanely, in love with him. And he liked me quite a bit, too. He would call me “titwillow” in funny voice and, you know, I didn’t even think it was a boob joke. I just thought it was a funny word from a funny guy who should make out with me RIGHT NOW! He was very talented — and talent always got me. So, all it takes is talent and “titwillow” and I’m pretty much gone, it seems. But when he decided he didn’t like me so much anymore, I pined for him for much much longer than he was worth.

And finally ….. on the right. The fellow on the right. That’s M. We were mutually obsessed. He was obsessed with me and I was obsessed with, well, anyone and everyone else. He followed me around and leered at me and once …. he even wrote a very memorable song for me. And I really think the song says it all.

Wait. While we’re at it. On the far right is C. She was desperate to play Luisa. Instead, she is The Mute and she is silently plotting my death.

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the peep hugs everyone!

Look at her — growing her big girl teeth! She is SO escited!

Her hugs are always tight and yet, somehow make everyone feel less sweaty, even on one of the hottest days in the whole of recorded history.

Extreme smushability follows.

Peep and Tee Tee

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Peep and her grandpa

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Peep and her cousin, The Banshee, who adores her

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seattle photo nostalgia

Gasworks Park, Seattle, near my good ol’ alma mater. One of the places where I spent quality liplock time with Fiance #1, McMoony, the dumb glue-faced boy I thought I loved.

One night, I tiptoed back into my dorm after an entirely adequate pawing in the back seat of his vintage Mustang parked under the lights at Gasworks. Stopping off in the bathroom, I glimpsed myself in the mirror and gasped: There was literally a ring, a red swollen ring, circling ’round my stupid little lips, a lingering love contusion from McMoony, I guess, that made me look like I’d spent the whole night sucking a Mason jar to my face. He was not long on technique or artistry, that McMoony, but his car was really cool.

Which has nothing to do with this picture for you, I suppose. But it did make me think of that and what a lucky girl I am now.

Look at the whole War of the Worlds menace of this photo. I love it.

Ah, the thrill of the urgent makeout session in the face of crushing alien invasion.

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random stuff in my house

I’ve had a bunch of these clogging my crappy cellphone camera for about a month now.

Bedspread. What? I took picture of our bedspread? Lame-o.

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Hair. It was rillly harrd to take a picture of my hair. Oh, how terribly I suffered for this — this — uhm, art.

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Rejects from my dad’s wood shop. He’s a wood turner in his spare time now; this, after years of doing stained glass, getting bored, saying, “Well, I feel I’ve mastered that. (hahaha) I need something new.” He gives me the things that break or experiments that don’t turn out right or whatever because I really like them, sometimes more than the perfect finished pieces. This is a shelf by our kitchen window and the yellow bowl (actually, lemon wood that doesn’t really look very yellow in this pic) is my favorite.

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Fragment of watercolor done by my brother-in-law’s Australian brother-in-law of the Blue Mountains outside Sydney, Aus. One of my favorite things:

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Told ya Beau had a big anus. Nooo. That’s my Ugg boot, peeps!

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The Madame Alexander Yodelly-Ho doll that has haunted my dreams since I was seven. I’m afraid to get rid of her because I think she knows things and I thought that when I was seven and I think I always will. Shhhhh. Don’t rouse the evil. Thank you for all the night terrors and bed-wetting, Madame Alexander. These days, Yodelly-Ho is kept trapped and dusty in a drawer as we nurture our lingering hate:

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O ho lay dee odl lee o
O ho lay dee odl ay
O ho lay dee odl lee o
Lay dee odl lee o lay!!

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mom, why did you hate me?

So very much?

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Oh, I see such a bright future for my little Tracey! Perhaps as …..

…. a little boy who discovers he’s really an earl and warms hearts everywhere he goes because of his bitchen hairdo:

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…. a brave prince of The Round Table who defeats the Huns with his bitchen hairdo:

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…. a young successful Dutch dude hawking gallons and gallons of paint the world over — all thanks to his bitchen hairdo:

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Oh, my little Tracey. I’m so proud of him. Her. Him. Er, yeah ….. what?

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friday night boredom

Friday night boredom and my crappy cell phone camera are a heady mix for sure.

Witness this intoxicating horror — a bad picture of a bad picture.

Our black-and-white wedding invitation, framed. A friend of ours who’s the Art Director for a local theatre took this back in — apparently — our salad-and-mushroom days. I mean, look at our hair! I remember my sweater was peach and had buttons down the front and that I wore it backwards a lot so the buttons went down my back because that made me cool. Right? RIGHT??

But look at our hair ‘shrooms! Seriously. Gah.

A real salad bowl of unsightliness.

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piper’s mom

A couple of my favorite pictures of my older sister, S.

My dad’s inscription on the back of this one: “(My mom) made herself a mohair jacket and with the leftover material, she made this one for S and trimmed it with rabbit fur.”

(Good job on all those details, dad. I’m impressed.)

I’m between giggles and tears on this one; it’s just precious to me. She’s the perfect little girl in her perfect party dress:

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No in-between on this one. Just flat-out hysterics. Mom had this hair dryer from the Middle Ages or something that she used to torture our hair to girlie perfection. From a practical standpoint, I do believe it was also a vacuum cleaner.

It always seemed so rickety to me, with that huge hose flopping around aimlessly. But, man, once it was plugged in, that thing roared like an airplane engine, sucking your entire head into that blistering floral bag. As a bonus — I think mainly to keep us calm about our brains being sucked away — mom would always make us some nice Jiffy Pop. Which is a hilarious parallel image, if you think about it. Look at S’s face. She’s deaf at this moment, of course, from the din of the hair vacuum. And look at the droop of the bag at the bottom, as if her brain’s just plopped out into it. Hahahaha — I can’t write anymore. I’m dying, looking at this.

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