funeral

my grandmother is in a box that looks like the cell phone we gave her when she moved to the nursing home. picked it frosted pink with silver trim. filled it with phone numbers of her family. set it next to her bed. pink for breast cancer and crocheted hats and mary kay samples, lipstick and blush on paper cards. drugstore diamonds I never thanked her for and I never called and I think she was gone too far anyway. and so instead this matching box, these flower arrangements, these photos of her in yellow cap and gown, smiling with dark hair, looking like my sister.

Review of Tinderbox Lawn

my review of Tinderbox Lawn by Carol Guess is up at Dusie.

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since I last wrote, my lovely boy has gotten his own blog going. he has lots of good updates on art walks and events in our funny little city, and some great photos of public art in Tucson. go read him!

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I hope to see a revival of the Pillbox project someday soon. winter and working full time is hard.

bringing back first base

intensely inspired by this post, a few friends and I recently staged a twelve-hour public makeout. E's class had rented out a downtown space for a gallery show, and I wiggled my way in under the guise of "collaboration."

so friday the 14th of March, 2008, we set up in a massive window and started kissing. we had at least one couple kissing from noon until midnight -- needless to say, hour eleven was epic.

much love and thanks for the general broadmindedness, amazing hearts, and even better lips of many friends, without whom I would have been up the proverbial creek with a broken jaw for a paddle.

stayed tuned for possible future projects, including a twelve-hour makeoutdoors (Boulevard Park this summer?) and a makeout flash-mob (not for 12 hours, we'd all go to jail).

cozy pictures

Photos of my recent tree cozy installation in downtown Bellingham. They lived on Railroad Avenue from the evening of Friday, January 11th 2008 until the morning of Monday, January 14th, 2008, at which point they were presumably cut down by the city.

Many thanks to my dear E for taking these pictures, and Western Washington University ATUS (where he borrowed this fantastic camera), for unwittingly aiding in the illegal decoration of our fine city -- or its documentation, anyway.

my favorite of all five cozies, made with care from the leftover bits of five projects:

Coming soon: poem for the luckiest tree.

penance, april 2007

You are tired. So walk. Here, take this shell. Here, take and push. Push please your thumb into the round part of this shell. It will not break. Don’t worry;
It will never say It’s Not OK
When it had promised It’s OK.

Push please very hard and gentle. Push please all the bad, slowly while you walk. Push please the way you hate her sometimes and how you hate sometimes the sound of his feet and the shape of his lungs and push please all the bad out, slowly while you walk.

It is raining too much. This is every reason to walk. Slowly while you push.

The water on your face could be tears. It would be OK if it were tears.

Don’t look in the windows of the room where he shed your blood because you asked him to. Push please.

Don’t look at the house where (look). Don’t look at the sidewalk where (look, push). Please push please.

It would be OK if it were tears.

Walk because you are tired. Walk because you are thirsty. Walk to hear your mother’s voice saying You’re Very Young But I Was Too. Walk to see if when you are tired you keep walking.

It would be OK if it were tears. It is OK that it is not.

Find that you have forgotten to push. This is OK too. Because the rain is painted pink and unreal and maybe this is the prize for all your searching. And maybe you can feel more able to be kind, and to walk when you are tired.

To bury your mouth in wet lilacs.
To wash your face in painted water.
It is OK if sometimes it is tears.

keep your eyes peeled.

pillbox.

cixous approves

the cozy project is going well.