gobpile

hEY

2010-03-20T15:47:00.000-07:00

I am still alive.

I promise.

Crazy dream

2009-08-21T16:24:00.000-07:00

My nephew keeps drawing this.

I don't know what it is. But it has several transformations. Sometimes the mouth is on sideways, and sometimes there is nothing written on its forehead. And most of the time it doesn't have a friend. It never has the same amount of legs.

Lately, he's been having what he refers to as a "crazy dre-eem" in which robots come to our living room and steal all of his toys and his Grammy, who ends up melted in the garage.

Crazy dream indeed.

School Yells

2009-08-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

I found this in a box of stuff I got from my neighbor's auction. The Amsterdam High School mascot was apparently a Dutchman. And the colors were black and red.

If you click on the image, you can see it larger, so I'm not going to retype the entire thing, but some of my favorites are below, for various reasons.

Suzy Q and truckin' on down
Come on Amsterdam
Go to town

I always wondered about "go to town" (on the sheet, it says "got to town," but the "t" is erased. Sort of). What does "go to town" actually mean? I know it's always got some kind of either violent or sexual connotation when the old timers say it, but I always wonder where it came from. As in WHY it has that connotation. My grandfather used to say it. He would say it about people eating fast, someone getting blown up / defeated / murdered violently in a movie. I really still don't get it but I'll pretend.

Big chief, Little Chief,
Papoose Squaw
Amsterdam High School
Rah ! Rah ! Rah !

What does this have to do with Dutchmen exactly?

Signal Shift,
1-2-3-4-5
Come on you Dutchmen
Skin em' alive

Do Dutchmen skin people alive?

I'm assuming (and this is Amsterdam, so that could be my problem) that since the town is called Amsterdam, the obvious conclusion would be that the "Dutchman" as a mascot comes from having the town named after the city in the Netherlands, but as the Dutch cut diamonds and grow tulips and stuff, stereotypically anyway, which is where we get mascots, it doesn't make sense.

I googled "dutch papoose" and the only thing that came up that could possibly connect the two was a dutch tanker that was later renamed the Papoose, which had a habit of wrecking into things.

Unless it has something to do with the Dutch colonization of what's now NYC, and the American Indians that lived on Manhattan Island, and somebody back in the day morphed them.

I wouldn't put it past them.

Illustration Friday: Caution

2009-08-21T12:04:00.001-07:00

This is Adelaide. She likes Pea Soup.

She always burns her tongue.

{the shop is painted. pictures coming soon}

My Hand-bound books

2009-08-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

This is probably my favorite of all the coptic-stitched books I've made. It's really rather large, and I know it's going to make somebody an excellent sewing journal. There are 100 pages in the book (20 in each signature) and the signatures are wrapped in colored paper to divide the book into sections. This and eight others are left in my Etsy shop.

Illustration Friday: Wrapped

2009-08-14T19:33:00.001-07:00

2nd week in a row for me completing and posting my Illustration Friday. It makes me feel good to just make something for fun. I don't know why I immediately thought of swings being wrapped up too high to swing them when "wrapped" should have inspired me to illustrate presents or candy, but this is what happened.

2010 is 1971 and that makes me happy.

2009-08-10T15:06:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: This post is very cheesy, and though I usually don't do cheese, sometimes it is necessary to indulge the urge to be happy and spread sunshine.

Friends are good. Especially the kind of friend who can go to a yard sale and see something and think, "Oh wow. Cindy would love that." And that's the kind of friend Shaun is.

Yesterday, he went to a yard sale and found me a calendar from 1971. It's a cloth calendar with three cats on it, and it is absolutely ridiculous how me it is. It immediately went up on the wall in my newly-painted, almost-finished, almost organized office space/studio space/press room.

Though it's fabulous all on its own, and though it makes my inner Cindy want to do cartwheels that the outer Cindy cannot hope to do, the coolest thing about it is that 1971 is the same as 2010. What luck!

Oh, happy day.

Shaun also hung up my Cindy Train for me the other night, above the door leading out into the showroom (which is not finished yet, but should be soon.)

Get on board!

We were cleaning out the games closet one night (still not done) when we found this train. I initially thought that it would have been Bobby's, and never expected it to have any name on it, but when we pulled it from its dusty bag (my grandmother loved to pack everything in plastic bags), not only was it in perfect condition, but it was also very obviously mine.

I now have a new theory about the place from where my love for all things illustrated in the style of Alexander Girard and his contemporaries comes. It's from being a baby with this train on my wall. I imagine that I used to love looking at it. Though I don't know why the baby has to chase the train with all the big kids hanging out the window. Or why the baby has no pants on, but is carrying a suitcase.

Illustration Friday: Impatience

2009-08-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

I always start doing the Illustration Friday, and I never finish it. So I'm posting this today. Whee! The topic was Impatience. I was in a cute mood.

Construction Junction, What's Your Function?

2009-08-04T16:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Shaun and I went to Lawrenceville to check out some shops. I've been dying to get inside Fresh Heirlooms and Divertido, especially, and I figured there would be some others once we arrived there. However, much to my dismay, the entire street seems to be closed on Mondays. Well, except for the coffee houses and Dozen. Even Piccolo Forno, the restaurant about which I was amateur-foodie-lusting, was closed.

So we went on up Penn Ave. to Bloomfield, and struck gold. I have never seen Construction Junction so packed full of good stuff. I also did not know - because I haven't been there in a long while - that they started a discount price program, with a percentage off of merchandise based on how long it's been sitting there.

The only problem is how to get things home. I don't have money to buy a bunch of stuff right now anyway, but I can dream. Even if I had the money to buy all the stuff I wanted yesterday, I couldn't get it home. Well, without a big truck.

Fish that got away included: old square bar tables with colorful tops, probably from some restaurant for $30 each; a weird, old metal cupboard with no top on it for $2.50; 2 old library tables, about 10 feet long by 3.5 feet wide, which were not priced; several old doors that I fell in love with among the hundreds that were almost as cool along the back wall for $25 and up (one was almost $200); a huge display platform on wheels from a luggage store for $25; and these huge cornerstone pylons with flower design on them for $125 each.

I did get these treasures, though:

4 gallons of paint to repaint the front room of our shop for $5/gallon.

1 old dresser, appropriately and charmingly aged and weathered, and missing only one handle, for $15.

& 1 Vintage metal World Book Encyclopedia book cart, $5.

All of this had to fit in my car, in which my mother left four lawn chairs. But Shaun squeezed everything in somehow. Then, when we were on our way back down Penn toward the heart of the city again, we noticed several big heaps of stuff. Anyone who knows Shaun knows that he would, under normal circumstances, be adverse to picking through trash on Penn Avenue in the middle of the day, but he came up with a plan. I dropped him off at the corner, and he ran up the street and got ready. Then I waited for a lull in the traffic, and drove slowly down the street with my emergency flashers on, and pulled over. He shoved the following things in the backseat between the lawn chairs, the dresser, the book cart, and all the normal things (books and stuff) that I carry around with me:

This old, green metal cabinet drawer, out of which I have already planned a really cool shadow box.

2 wood drawers. One of them is definitely cooler (older vintage, completely solid wood) than the other (modern and made of pressed wood, probably mid-to-late 20th century).

The metal drawer had a label on it that said "programs" and I think that the drawers in general may have come from some kind of teacher's home office. Maybe they retired. It doesn't account for all the sawdust that was in them, but it's a thought.

We went to Legends of the North Shore for dinner, which was incredible. We both had wedding soup, which was probably the best wedding soup I've ever eaten. We also had an appetizer of Mozzerella, which was cut and breaded in-house. I have never eated a fried Mozzerella that good, and the difference has to be that it wasn't frozen in a box for a month before eating. Shaun had a lemon-chicken Rotolo with veggies and mashed potatoes, and I (unusually, but because I wanted the Mama's Gravy) had chicken parmesano, but with the chicken grilled instead of breaded and pan-fried. To my surprise - and delight - the pasta was homemade, too. I will definitely go back there again and again.

I didn't get to do anything in Lawrenceville but window shop, and I didn't get to go to Piccolo Forno, but the day was a good one. August is off to a fabulous start.

Hook, Line, and Sinker

2009-07-31T17:25:00.000-07:00

Another nephew story. I really should be better about writing down how the little tyke stacks things up and makes trains out of household products and is picky about bathtub toys and how much he loves dumping water from one container into another before he gets too old to enjoy being uninhibited and I forget how fantastic it is to enjoy his childhood.

Last weekend, my mother went to get a shower, and Drake came into the living room and said, "An Ninny, me watch ponjbob?"

I said, "No, you know I do not allow you to watch that when I'm here." (Everyone else allows him to watch it, but I really just don't think it's appropriate for a three year old, and I refuse to participate in his watching it).

To my surprise, he climbed into my lap and said, "OK me talk you. You talk me, Ninny."

I said, "OK. What would you like to talk about?"

He Hrrrmed a little, and then he answered, "Cor-a-ine" (He's not big on Ls).

"What do you like about Coraline?"

"Ye-ow raincoat"

"What else?"

"Her bwoo hair, make pancakes." (On the Coraline Wii game, there is a pancake-making mini-game).

Then he added, "And Wybie." (from the movie, not the book).

"What about Wybie?"

"Him bwack eyes and bwack hands him bwack coat bwack cat bu-unns eyes." As he said this, he made circles with his thumbs and first fingers and put them up to his eyes. Then he began to swish his arms around, and said, "Umm, an Misser Bixsy have him wats go shwoo shwoo on a wines."

This explanation of Mr. Bobinsky's mouse circus made me laugh, and Drake laughed, too. Then I asked, "who else lives in Coraline's house?"

Drake said, "Euum, the ladies." Then he swished his hands around in the motion he has to make with the Wii remote in order to play the mini-game in the Ladies' rooms.

Then he smiled at me and said, "Ninny?"

And I said, "What, honey?"

He gave me a hug and said, "All buttered up now? Me watch ponjbob?"

We (Don't Really) Want Your Business: Taking Customers for Granted in the Sad, Bad Economy

2009-06-27T17:49:00.000-07:00

People love to argue, but there is one thing about which it seems that everyone is in agreement: The economy is in very bad shape. In light of that, businesses and services should be trying to build clientele, reinforce customer relationships, and gain customer loyalties. In times of economic hardship, our best bet for financial survival is a revival of the local economy. Money earned and spent within the smaller community means a better life for all who participate in the economy of that community.

Recently, I went to take the Praxis I exam in Pittsburgh, and on my drive into the city, I noticed a sign on the electronic billboard of a hotel in Greentree. It said, "We Want Your Business!" It sounds nice, but do signs like this mean anything? I think not. In this world full of cliché and trite buzz terms, advertising like this seems hollow and impersonal.

In writing workshops, people often remark, "Show me, don't tell me." Recently, the way that businesses have been "showing me" their appreciation for my patronage is something less than desirable.

The most offensive of the lot is the Amsterdam Post Office. I stopped going in last year, but my mother still sends things out for me through that branch. When the people who work there are not on a personal phone call, they will help customers to a certain extent, but only when they deem appropriate. They refuse to give itemized receipts. They refuse to help customers when it is near closing. Sometimes they close ten minutes early for no reason. However, it's a small town. People say it's best to not make waves.

I went to McDonald's a few weeks ago with a friend. I ordered the number 10, a chicken mcnuggets meal with fries and a drink. They have a self-serve soft drink bar. The cashier gave me the wrong size cup. When I reminded her that I had ordered a large, she waited until I walked away and said to her co-worker, "Does she really need the large?" When my friend told me that she made that remark, I went to the counter to complain to the manager, who assured me that there was no possible way that the employee would have said that, and that my friend must have been mistaken. He is a very articulate person, and very trustworthy, but I went to sit down and eat my then-cold lunch. Within ten minutes, the original cashier came to our table and said, "I have to come apologize, but I didn't say that." When my friend retorted, and said that she most certainly had said it, she said, "Well, I did what I had to do and apologized, so if you don't want to accept my apology then whatever." Instead of leaving, she kept stammering around, telling me that she was pregnant. I spoke to two other managers, one of which ended up being the woman to whom the remark had originally been made, but the end result was that the manager sent the only overweight employee out to tell me that the pregnant girl was not "against fat people" and that she knew this because she was fat herself. That's no McExcuse for the behavior.

These two experiences are not isolated instances. I have witnessed employees at several local businesses walk into the restroom and sign their initials on the restroom cleanliness check list without even glancing into the filthy stalls. I have seen checkout lanes closed in the faces of the slow-walking elderly at Wal-Mart. At G & J's One Stop, I have had cashiers treat me with such rude and obnoxious behavior that I haven't stepped foot in their store since November. Last week, I went to Arby's, and ordered a Roastburger with no tomatoes. When the sandwich came out, it had cheese sauce instead of the cheese slice that comes on it. When I complained about it, they made me another sandwich, but put tomatoes on it. The third time the sandwich came out wrong, I asked for my money back. The manager did not apologize. She said, "You know, people make mistakes."

Yes, people make mistakes. They make them, and they pretend that it is the customer's fault. They make mistakes and pretend like they did not. They make mistakes; they refuse to apologize. Their employers refuse to apologize. They are not sorry. They are indignant. They are doing the customer a favor by keeping their doors open. They are providing a service, so they can be obnoxious if they like.

There are a few hold-outs, however. Merrin's Market in Amsterdam is one of them. Family owned and operated, Father Doug and daughter Natalie will order in anything, try to get anything a loyal customer says they're willing to buy. I told Natalie I like homemade pizza making ingredients. They sell out fast, but they get them in. They carry more flavors of the Starbucks Double-Shot canned coffee than anywhere else in Jefferson County, and have more zero-calorie beverage choices than any other store in the area. They sell good, homemade hot foods like cabbage casserole and beef & noodles, and their meatball subs are the best I've had in Ohio. But that's not why I spend my money there.

What really makes the difference is that when their employees make a mistake, they take care of it. They apologize. It might seem unusual, but they show their customers kindness – a kindness that should not be the exception, but the rule.

So for the McDonald's and Arby's, the post office and Wal-Mart, for the G&J's and the myriad other businesses who take customers like me for granted, I say: Talk is cheap; actions speak louder than words; show me, don't tell me.

When you deserve my business, I'll be back.

Cavemen, human nature, and man versus machine

2009-02-25T17:57:00.000-08:00

I'm currently taking a graduate course on human development. Nevermind that I've already taken the same exact course before in undergrad, and nevermind that there isn't any new information between the two. It's a different school, a different teacher, but the same hoops for jumping through have presented themselves.

In my world, and through its eternal glass-half-full lens, I see that this is all just means to an uneventful end, in which I teach Secondary English for a few years, pay off some student loans, get my masters and Ph.D in something more meaningful, and move on.

My professor is an interesting guy, though. He's got some fun interpretations of the world. One of these is this: That human nature hasn't changed. Everybody always talks about how children are different "these days" and how "in [their] day, school was like" this or that. The thing that people are missing is that the slate, the chalkboard, the stack of paper, the composition book, the Five Star Notebook, and the word processor are one in the same. The students have not changed any. The way in which they see the world - in which we see the world - is what's different. People pick on the methods of moving the knowledge from one person to the next - they don't see what's important - that the knowledge keeps moving. Trying to force old ways on new dogs doesn't work.

So my professor said, "People always speculate why people are the way they are. But it's been that way since humanity's beginning. You had Trog running around saying, "Why is Ugg such a jackass?"

And I'm sitting here right now wondering the same thing. Why are all these people with whom I go to class such class-A Idiots? Why do people think I'm such a weird bitch?

The other day, one of my classmates said that she has a "class full of morons." I don't think women like that need to be educating anyone, or passing those kinds of opinions on to students. Kids pick up on that stuff. When they think that adults around them think little of them, they in turn think little of themselves.

And these adults are the same people who think that machines make everything. They think human hands don't make the blue jeans they are wearing, that somewhere, some Chinese man throws a bolt of fabric, a spool of thread, a pair of scissors, a zipper, and a bag of buttons into a big black hole, and somewhere, in another part of the factory, a Pakistani woman drives by on the Wonkatania and blue jeans magically fall out of a chute into the truckbed behind her. As if by Magic.

That is not real.

That is the Easy Bake Oven version of the world.

What's even more horribly offensive is that the people who manage the places in which things are actually made don't do anything about this modern misconception. They let people think these things. The public's ignorance is their bliss. Why? It allows people to allow other people to suffer all sorts of bad working conditions so that they can buy their pants for $20 and throw them away not when they wear out, but when they grow tired of them. They don't feel bad about using resources because they think that everything is produced by magic machines.

When I look at photographs of people from long ago, there is something endearing about a coat that's been patched where it's worn. It reminds me of my grandfather. He had this blue quilted winter jacket that he wore out in the wood shop, and it had been mended in a bunch of places. Some of these stitches were done with white thread, and some had been done to match. But they were there. My grandmother fixed it. When a pocket got a hole in it, she sewed it back shut.

People don't do that anymore. They think the machines will make more. Why not just throw it away. The machines spit new ones out all the time. The machines will take care of us.

I was at an open house at Christmas time. There was a girl selling one of those home party plans like Home Interior, but with a more country bumpkin slant to it. She had these embroidered pictures inside a cheap frame that cost $40. I was trying to sell paintings and artwork, and this girl had these dumb pictures, and I was kind of offended because A) they were so expensive, and so carelessly put together; and B) the person who embroidered it probably didn't get a dollar for doing it. She's probably living in Taiwan somewhere, doing piecework. I said something about it, and this girl said, "That's made by a machine."

When I tried to explain to her that machines can't tie knots like what were on this piece of fabric, that machines can't hand-emboider, she said, "Yes they can - they sell embroidery machines at Jo-Anne's." She thought I was stupid. She thought I was a moron because I didn't know that machines make everything. This girl couldn't tell the difference between something machine-done and something hand-done. Not that it's important. They think that handmade things aren't as good as machine-made ones. They would rather buy something screen printed than something handpainted. Is that why real art is such an elitist thing?

That the majority of people would rather just sit around and think that machines do everything, that we should be thankful to them for what they do, and stop trying to make good things with our hands, stop trying to learn, stop trying to find the truth, stop trying to find new truths, make new discoveries?

It makes me feel incredibly helpless to think that people don't care that we're proving Plato right. He said that Gold is precious, so you make jewelry, not swords. You don't make crowns out of steel, either. And in this steel belt, where the collars are blue, education is much like gold. Plato thought that people were in society, in the places where they should be, and that you might as well not waste education on people who aren't going to amount to much of anything, anyway.

I think back now, on that open house, where all these people were wearing the jewelry that they'd bought from the jewelry party plan girl, and it seems so surreal:

The girl in the blue Lane Bryant sweat suit wearing the $50 Coral elasticized bracelet.

Made by machines.

Her matching $70 Coral necklace.

Made by machines.

The old lady with the sparkly rhinestone earrings/bracelet/necklace set.

Made by machines.

All these women, in their down-homey clothing, wearing overpriced costume jewelry, fauning around over home party plan decor.

Made by machines.

Demanding not that the quality of the things they buy be anything other than exactly the same as the other people around them, gobbling up the plastic Christmas clock, the screen-printed tin sign that says "Friends Welcome / Relatives by Appointment" (and in Comic Sans, of all fonts!), the hand-embroidered muslin square in the cheap, glued-together frame.

Made by machines.

Demanding not that their children receive a good public education, but that their kids "get good grades," as if one was any indication of another. I heard a woman say recently, upon moving her two children from one school to another, that the new school was a better school because her daughter, who had previously been "a C student" was now "an A student" - never thinking that the quality of the teacher may have gone down, that the standards were lower. No. Obviously, what's happened is that her daughter magically became more intelligent because of her mother's wise decision to enroll her in a different school. Yes, that must be it. As if by Magic.

Demanding that their jewelry, their lives, and their children's educations be made entirely of fool's gold - and wallowing in that paradise.

A Last Summer Anecdote

2009-02-17T21:38:00.000-08:00

One night, when it was hot and humid (it's Ohio), my brother kept us up until past 4am.

When my mother went to sleep, she dreamt

of my father and his father, of that other very stressful

time in her life.

The next day, a man came to the shop,

smiling. He said he was on his way

to West Virginia.

I did not know him,

my father's father.

I am beginning to have faith in my mother's ability

to conjure people.

I think she is too.

The Book of Good Cheer

2009-02-16T22:14:00.000-08:00

I found this book. It's called "The Book of Good Cheer." The subtitle is "A Little Bundle of Cheery Thoughts" and it's edited by some guy named Edwin Osgood Grover. It's small and the paper is cheerfully yellowed, and there's a cheery little basket of orange flowers illustrated on the title page. The thing is, it's a "wealth of wisdon and good cheer, gathered from all countries and all times" that was published by the Algonquin Publishing Company in 1913.

And I've read through it several times, and I feel no cheerier, no better.

One of the quips included says that what we see depends mainly on what we look for.

Though I'm often tired of feeling like I see the worst in people, I find that when I try to see the good in them, I feel lousier about it still.

For example, a woman in my Human Development class said of her students last week, that she always gets "a class of morons." I yelled at her. I yelled at her in class, and I said that I found it horrifying that she was a teacher and had that shitty of an attitude toward the young people who depend on her to teach them. She had an equally horrible opinion of me, but I found solace in that. I felt good knowing that, in her ignorance, she didn't understand what I was talking about because it was that ignorance that separated us, that gave my anger validity. She couldn't see how self-perpetuating it was for a stupid person to treat an entire group of children as if they were, in turn, stupid themselves. That's what's wrong with public education. It's why I know that I will never be a career teacher, why I know that I could never live with having people like her as colleagues. I can't think of a worse place to be than a teacher's lounge, and yet I'm getting a teaching license so that I can pay some student loans and get my finances straight. I know I'll be a good teacher, but I know that I won't last long at it. A few years, maybe, at most, and then I'll be frustrated enough to direct my aspirations elsewhere, where they should be directed presently, except that this in-between time is necessary. It's necessary so that I can get there. The getting there is important.

I often feel like a monster in a girl suit. Embracing that inner-monster, I'll put the book of good cheer on the shelf, and I'll turn to something one of my best and favorite friends said earlier this evening.

"Sometimes, it's kind of fun to be a nasty grown-up."

Yes. It is.

2008-11-29T18:02:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow: Chapbooks, Plain Spoke, Clearing my desk for the new year. Tonight: Sleep.

Bitchy Power

2008-10-19T08:51:00.001-07:00

So my nephew, who is three, comes up to me and says, "Ninny? Ninny Bitchy Power, Bitchy Power. It's in his whisper-whine voice, and I have no idea, obviously, what Bitchy Power is.

Lots of things cross my mind, but none of them make sense. Is it some kind of new cartoon? Some kind of weird superhero power? Austin Powers' niece? I have no idea.

At times it sounds as if he's saying powDer, but no, that's not right. I ask him to repeat it.

Me: What did you say?
Drake: you say
Me: No, what did you ask me?
Drake: Ninny.
Me: Yes?
Drake: Bitchy Power. Peeeeeeeez? (This one I know. It's supposed to be "Please."
Me: What is Bitchy Power?
Drake: Ninny shing ut?

OK Now I know it's supposed to be a song. However, I'm still laughing about his rendition of Lip Gloss from a couple weeks ago, and I have no idea what Bitchy Power could be.

Me: No, you sing it.
Drake: Bitchy bitchy Powder up waa-erpot.....

Itsy Bitsy Spider. I had no idea. I guess I'd better start keeping a list of songs kids sing and when I can't figure out what he's talking about, I could try to match it up or something.

Otherwise, I'm wondering why my nephew's all running around like "Power to the Bitches!" or something.

Not good.

Thrive

2008-10-14T10:16:00.001-07:00

I just joined Thrive (justthrive.com) because they promised me they would help me watch my money grow.

After adding my bank account and other info, this is what they told me:

1. I can afford a home worth 72,280.

2. I can retire with $0/year.

3. I can survive without an income for 0 days.

My financial health is 2.8 out of 10.

Which of those three things does not make sense? I have no idea how I could afford a house payment right now, even on a 70-thousand-dollar house. Argh.

2008-10-13T09:14:00.001-07:00

For everything I scratch off my to-do list, a bunch of other things jump on it.

My Favorite Junk House

2008-10-10T17:00:00.001-07:00

My friend George is opening a business. It's going to be called the Salt Kettle Gallery. He's going to have a florist/gift shop/art gallery. We've been planning for months how we're going to make this paper mache kettle because nobody actually has a kettle anymore. This becomes more important later in the story.

There used to be these people who lived in this ancient old red house on a really curvy turn on the way to Carrollton.

Once, I saw an old steamer trunk sitting out by their garbage, and I stopped and asked the woman who lived there if I could buy it from her. She gave it to me for free. My friend Shaun fixed it up a little, and then I used it for a display at my shows. Eventually, I sold it to my cousin for $40, who thought that was a steal, and she got it refurbished. It's probably worth several hundred at this point.

Another time I stopped there, I got a pile of old dishes. I found my favorite spoon there (some old silver thing with a star on the handle) and I've picked up odds and ends now and again that have proved useful, valuable, or just plain odd and interesting.

A few months ago, they moved. They had a sale, and my mom went to it and got an antique metal bed and some old, old lighting fixtures and crates.

I was sad, because My Favorite Junk House wasn't going to be a Junk House anymore.

However. Some new people moved in the house.

I stopped in Bonnie's, the antique store in town that's only open from Easter to Halloween, and I asked her to look for old jars for me so I can make lights from them. She said she would.

She also said that she knew some people who were trying to sell her some jars like the ones that I wanted. I told her to send them on up to the shop.

So I was sitting here the other day, and these people pulled in the parking lot in a mini-van stuffed full of stuff. The woman came in and she said she was looking for Cindy. She said that Bonnie had sent her up here, and that she'd talked to my mom the day before, and they were here to pick up the carpet. (There was this big roll of carpeting on our porch that we were going to use in the candle room at one time and then decided against it, so it was waiting on someone with a truck to take it to the dump). I was all for someone taking the carpet, so I walked outside to where her daughter was waiting. The girl was around eleven years old and she asked me if I was in the band. I said, "what band?"

She said, "The band. I play the clarinet."

I said, "I can play the clarinet, but no, I'm not in the band."

She looked at me funny, like she was disappointed, and started picking her cold sore.

Her mother was still talking about the carpet. Then she said she had glass jars for me to look at. They were in boxes in the mini-van. I chose some, and she said she had to take them home and clean them before I could have them, and also decide on a price.

At this point her boyfriend/husband (he looks much younger than she does, and at first I wasn't certain that he wasn't her son) is finished packing the huge roll of carpet into the back of the van. He had a big rigmarole getting it in there, and I was surprised the hatch closed. But it did. Small miracles.

Then he says to me, "Do you think you might be interested in a big black pot like you stir a witch's brew in?"

I said, "a what?"

And he said, "A pot, like yea high, with three legs, about three inches long apiece on the bottom. Like a witch would have. Like a cauldron."

I tried to swallow my excitement at the thought of not having to paper mache one. I didn't say, "Oh my gosh a kettle blah blah blah."

I did say, "Maybe. I have a friend who might be interested in it. I'll have to get back with you."

They just stopped again today, about 15 minutes ago, and we settled on $1 each for the small jars and $2 to $3 for the large ones.

Then he started with the cauldron. I think he thinks that it's high-dollar cauldron time because it's Halloween. I've talked to George about it since the first mention of it, and he said he wanted it definitely. So when Jessy (that's the guy's name with the "Cauldron") said, "Do you think it's worth $30? It's really nice and all" I just about jumped out of my shoes with joy.

They were talking about "thanks for the carpet" and "we really needed it for our new house" so I asked the question.

"Where is your new house?"

And they said, "It's a big old red house up halfway to Harlem Springs on the way to Carrollton. It's on the left. You can't miss it."

My Favorite Junk House is now doing DELIVERIES!

2008-10-05T17:54:00.001-07:00

“It wasn’t like The Breakfast Club, it was like high school.”
— Dawn Hill, character in Cold Case’s “Detention” episode.

Oh, Yeah!

2008-10-05T14:00:00.001-07:00

And I need to dedicate more time to writing, too.

I wish I could buy some. But then bottled/packaged/mass-manufactured time would probably cost a proverbial arm+leg.

So I wouldn't be able to afford it anyway.

My enormous list of things to do.

2008-10-05T13:51:00.001-07:00

1. I've been elected president of a booster organization that supports my alma mater's drama club. To get the year started off in a positive way, I've got a few things to do. First, I've taken on the responsibility of taking care of some customer service issues with Samuel French. Then I've got to make an appointment to go in to the school and meet with the principal about a fundraiser we are planning so that I can ask permission to use the school.

2. Gob Pile Chapbook Series. The guts are almost edited and ready to print. I've got to send proof copies out to the poets, collect stuff from my two editors, get the artwork finalized, get rights to use an image of a Penobscot indian man, and plan the Chapbook release soiree in November. Which happens to be on my birthday. Whee.

3. Plain Spoke. Volume 2 Issue 3 is due out within the next two weeks. Gotta get moving on that. It's ready to print, but I've got paperwork to do and the actual production to get done.

4. Home work. I adore my phonics class. If all the grad classes were this fascinating, grad school would be Great Fun. However, most of it is really dull, and confirms my suspicions that public education is a joke. I don't know how I ever survived it.

5. Art. I still have to get ready for my three big shows this fall. I have very very little finished.

6. Hope that I get some me-time during xmas break.

2008-10-01T23:57:00.001-07:00

Confucius said, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." Too bad I'm no good with a shovel.

2008-10-01T14:43:00.001-07:00

My brother uses more laundry detergent than anyone else in the Western Hemisphere.

It's a mystery.

Every Once in a While, Somebody or Something refreshes my faith in Humanity.

2008-10-01T14:42:00.001-07:00

Today is not one of those times, nor is Anthony Pallilo and his new book one of those things. I don't even know how this spam finds its way to me. Jeez.

If anyone can explain why this guy thought I might want to read his book (or why anyone would want to read his book), please do share.

Back to work now.

2008-09-28T14:01:00.001-07:00

Loving my to-do list, being a mile long, and having a million things on it for blowing off.

The Mean Reds

2008-09-21T14:13:00.001-07:00

I haven't written anything of any substance in months. A few nights ago, I wrote a poem about belonging that described my Great Aunt Mary and my grandmother's ritual of playing solitaire while drying their pin-curls with setting solution under those whole-head hot-as-hell hair dryers, but it didn't do what I wanted it to do, and so it went in the pile of things I need to edit.

I wrote something recently about coal-miners and faith, but it fell short of amazing, and when I write things that have Big Ideas, they have to be amazing or else they just don't have that sparkle. So that went in the pile of things that have good elements that just don't seem to work together. Those things become 2 or more poems eventually, or they just gather intellectual dust.

I need to paint again. Everything is just so big a mess, and I need to get all my stuff de-cluttered so I can have the chapbook release party in the classroom in November. I know it's like "That's not until November," but I kind of see it as "Oh my goodness I only have 54 days!"

I think I've got those Golightly Mean Reds.

Worse than the Blues, If I had her money I'd be richer than she is, $5 for the powder room Mean ole Reds.

Plus, I'm thirsty right now, and that doesn't help my mood.

Now I'm going to get back to working on the chapbooks. And on Plain Spoke. They're all melting into one big pile of publishing at the moment, but I'll sort it out.

2008-09-21T13:58:00.001-07:00

Looking for Penobscot Indian pictures.

2008-09-14T14:29:00.001-07:00

Going to Pittsburgh tonight.

2008-09-11T21:51:00.001-07:00

Going to buy paper in the morning.

EDU 539: Grad School for Dummies.

2008-09-11T10:55:00.001-07:00

I have my computer class this evening. Last week, we did hokey worksheets in which we labeled the monitor, keyboard, and other input and output devices and computer components. We had all week to finish these things. I feel a little bit dumb after having done them, as if there's a trick somewhere that I'm missing, or some obvious "haha - gotya" april fool's day early thing.

But there isn't. It's just that ridiculous. I should scan them in and make fun of them, but that would mean wasting even more time on it.

Today, for homework, I'm supposed to go online and find my dream computer and print out its specifications.

I can't wait to see what the midterm looks like.

2008-09-10T13:48:00.001-07:00

I am a peanut butter sandwich (if it's true that you are what you eat)

2008-09-10T11:11:00.001-07:00

Going out to the high school for the audition.

2008-09-08T12:39:00.001-07:00

about the Flip Kelly Poetry Prize. Please.

http://ping.fm/97umz

I just got done opening the mail.

2008-09-08T12:38:00.001-07:00

As of late, I have been literally swamped by mail. Not the email kind, but the real, made-of-paper, in different handwritings and stylings, and in different folds and various sized envelopes.

The kind that comes with stamps.

It's been damp outside recently, and some of the paper has that little bit of roughness, that curl-up and dried feel to it. Like the fake money you bought at the 8th grade field trip to Gettysburg.

It's that kind of thing, and it makes me happy.

2008-09-08T12:34:00.001-07:00

ruffling her papers. (It's the Cindy version of feathers, really.)

Where I'm From

2008-09-01T19:16:00.000-07:00

after George Ella Lyon

I am from railroad tracks and whirligigs, from blue glass
Ball mason jars full of cat's eye marbles and old buttons,
from my mother's Tupperware parties.
I am from tongue and groove paneling
(shiny maple, put there by my grandfather
when his hands were strong and young).
I am from wisteria and milkweed
and planting petunias in flower beds each spring.

I'm from staying up late, fresh kettle popcorn,
real melted butter and shiny, salty fingers,
from Flip Kelly, Uncle Bub and Great Aunt Mary Davis.
I'm from big-mouths and bull-heads,
from don't-cut-paper-with-my-sewing-scissors
and stand-up-straight.

I am from the Moonlight Sonata
on the upright Wurlitzer my grandmother gave me
because my mother never learned to play,
from macramé and ceramics,
watching The Joy of Painting on PBS
and learning to crochet.

I'm from the coal hill and the Eastern,
radio cookies and the bubbly brown sugar
smell of Great Grandma Morgan's sweet yams,
singing Christmas songs along with Carpenters
while we made pressed butter cookies and divinity.

From putting notes in my grandpa's lunch bucket
before he left for the Y&O mine,
from the recipe book my grandma started
for me and never got a chance to finish.

I am from my mother's bookshelf,
the cedar chest, and the kitchen cupboard
where we still keep Grandma's good plates,
from leather photo albums,
and my favorite picture of my mother
wearing the same navy cable-knit toboggan
hat that I wear now.

Kaleidowhirl

2008-08-31T17:35:00.001-07:00

I just found out that Kaleidowhirl's new issue has just gone live.

Check out my poem here:

Kaleidowhirl

Gob Pile Chapbook Series News

2008-08-31T17:32:00.000-07:00

We are happy to announce our first four chapbooks in the Gob Pile Chapbook Series. These chaps will be out in November, but we will be announcing a pre-order soon.

Chaps:
Alex Stolis’ How to Drink Yourself Sober
Cory Mesler’s Grit
Michael Campagnoli’s Kikukus
Mark Jackley’s Cracks and Slats

Editors for the series: Cindy Kelly and Laura Wackerly. Reader: Shaun Barcalow.

Three more chapbooks should be coming out in December, as a result of the Flip Kelly Poetry Prize. If you haven’t checked out the submission guidelines for this contest, you should. It’s got one of the lowest entry fees around (only $15), and you get a year’s subscription to Plain Spoke (a $24 value!) for free.

Everybody likes free.

A Sestina and a Short Fiction: Publishing news

2008-04-12T13:34:00.001-07:00

Plain Spoke Vol. 2. No. 1. is going to be out very shortly, and it's the longest issue yet, full of the fabulous, charming, and lovely works of an eclectic group of writers, featuring the poet Deborah Bogen (www.deborahbogen.net), who resides in Pittsburgh.

In my own personal quest for publication, I received two good pieces of news today.

Forthcoming in their "oldest profession" issue, my creative nonfiction piece, "The Brief Existence of Lainey O'Galeigh," will be published in MiPOesias .

Also, forthcoming in the Spring 2008 issue of Kaleidowhirl is one of my favorite pieces, "Homesick Sestina."

Today I went to the first annual Lady of Mercy Handmade Craft Show in Carrollton, Ohio. I didn't sell a ton of stuff, but I passed out lots of flyers about our grand-reopening in May (12th-18th, if you're in the area - check www.oldegarage.com for details and schedule of events). So we made back the table money, sold a few things, and got some (basically) free advertising.

The weird thing was people were buying lots of fall-flavored (read: orange and brown and fall colors) things. I thought it was Spring, people! :)

Anyway, I've got a ton of work to catch up on.

Two Poems and one contest.

2008-04-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

I had bronchitis last week, and I missed all of my classes and did not even check my email.

So when I did sit down to check it, I was overwhelmed with the amount of it (And Gmail does get a "good boy!" for making sure it was 99% spam-free).

So first, I'll share all the good news:

1. Apparently there is an English department award each year, given to two English majors who "who not only earn high grades but who are also actively involved in class and contribute to other students and the life of the campus" according to the email I received. So yay! I won! I never win anything.

2. "I Dreamed of Drowning" is forthcoming at Bakers Dozen.

3. "A Record of Things" is forthcoming at The Hiss Quarterly. (This poem is one of my new favorites, and chronicles a piece of my mother's childhood, creatively, with wallpaper. It should be up on or around May 1.)

And now a little disappointment:

I was hoping to be among the winners of the Akron Art Museum's New Words poetry contest, but I wasn't. They don't send you any kind of loser notification, so I just kept checking the site occasionally. Oh well. I just thought it would have been cool to have won that one.

Bit of disappointment with Forklift, OH

2008-03-29T21:23:00.001-07:00

So I found this journal:

Forklift, and it's so charming and unusual that, of course, upon consuming all of the available text, I wished to submit something charming and unusual of my very own.

I was a little bit hesitant because there are several big name poets (including Dean Young - and since one of the two poets who influenced me in a Great Big Way was my teacher, Bob King, and since Bob King was under the poetry-teacherish-influence of Dean Young - it makes sense to me that they might like my poems. They might not publish them, but they might like them just the same) I thought maybe submitting to them was a waste of time. But then I got a little bit of that "don't hurt to try" spunk out of the closet (maybe it fell on my head) and decided what the hell.

So I clicked around (not the most obvious website in terms of labelling their links according to the information stored within - instead it's all metaphoric, which might just be a little bit of an indication of their snobbery, but I didn't catch on), until I found their submission guidelines under logistics.

Now. I don't know about the average Joe (or Jane, and why does Jane usually get paired with Dick until she dies and then it's John, and what's up with Joe, anyway?), but this seems a little sketchy to me:

"If you are interested in being included in an issue of Forklift, Ohio, we request that you first purchase and read a copy of the journal.

Then, before sending any work for consideration, please query the editors by E-mail at editors@ForkliftOhio.com. "

I understand that journals are often battling to stay afloat financially (as the editor of Plain Spoke, I can empathize wholeheartedly), and I often purchase copies of journals in order to read them and familiarize myself with them before I submit work. However, forcing people to purchase in order to query is a bit snitty, to say the least.

Also, even if I wasn't opposed to being forced into a purchase, I could not buy the journal if I wanted to because it's sold out. I get that it's "Be hand-assembled in limited quantities from a variety of unusual materials," but that much exclusivity is just for the birds.

I guess I just have to stick this one in that big heap of crap I'm not interested in, and move on.

How disappointing.

Here I am.

2008-03-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

I'm always saying that I'm going to keep up with blogging, and I never do it.

So what's the harm of a little "try try again?"

Stuff I should keep track of a little better:

to-do-lists

crafty artsy projects

accomplishments

writing

publication

things I want