Q: Are you a tree?
A: No.
Ask Me if I'm a Tree, 2001, graphite on wood, 21-3/4" x 23-1/2"
The Meaning of Life
Last summer I was having one of those what's-the-meaning-of-life?-moments. (A delicious, moonbeam-drenched man was the catalyst for my mood.) I went for a walk alone, in a pretty neighborhood near my house. As I strolled down tree-shaded, quiet streets and ambled past clapboard houses and silent dogs, I heard distant voices and the clatter of crockery. People were having dinner on their screened-in porches.
Suddenly a cat sidled up to me.
"Hello," I said to the cat. I crouched down and looked it in the eyes. "Could you please tell me the meaning of life?"
The cat said nothing, but a voice wafted from a nearby porch. "Stanley eats a pound of vegetables every day."
And that, apparently, is the meaning of life, my friend.
Photo by Nancy Robinson
Cleanliness is Next to Godliness
A busy and important friend of mine employs two cleaning ladies to keep her gargantuan house clean and neat. I don't use the term "cleaning lady" lightly. These two women (60-something sisters) are bona fide cleaning ladies of the old school variety. They even dress like cleaning ladies, in flowered house dresses and run-down sneakers. Their pudgy bodies look like flour sacks tied in the middle. Sometimes I suspect they're actually actresses rehearsing for a play, but if that's the case they've been in rehearsal for 45 years.
I can alway use cleaning tips, so the other day I sneaked up and hid behind a couch, listening to their cleaning-lady chatter.
"He's so good-looking," one of the cleaning ladies said.
"Yah, " the second cleaning lady said. "I don't know what he sees in her."
"Me neither" the first cleaning lady said. "She's plain as a shrub."
Satisfied with their own omniscience, they went back to scrubbing the floors.
Dammit!
Photo by Nancy Robinson
Several artist friends of mine have recently died. I hate this cycle-of-life stuff. But what did I expect, that I could freeze time in a moment when everything in life was perfect? I don't remember any time when life was perfect. Do you?
So Many Questions, So Little Time
I was asked two questions within 20 minutes the other day by two different men I don't know very well. The questions were: "Did you paint today?" and "Do you want to make love?"
Apparently my audience has a wide range of interests.
Journaling
Writing in my journal is always an adventure.
Photo by Nancy Robinson