Mary cannot fathom why she hasn’t unloaded more of her artwork on the citizenry of this country.  I mean, it’s spectacular work, isn’t it?   Over the past three years, whenever there has been an “art” show or some other “art” selling oportunity, Mary says no one buys art anymore because of the economy.

My response has been that people are very choosy about original artwork and therefore only buy a few pieces over their lifetime.  To which, Mary responded, “oh you don’t appreciate REAL art.  Most people don’t. They are ignorant.”

Uhhh.

I love being called ignorant.  It’s so special.

After taking a deep breath, I asked Mary, “how many original pieces of art have YOU purchased over your lifetime?”

Blank stare.

Cough.

“Well?” I asked.

Mary countered, “I don’t see you buying any either.”

“Oh, yes, I have.  It has only been a few pieces but you know I have. You were even with me when I bought a painting a couple of years ago. ”

Cough.

I get a little tired of hearing her berate the general, ignorant, public for not buying art when she doesn’t do it either.

Breathlessly, Mary blurted out, “I have those two paintings The Pariah got for me…”

I cut her off faster than a soccer mom driving with a cell phone.  “YOU didn’t buy those. The Pariah did.”

“People just don’t buy art.  I wish I could sell something.”

I am still waiting for Mary to think of some original art she’s purchased.

I went to lunch with Mary the other day.  She sat down across from me and said, “I have to tell you something, but I am afraid to because you are going to make a big deal about it.”

Now, when someone prefaces a conversation with a statement like that, you immediately think jail time or something equally as horrible.  So, I braced myself for the worst.  “What did you do?” I asked her.

“Well.  I kind of put a dent in my car.”

“A dent? Did you have a wreck?”

“No.  Um.  I think I did it with the garage door.”

“The garage door?  Doesn’t yours do the automatic thing where it opens back up when it hits something?”

“Yes, but it didn’t go back right away, and it snagged on the bumper, I think, and dented it.”

So, I am trying to imagine a little dent or scratches or something across the top of the back of the car or bumper, right?  I mean, what would a dent the garage door put into a car look like?

Mary pointed out the window to her car in the parking lot.  The dent looked like this (only a lot bigger):

“WTF?  Mom, your garage door could not have possibly put a dent like that in the bumper.   Did  you hit something?”

“NO!  I swear!  I didn’t hit anything.”

“Did you hit somebody in another car?  A pole at the bank. Come on, you had to have hit something.”

“No. I didn’t.  Someone must have hit me.”

“Mom, do you honestly think I am going to believe you don’t know how that happened after you come up with a cock-a-mamie story about the garage door doing that?”

“I KNEW you’d overreact.”

Lordy, Lord have mercy.

Color me biased, but I do not think Mary is that great of a writer.   Yes, she can write, she knows her mechanics, she wields a mean (but excellent) editor’s pen when you ask for help, and she can write some pretty good short stories.  But overall, most of what she produces has a “young” feel to it; as if, someone without much worldly experience is speaking.   It isn’t very complex, and that is hard to really get right in a longer work.   When you think about what makes a really great novel, I do not think her work has “it.”

The other day, she told me she was putting her novel aspirations to the side in favor of her art aspirations.   She shrugged her shoulders and told me that she was tired of all of the work and effort it took to try to get someone to publish it.   Then, she turned to me and said, “But, I know I am right up there with the best of them.”

And, she truly means the best, most prolific and known writers (King, Grisham, etc.)  Not the local or regional hordes.

Color me surprised.  I just nodded and listened to her jabber.

First, let me say to the few dedicated readers we have, I am really glad you are here.  I am truly sorry for the lack of inspiration lately.  Perhaps, now that I’ve had a little break from thinking and writing, it will be easier to get back into the swing of things.

I think one of the reasons I have had a lack of material lately is that Mary seems to be slowing down as she ages.  Not that she was ever a ball of motivated energy before!   But, she is getting older, slower and not on the phone as often.

She is sleeping more and more, which worries me.  She has gained a great deal of weight.  A couple of years ago, she took off a lot of pounds; well, since then she’s gained it all back and then some.   She is very inactive, and you can see the extra weight is taking its toll on her physically.     She is insisting that she has some sort of nerve condition making her weak.   I told her that I believed it was her extra weight.   But, Mary wants a magic pill to fix her.

I also talked to her about her excessive sleeping.  That, of course, is a sign that her depression is flaring up.   Mary has always been a late sleeper, but now, often she is sleeping well past noon.   She promised to talk to her doctors about that.

So, while we keep our fingers crossed that Mary takes her health seriously, in the next week or so, look for stories on:

• How the garage door put a dent the size of Wisconsin in Mary’s bumper
• How she’s as good a writer as Steven King
• Why her art doesn’t sell
• Her scheme on putting a swimming pool in her garage, and
• Gee, I really thought one or two would have died by now.

Tonight we learned that there were American Saints from before Pocahontas’ time. That is all.

Mary shuffled in while I was working on a computer software upgrade for her.

“Therapist? I have to ask you something very important.”

“What?”

“Oh don’t give me that condescending attitute. This is serious.”

“Okay… what?”

“I heard that they have created led lights that will go in your regular fixtures.”

“Ooookaaay… what?”

“Well! Don’t you see? If they really work then I can use them instead of those poisonous compact florescent bulbs with the mercury. Because, you know, I’ll go crazy with worry about dropping one, and if I ever broke one I would have to move and I can’t believe they will force me to use something in my house that requires hazardous material lessons to handle them.”

“Ooookaay… great!”

“Do you think the government will arrest me if I DON’T use the compact flourescents?”

WTF?

It’s coming.

It’s about to hit.

Mary emailed me to say she is upset hat NOBODY told her I was coming to town to visit. I kindly and gently (really, even used a smiley emoticon) refreshed her memory by emailing her back this:

I am not coming until Monday. The plan has always been that I was coming, and I even told you that in email when we were discussing when you were coming here. : )

Then she commented that she was *upset* because my visit is pushing close to when she comes back from her art thing in Tuscaloosa. TUSCALOOSA. Which is what? 2 hours from where she lives???? I am putting her out because I plan on coming Monday and she will have just gotten home from her whirlwind trip to TUSCAFUCKALOOSA on Sunday?? Whatever.

I invited her to come see me in my new digs. She swore up and down in April that she was going to come see me. I made time for her to come visit this summer. But then she started her usual vague… oh I can’t possibly come up then passive aggressive stuff. She won’t be getting an engraved invite to come, but I did my best to accomodate her schedule. Of course, she put me off saying that since I was coming to AL this summer, she would just wait to drive up here til the fall. Um okay… then why are you *upset* that nobody told you I was coming?

She’s gearing up for this trip. And I am not/will not take her bait.

Mary, like many of us, has a mean streak in her. Generally, she will have a fit of “put-down-ing” (word?) where she feels the need to put down or criticize something to either 1) show her “knowledge” of the area or 2) to pump herself up by negating someone else.

I take a lot of photographs of my kids. Photography is a very enjoyable hobby (side note: and NO! I don’t feel the need to enter any stupid contests). Sometimes, I am just taking snapshots, other times I am trying to do something more serious, and occasionally, I’ll have a happy accident. You know, a photo that was a mistake but it turns out interesting anyway.

I have a photograph of my daughter hanging on the wall in the living room. It is not a dainty, pretty thing. The flash did not work properly. She was lying on the couch talking to me, and there is a shadow on part of her face. I like the moment because she looks thoughtful in the image.

One day, Mary was standing before the picture, analyzing it as you would in an art museum. She had one hand under her chin and another on her hip. She begins to exclaim:

“I really don’t like this picture. In FACT, I loathe it. It’s horrible! It’s awful.”

My daughter was in the next room getting ready for her bath. I knew she could overhear Mary. I said, “Mom. Stop! She might hear you and think you mean her.”

Did that make Mary think twice? Uh, of course not.

“No! It reminds me of something demonic. Like demons are coming in the darkness. It’s hideous. I don’t know why you’d put something that ugly on the wall.”

Yep.

That would be the sound of my forehead banging against the table.

My little girl and I joined Mary for lunch the other day. It was a spur of the minute thing.  I know that Mary gets bored between activities so we tried to make some time to just hang out.

At lunch, my little girl was moaning about the end of the summer.  She was having fun, but she knew that school would be starting again and she just wants the summer to last and last.  Who can blame her?  I started to say something when Mary chimed in:

“OMG. I just HATED IT when the summer was ending. I was so homesick at college that I just dreaded going back. I don’t know why I stayed at that place, because blah…blah…blah… It’s all about me and my frickin feelings…”

My daughter was so funny. She looked at me. She looked on at Mary as she jabbered about how sorry she felt for herself 50 years ago, and then she looked at me again and just shrugged her shoulders and went back to eating her lunch. My kids totally get IT.

I just put my head down on the table until Mary gave up.

Or is it a thousand words?  I have no idea what this is.

I asked what the hell it was, some sort of Teletubby homage?  She replied that she liked them when they were little.

What do you mean when they were little? Aren’t they still little now? I mean, really, teletubbies never grow up.

AHA! Mary is a Teletubby.