Four and Twenty.

This one gets unlimited do-overs.

All in a row.

Anyone know how to transplant a tomato?

That doesn't require answering.

Dug a few shallow holes in our barrels, plunged the weedy things in, arranged them into arthritic positions, watered them for the first--and what I assumed to be the last--time, and decided that fortyfive minutes at the garden was more than deserving of a nap on a huge pile of clean laundry.

Went back out to check them and they've crisped up nice, with beautiful golden brown edges like a pretty pie. Which I assume means they're done and ready for serving.

Welcome.

Six months and three days in the new place and I received our first official introduction. No brownies, but an honest offering of secondhand sunflowers and cherry tomato plants from the guy across the street. He's a former Westsider, works T.A.T.S., dropped one "goddammit" and a few "fucks", and smelled like a four o'clock buzz. I decided we could parley.

Outland.

Once through the garden you will be in the

wood.

The trees are old. Eyes peer from the under-

growth.

Beneath a twisted oak sits an old woman. She

may ask for something;

give it to her.

From "Instructions" by Neil Gaiman

That something may or may not have to do with the Vlasic Stork. (See bottom right.)

Wall of Fame.

Grab your most distinctive hats, most silhou-worthy collars, your boathouse coats, your pipes and pens, your 19th century glowers.

It's sittin' time.

Experiencing Nim-pah.

Had a mighty bout of deja vu while sketching this. Turns out I was tracing, from memory, every line of a favorite comic character of mine. He'd appeared in one panel. Of a Tom and Jerry insert. In 1983. He was the most minor of throwaways. A tough bird in a straw hat. But the lines were so graceful that he stuck--and it now occurs to me that he's become the template for every goose-necked, hawk-billed figure I attempt.

Look, Lizzie, look.

Down the glen tramp little men.

...cont.

Two more. A little more Branwen than Ballerina. I prefer the one on the left. Eyes to the distance, shoelaces trailing.

Lassie.

I call this one "Bridget". For she who commissioned, for she who will receive, and in memory of a well-timed bottle of Sour Apple Pucker.

Cedar chest.

Wound about in silver hair.
Arranged in unlikely angles.
Joints creaking, fingers snapping, elbows popping.
Smelling of sawdust and last breath.
More dead pixies.

One eighty.

Bit of a turnaround. Really it's just inspired by the last trip up to the attic. The grooves in the upstairs windows are filled with the tiny sunbleached corpses of a thousand ladybugs and their housefly nannies. Regina's lost brood. I'd long suspected her to be something of an absentee dam, but being sole witness to the slide of a generation into its own golden dust demands documentation.

I'm. In. Heaven.

There was a magical moment last night at Wegman's when every woman (and one stoned guy) was singing along with Mariah Carey's "Fantasy". The frozen foods section burst into dance.

No exaggeration.

Te llamo? Mallo?

Last of the bunch.

Terseness at its cryptic worst. Thank goodness for the eloquent image.

Dew Drop (Dude Drop)

Pondhopper. Puddlejumper.

Bla(s/z)e

Opted out of wings and tights for the series. Really wasn't my decision. If left to myself, I suspect I'd have had them all dancing with bees or curled up in flowers. Fireflowers.

Hothead.

Sketching out some bookmarks for a fave's fourth grade theater students. Could do this forever.

The devil's in the details in these kids' drawings, though. Been agonizing over the barest hints. Those three lines at the back of the head, for example? Are they the suggestion of speed? Heat? Impressionist dreads? Check out those arms--both clearly behind the back. Is that part of the process of fire-sculpting? Will they notice that I quite literally put his wrong foot forward?

When all's done, I'm putting faith in the ability of dragons and firefoxes to distract your above-average ten year old male.

I even seen a barn dance.

Miss Mary Mack.

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack

All dressed in black, black, black

With silver buttons, buttons, buttons

All down her back, back, back.

She asked her mother, mother, mother

For 50 cents, cents, cents

To see the elephants, elephants, elephants

Jump over the fence, fence, fence.

They jumped so high, high, high

They reached the sky, sky, sky

And they didn't come back, back, back

'Til the 4th of July, ly, ly!

I'm going to pretend I knew all along that was a naval reference. Or that I knew of the poem's existence at all, for that matter. Though I'd always felt a prickling annoyance at the absence of ironclad lore. Yeah.

J&H: Part Deux

Dear Caller,

Only interested in things that have existed, might exist, will exist, never existed. Nothing that actually does exist.

Signed,

Out of Touch

Stirred, never shaken.

Not quite sure, but I may have printed Stoli on one of those beakers. Nestle Strawberry Quik on another. Either one is quite a high. Just watch for those mid-leap transformations--it's a long way down between buildings.

The play's the thing.

"As full of spirit as the month of May

and gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;

wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls."

William Shakespeare, King Henry the Fourth, part I