AUTHOR.CALHO: If I didn't write it, I would be hitch hiking cross country to Maine and then Alaska in that order. While taking frequent breaks to spread leaflets. And sit in diners. And write on things because I wasn't at a computer. I may still do that in a few years. Writing this also helps me forget about and better understand the limitations of being human, and keeps me busy enough to allow me no free time to burn the world down.

THEMATIC.ABOUT : Collapse often. The things that hold people together and hold them apart and scatter brains. The things that make thoughts go boom. The things that ooh and aah and [expletive deleted]. Sometimes poking around the margins where responsibility ends and the only one to look to is the Original Equipment Manufacturer and say "but, I already pressed 9 for more options and the menus are exactly the same. Can you just replace it?" The answer will be: "please hold." Sometimes hanging out in dark corners. Sometimes following the train tracks. Looking for ways out and ways in and all the while sharing the things seen and heard and done and drawn and written and scorched and healed and teased and caged and dreamed along the way.

8/19/11

Busy on Paper

And by on paper, I suppose I mean with paper. Trying to take care of a promise and make good, because making good is what I do, maybe not best, but I would say it's one of my reasonably positive traits.



It's really time consuming work. Not that I have a problem with that at all. It's what makes these things as gifts so great. If you ever get one from me (only one family ever has - one family and my principal in sixth grade [made him a spanish gallion out of string and 3x5 flash cards) you know it's special. Every seam takes close to a minute to dry. Every cylinder takes roughly twice that. Add in the time to make the paper cuts, apply the glue, plan and execute joints, plus mistakes (they do happen, but not nearly as often as when I first started making things out of manila folders in sixth grade), plus the times when complex surfaces joined to other complex surfaces need hours to set and many applications of glue in between and, depending on the size of the thing you are making, you might be looking at three hours to make a component no bigger than a tennis ball.

I still love doing it. I was thinking at work last night that I don't talk about the things I love all that much. I think that's partly because so much of my life has been defined by people telling me what I can't do, what I'm not allowed to do, what I will not be permitted to do, where I can't go, where I'm not welcome. Is it possible to forget there are things in life that you do enjoy? Not entirely, but it certainly becomes a thing you can quickly overlook like a valley of flowers amid a mountain range gash across the landscape. Sure, nothing great will happen for you lying there for too long, but hell, the stems aren't gonna smell themselves.

I wish I could finish it this week, but I am literally out of time today, so I'll have to see how tomorrow shakes out. When it's done it'll weigh about five pounds and be about a foot and a half tall.

///FC Kahuna - "North Pole Transmission" ...the big bright sky that keeps you wide awake... one of my favorites. I dream of living somewhere the stars are so bright at night I couldn't sleep beneath them if I wanted to
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