The frustration from the image that is underneath this post stems from the fact that when I took the picture i could tell it was going to be perfect. It was an angle maybe, the way Lauren held her head, the lighting, etc... It just seemed perfect when the little fake shutter on the little fake camera closed. We waited between paintings, as a man we hardly knew told us that under no circumstances could we take photographs (of the really horrible paintings of dogs and cats in day glo yellow that hung from the walls like sad faces left adrift in any of a countless number of outlet malls through out the country. Exhibit A, Belz Factory Outlet Mall: Between the dim lights lighting the dark tiled walkway, there are kiosks, mostly empty peddling the likes of cell phone cases, house shoes shaped like enormous cartoon sneakers, and lizards made of foam attached to a stick (the idea being that you are walking a giant green lizard). The actual stores are far more depressing. Dress shoes made of cheap leather, hard as lead; to try one of these on is to know what Loman felt every day that he crept ever so slowly, step by bitter step, out of his great American sedan and into the streets of pennies and project freedom.
But I digress. Perhaps purposefully, but i realize now that sitting here at the front desk, with people walking around madly, and those asking important questions, that I don't have the isolation and time needed to work and re work all of that thought together.
Maybe I should instead try to write when I have a quiet moment AWAY from everything. How nice to sit near open water and just write.
That is a goal. A major goal is to be within biking distance to work.
To live by mountains,
and to breed beautiful healthy children.