Design Features

D got some new software to manipulate photos and I was watching him work this morning, designing a poster and the cover (essentially the same, in this case) for a show Pegi's kids are doing to parallel the "Alice" exhibit at the museum. The boy's good, but for god's sake, don't tell him. He took a fairly flat, badly lit photo and turned it into exactly what she needed. Pegi and someone's mother (she photographs for her kid's tuition, she's ok, in the "I had one photography class in college" way) had dressed the lovely Hayden in a blue taffeta gown (a 14-year-old who looks a sexy 18) then took her below the floodwall, down below the first terrace, where the roots are exposed from the mostly red maple that grow there. A wall of roots, 10 feet tall. So, a flat photo of Hayden looking charming and perplexed against this incredible background, which, unfortunately, in the afternoon light is flat as a fucking pancake. D manipulates almost every aspect of this photo, and ends with a wonderful shot of Alice going down the rabbit hole. He toiled overlong with the placement of the verbage, but I saw what he was thinking. The problem with being facile is that everything becomes a variable and available to alteration. I should think it must occasionally put one into a coma of possibilities. A person I didn't know, so I must have been described by someone else, because this other person came right up to me. Sometimes the words fall trippingly, and I never know when it's going to happen, but when it does I indulge myself. Later, when I reread a paragraph, it might make me smile. It might not. I write enough I can blow off any given day as an exercise in harmonics. Anyway. This person comes right up to me, to me specifically, not in any way aggressive, male college student is my best guess, but he obviously knew what I looked like, which meant that someone had described me. I have to think about that. Which me were they describing? The physical thing, certainly, what I don't understand. And that was a great period. Understand BAM. Hard stop. Little Sister has squirreled away an extra pup. You can imagine my shock. I was down there, for hours, I never suspected there was another puppy, hidden away in a hole. I'm going to get all the bitches fixed and shoot the wild dad. I have certain responsibilities, being an overseer, wrong word, an interested party. I can't control a paragraph, much less run for city council. Terry pulled over in his van, when D and I were out smoking, wanting to set a date for doing ribs on the roof top. Small town life. The ICE-CREAM truck, I mean, really. Could I get you a fudge bar? Kim hangs heavy doors, so we can think about them, I want to ring my stupid students by the neck. Come on, you're better than that. Oh, god, that's right, I don't have students anymore.