Can’t sing. Can’t act. Big muscles. Can dance a little.

(Undeniably a singular sensation.)

This sign was on a shelf in a house we rented in Houston. The more you think about it, the more hell I don’t know what.

Trophy spouse.

Criminal mastermind.

Front desk at an unpopular museum.

Bookseller.

Librarian.

Nurse.

Outreach/education at zoo, aquarium, or museum.

Cabdriver.

Epicure.

Salesperson in sofa or bed emporium.

Journalist.

Scuba instructor.

Combination journalist/scuba instructor.

Oral history intake.

ER doctor.

Skydiving instructor, stunt double, advice columnist, coffeehouse owner.

Landscaper.

Medical librarian.

Dolphin.

In case you’d like your cat to look like a deranged millionaire. 

retrogasm:

It’s Abbott and Costello night…

Happy Birthday Lou!

Happy birthday to the movie star who meant the most to me when I was a kid, by far.

I was going to save the various body parts lying around the house for after the busts, but my 4-year-old is home sick today and he asked to look at the anatomical model of a heart that is usually on the mantelpiece and I thought said heart was looking particularly photogenic. You can open the chambers. 

This was a mutual wedding anniversary present, found at a flea market in Cedar Rapids, IA. 

We have a lot of busts.

This is Lord Nelson with one arm and both eyes. He was originally ordered from an online bust emporium as a Christmas present for my late father-in-law, a retired Lt. Commander in the Royal Navy.  The proprietor of the online bust emporium made a mistake, and initially sent a bust of Napoleon instead.  This (my husband pointed out) is a little like asking for Churchill and receiving Hitler.  We straightened it all out, Napoleon was sent to St. Helena, by which I mean the online bust emporium warehouse, and Nelson arrived instead.  

My father-in law liked the bust so much he bought a friend for it: a much smaller but similar bust of Nelson.  That bust came back to us, too, and it sits on a bookshelf in the kids’ room.  He wears more medals than the larger bust, which only goes to show: even Nelson can suffer from a Napoleon complex.

I loved this essay.

I rarely take pictures on my phone (a basic model with a fourth grade education, tops), but a while back I was crossing a playground and saw this and thought, I must take a picture of this to send to Matthea Harvey.  I love it when you see something in the real world and you think of the world of someone’s work.  

How strange to live in a world where you can contemplate typing the words, “So I texted a photo…”