Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

Back in the Paleozoic era about fifteen years ago, I was popular with the Ladies who Lunch. The ones who live in Peapack, eat tiny sandwiches and complain about the help. They would hire me to design their party invitations, personal stationary, and campaign materials for an occasional kid's student council run. Newsflash, and you might want to jot this down: if you want to kick some major high school ass, get your mommy to hire a professional advertising agency to lock down your run for class president. I am proud to say our candidates never lost an election. My assistant Dmitri drove down to Mary's place. Possibly, he needed to drop off press proofs for our crushingly successful "Vote chRis" campaign. The first time I had gone down there myself, I met Mary's houseboy who twittered on endlessly about the terrible ordeal of finding ribbon to match Mary's satin pumps. It was a fine spring day. Dmitri drove through the service gates and somehow took a wr

Before yesterday's epoch-shattering visit to MoMA, I used to think there was nothing more to picking up assorted rusted roadbooty in the parking lot then rampant OCD. But now I know better. I'm doing it for Art. Because I am obviously on track to become an Artist. And possibly not an Artist starving for a reason. We saw a Mark Dion exhibit in the CurioKammer area on the second floor of the museum. Dion (b. 1961) "bases his installations on the methods of categorization found in natural history museums. He filled this cabinet with curiousities found in the museum's sculpture garden." Eureka! I will become renowned within art circles for my provocative juxtaposition of lost pennies and clevis pins. I am going to empty my pockets and start taking this seriously.

From: Stacey Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 10:54 AM To: Erin Subject: Complex plan of action Hey there, Thanks so much for offering to feed our cat while we are at the beach. Ok, so we have a very complex multi-layered approach to the Raccoon Situation. Here’s the Plan: We have fortified the Raccoon Fence with additional sheet metal, duct tape, bolts, WD-40 and ammonia. We are little concerned about the ammonia as it may repel the cat as well as the raccoons. I was a little heavy handed. If you come in and the food is not eaten at all, please put food in the Auxiliary Locations as specified below. Inside the basement, there are two food bowls. One at the bottom of the steps and one at the top. We are keeping this approach because if the raccoons find one food bowl they tend to not go looking for another one. The food bag is right on the top of the basement steps inside the door. Please keep the door closed as if the cat gets up stairs he will spitefully ri

Mary's mom heads over to the neighbor's house for the yard sale. All the goods are spread out over the yard. She browses. Until somebody comes out and tells her they're just cleaning out the shed.

"Look at this hair in the cat bowl. It's black and white with a sprinkling of tan. Do you think it is Alex's hair? I hope it's not a raccoon hair." "I'm going to pluck a hair from Alex for comparison purposes. Probably the most exemplary hairs are in his hindquarter." "I didn't actually hold the two hairs next to each other. But I think the hair in the cat bowl came from Alex. I really hope it came from Alex." "The other option is we could put piles and piles of food outside so the raccoon doesn't have to come inside. But that would only be only if we were really desperate."