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Dead monkeys and self portraits

my studio, cleanOne of my mom’s best friends was a carney. We called her the Monkey Lady, on account of she had a monkey act. Duh. When Mother adopted her, she was old and retired and lived in a burnt-out bar down by the river, and her five big evil monkeys spent every waking minute working at the bars of their cages in an effort to free themselves and — she devoutly believed — chew through her jugular vein while she slept. Shitting you not. But they were still her precious furbabies.

Well. I didn’t like her, either.

Somehow, Mother got guilted into arranging to have these beloved psychotic homicidal monkeys gassed. I’ll tell you the whole horrible story some day, but you’ll have to get me drunk first.

The general plan was, the Monkey Lady would leave the house and come back some hours later to a peacefully monkey-free zone. Only, when she came back, she found one of the vet’s assistants had left a choke harness behind in the middle of the floor.

Dun-dun DUNNNNN!

I feel a bit like that. I went through all the stuff in my studio, picked through thirty some years of old letters and bad self portraits and selected only the juiciest morsels for posterity. I fully expected to come back and find all the rest had been whisked away while I rolled about the countryside, madly gay, roasting champagne and drinking chestnuts.

And so it did come to pass, I thought as I arrived home late last night.

Until I left for work this morning and found the lot, neatly packed and stowed in the garage. I guess my ragpicker couldn’t believe anyone would give up such awesomely fantastic junk.

Albatross? WHAT albatross?

my garage, not clean

January 8, 2008 — 7:30 pm
Comments: 49