Shrunk

I read an article in the KC Star on Sunday that much of the art being shown in museums these days is corporate owned art, and most of that art is pretty tame. Corporations don't like risky, peculiar works. They prefer flowers, fruit, Andrew Wyeth, and lots of western scenes. I do love me a good cowboy painting, but there is far more to art than images of the West. Too many things are going corporate and the net effect is a watered down culture that lacks diversity and originality. When I heard that Marvel comics had been bought by Disney I nearly crapped my pants. The Disneyfication of America goes on unabated, sigh.

For months that have turned into years, I've had this idea that if I could just get up early enough, I could be writing that novel. Well, I just read that Dan Brown, the author of the Da Vinci Code and a new book, The Lost Symbol, gets up at 4:00 am every day and writes until noon! I read that Barbara Kingsolver says that she wrote even when she had babies crawling all over her. Makes me feel like such a weinie. I couldn't write when I had babies crawling all over me. I can't even think if a baby is in the same room. I can't even think if a middle schooler is in the same room.

Speaking of which, the other day I accidentally shrunk my middle-schooler's skinny jeans. I knew not to put them in the dryer - the tag says to lay them flat to dry. But I had a lapse or something, as mothers tend to do as the evening waxes and the moon rises, and I forgot they were in the wad of wet clothing I was pulling out of the dryer. And so in the dryer they went. I was alone late at night when I finally rescued them from the dryer. I gasped. They looked freakishly small, like a person who had wasted away. I hid them. I would have to prepare Lilah for the bad news. There would be much wailing.