One last VISUAL reminder

don't be a loser

come

all right

don't come

whatever

Rules for Being 24 or 42

Susan Sontag’s Rules + duties for being 24

 1.Have better posture.

 2.Write Mother 3 times a week.

 3.Eat less.

 4.Write two hours a day minimally

 5.Never complain publicly about Brandeis [University] or money.

 6.Teach [SS's toddler son] David to read.

 

Then, several weeks later, Sontag resolves:

DON’T

1.Criticize publicly anyone at Harvard –

 2.Allude to your age (boastfully, mock-respectfully, or otherwise)

 3.Talk about money

 4.Talk about Brandeis

 

DO

 1.Shower every other night

2.Write Mother every other day

 

Teri Carson’s Rules and Duties for being 42ish

DO:

1.     Say you do yoga even if you don’t so people can shut up about it already

2.     Mother your pets only 3 times a day

3.     Eat less Nutella directly from the jar

4.     Write before you feel unbearable shame

5.     Never complain publicly about the size of your date's penis

6.     Teach your nephews and nieces the difference between your and you’re, and there and their

7.     Shave in the shower every other day otherwise your bush will look like Chewbacca

LA Story: Encounter at the Melrose Trading Post

She wanted a satisfactory answer. Her face demanded it.  I just wanted to be left alone and continue looking through the bins.

“I don’t get it. Why?”

“I’m a story teller. I’m looking for stories.”

A blank skinny white lady stare: Not good enough.

“It could be anything. A face, an expression, a place, an era...”

She offered an “OOOOK” to break her silence.

“It’s lives and stories in bins. I’m looking for something I can’t define. I know it when I see it.”

I wait for a tiny bit of understanding.  Nothing.

“I’m an artist. It’s a conceptual thing.  Appropriation--”

She shrugged and walked away. 

I continued looking through the bins feeling very happy I was born me and not she.  I am so lucky I’m not like her, a human with a simple mind, unable to live, experience and connect on different and more complex levels. 

I stirred the heap of photographs, stuck my hand in and left it all to chance.  When I go back for more photographs, I will take one of me and sneak it in a bin.  Maybe I’ll end up on some hipster’s wall.