Mernie just left yesterday and my life is a mess. So messy, in fact, I cannot take the time to write about it fully. But I will, someday. Let's just say I almost lost my mouse, then Tink and Izzy went into surgery for a late-in-life spaying and Tink is not recuperating well. In a minute I'll return to the couch to keep her company and share my healthy happy vibes with her. In the midst of this chaos, Mernie has left Taos after four months of sharing our very tiny, built-for-one space. She and Petie (a family chihuahua and her "best man") have headed for Austin to stay with my brother and his family.

While Silas and I missed our privacy, we miss her presence more. So it's been a roller coaster ride of love and loss the past few days.

I thought I'd share a little something with you. It's a hand-scribbled poem-note, left in our refrigerator, nestled between the pot of chai tea and the Fat Tire beer bottles. Its author? Mernie.

I think it speaks volumes about our bond, and why we cried tears of sadness rather than relief, as she pulled out of our driveway yesterday morning.

This is a love song.
This is a homemade greeting card.
This is a journey of love.
This is a wellspring of stinkiness morphing into a field of dreams.
That was so funny.
That was so ridiculous.
That was so fucking sad.
That was so sweet what you did.
Here now is perfection.
Here now is fun.
Here now is gratitude.
Here now is allowing.
Here now is your love for me.
Forever is how I will love you.
Forever we'll be together.
Forever we will laugh and stroll hand in hand~
Forever we'll love each other with hugeness.

~Mernie, October 2009

Miss you already. xOxO

If you'd have asked me a year ago, did I ever think it was possible to fall in love with a mouse, I'd have laughed, hard. Kind of like the time I laughed in the first grade lunchroom and power-shot milk through my nose all over Heather Troxell's new dress.

But thirty three years later I am not laughing. Well, I am, but at myself and the absurdity of my love affair. This mouse - my mouse - who's just turned four months old and lives inside my pocket is a testament to opposites attracting. Could there be a more unlikely pair? Little mouse and brazen woman? Contemplating unlikely inter-species relationships yesterday, I was reminded of the moment in An American Tail where Fievel meets Tiger, a big fluffy orange cat, and they become the unlikeliest of friends.

I feel alot like Tiger these days, with a little Fievel tucked in my shirt. He nestles against my skin all day long, sleeping, then wakes to wash his face and whiskers, eats peanuts and sunflower seeds from my fingers, and then goes to play in his Mousie Dream Home all night while I sleep. 

I always LOVED the scene in American Tail where Fievel meets Tiger and they sing "We're a Duo." I've used that song many times in my life to describe unlikely friendships. And now, with this little guy asleep on my shoulder, I can't get it out of my head. Let's sing! All together now!

Tg: I can tell,
we've got an awful lot,
in common,
even though,
we look as different as can be!
We don't even have to try,
to see things eye to eye,
it just comes to us, naturally!
Come to think of it I think we fit together,
playing cat and mouse won't get us, very far!
There's no need to fued and fuss,
when it isn't really us,
Let's you and me be who we are.

We're a duo,
a duo,
a pair of lonely ones who were meant to be a two!
Oh, a duo,
it's true-o,
wherever we go, we're going me and you!

So the folks at Where Women Create (magazine) will be here in a few days to photograph my studio. I thought I had a pretty cool studio--until they called. (OK, I do have a really cool studio, but it stays in a state of creative disarray most of the time and will not make for fabulous photography. So time for a gussy-up!). I'm looking around and realizing it's finally time to get those rugs Silas has been urging me toward for three years. Then there's the pictures I've never hung, the marionettes I've never strung up (sitting slumped in the corner and none-too-happy about it) and I need a complete re-organization of closets, creative tables and crawl spaces. Plus, I've had to deal with all the screaming boxes. Well, the boxes aren't screaming exactly, but the sculptures, paintings and artwork inside them is. "Let us out! Let us out!" Apparently I'm not the only one ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille.

I am the middle of it all and feeling rather zealous about the whole thing. Oh, it's fun, to be sure, but it's a LOT of work and much of it detail-driven. Have we been friends long enough that you already know how anti-detail I am? I'm what they call a "Big Picture" girl, not to be confused with big-ass or big-mouth girl, two terms that certainly do not apply to me. Not me. No way.

But this big-assed, big-mouthed, big-picture girl is getting into the nitty gritty of house decor and digging every nazi moment of it. Plants need pruning, cabinets need sorting, moths need balling and even the mites need dusting. I'm sneezing and sweeping my way into a twelve page spread even Martha Stewart won't be able to resist.

Wanna sneak peek? Here's a few snapshots. And um, yeah, these are what I'd like to call "work in progress" shots. See the tool box? And the clutter? Such is my life. But hey! It's colorful! (Bear in mind today is a wonky rainy day in Taos. An anomoly, really, so the photos are a bit blurry with funky lighting- sorry!)

I admit it. Ever since seeing Ferris Bueller's Day Off I've had this fantasy of having The Perfect Day. You know the kind of day I'm talking about: you start an adventure and one magical, charming moment just slips into another. Well, Silas and I had one of those not too long ago. And given that John Hughes just recently passed, I figure it's time to pull that day out, dust it off, and give it the props it deserves.

We're in Philadelphia during the fall of 2008 attending a convention, and have rented a car to drive there from Atlanta. We have one day to spare, but because our schedule is been so jam packed for four days (you know how conventions are), we are just too exhausted to decide whether or not we'll stay for another day. We go to bed in the wee hours of Monday morning mumbling to each other that we'll decide in the morning.

Allow me to set the stage by admitting that I am a theater whore. Musicals, especially, make me bat-shit happy, like twelve-year-old-girl-at-a-Miley-Cyrus-concert-I'm-gonna-lose-my-mind happy. Inside a darkened theater I unplug my everyday reality mind and embrace the lights, colors and sounds of story and soul. I feel electric, alive. Think 1980 Olivia Newton John in Xanadu coming off the confines of a two dimensional street mural and into three-dimensional, dancing life, singing "I'm Alive!", and you've got an accurate picture.

So to be only an hour and a half away from New York City just when Broadway decides that my favorite spandex-sporting, roller-skating, muse-come-to-life story Xanadu deserves its space on The Great White Way? Well it's just too good to be true and I am hella bent on going. But there are lots of odds stacked against us staying another day. The rental car and the hotels are costing a small fortune, and we have another appointment in Atlanta on Wednesday, which increases the pressure to act sensibly turn and head for home.

So when we wake Monday morning I say to Silas, "If there are really good tickets available for today's matinee of Xanadu, let's go." Silas mutters agreement (still half asleep under the hotel's comfy down-filled duvet) and I hop on the laptop to peruse available tickets. To my great delight, sixth row dead-center seats are available. So I bop on over to the AmTrak website to see what trains would get us into The City by noon. (Bear in mind it's now 9:55. And don't give me a ration of hooha just because we've woken up late. We'd been brainstorming and strategizing with publishers over Bombay gin and tonics til 4 a.m.!)

I discover there's one train leaving at 11:00 a.m. that will get us into Manhattan at 12:30, but the next train out - which we could make with time to spare - won't deliver us in time to catch the show. I look up at the clock, hopeful. Then my eyes survey the room, my crest falling: open suitcases, clothes hanging from the wardrobe, spilling out of press-board drawers, art and books and gifts and gadgets from the convention, lots of them, piled like a pirates booty on the couch, table, and chairs. Silas sleeps on in the king size bed, oblivious.

"Honey, wake up! We have to go now if we're gonna make it. Honey? HONEY! I mean NOW. We'll have to check our luggage and keep the rental car in the garage til tonight, but we can make it if we go now. Are you in?" As I'm shouting all this toward the bed, I'm tossing dresses and socks and swag into our big, black canvas bags. As Silas sits up and wipes the sleep from his eyes, I whip out my American Express and click the "buy now" button for two tickets to the two o'clock showing of Xanadu.

To say we looked like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber running around the room trying to pack everything in five minutes would be the grossest of understatements. Here's how it all rolls out:

10:14: Angi checks make-up. Nothing to be done, she rolls her eyes and runs her hands through her crazy Medusa hair. Her big day in The City will have to feature clumpy left-overs from yesterday's mascara, no eyebrows, a nude upper lip and a lower lip stained with Cover Girl's 12 hour stay on lipstick #622. Good thing my man loves me.

10:15: Angi calls a cab to take us to train station while Silas searches for his shoes.

10:17:  Bags thrown together and tossed on a luggage cart, we rolls ourselves downstairs to check out of the hotel.

10:22: All luggage tagged and stored with hotel's front desk.

10:24: Waiting at the front door. No sign of cab.

10:27: No sign of cab.

10:31: No sign of cab and Angi begins to hyperventilate.

10:35: Cab company is called a second time while Angi melts down quicker than a green-skinned witch under a bucket of water.

10:42: Cab arrives and zooms us down the street to train station.

10:50: Angi and Silas run, pell-mell, tumble-bumble to the ticket counter.

10:51: Commence waiting in line...

10:52: and waiting...

10:54: and waiting still...Angi mentally calculates the cost of missing Xanadu:

tickets = 200.00
another day of hotels and car rental = 175.00
cab fare = 8.75
missed opportunity to see the cheesy disco musical that altered her life at age eleven, marking her forever with the indelible identity as 'muse'? = PRICELESS
or should i say, unforgivably PRICEY

10:56: Train tickets in hand, Angi and Silas wait in line for platform #3 to open

11:00 Angi and Silas board the train. Angi breathes for the first time in an hour. Silas smiles and pats Angi's thigh in a gentle, calming gesture that encourages and infuriates her. She wishes she had more of his ease. She sticks her tongue out at him, nestles into his shoulder, and together they ride into The City.

Hurling toward The Big Apple at rapid speeds, neither of us know the fortune that  awaits us. Like Ferris Bueller, we journey from one delicious experience to the next, as if our very steps have been ordered by the muse herself. Exiting the train at Penn station, we grab a Starbucks, then head to a favorite pizza joint on 42nd street for a slice of pepperoni and a long, sweet congratulations-we-made-it-to-Broadway kiss covered in tomato-sauce.

We step inside the small lobby of the Helen Hayes theater to discover the original-Olivia-Newton-John-style hair barrettes available at the concession stand. Oh yeah, the same ones my mother tried in vain to replicate for me in 1980 in an attempt to help me emulate my idol. Only my homemade ribboned hair barrettes had me looking more like Miss Piggy than Olivia. It didn't matter. I knew I would have a fabulous muse-do someday.  I didn't want to be Kira, the muse. I WAS Kira, the muse. Still am. Only today I've traded my roller skates in for platform boots and a bustier. But these barrettes? They complete my ensem like nothing else. Hell, they complete my life. I'm all the rage at roller discos among starving artists with broken dreams.

I fasten the ribbons into my hair in true ONJ style and proceed to sing every song along with the cast of Xanadu from my sixth row seat. It's everything Silas can do to keep me from storming the stage - snatching the blond wig off Kira's head and fastening it on my own. I mean, dang, people, I've had the lyrics and dance moves down for twenty eight years and now I have the barrettes! How can they possibly resist?

Once the show is over, smiling and slightly giddy, we walk down to eight avenue in search of champagne. We find it, but also discover eight avenue is closed off for a street fair. Locals are hocking their cashmere scarves, Persian rugs, knock off hand bags, cheap sunglasses, silk pillows, feathered boas and vintage tiaras. I busy myself for hours buying all sorts of inexpensive yumminess while Silas munches on gyros, bratwurst, fresh watermelon and hand-squeezed lemonade. All kinds of characters walk the streets, but my favorite has to be the Chihuahua in long-john pajamas tiptoe-ing behind a woman with a swinging ponytail and a cell phone.

When we hit Central Park, we turn toward the horse and buggies, determined to drink our champagne from plastic cups while touring the park. We ride and sip and squeeze under thick woolen blankets until the champagne is naught but a memory. Warm and tipsy from the bubbly, we make our way to 55th street to take in the splendors of the giant Disney Store on 5th avenue. There we met the Evil Queen, and what she says to Silas raises more than my eyebrow.

By now it's 7pm and we've just enough time for hot deli-style pretzels and red wine at a tiny bistro on 51st before heading to see our second broadway musical: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. This is a risk. I haven't done my homework on this play but the word on the street is it's hilarious. Indeed. I laugh more in the next two hours than I have all year. Utterly and completely elated, still giggling, we exit the Theater in the Square at 11pm, exactly 50 minutes before the last train will depart for Philly. Having been in Times Square many times at this hour, I know it will take us ages to hail a cab and cost us too many screaming toes to walk the 17 blocks back to Penn Station. So we do something neither of us have ever done before. We hire a bike taxi. Call us adventurous. Call us insane. But this is the best roller coaster ride I've had and I didn't have to leave the ground or pay Six Flags fifty dollars to enter a sticky, crowded park in ninety degree heat to wait two hours for a three-minute thrill.

Picture us hurtling down Broadway, sandwiched between yellow taxi cabs and white stretch Hummer limousines. We squeal and holler and suck in our breath every other moment as the driver (expertly!) maneuvers into the tiniest of spaces at incredible speeds. Everything inside my body screams CLOSE YOUR EYES, but who can? The neon lights, the huge billboards, the Pakistani music from moving cabs competeing with the NBC news broadcast on a giant screen twenty feet above our heads create a heady elixir. More than once I grab Silas's arm, sure we're about to die, or have our bodies rearranged on the pavement, pinched as we are between huge hunks of metal mere inches from our unprotected bodies.

But OH! The thrill! Seventeen blocks of neon blinking, high velocity, race-the-wind, sheer madness. Our driver drops us off in front of Madison Square Garden. We pay him, walk two steps then stop, turning toward each other. No words, just big goofy grins. After riding the escalator down into the bowels Penn Station to buy our tickets back to Philly, I realize we have a whole twenty two minutes before our train departs, so there's plenty of time for a night cap, Starbucks style. As Silas jockeys down the street to score our java (once we arrive in Philly there will be a three hour drive ahead of us before we'll stop at a hotel to sleep) I travel up and down 7th avenue, doing one of my favorite things in the world: photographing artful window displays. It's as if time stops. No one works a window like Macy's, and I snap image after image of their latest spectacular display, entitled,  "A Day at the Circus."

Promptly at 11 p.m. we descend underground to board the last train out. We plop down into our window-side seats and snuggle into each other. I swear I can hear a clock strike somewhere and am sure our train is about to turn back into a pumpkin. Someone should check the engine for mice. As neon skyline passes into starry sky outside our window, Silas strokes my hair in a gentle, calming gesture. "I never thought it would happen..." I say, "my very own Day Off, Ferris style."

"You deserve it," he whispers into my ear, cradling my head on his shoulder.

"What's your favorite part?" I ask, looking up into his dancing brown eyes.

"My favorite part? Hmmmm..." A thoughtful pause. Then another. "I think my favorite part is in my trousers."

I laugh 'til I almost pee. Seriously. I know I spritzed a little. When I can breathe again, I snuggle back down into his shoulder, his body warm against my cheek.

"How 'bout you, Ferris?" he asks. "What was your favorite part?"

The barrettes, I want to say. The champagne. The carriage. The roller skates! The Evil Queen. The Chihuahua pajamas. The hot pretzels. The pigeons lined up like clothes pins on the Central Park traffic light. The roller coaster in Times Square. The kiss on 42nd street.

"My favorite part?"  That's easy. Even on a day full of better-than-bests. "My favorite part is you."
 

*******************************************

I have saved the best photos from this day in a film I call "What a Difference a Day Makes."  I made it for Silas on our last anniversary. It's dedicated to my beloved, and the difference he makes in my life daily. May everyone have a partner as luscious.

The rumors are true! Silas and I are in the studio hard at plurk on our new Wonderland project entitled, "Go Ask Alice." While I cannot divulge all the details, suffice to say this book will be full of lush, gorgeous illustrations created by Silas and myself. We've been in the studio for weeks and weeks, with more than a few months ahead of us, but we're so excited we need to share. NOW!

Without further adieu, may we introduce Mister White Rabbit...

The book is designed to be a lush art book, but oh-so-much more. Can't spill all the details now, but we will be posting more art as the days go by, so check back! 

Also...pssst! You! Yes, YOU! Like this piece? Leave us a comment then dash over to our Go Ask Alice facebook page to show your love! We're taking all the comments from this site and the stats from our facebook page when we go shopping for a publisher this fall.

In the current economy, publishers are leery of risky projects, and while we don't feel Wonderland is a "risk", often publishers will shy away from art-intensive books unless an enthusiastic fan base can be established. Help us to show the industry that there are wonder-fans out there who would love to tip-toe through Wonderland, Duirwaigh-style.