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Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

01.13.04   /   Comments.10   /   Filed Under: Life + Portfolio

I remember one summer I spent on my parent’s back porch underneath the hummingbird feeder. I sat in the shade thumbing through my summer reading of Carry On Mr. Bowditch and Dove while hummingbirds buzzed nervously over my head. Over the course of a few months I became a regular fixture on the porch. The hummingbirds got so accustomed to my presence that I could hold my finger up to the feeder where they would light to get a drink. Their tiny, almost weightless, claws would wrap around my knuckle and their thread-like tongues would dart in and out of the nozzle.

I can’t recall another time since when I had so little responsibility and worry that I could just spend months lollygagging in the back yard befriending the local fauna. Vacations aren’t what they used to be.

Maria and I recently returned from a “vacation” to Utah for the holidays. There were short spans of time that weren’t planned and thus spent in front of the TV or inducing muscle fatigue playing the PlayStation’s Eye Toy (OK, that was just me with sore muscles the next day). The rest of the time was enjoyed with friends and family at get-togethers and Maria’s sister’s wedding. However, despite the two and a half weeks we had, we still did not get to see everyone we wanted, nor did we get to do everything we wanted. We left Utah wanting more.

It’s hard living away from family. It’s difficult to celebrate with them from a 1411.15 mile distance, and it’s impossible to be any support or help when times are tough. I almost feel selfish or reclusive living in Chicago, doing my own thing, while some of the best people I know live half-way across the United States. So, leaving kith and kin to fly back to a sub-zero climate and a chaotic exhibition installation waiting for me at my job was not an enticing prospect. At least Fran was waiting for us.

Some highlights of the Utah visit were:

  • Having my wife cut my hair into a mini-mullet.
  • Making some last-minute art at the No Hope Gallery in Provo.
  • Maria’s sister’s wedding day
  • Maria’s sister’s wedding being over
  • Watching the Child Who Was a Keyhole raise their goblet of rock at a house concert.
  • Spending two and a half weeks with my wife.

Comments

josh
no. 1 / posted 01.15.04 / 4:21 PM

The mullet, chops, and mustache combine to fill me with fear and awe.

josh
no. 2 / posted 01.15.04 / 4:22 PM

Though I am not quite sure why you blacked out your eyes. Are you in the witness protection program?

Chris
no. 3 / posted 01.19.04 / 12:11 AM

I just thought the blacked out eyes made me look more ominous. If you saw my big doe eyes underneath the black strips you would want to give me a big lolly, not be filled with “fear and awe.” Besides it matches my favicon. Did you ever get that to work?

maria
no. 4 / posted 01.19.04 / 12:12 AM

I’ll tell you what fills me with fear and awe—someone giving a grown stached man a “lolly.”

jonathan
no. 5 / posted 01.22.04 / 6:10 PM

i’d like to give you a daffy (in roller blades). you are breath-taking. all of you.

josh
no. 6 / posted 01.23.04 / 9:34 AM

I shamelessly copied your favicon (minus the black bar).

dan
no. 7 / posted 01.24.04 / 1:52 AM

I really would like to fully explore your site, but in my old neighborhood, you can’t Carry off, Mr. Bandwidth, so I’ll have to do without the video (though the pics of your hair-don’t were worth the wait.

Your reveries of porch-dwelling days gone by have put me in mind of a lovely summer I spent in up-state New York (does anywhere else have and up-state?). My current favorite happy place is lying on a dock on Lake Chautauqua, looking at the stars at dusk. A warm breeze off the lake combined with the unparalled charm of fireflies to make a calm that I think I haven’t felt since.

Good times…

elisabeth
no. 8 / posted 01.26.04 / 8:33 PM

No offense, Maria.. but Chris: you look like you belong at a Monster Truck Rally. I like you two a lot, and I’m glad you made it out our way. Oh, and I love the new look (of your website)..

ames
no. 9 / posted 01.26.04 / 11:01 PM

What really makes the mini-mullet pictures, though, are the kitchen cabinets in the background. I love those cabinets. I grew up with those cabinets. But somehow those cabinets give off a whole different vibe when paired with the dude in the ‘do. This may not be smellivision, but I can detect a strong frangrance of Pine-sol, wood cured with 4-pack-a-day-for-10-years Camel smoke, and Wild Turkey whiskey.

I like the new site look too, Chris. It somehow reminds me of Govinda’s—a hare krishna restaurant I used to frequent on my mission.

Chris
no. 10 / posted 01.27.04 / 2:11 PM

I’m afraid that photo is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy/joke turned real/frightening reality. Last night I was just eating some Cheerios straight from the box when I found myself chewing on something extremely hard. I extracted the object from my mouth and found that it was a portion of one of my molars. I’m missing half my tooth (or, I have half a tooth, as my optimistic wife likes to point out)! I had a mini-mullet, lambchops, and a moustache, and now I’m losing my teeth. I’m rapidly on my way to a trailer park double-wide, a toilet on the porch for a planter, and a beat up Chevy I drive in the demolition derbies on the weekends.

/.. Comments are Closed ../

Comments