this post, my thousandth, comes in the midst of a pop-art bonanza - pop art here, on facebook, on my carbondale site, on the gallerie, and just about anywhere else i can send it. what happened is i got an iphone, and, while it was hand-me-down, had other contacts on it, etc., the ability to unite posterizing (albeit limited), walking around, uploading, changing the shade of people (instagramming), etc., it was too much to resist. for one thing, i've been teaching for eighteen years, the obsession for over-grading and taking it all to seriously, i'm beginning to let go of it a little. second, as i try to sort through mountains of stuff, at home and in the office, it's a little overwhelming. i don't mind throwing a ton of it away, really i don't. sometimes i feel like i should look at it first. it did survive quite a bit, after all. at the lake i whipped out the iphone and snapped the turtle, but i missed the park-diagonal sign. then i saw the corn on the ag-farm road, on the way back, and remembered, i needed a picture of that too, maybe next time. while i was driving, with kids, a nice car started flashing its lights frantically and stopped dead in the road right in front of me. i stopped also and rolled down my window to ask what was wrong. nothing, the woman said, but there's a deer right there. sure enough, it was right on the other side of her, gazing passively at us, but kind of on the edge of the wood; if we'd either one of us made a move, she'd be gone. needed a picture of that too, i'm sure, but maybe i can still get one. saw at least one more on the same trip; they're all over the place. downtown i concentrated on boxcars but they were all moving, and i didn't have a chance to make sure they were on walnut street; the title of my new book is boxcars on walnut, as unfinished as it is, i decided to wrap it up and make it a print quick before i left. i could conceivably squak a few more out of myself but i'm so frantically moving and tending to folks, it's kind of drained out of me. it'll be my third this year; i finished e pluribus 2012 and printed it; i got a story in the burg: a writer's diner and now this. not bad for a year in which all hell else is broken loose & i'm literally unable now, to keep writing at all. but hell yeah am i breaking out on the pop art. it's the advantage of living in several media. my son, 20, wrote an excellent book about weaving and it reminds me of falling behind on my quilts; there are three in danger of falling off the edge, but i'm determined to save them. they are, after all, for grandchildren who will remain in illinois when we are gone. a moment in time, when i'm going southwest, they are learning to walk, clothes are coming out of the closet in bundles, certain quilt squares in danger of being lost in the shuffle. this shall not come to pass. a house in texas awaits us, urban, old, with character, and some traffic, but it looks like it will be a change of venue, by at least four states though it's the same time zone, barely. it's drier. they don't scare me when they say it gets over a hundred. when it gets over a hundred humidity, then i'll go the other way. in this case, i'll just go to minnesota on vacation. tanner stumbled by us while we were downtown, hanging around the old trains that they park there supposedly for museum purposes; tanner took a pee on the wheels right there downtown, he was drunker than i've ever seen him though lord knows he's been out of money for at least fifteen years and i can't imagine how he keeps coming up with it. he's only what about twenty eight but now looks to be maybe sixty, half dead, he's forgotten that he's right in front of a kid. and me, i'm kind of a kid too. but i focus on the train statue, see below, haul in some pop art, i'm moving on, can't be bogged down trying to save this poor soul, wish i could help. some of this, i'm a just have to leave behind. and that's all there is...happy thousandth...by the way, this blog remains with several rules: it is primarily for the proper unloading of my inner self, i don't really compromise for the sake of harvesting a better audience, nor do i compromise the names of my children and loved ones for any reason. so it could be splashier, i realize, juicier, or whatever, but it's not, because i plan on coming back through this way sometime, and i'm really not about putting on an act. this one here is the real me, the small letters are to distinguish from formal writing, but every word is the truth, the best i know it and can remember it, and deep inside, in italics, you'll find the true stories of the days i was out there, really, coulda gone any direction, any time. may there be a thousand more, and hopefully i can dredge up a few more true ones for the collection. just thought another one recently, it happens every once in a while, i'm not in a frame of mind to work on it at the moment, but basically, this blog holds them all. and no, it probably won't go commercial, except maybe in my own wierd little way, maybe advertising some of my own stuff. if even. chou