May Day!

April flew by in a blur of work and tomorrow is the first Tuesday Market! I will be there despite the rumors of rain and I hope to take my Jell-O Art too. I've secured a ride down with my pile of tubs and tables and zipties. 

We're trying something new this season: setting up on the northwest block of the park Blocks, where the farmers usually set up on Saturdays. We wanted a new look instead of what had developed on the East Block, and we may move back there at some point when we figure out our promotional plans. Creating and sustaining a mid-week Arts Market is challenging. Unfortunately we can't just transfer all of our efforts from Saturday to Tuesday. It takes a gaggle of staff people to make Saturday happen, and we just don't have the vendor strength yet on Tuesday to afford the staffing.

But it should be a grand start! Please join us for at least a look. I will be launching my birthday week as well. My actual birthday is Saturday, which is fun enough since it may be another sunny Market day, but this is 62 for me and I celebrate being old enough to get back some of the money I invested in Social Security. I won't actually get any until July (despite registering in February) and I won't get much, but it feels good to join the ranks of the semi-retired.

Because of the potential for rain, I won't be wearing my crown and all that, because everything is still a lot harder than it used to be. I am walking a little bit with crutches and the walker, but it's not really walking. The scooter is still fabulously helpful. I can even get to the clotheslines and washed off my car yesterday too.

So help me celebrate my first birthday as a Queen and bring me things! Cake, ice cream, piles of whipped cream confections and cash would all be entirely appropriate. I like flowers too. I promise to be graceful and regal and remember to say a sincere thank you.

At least bring your body downtown to act like a customer, even if you don't really buy anything. There's a little wrinkle in that Tuesday is also International Worker's Day and traditionally a day that workers strike, but artisans and the self-employed are kind of on strike against unjust working conditions every day so we're going to grab our sales opportunity instead. I don't have a moral conflict with it, or with collecting the money I have paid into the system for all of my working life. The self employed do indeed pay social security, right on our tax forms, and in fact we pay both the workers portion and the employer's. Yes, we pay twice as much. There's a little credit/deduction built in there too, but we do pay. So no guilt in getting back. No shame in growing older. 

The sixties are glorious! We're not old, just maturing, feeling our power and at our creative peak. I'm feeling quite vital. Once this right foot cooperates, I will be back with the energy of a teenager. Look out!

My Old House

I'm back to researching the house and got very excited this Sunday. I have a pile of library books including the Eugene Area Historic Context Statement and the Downtown Core Area Historic Context Statement, and I found a few more pieces of my puzzle. A map shows the original plats of my neighborhood and although my property is right outside the Huddleston Donation Land Claim, it sits in a section called Meets and Bounds of which there are quite a few. Apparently they are the spaces between the land claims, usually oddly-shaped pieces that were most likely added to the claims cheaply a little later. I cannot find a date on this map but I know one has to be available somewhere. Huddleston's original claim shows on the edge of the earliest map I found, dated 1860, but of course there was nothing like a street back then, so I will have to spend some time looking at the geographical notation to figure out the platted lines.

This later map shows that Huddleston took, bought, and added most of the land in my neighborhood between 1889 and 1908, and I already know that he owned a racetrack on the Fairgrounds property, which he eventually donated to the County for the Lane County Fair. You can see the track on maps and Mae told me stories about some of the men who raced and came to her mother for her famous enchiladas. Huddleston died in 1890 of gangrene but his wife Samantha apparently handled and sold off his properties after his death, and I sent in a request for the building permit records on my property which go back to 1890 I believe. I also got a wonderful book on the Masonic Cemetary, called Full of Life, which has a lot of photographs. I paged through it, finding a profile of Lark Bilyeu, a contemporary of Huddleston, who was a prominent lawyer and political figure who came here in 1862. There is no doubt in my mind that F.G. named his son Bilyeu Vaughan, after this esteemed personage who may have been instrumental in Vaughan's real estate dealings that enabled him to buy some of Huddleston's properties and build the dairy farm and whatever else he built in my neighborhood. Bilyeu Vaughan, of course, is one of the men who wrote his name on the board I found in my kitchen wall, dated 1916.

Then I noticed this picture, one of only a very few from the Settlement Era, which was from about 1850 when the first white guys arrived to take up their lands, until about 1885 or so when the plats were all mapped. This house in the rather low-quality photo of the photo, is clearly made with vertical boards, JUST LIKE MY HOUSE! It has no foundation, which jibes with my theory that the foundations of my house and the one next door were added later to what I am convinced were settlement era buildings.

I don't know if I can prove this, but my theory has been bolstered. Either the houses were built as farm buildings and then dressed up over the ensuing decades, or they were built by the old guys still using the settlement era techniques. My friend Richard told me that when he was working on a back house on Patricia's property, he found the same vertical board construction, along with some square, handmade nails. He thinks it was a carriage house, as Patricia's house is rather grand. it stands to reason that my house and its identical neighbor were also built for carriages or other vehicles from the horse-drawn era...right next to the racetrack, on the property owned by the racetrack owner. The shack that Mae and her family moved into in 1933 was probably another of those remaining buildings which hadn't yet been improved.

I'm excited to see about the building permits, though I doubt Huddleston would have gotten permits for carriage houses, as I doubt it was required. The reports may show remodels of existing buildings, though. If I can date the foundation blocks that will help, and I can crawl under there when this damn foot is healed and measure some of the wood, because my memory is that the dimensions are all true, and the wood is unplaned and rough. I may be able to decide when the foundation was laid under the building. I also have a square nail or two that I found in my dirt.

I am overly thrilled and I feel like I've made a major breakthrough to support my theories. I also noticed that the first sash and door company was established in 1870, so I believe my old doors were made back then, and old 1850's locksets were used, because farmers are thrifty. Huddleston started by owning the first store, established in 1851, which no doubt financed his real estate purchases. He may have done the first remodel of his carriage houses, or Samantha, his widow, may have directed it. At any rate, the several courses of improvements may be traced in the permit trail, or I may be able to date the materials more closely.

I still don't know if Samantha and James Huddleston had children, so I need to get to the Masonic and other cemeteries to find their graves and see who is buried near them. I found a couple of other possible offspring, a Harriet Alice who lived one year 1857 to 1858, and might be documented in the newspapers, and a Henry C. who lived until 1925. He could be the person who made it all happen after his father's death, unless he is from some other branch. There is still so much to find out.

I'd get right on this if I could, but yesterday a giant pile of over 900 shirts landed in my shop, and now I have to really apply myself to that. I think I figured out a way to print by myself, though, so I am going to try that out today and see how much I can do in a couple of hours at a time. My foot is in great shape, and I got a handle on making the boot more comfortable. All of this down time is good for planning and scheming and I think I can get my scooter down the back steps if I set aside my dignity and just sit down on the steps and do it like I remember my Mom getting around when she had a broken foot. I remember well the horror of Mom getting hurt when the boat slipped off the trailer and shot a board right into her foot, which stressed her to the point of a miscarriage, one of those childhood things embedded in visual memory. It was the first time I witnessed Mom having misfortunes that weakened her physically, and I know it was a shock, but she must have handled it well because I don't have any more memories about what must have been a difficult few months. I hope we helped her a lot. We were four little girls I think, with Paula being a toddler at the most, maybe even still a baby. I know I was older than six because that is when we moved to that suburban farmhouse from the downtown duplex. Mom still lives there and it is still impossible to paint the ceiling of that stairwell in that owner-built house. I wonder how Mr. Speck and the history of our life in that house set me up for this phase of my owner-built experience. When I look up at the lack of trim in my impossible-to-reach skylight well, it reminds me of all of that. History just goes around and around.

The Wings on My Back

As a writer I'm always hearing metaphors, always seeing patterns, and I love the way so many things in a life are connected and progressive, and not just in my life. Each aspect furthers the action and relates somehow to the theme, in a well-crafted story. I've been reading a wonderful book called Storycraft, by Jack Hart, about narrative nonfiction, which is by far my most favorite genre to read and to write, though short stories are not far different. I'm really excited to be taking my informally educated self to a higher level in so many ways.

Yesterday Baroness Indi and I were trading life stories, something we do often now that she has appointed herself to my care and nurturing, which I came to recognize yesterday she has been doing for the whole time we've known each other, something I knew, but didn't really get as a sacred task as intentional as it is. As it turns out the Radar Angels take their wings seriously, and in their quest to put on performances and generate fun and positive ions, they try to encourage others, especially women, to grow into their wings and soar. As a person who has tended to hang out on the fringes afraid to fly for the myriad reasons of my complicated growth, which I hope I will not be too specific about here, I have not really been aware of this little campaign on my behalf, that led to my recent crowning. They kept the secret for a year, but it had been forming for a decade or two in advance of the Jell-O Show this April Fools.

I've always had wings, of course, because if you examine life metaphors, I was a good little innocent Catholic angel as a child, with my escapist flying dreams in which I would flap my arms with great effect and get away from all oppressors (the Catholic Church being too huge and insidious to fully escape, not suprisingly). Peter Pan and other musicals were my vehicles, and although I was shut down artistically by my diabolical first grade teacher, I danced and created and, although I avoided the spotlight, proceeded to craft an immensely creative life with many tangible objects to show for it. I even spent a good part of my working career in art-related jobs at my son's school, Family School, whose motto is *From Roots to Wings.* And we can't forget flying up from Brownies to Girl Scouts, my flight from the East Coast strictures to the west coast of the FREE-flying freak-flag hippies, and a memorable moment when after reading a letter from a suicidal friend, I noticed the bright setting light shining on the underside of a very lofty bird one afternoon, causing me to respond to her detailing that joy, and to race back to Indiana from DC during the student strike to visit her, to be in that safe place when other important memories were set. All of which shall be further revealed in their time.

My greatest challenge in writing my life stories is to abandon all of the many related connections of my personal air flow and stick to the point, the narrow underlying theme, and to leave out the less-essential details and anecdotes that serve to distract, but it's my blog and I don't have to craft that series of memoirs yet. My posts do get way too long though and I do need to keep getting back to the point. Wings.

One point being that I already had wings when I met the Radar Angels, but they were tiny and hesitant to unfold. The men I chose, in particular, tore many feathers from them while they blew their tiny puffs of hot air in my general direction, though ultimately they did allow me to soar to my next perch. Hap was the single most self-destructive man I was involved with, except for my father of course, but Hap was essential to illustrate how self-destruction could work for me. Indi and I went over some of that era yesterday. I did figure those issues out eventually I'm proud to say, but I was thirty then and the sexual hold Hap had on me was not something I could have let run from my feathers like rain without getting severely bedraggled first and that stream had to run its course. It's probably terrible to admit that the best sex I had was thirty years ago, but we didn't have AIDs then and I was a late bloomer and boy did I blossom in those three years with him. That was when I met the Radars, in fact by the disgraceful occurrence of seducing him away from one of them by little fault of my own, he being the irrepressible and irreparably damaged Hap whose slogans were *Everything's Negotiable* and *Die Young and Leave a Good-Looking Corpse* which despite his efforts he has so far failed to do.

Anyway, that story will be written, because it is my story and it's compelling and full of not only metaphor but damning detail and incredible tension. But yes, Indi was there, pristine and having already well-earned glossy white wings, and without her perhaps we would have all been lost to the pirates. She was at the start of everything, and it all started with her. She's the greatest treasure in the Radar Angels' Pandora's Box. Angela was there shortly after, and the three of us are the only ones who have remained active throughout in our various ways, though others have dipped in and out. Celeste had her sphere, and Leslie, and many people who were lucky enough to be around thirty in Eugene in the 80's, and lots of memories will have to be tapped to tell the full story, if it is ever told. Which is unlikely, unless in fictional form, because no one would believe it as nonfiction anyway, and there are far too many digressions to fit into one volume. And I certainly wouldn't want to pin any similar crimes to mine on any of these esteemed persons.

But Indi started grooming my tattered wings back then, so as you can see it has taken a long time to be fitted for my crown, which probably she should be wearing, but her role is actually greater than Queen, more like Goddess, which is not something we are permitted to grant. Maybe we are; if so, I proclaim her Goddess of Angels and Art and I may be able to make that one stick.

So there these amazing women have been, blowing gently at my wings from their various perches, and by now there have been dozens of them. We mostly jettisoned Hap with many other men who were too dangerous and debilitating to carry with us, but the women always transcended whatever we had to in order to stay together. Lots of us slept with the same men, but that never really mattered. The men were peripheral. There were satellite groups that were more or less important, the Art Maggots, the bands, the work situations where we all connected.

When I chose my next important ex-, he was also with an Angel, though they were officially broken up. He had been with quite a few, in various ways. (Did I mention this was pre-Aids?) Anyway, he was the one who took me to the highest levels of art productivity, and it was in that era that Jell-O Shows began. He was connected with Jody Coyote Jewelry, another Eugene legend, and lots of us worked for them. Mike and I first collaborated on a business making printed niobium earrings to sell to Jody, our only customer. A year later we were using my screenprinting experience to make Fibergraphics, through which we rode the Golden Age of the T-shirt, and in fact Mike made the first Jell-O Art t-shirt, though I have made the subsequent twenty-some. We rode on the success of our Fish Tie T-shirts, which spawned the Fish Tie Phenomenon of 1986 and forever changed the retailing of ties, and ranks right up there with the tuxedo shirt, and the Pocket-O-Slugs which generated a line of pocket designs by me. Another story, but the concept was stolen by none other than Disney, so yeah, it was important. And I can prove it.

Mike had the wonderful generosity of someone who accumulates new ideas, equipment, and stuff at an alarming rate and he was the visionary to match my hard work. Our business thrived and only fell apart when I decided to have a child, which until recently was my peak experience and greatest contribution to the human race, and which will probably prove to be so again, when the crowning glory of my Queendom fades and he fully comes into his own. He's a fantastic person and I'm super proud of him, mostly for what he learned in spite of my least efforts, and well beyond what I was able to teach him with my best. Indi also paved the way in the Radars for the graceful integration of art and children and family, which can sometimes be awkward and limiting. I wish I had consulted her a lot more during the decades of single-parenting. I pushed aside most of my women, not to mention all those men, when I concentrated on my son and the creation of the safety and security I needed to build my life with him. He has now fledged rather successfully to the big city and that delightfully coincided with the decade of my sixties, which I believe might just be the best one a woman gets.

Them decades all good in their own ways, the *happy* childhood, the awkward teens, the traumatic twenties, those thirties of renown, the forties when we work our asses off, the fifties when we coalesce, and now the sixties where we unfold out mature, developed, and immensely strong wings. Unlike my calf muscles, the underuse of one's wings during the years of family-building does not make them emaciated. They just wait, preening themselves, and when they unfold, it's impressive as hell...um, heaven I mean. You've gotten a glimpse of mine, and I'm just turning 62.

In this decade, you may see me writing a shelf of books, creating a legacy for the Saturday Market and the Oregon Country Fair, putting my owner-built house on the literary map, finally getting that final piece of the therapy or credentials or approval or whatever it is that still blocks me, adopting my healer self to share her widely, establishing financial security at long last, or perhaps even sadly descending into the self-limits I find so tempting still. We shall have to see. But along with the big store of butter-pecan ice cream in my freezer, I have everything I need.

I plan to continue to be original, surprising, and to express my considerable and wide-ranging self-taught skills and gifts for the consumption and inspiration of others. Being declared the Jell-O Art Queen has assured my fate as nothing else, at least to me.

Because Jell-O Art is the central metaphor of my life, and is exactly what has reminded me to notice my wings. Being invisible, people's wings are easy to deny and ignore. We tend to look for halos, but I've never aspired to wear one of those. We look on people's sleeves for their hearts, and you will find mine there, prominently bleeding and pulsing with the greater Life.

But to see someone's wings, unless they are over sixty and glowing with glory in their momentary luck, you have to turn around for a second look after they have passed by. You have to be so disturbed by their wake that you will stop, look, and see. We mostly don't have time, and are almost all of us so absorbed in looking at the quarters and dimes and pennies that might have been dropped in our paths, looking down in sadness and regret for all that we have not managed well, looking behind us for whatever might be gaining, that mostly we don't see each other's wings.

But there they are. You can thank the Radar Angels for that constant reminder that we all have a set, a pair. We all have the potential to fly like the hang-glider pilots I saw on Oregon Field Guide last night, catching the thermals and making it look easy. Approximately one in the hundred was a woman, a young woman. We're still the gender that is barred for reasons internal and external from stepping to the brink of the precipice without a thought of falling, our senses alert for the rising warm air that is ours to find.

End all wars. Liberate all beings. But above all, look to your daughters, your friends, your sisters and even your mothers and give them a caress, smooth their ruffled feathers if you can.

We carried you, we birthed you, we fed and cleaned you, and we were happy to do it. Every body needs a mother. But when we launch you, and then turn to the often neglected tasks of claiming out own place in the sky, get out of the freaking way. Do not make us look back to take care of you, even when we insist upon it. Because women do a lot more than hold up half of the sky.

We belong in the sky. We put down our roots, and now we will soar. With gratitude and glory.
Goddesses and Queens.

All of the Compromises

I have come to see what a luxury it is to be conscientious about all things environmental. I've already written about how asking for help and that interdependence I'm developing is difficult and rewarding. Some people, especially my neighbor Christina, have made many subtle changes that are working for me even while causing some guilt.

For instance, the clumping kitty litter in the big plastic jug has to be my disposal method of choice right now. I can barely lean down far enough to ladle out the clumps and I would never be able to handle the big old bag. I used to just let the stuff get so bad my cat would get the hint to go outside in one of my many brush piles, but now he's constantly annoyed that I won't jump up and let him out on a moment's notice. Jake has now moved himself up into the attic where he is on the prowl for some pesky rodents and he may be using the insulation for more than a bed, but whatever. I won't even know about it for months, when it will be dessicated like the corpses of the rodents and so what? I sleep better without him on my bed and I can't say I miss him as he still comes down to eat and strew his litter all over the rug as he angrily scuffs it out to get his messages across. My cat tells me what he wants by climbing and making messes if I don't respond the way he wants me to. He will carefully paw little items off the high shelves just to make me let him out at night, no matter how many times I refuse. And the upside of having the attic open a bit is that all this moisture that is accumulating from hanging the laundry on the upper cabinet doors instead of outside can get out along with the bit of heat that is also escaping. More ventilation is probably a win.

I can, however, clean it up his petulant kicking better from my one remaining throw rug under the box. I can sweep and even vacuum from the scooter. I've learned that even one step prevents accessibility. I can't get out to the back deck without the crutches, which is just as well as that Trex is slippery. I absolutely require railings on steps, kind of a no-brainer. And assistance: well, if the extremely fit Rich Glauber had not stationed himself in my path at the conclusion of my coronation, I would have pitched onto my face and completely ruined the moment. Indi told me (by mistake) that a whole rehearsal had been consumed by discussing the logistics of how to accommodate my disability, which should have tipped me off to the surprise but thankfully didn't. If I haven't said it enough times, I love the Radar Angels so much, including all of the new and retired and anyone who remotely connects with that loose membership ( no reflection on their morality, I just mean the requirements for induction are rather unwritten.)

And Christina is adept at the use of plastic bags, so I can't quite eliminate them from my waste stream yet. This insidious consumer product now may have to be collected or even purchased as I use them in the garbage cans, because they have handles. She put one in the yogurt container I use for compost, which I used to blithely toss off the back deck to the compost pile, something I always enjoyed for its efficiency. Accordingly I discovered I can still toss it, just in the bag...so at some point I will have to go out and collect all of the half-decomposed plastic out of the pile. Those little sleeves the paper comes in are perfect for this. I hope to be gardening again in June, though I guess I won't be moving trays of starts from one sunny spot to another. I'll just trade some farmer for his labor. And ask for a delivery. Or maybe this would be the year to split a CSA.

I have plenty of time to think; too much perhaps. The reserve system at the library is made
for the disabled. You can even send someone in with your card to pick up your held materials. The library is marvelously accessible and I will be testing that again this afternoon as I take a cautious outing on the scooter, just getting dropped off at the library and making my slow way to the Market office two blocks away. I wish they would not have eliminated that Olive street sidewalk, since the other side has that hilly place that you are forced to navigate. How many people see that as an obstacle? Why do the dis-abled have to do so much education of the temporarily-abled?

I will do my best to gently lead the public and its officials in a more educated direction if I can. Like many Queens before me I have realized the responsibilities of royalty, and I plan to promote compassion and evolution wherever I can. I just missed a chance as the Witnesses knocked on my door. I heard them and wasn't expecting anyone, so instead of my usual "Come In" I shouted "Do I know you?" They of course answered no and explained their mission, to invite me to whatever on Easter. I felt safe enough and admitted that I was confined to a chair, but when they asked if they could leave their literature, I kindly agreed when I should just have said NO! Maybe I sensed that if I said yes they would leave quickly instead of trying to proselytize (huh, I always thought that was prosetlyize) through the door.

I now wish I would have been more receptive to my sister Karen, the Duchess of Lean (manufacturing) when she attempted to do an analysis of my workspace. Naturally our sibling stuff came into play immediately with defensiveness on my part but I did recognize the value of more efficiency and organization. I made a few changes and good friends also helped me decrease the hazards when I went to crutches. There are still obstacles but I'm getting good at setting up places to rest, sit and perch so I can use both hands or at least one. Walkers are good too. With the scooter, once I master the proper inflation of the boot, I will be able to do pretty well with printing for a few hours at a stretch. Padding the boot correctly is important, as it is so generic. I have used maxi-pads, especially the nice cloth covered hippie ones, to pad certain areas of discomfort. My boot is inflatable and I inflate the back for resting and the front for scooting. Where there is a will there is usually a way.

That is enough for now. I have a lot of plans in the works, secret and not, and I will most definitely be gradually getting back up to full speed. My doldrums are long past as the lilacs swell outside my window and the weather improves. I have to now join the chorus of people who cautiously admit that a particular adversity (thankfully minor in my case) has resulted in an opening, and tangible, visible improvement in their lives. Irony abounds as I leap forward on one foot and am able to accomplish things I never even thought to dream.

And let me say now that one of the things that occurred to me on April Fools Day as I sat in the afterglow, is that now no one will ever press me to run for Slug Queen, a task I never wanted but of course have as a natural possibility due to my ebullience and joy-tap. I am not running and will not run even if drafted! Not that I don't love every single candidate both successful and un-.

I have my Crown. My Royalty is assured. As your Queen, I vow to explore all of the behaviors, both clandestine and public, that are associated with the Crown, and this could be a profound change in my ability to manifest my desires and those of others. Let's just see. Unlike a Slug Queen, I reign forever, and can never be Old. Old Jell-O has a terrible smell, and I will remain fragrant, transparent, and delightful, or you will let me know the error of my ways with your protests and demonstrations. Occupy my front porch anytime, and when I say "Do I know you?" answer carefully.

And the momentary fall...

I haven't really evolved that much. Once again I have been virtually ignored by the media who just don't seem to see my art. I've been selling that Jell-O for a year now and neither of our local papers has seen fit to even mention it. I don't get it. If I weren't still so elated with my coronation for a day I would be really hurt. I still have those tender feelings. But the people who count, counted.

Last year my display took up the corner of the room and was still invisible. It must be something about pride goeth-ing before the fall. It seems the more I revel in my gloriousness the less the mainstream notices.

I suppose it's partly my own fault: you can't have it both ways. I don't really participate in mainstream culture, though I do subscribe to the R-G with my frugally hoarded pennies. I like to know what is going on so I can criticize it with a little background. And last year I was expounding on my desire to be a FAMOUS Jell-O artist and I suppose those who go for fame deserve whatever they get.

I did show up on the first page when you google Jell-O art but now I'm down to page five or six. It's my own fault for choosing the word *Gelatinaceae* to identify my art, since that kind of reeks of the effete intellectual snobbery that is botanical classification and science in general in our 21st century culture. And I do get caught up in that narcissistic souffle which probably is offensive to those who don't know how well developed is my poor-me side. It took me until age 60 to actually be proud enough of myself to crow! Except maybe that isn't how I present.

When I was a kid I used to shinny up the clothespole and sit there singing the Mary Martin classic *Er er er er!* (otherwise known as Peter Pan's ode to self-adulation *I've Gotta Crow). Maybe I exude that still, that false pride that hides the low self-esteem and terrified inner child of pretty much all of us. I mean, women are still the oppressed gender, and women artists are still marginalized. It isn't just me. And I do work in Jell-O.

And of course this is just one more example of how even the most diligent reporters seldom really get it all right. The headline should have been

*Radar Angels Honor One of Their Own*

Jell-O artist of all 24 years Diane McWho won the dubious pageant *Jell-O Queen For a Day* on the gallery stage last night, beating out Sarah Palin, Newtie's wife, and the cross-dressing Deen Diabetes blah blah blah. McWho, who has made over twenty different hand-printed t-shirts for the annual show, is a temporarily disabled starving artist who has also sold at the Saturday Market for more than thirty-six years blah blah blah. The benefit for her medical bills raised a couple of Benjamins after the shirt costs were tallied and her awkward acceptance speech was roundly cheered anyway. The Angels had kept the secret plan for a year and the Queen was successfully surprised and most visibly embarrassed and delighted with her momentary honor, which expires at approximately 8:00 pm on April Fools Day.

There, FYP, as we say on the internet. For the record, Indi Stern promotes the show. She is the glue of it, she makes it happen every year. She has certainly been interviewed a few times and is graceful anyway and doesn't care if other people get the attention. We're all happy when the attention is spread around, particularly to the new artists who bravely step forward with their peeps and their murky fishbowls. We've all been there. You have to start somewhere.

Joanie, aka Queen Scarlett, is similarly essential. She forged the important connection with the Slug Queens, who usually remember to come nowadays. They are asked and honor us with a lovely benediction. Old Queens sometimes attend as well, and there were two prospective candidates for 2012 Slug Queen there, perhaps more.

Rich, aka Rico Suave, grandly escorted me and my stuff and caught me in his strong and dependably manly arms when I almost pitched off the steps as I descended my throne all shaky. Although he is a professional musician of considerable repute he grandly plays for many a show and seldom complains very much. His costumes always look stunning and his particular Jell-O talent is the ability to make anyone and everyone look and sound good in any musical situation. He often has come by the Market with his guitar to encourage me to use my rusty singing voice and pretty good repository of lyrics to amuse the passers-by. He was invaluable last night with all the logistics necessary to surprise me and get me to the stage.

Everybody deserves credit. That's the trouble with singling people out. It takes everybody to make a good show, and this was a good one. And oh yeah, I stole most of these photos from the Slug Queen. Thank you!

One of the high points last night was right in the beginning when three little guys with notebooks came to do research so they can display something next year. They pushed their glasses back up their noses and carefully took my business card with my blog address so they could find out about the dried kind. They were great. I gave away three or four *starter kits* with instructions for kids or other kid-like prospective artists who got interested. We older artists do want to shift attention to encourage younger artists, since the show should be bigger than us by now. We want it to go at least another 26 years so we could be the 50-year old Jell-O Art Show. There's some chance that some of us won't be around then.

And let's face it, I was right inside the door with my crass commercial Jell-O Art emporium which was clearly not there to benefit Maude Kerns Art Center per se. I forgot to put out the sign saying some of my proceeds would be donated to the gallery, which, as a temporarily disabled person, I can see needs the money. Their poor mimosa tree that graces the courtyard split down the middle, and their wooden decks and ramps are a teense inadequate for those who have compromised mobility. They need support! The show is intended to support art, not the individual artist, and there is a bit of a poor taste in trying to make money there. I'm usually the only one who takes any home, though this is one of the first years I have actually made enough to pay for the shirts I generally end up giving away. Believe me, I was really conflicted about accepting cash.

I would always prefer to give things away than to take money for them, really. I struggle with retailing every time I do it. The more you want the thing, the more I want to give it to you! I would not have predicted that I would ever use the show to line my own pockets. And if I weren't pretty much out of work for three or four months, I wouldn't have done it this year either. The show isn't about money at all. Putting monetary value on Jell-O Art is counter-intuitive even to me, selling it for a year now.

But there it was, and here I am, still confined to a chair. Fortunately for me, as of last night my chair became a throne and I reign in queenly repose for one day. I don't need no stinking newspapers. (And there was no TV coverage again either! They just don't know what's cool.)

I was there. The room was packed. People crowded in to get a picture with me, and the Slug Queen paid her respects. I laughed, I cried, I had my moment of glory. Like all the good stuff in life, you had to be there.

We have now blinked, and it is all legend. A particularly tasty one. If you were there, you are hip. That's just all there is to it.

But don't worry if you missed it. You get a second chance to be hip next Saturday when the Market opens on the Park Blocks for the 40-somethingth season. You all have a wonderful time. I can't go. Pride wenteth, and I fell. Now I have nine more weeks of rest, elevation, ice, rest, and elevation. And then I get to graduate to crutches and a cane. I am so humbled.

Last night was so timely and so magnificent. My heart is so full of joy and benevolence. This is as close as I will get to a nasty letter to the editor. I get too sweaty in the spotlight anyway. I'll just sit here as my souffle quietly deflates, contemplating my next creation.

I do it for me. I'll do it for you for free. And you don't even have to thank me. Thank Indi, and Joanie, and Rich, and Jen-Lin, and Larry, and Anne Marie, and Jennifer, and Marvin, and Drew and Jorge, and Karen, David, and Julie and her family, and Johnna, and all of those many many people whose names I have forgotten. You know who you are; you were there too. We did it together. See you next April Fools!