HOUSE

I love your house.

I love how driving up, gravel crunching like popcorn under our seats, it’s all “Oh this house is going to look like this” but inside it’s not Like That at all. Where’s the Box? Everyone has seen Boxes in Movies, we’re all comfortable with Boxness. It’s not even Square, for Christ’s sake. It’s like bubbles children make with wire hangers, enormous beings meandering over the lawn. It shimmers and shifts and if you try to pinpoint it, try to make it fit an agenda, it bursts. Better to let it do what bubbles do, do what houses do. As Curtis said, “In the steeple of beautiful people, there’s only one kind.”

You have the biggest Dining Table I have ever seen. Bigger than in a movie about Camelot. Bigger than in Citizen Kane. So big, everyone can fit around it with extra room for the All Elbows. All Elbows also tend to be messy eaters and my white shirts have been scientifically proven to contain Sauce Magnets. All Elbows will quickly swing to say something to me or about me and suddenly I’m covered in red like a Kill Bill extra. At your house, your table, I can wear what I want.

In the Living Room, the huge overstuffed chairs remind me How To Swing My Legs. I can flop them over the arm and slide down until everything is Chairworld around me. Across the rug, you do the same and we are two island cliffs facing across miles and miles of ocean, our Lighthouse Thoughtbeams keeping us company.

In your house I don’t have to talk and I like that. There’s the creak of a floorboard, the cat, a piano - no, windchimes - and the beams nod and shift. When I do talk, my words act like catnip. The cat is fascinated by them, eyes wide and tail twitching. Finally he stands and licks his paws before looking for a place to nap. That’s what cats do, you know that.

Sure enough, when I leave the cat is asleep on the porch. Now his tail twitches from dreams of Cat Heaven, full of Big Chairs and endless tablescraps. Our goodbyes are short, our visit stands alone and I will be back. The cat will stay and be part of your house forever. When I get home and open my bag, inside I’ll find the part you have given me.

10:50:36 PM    sro home /

RULES OF THE HULA BOOLA

1. Live life in the Hula Boola. Years of Scientific Study have found Hula Boola to be the answer and who are we to argue? It’s the shape your mouth makes when you whistle, when you nursed from your Mother, when you blew out candles on your seventh birthday cake, when you kiss and when you make fish faces. Hoo-la Boo-la.

2. Non-members of the Hula Boola may try to distract you from your Mission with their own clever phrases, angry rants, misguided intentions and Undercover Spies. Do not be swayed for nothing they say can hurt you, who you really are, the Hula Boola within.

3. Share the Hula Boola. Pass it on to everyone you come across and sneak it inside every word you say. How are you today? (Hula Boola) I’ll take both paper and plastic please. (Hula Boola) Thanks for the advice. (Hula Boola).

4. When someone passes the Hula Boola to you, take it gratefully and without hesitation. Feel free to add it to your own Hula Boola which you carry like the World’s Biggest Foil Ball. Eventually your entire body will be filled with Hula Boola, lining the inside of your skin like Crazy People Hats keeping Aliens from reading their thoughts.

5. Do not underestimate anyone’s ability, even Crazy People, to have some Hula Boola. As an official member of Hula Boola, you are sworn to seek out and enjoy their offering even if they are unable to locate it themselves. Hint: It’s in the Big Picture.

6. Feed your Hula Boola every day and at night, when you’ve finally made it to bed and begun to drift over your day, your world, your life, you’ll find your Hula Boola curled against you making you feel alive. Place your hand on your Hula Boola, find it’s heart and soon the two of you will gently synch before your dreams are real and you fly away.

7. We are behind you 100%. You are part of the Club, in the know, picked first for dodgeball, Most Popular, the cat’s meow, Employee of the Month. We don’t need to tell you that but if it helps, call your favorite Hula Boola Representative and one of us will be happy to assist you. While you wait, enjoy the music.

1:57:13 PM    sro home /