Cars

Married now. Yippie. I wore the little blue dress with sequined flip-flops, hair up. He wore Carhartts and denim. Its a little intimidating, and terribly inconvenient to sign things. My name is different, and yet it has not changed bureaucratically. What name do I sign? But it is an amazing thing to have created this marriage, this relationship, this thing that I was so sure was running off the tracks for so many years.

We fish.

So, there I was, in the parking lot at Freddy's, and this car was parked nearby. If you live in portland and are reading this, I'm sure you've seen the car: Extremo the Clown. Looks to have been around for a good long time. I'll try to describe it. It may be complete... it may be a work in progress. It looks heavy is all I can say. No, I can say more, I'm sure of it. It is a collage of old toys: dolls heads, I can't remember what all.... fenders coated with small things, pasted here and there, all appearing very secure and permanent. Atop it all is a big, really very big, hindu sort of head staring backward into traffic as though blessing or condemning following vehicles. Actually, it comes to me now that it is alot like one of those things they call arts and crafts, those pieces they send home from vacation bible school, piles of gold spray painted macaroni elbows and pinwheels and letters. It is gold. Or was gold. Its kind of gold mud now. I don't think it would fare too well in a carwash. But when the guy came out of the store to get in the car, he was just a regular, beer-bellied oregonian until he turned around. He wore a red nose and smiled at me. On the side of the car a ragged piece of fabric hung from the passenger door:

Extremo for president. I'm all for it.

I remember one time when my son was staying with his father, he made a plate of gold spray painted spaghetti. As I pulled up in my 73 station wagon to rescue him, he ran out to show me his artwork. The woman my ex was living with dashed out of the house and reminded him that he had promised it to her.

Now I know how hard it is to be a step parent. Or I am beginning to see. I let her have the macaroni then, and would again.