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April 04, 2008 |
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On My Day Off
FOUND by Carrie Galbraith
in Santa Rosa, California
Note found in a public women's restroom.
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Well-Written January 30, 2005 |
Could Ya Pick Up ... December 18, 2007 |
Earl June 14, 2005 |
Least Appropriate ... October 22, 2007 |
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
» The BBC's Jamillah Knowles mixes it up with the FOUND crew after a show in London (starts 1/3 of the way through)!
» We're hopping on a plane and jetting to Europe for our Fall 2008 Euro Tour!
Looks like me...I have more I need to do on my days off than my days "on".
Frontier justice for the tomatoes?
Poor tomatoes.
You say tomato, I say...oh, never mind. That's what you want to do on your day off? You make me want to sell everything I own and buy a little trailer so I can toot around the country for the rest of my life--and maybe a little of Canadia and Mexico--even more than I already did.
Hang on little tomato.
Hang on little tomato. Why don't you drink a pink martini on your day off?
@deanna: what gentle encouragement! what a nice image you've put in my mind's eye. a wee tomato hanging on with all its little heart/delicate vine tendrils.
(unlike the original-sinister image i had when i first read "string up tomatoes")
frontier justice hahhahaaha.
I don't think this person's day is going to be full. How about paint toenails, read book, update journal, nap in hammock ...
purge my life
(apparently)
lets save the tomatoes. what did the do to deserve being strung up?
why does she have to specify "wash clothes at laundromat"? I dont say "do laundry in downstairs laundry room"
Maybe she normally washes at her Mum's and they had a fight during her last day of.
PS LOVE the spam, colours I know....Maths not so much
Ha! At first, I read this as "What I Won't Do On My Day Off" and, when immediately presented with "take pictures of furniture," I thought of some really obsessive character reminding him/herself not to indulge in that particular bizarre compulsion.
More coffee, please.
They must be organic tomatoes...I have heard thru the Web that the US wants to ban cultivation of all organic produce. I don't know whether this is true or the sort of urban legend dear to the hearts of alternate-living, off-the-grid activists, but if true and the administration found a pocket of rebellious, organically-grown mayters, they might possibly force the grower herself to string them up, as a public example to others who dare flout the authority of Monsanto et al.
I think this reminds us all of the poems
'Real names of everything: Ode to tomatoes' by Francisco X. Alarco'n and 'String affair' Margo LaGattula that are both in the book "I feel a little jumpy around you: paired poems by men & women" edited by Naomi Shihab Nye and Paul B Janeczko. (New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 1999).
And, Baby basil, the US does not want to "ban cultivation of all organic produce"; it just seems that way when you listen to the mega corporations that run agri-business, petroleum, the military-industrial complex, and transportation industry. They all want us to eat only genetically altered exotic foods flown and trucked our way from across the globe at great expense and leaving huge carbon footprints behind. That's all.
I get a mental image of the note-writer piercing tomatoes with a needle and thread, but I don't think that's what they meant.
My grandpa grew a couple of tomato plants in his yard from seeds. When the stalk was tall enough, he'd stand a rod or a stick next to the plant and tie the stalk to the rod with string to give it stability. Thus, he was 'stringing tomatoes'.
One of these things is not like the others...The last one gave me a start, sort of like #3 on the list found the other day. Mandy's explination sort of makes sense, except, why not just say "string tomatoes" with no UP?
Also, what's with the sub-list ("lot of 4, lot of 5/6")? Does this refer to the stuff goig on ebay (sizes maybe?) or to the laundry (several lodas on cycle 4, several on cycle 5/6, etc.)?
ahh... to string up tomatoes or not to string up tomatoes.
@kc: About the clothes, I'm sure she means posting lots of her kids' clothes on ebay in sizes 4 and 5/6. Dang, this lady sounds like me...I am always selling stuff on ebay so I can buy more stuff on ebay! :)
She has the same idea of "leisure time" as I do: freakin laundry and ebay auctions. I feel for her and wish her lotsa luck!!
This to do list makes me want to take a vacation; however, I believe that if this person were to take a vacation I would hate to see what the "Things to do before I go on Vacation" list would look like.
Our finder:
Carrie Galbraith. After several years in commercial arts as a Graphic Designer and Art Director, Carrie Galbraith returned to the studio, receiving her MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. In 2001, she was granted a Post Graduate Fellowship to teach at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy, where she stayed 3 years. In 2004/2005 Carrie taught book arts and printmaking in Romania as a Fulbright Scholar. In the Autumn of 2005, she was Artist-In-Residence at Seacourt Print Workshop in Bangor, near Belfast. She is currently home in California teaching workshops and guest lecturing.
Carrie has driven around 47 of the 50 States, sailed across the Pacific Ocean, taught sailing in Hawaii, studied art in Poland and traveled by bus and train throughout the UK, Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Turkey.
And this is the only thing you found? In a bathroom?
I guess it makes it more enjoyable if you say "What I want to do on my day off" instead of "Things to do" or "Goddamn things I don't want to do." I'll try that next time. Right now I need to go string up some tomatoes.
Maybe she needs to eat more good food like tomatoes to lose that weight and get back into her 4s, 5s, and 6s.
What I actually did on my day off:
Got up late
Charged camera batteries
Got laundry together
Was distracted by magazines
Stared at tomatoes for a while
@librarian - a recent article in The New Yorker (by recent I mean in the past 6 weeks, I'm a little behind on my reading) points out that in fact the locavore phenomenon is not as integral in reducing carbon footprints as one might think. The article explores a variety of food products and their growing and shipping methods to expose the fact, for example, that, indeed, apples grown in Fiji and shipped to England have a smaller carbon footprint then those grown in England because the amount of energy used to grow the apples is significantly lower in climates such as Fiji.
Hey, Terrie's Ovary -
Have you heard about the guy who's selling his whole life? I mean, except for the life part, he'll still be breathing and all. He's in Perth, and is putting up everything he owns + a chance to try his job & hang out with his friends, all on e-bay.
Talk about starting over!
http://www.alife4sale.com/
Reminds me of my favourite line from King of the Hill.
Peggy Hill: Hank, I need some 'me' time. You know... to do the laundry
I question stringing up tomatoes, too.
Aww..poor tomatoes! How dare this AUTHOR put the #1 priority on the bottom of her list!
My garden of organic veggies and flowers ALWAYS come first, in the Spring and Summer, of course!
If she wants to eat those sweet, organic, red-vine-ripened tomatoes, she'd better string them to some stakes!!
Otherwise, what IS the point of raising a garden?
SHEESH!
...and my spam question answer is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything: 42!
Curious, i heard about him. I like the part about selling his friends, too. Apparently, he's just divorced, and is really wanting to just start all over. Good for him. I wish him all the success. I hope (for the purchaser's sake) that his friends are fun. I maybe have a stereotype in my head, but i think guys from Perth would be fun to hang out with. I betcha they're not doing laundry.
When she said string up tomatoes my first thougt was that she was going to hang them on a string in her kichen window like my grandma did to make sundried tomatoes. ...Maybe?
Blah. This find is sort of lame. The "afternoon" find is much more colorful:
http://www.foundmagazine.com/comments/3997
Next!
Reading this list makes me think that this woman is much like me...
We're not as far apart as we often think we are.
this find is sad, i'd say. seems like the person is pretty desperate. the tomatoes line shows that she's not planning to move or anything. so why sell furniture and clothes? reminds me of people burning the furniture to stay warm. in a very 21st century way.
These are the blues of the 21st cent'ry
These are the blues of the 21st cent'ry
These are the blues of the 21st cent'ry and I don't give a damn if you can't get wit me...
Just one thing....Terrie-is-so-very? It's Canada. Not Canadia.
lol @ Krista, i'm listening to CBC right now, and there's this program called "Canadia"... too funny (btw, i'm from Canada)
Maybe after losing the note in the restroom, she decided to stay in bed all day instead.
@ Librarian & Robley,
Check out this post over at Metafilter w/r/t the Back-to-the-Land/Localvore movement, especially the longish post by Miko about halfway down:
http://www.metafilter.com/69954/
An-ironic-infestation-of-Japanese-beetles#2047
(uh, had to break that URL in half ... someday we'll have problem-free hypertext in these here FOUND comments, promise!).
And thanks for those poem recs, Librarian. I think I know someone who would *love* that book.
Ugh, re-link ... I messed that up in about four ways. Pobody's nerfect.
http://www.metafilter.com/69954/
An-ironic-infestation-of-Japanese-beetles
(and add #2047542 to the end of that URL to go straight to the Miko's great comment)
Holly the Homemaker seems a little high strung about strung-up tomatoes. Obviously chick lives in an apartment or high rise, and a garden is out of the question. Just a small tomato plant, I bet.
Just a thought. I wonder if she made while using the restroom.....considering thats where it was found.
@Robley. Yeah, I either read that or have heard similar words elsewhere. I think the equation somewhat depends on whether I'm eating industrially-farmed local apples (for instance) or organically-farmed ones or, even better, ones I grow in my own back yard.
We were members of a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm last summer that got us good organic fruits and veggies all summer long. Problem was that we had to drive half an hour into the next county to get to their distribution point. And they were trucking the stuff in to there from the NEXT county. Seems like we should have been able to find some closer by.
I'll look for that NY Times article, though.
Is there a difference between "take pictures" and "Photograph ____"?
Is it "Photograph those freshly-washed clothes?" (to sell the clothes on E-Bay?)
Is she stringing the tomatoes in order to dry them? Were they already dried, and now are being strung?
Or is "tomatoes" a kind of musical instrument that has to be strung up to be played?
And this is all what she WANTS to do on her day off??
These are probably not things that she WANTS to do...but feels she SHOULD do. I imagine we've all looked forward to a day off, only to remember all those nagging things that you've been putting off for so long...*sigh* No wonder she left her list in the bathroom.
I don't know....maybe she has someone who is very controlling in her life like a husband or boyfriend. Maybe she wrote this list out because she is tired of always playing it his way. She wrote it as a list of stuff she wants to do to reaffirm (if not to him to herself) that she is in control of what she wants to do with her time.
Krista, are you offended? Life's too short. It doesn't mean anything. I call Canada-Canadia, Mexico-Mejico, Texas-Tejas (not Tex-ass as some do)and so on and so on. I'm sorry if I offend you.
Curious, I hadn't heard about that guy, but sounds interesting (though a little gimmicky, you know like advertising for a wife on a billboard or something), I'm going to check that guy out.
I had a crummy job where no one challenged me or held me accountable..so I filled some time making extensive detailed check lists of what I would do when I was not working...including, where I would do my laundry, where I would get a coffee on the way home, who I planned to call later, all just to feel and look more busy, effective and industrious. I have a better job now but the habit has stuck.. today I made a post-it of all the seeds I was going to start this week, what order to start them, where to put them to get the right sunlight, and one day a few months from now there will be a note for myself to string or cage my tomatoes
Sounds like she doesn't wear the same size clothes anymore so it is time to clear closet space and make some cash doing it?
I say Canadia quite often, too. It's funny. You know what I was thinking today? there's this word, "sarcasm", and there's this other word, "orgasm"... so why isn't there a word "sarcasmic"?
I plan to start using that word, sarcasmic, at every possible opportunity. Like asswhole, judgenmental and ovcoarse, it is now a part of my vocubulary.
hmmmmmmmmmm
at least they have a plan.
that's one step further than me
Has anyone else noticed the "find of the day" section being weird? Like, there are extra finds per day and you can access the latest one only if you click on the "show comments" button? No? Just me?
Yeah, Gabi. Except for later in the day, when the second featured Find of the Day becomes the one that you're directed to when you enter Found's web address in your browser.
Anyway.. DON'T buy this girl's clothes on E-Bay! She's washing them at the laundromat because the cat has been peeing all over them! And you KNOW that smell never actually goes away.
Happy Saturday, Everyone.
Terrie-is-so-very: not offended in the slightest, just a stickler for spelling! :-p
@ drowning:
'vocubulary' is good too. Is that a cube with words in it?
The correct derivation from 'orgasm' ought to be 'orgastic', as in 'sarcastic', rather than 'orgasmic' -- don't know why it isn't (perhaps whoever created the word was thinking of something else at the time).
So 'sarcastic' is right and 'sarcasmic' would be wrong. (But don't let me stop you using it!!)
Same with 'plastic' and 'plasmic', come to think of it.
All Greek to me.
@Jonathan:
Plastic is elastic and plasmic is just bloody.
Don't quite know how we got on to people selling themselves, advertising for wives, or whatever, but I was reminded of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge who sells his wife at a local fair, if I remember rightly (Albert Finney in the movie?).
Who would want to do all this one their day off?
Haha. That would really really suck.
But oh well.