Merry started doing this funny thing lately--while the younger two girls are in the bath she sits on the closed toilet, or drags my wicker bedroom chair onto the bathroom rug and cracks open an old decorating magazine. Then she proceeds to flip through and read every single advertisement she can. Occasionally she reads the advertisement copy out loud and snorts. "What does that mean?" she asks, after reading a statement about beauty supplies or hair cream or medicine. When Merry reads the copy in her measured style, every syllable pronounced meticulously in the way of an early reader, the messages we skim over and absorb so thoughtlessly suddenly sound utterly ridiculous.
The other day Merry nabbed Elspeth's new "slate" as she calls it--(her write-and-wipe board), and began scrawling advertisements. It turned into a sort of impromptu performance art. Seeing Merry, who is absolutely baffled but amused by the messages in the ads, beside the bare words of the advertisements unaccompanied by images, was striking. At least Martin and I found it so.
Do you recognize any of the copy?
PS. Here's a little party I'm going to throw for myself: I've had two acceptances from literary journals this week, so that now I have forthcoming work in three different genres: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Thanks to those of you who silently and not-so-silently root for me--and I know you're there, because when I checked my 'sitemeter' today, I found there's been almost 27,000 visits to Wazoo Farm's blog since I began it. So thanks for sharing my life in this way.
