Take the thing you love and turn it into a nightmare

HOME STRETCH. One more day of touch-ups and I am calling it on this beast. 

If anyone spots the word "hi" in the wood background and thinks I'm being the cute artist hiding messages in my paintings, let me state now that the word was already scratched into the side of the house by one of Larry the Mason's idiot offspring, and I only discovered it when squinting up close up for the painting. I don't hide messages in my paintings, because the entire text of Love Under the Republicans (or Democrats)* would be really hard to sneak in there.

And this time I am doing the thing: I am going to make prints to sell. In that spirit, I ordered a rubber stamp with a design of lychees and chicken tracks. (For stamping on the stickers sealing the plastic sleeves.) So I'd better follow through on this, or I'll be stuck stamping my name on grocery lists and work memos and children.

* This is my favorite poem:

Love Under the Republicans (Or Democrats) 
by Ogden Nash

Come live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
Of a marriage conducted with economy
In the Twentieth Century Anno Donomy.
We'll live in a dear little walk-up flat
With practically room to swing a cat
And a potted cactus to give it hauteur
And a bathtub equipped with dark brown water.
We'll eat, without undue discouragement
Foods low in cost but high in nouragement
And quaff with pleasure, while chatting wittily
The peculiar wine of Little Italy.
We'll remind each other it's smart to be thrifty
And buy our clothes for something-fifty.
We'll stand in line on holidays
For seats at unpopular matinees,
And every Sunday we'll have a lark
And take a walk in Central Park.
And of these days not too remote
I'll probably up and cut your throat.