a shiny goose

now, i’d seen her work up the nerve to do things like this before – it could take quite a while. and knowing it was about to happen made the waiting immediately unbearable. 

so i said hey. 

and she looked at me, very startled, and said hey back real small. like she’d been caught. and in a way, i suppose she had. 

and i said it’s okay. you can just say it. i’ll be okay.

i’m always okay. 

and she said: i’m really sorry. 

i loved her, you know? it was highschool, but teenagers are capable of love. the way people love changes over time just as much as the way they stand, or the way they talk, but things don’t stop existing just because they're different. opposite really – a thing only stops changing when it's fully gone.

and i said, nothing to be sorry for, and i meant it. she looked a little relived, and i was happy to give her that peace. then she left. i watched her make it through the front door, because that was just habit at that point, and then i sat there a while afterwards, checking how i felt. and the answer was not good, but good enough to make it home. good enough to limp on. 

so i put my car in reverse, took my last look goodbye, and immediately backed into her neighbor’s car. 

crunch. 

air bags didn't go off, which was good. i left a decent dent in the bumper of the other car. genuinely couldn’t tell if i did anything to my car – anything wrong with it just kind of blended together into the general ecosystem of hand mottled, sun cracked, chickenshit spackle. 

i checked my glove box, and my car insurance info was, of course, out of date. my phone was dead too. as a teenager, my phone was less my lifeline to my friends, and more my tether to my parents, so i wasn’t particularly conscious of keeping it charged. both my fault.

i sat there a few minutes, trying to think of the best way to handle things, and there was only one answer i could think of, and i hated that answer, so i spent a few more minutes trying and failing to think of a better one, and then a few more coming to peace with what had to be done. 

then i went back to knock on my now ex’s front door. 

her dad opened, which i was very relieved over, even if he seemed less than thrilled. he looked me over, and in a firm, but slightly apologetic way said: she does not want to see you right now. 

(i think he assumed i was going to try and talk her out of the break up?)

and i said not here for her. i just backed into your neighbor’s car, and i need to call my dad, but my phone’s dead. could i borrow yours?

and he looked at me, then back at his neighbors car, which sure enough was dented, then he looked at the chickenshitmobile, and if there was something wrong with it, it just kind of blended into the general Wrongness of the car, then back to me, and i could see him imagining the last ten minutes from my pov: getting broken up with, backing into a car, having to walk up to your exes door and borrow a phone, calling my dad to tell him that i just reversed into someone.  

and his expression shifted from stern and apologetic to truly sad, which felt more kind that i deserved. things only got here because i kept fucking up - forgot to look behind me, forgot to replace the insurance forms, forgot to charge my phone. it was my mess, but his sympathy meant the world to me. i probably would’ve cried if he said sorry, or patted me on the back or called me sport, but instead he said

stay out here – i’ll bring you a phone.

and then he left.  

i found a nice spot on the lawn in the shade under a sycamore, then settled into his grass.i was trying not to freak out, and was doing an okay job. he came out a minute or so later, not just with a phone, but a juicebox and a jar of green olives, which really threw a wrench in the whole try not to cry thing. soon as i saw those, a few tears squoze out. i was still hoping i could pass them off as Manly Tears but then he told me that he’d gotten the olives a few weeks before and had been meaning to hand them off to me, and that this was his last chance for that. then i made a sound like a horse drowning in a bog, and he patted my back pretty rough, four solid thumps, like he wasn't sure if i was crying or choking on an olive, and was trying to cover both bases at once.

then he went back inside, and i made a few more bog horse noises while finishing off the rest of the entire jar of green olives, and then i called my dad.

he was about ten minutes away that day, and luckily was home. he drove over, and we went to the neighbor’s house, and from there things actually went quite nice. the neighbor was a retired man who actually said he could fix the dent himself, no need for insurance. he said he appreciated that i didn't just drive off, and i said i was really sorry about his car, and he said he was really sorry about my car, and then he gestured to the chickenshitmobile and i laughed because it really was a disaster on wheels.

then we left.

i thought we were going to head straight home, but instead we went to a gas station, and we both got several slim jims that we folded into thick enough coils that we could put them on a hotdog bun because the growing up mormon equivalent of having a sad brewski with your dad is just choosing to make bad decisions sober. then he took me to the canals and we watched the sun turn all orange and pink, and he looked over at me and said:

brains are good at remembering bad days. so you gotta make sure that a bad day has a good part in it, so you can remember that too. remember that when you have a kid. try to do a good job on days like that - they're going to be a big part of how they remember you.

and then he gave me a big hug and said he was never going to eat another slim jim again.

---

the year after that i went to college, which kicked my butt in new and exciting ways. and on a lot of those bad days, after a test that went sour, or a faux paus that was particularly embarrassing, or some other hardship of my new adult life, i’d stop by the gas station and pick up leathery, half jerkied hotdog before heading to the canals to watch the sun set. i’d take a bite and imagine my dad next to me, grimacing through the slim-jim wad, asking what good thing i was going use that time to remember. 

and in my head, i’d say you, dad. 

So! I started off by making a template from the original design, and using that to stencil on the shape in leather paint- I tried to keep the layers thin so it wasn't too vibrant, and the gold shows through in slight places

(on the note of my fabric- I think the original is more likely a satin, or some other kind of fabric in a champagne-y colour- it definitely has a shine to it, but you can see it fraying on the images- but I had the pleather to hand, and I thought it would be more durable than a fabric, so I went with this instead)

Once the template was painted, I made a second template to mark out the lines. I did a lot of experimenting with couching until I got a result I liked... actually can I tell you guys a secret?

I completely restarted this project at one point because I didn't like how the wool I'd picked looked with the paint. It was too black, too thick, and I couldn't get any size variation with the lines. I already wasn't 100% about the size I'd started my first one at, so I made a new stencil and just completely started over with about 4 days notice till my soft deadline....

The new couching is done with a thread/cord I had lying about, and each line uses between 1-4 strands to get some size variations. Some of them also add in a piece as they radiate outwards to add dimension. It was a real labour, especially with all the switchbacks (each line took between 3-5 minutes to do) but it came out exactly as I wanted, so it was worth it to me!

heres the wool vs cord! theres a cord one at the bottom of the left too, which I think shows the difference in the blacks the best. Its really subtle, but theres less intensity too it, and it looks so much better to me

I made the claw pieces by moulding them from polymorph and then painting them, first in black, then silver. These pictures are from the first set I made, because... yeah, I remade these too! This was my first time doing something like this, and I had so much fun. They are just glued on with E6000, which didn't bond as well as I would like, but I couldn't figure out a better way to attach them at this stage. Maybe I'll try embedding a jump ring or something into them as I mould them next time.

The buttons were all positioned with PVA glue and then sewn through with really rough stitches of doubled strong thread. Since they're all completely non-functional, I just trailed the thread between them as though it was embroidery. I think the back looks really cool too, getting to see all the squiggly paths I went on.

The only thing I bought specifically for this project was 4mm red bicone beads and oh man, am I so happy I did. The original uses pearl shapes I think, but I just love the way these catch the light. This was really my first time beading, so it's not perfect, but I'm really happy with the results! My goal was to have every bead going its own direction so they would catch the light at different times, and the payoff is just so beautiful. I also used these for the little blood drops off the claws.