I don't usually decorate my personal spaces with words. That's weird, because I have spent so much of my life dedicated to their production, cataloging, sharing, and so on. I don't put very many pieces of art up on the walls with words on them. While I have a lot of books, I don't use lots of them in conspicuous decorative locations. And what I never do is put one of those inspirational sayings directly on the wall as was popular in the last decade. I don't need to be reminded to Live, Love, or Laugh. I don't need to have the word Family screaming at me from my living room. Other people can do that and I won't judge them (much). I just don't want it in my own house.
So I wonder if that is why I'm attuned to noticing words when they appear in places where they normally wouldn't be. We drove past a demolition derby car today (didn't get my camera out in time), and it jarred me, and fascinated me at the same time. It had a sign with numbers on the top, and then all kinds of weird stuff spray-painted on all sides of it, including eyes on the hood and teeth in the radiator grill. I think the name of a chiropractor was on the back fender, which is funny considering how jarring demolition derby is on the bones and joints.
It wasn't the only weird piece of incongruous text that caught my eye in the last four days. We were at the Resource store in Boulder today, buying a stack of flagstone to complete a patio in the back yard. At one point I got overheated and sat in the truck, hoping I could find enough shade not to burn to a crisp (I didn't--I'm dead now). I looked at an odd collection of junk on the other side of the truck, and hidden within were the words "directed by Wes Craven." It threw me for a second, because at first I couldn't remember who that was. I thought maybe it was a guy from my rotary club, and then I put the name in the right context. Oh, got it. I still don't know what that thing was that had those words stuck to it. It just seemed so odd, out there next to recyced house junk.
On my way from where I parked the car down to catch my two runners at the Bolder Boulder, I tried to stop in at the University Memorial Center for a beverage and bathroom stop. It was closed. But as I walked up, I noticed a bike locked up outside of it with an old fashioned bit of word art on it. I never knew the origin of the World War II graffiti "Kilroy was here," but I do know it existed. This bike was painted army jeep green, with Kilroy on it. And I, who never served in the army, and who rarely decorated with words, thought it was fantastic. I don't even ride bikes pretty much ever, and I wanted this bike. A picture was worth a thousand words, and that was all I walked away with.
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