Hand Painted Tube Socks

This is taken almost word for word from a message I sent to Lara:

"one morning my friend and i were going to drive out to Belle Chasse to try and watch the fighter jets take off from the airbase.

i was wearing black knee socks and said that i wished they were tube socks. i said i could paint them…

then my friend said something to the effect of, what if people just made the things they thought of instead of thinking about them? I painted red stripes on my socks before we left for the west bank. 

the result was not perfect but the action was perfect."


This morning I shirked my routine. Well, part of it. I got out of bed later than usual. I did not open my laptop and did not open a new document and type the date on top. I went to the kitchen to make coffee and brought it to the table rather than to my desk. I took out all four of my Peter Doig books. I looked at pictures. For the rest of the morning, this would be my hub; I came and went from the table. I drew in colored pencil. I drew a text message. I drew the book I am reading. 

Later, I went for a walk and talked to Lara by phone. Those tube socks came up in our conversation and I elaborated to say that in fact the paint had not dried inside the socks and it left rings of wet acrylic paint on my calves. We stopped at an auto parts store so I could wash the paint off at an outside spigot because I became concerned about elements in the paint leeching into my skin. I closed the socks in the back windows to dry the paint outside as we drove. We could not get near the airfield and no jets took off that day. 

In fact I have not seen jets for over a month and miss them. Well, to be accurate, I saw two and they flew at a much higher altitude than usual. When my friend and I exchanged messages after not being in touch for a couple of weeks, he said he had seen the same two jets. I sent this: 

"i'm having migraines every day. it must be the absence of planes or the presence of seagulls." 

I digress. As was the plan. The result was not perfect but the action was perfect.