I love you, you know I do. But I’ve got to leave a little room in my heart for Jesus.

Jesus, and a few roses, maybe a daisy. And a clock, with kind of a butterfly instead of a sweep second hand So, basically, there really ISN’T room in my heart for you, but there may be time in my heart for you. Time, and flowers. And the messiah, who’s kind of like a clock too.

So, I’m, like, giving you my heart, AND Jesus. And a clock with a butterfly on it spinning around, like it really WANTS flowers, but every time it flies toward the flowers, it goes up to Jesus instead, and then kind of spins upward toward my aorta. But it comes back to you, babe. And the roses. And Jesus.

I don’t even know where I was going with this metaphor anymore, just, I love you, okay?

Should I have just got you some chocolates?

Yeah, that’s…kind of what I thought.

Call me, okay?

Texas Thrift on I35 near 51st, Austin

And now, a post-Valentine’s gift brought to you by the angel of Mixed Media Art. Wear it in good health.

What is the appropriate response to this? Should one say “thank you”? Or even “Thank you?” Lift up one’s top and give the giver a show, in a general mardi gras celebration of love and cheap plastic beads? Reach for a Scrabble dictionary?

All of these at once? You could hurt yourself like that.

There’s just a little too much going on here to sort out the artist’s intent. If the media is the message, the media is not just mixed, but whipped to stiff peaks and gently folded into the batter. We’ve got scrabble tiles, buttons, beads and beads and beads–I think that’s a planarian at the bottom there. Nothing says love like a flatworm.

It sounds more like a question than a statement. Qe? Qe indeed. Bury your love to me in an ocean of beads and strings and glass drops. I will still find it. I just won’t be able to understand it. But I love you too. If I tell you that, will you put down the box? It’s weirding me out. Don’t worry, it won’t be any less special if I can’t see it.

It’ll be more special.

But really, isn’t it what’s inside that counts?

That is, unless you’ve already finished what’s inside. Never mind.

Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin

Valentine’s day, like Santa Claus with extreme flatulence, has blessedly come and blessedly gone. In its wake, the Thrift Stores, their shelves already heavy with other people’s stale romance, try to shift the the unshiftable: used broken Valentines gifts. What better way to say “I love you, like $.35 worth” than the gift of dime-store affection?

My love is like a red, red rose
that floateth upside-down,
Like mouse or rat, or chirring bug,
that in the water drowned.

Where once she thrilled me with her stare,
inflamed me with her sighs,
Her bladed glare reminds me now,
sometimes affection dies.

If this little trinket wasn’t slowly turning into a gelid, opaque slurry, I would have bought this for someone special. Maybe it would be for something bigger than a valentine’s day statement of something self-evidently beyond words. Maybe it would be for a special anniversary. Is it the 15th or the 24th that you give someone irony?

If your significant other can’t be won over with embalmed flowers floating upside-down like a dead fish, maybe you’re lucky enough to be dating someone with “standards.” In that case, win him or her over with a really unfavorable comparison. “You’re my gangly, stilt-legged dog with a weird skin condition and strange space-alien eyes.”

Or, “I love you like I love a dalmation in pumps.”
Or, “I’d give you my heart, but the dog stole it.”

I wish I could look at this again, I’m trying to remember why its back is either perfectly flat or strangely hollow. Maybe you’re supposed to fill it with candy. Or very small, hand-written apologies.

But let’s say you already did it? Suppose you gave your lover a black-eyed, heart-eating Dalmatian in stilleto heels last year? How do you say “Remember that undying affection? It’s still there, only with more hair and age spots on it, like a well-seasoned banana?” Basically, how do you top that one?

Oh yes.

Rose and cow both from Savers on South Lamar, pump-heel Dalmatian from Savers on North Burnet. It’s kind of a Savers Valentine’s day, which is the BEST Valentine’s day.

So, this prematurely exciting! So, thrift store blogging is highly competitive and cutthroat. The field’s nightmarishly crowded with like SIX blogs and…well, it’s rough. So, naturally when I saw a big old jug of FREE BLOOD PRESSURE MEDICATION samples, they HAD to come home with me.

Initial exploration of the giant plastic heart was interrupted by a small attack of rats, which was fended off by space priests. Unpacking the contents of this treasure chest was immediately complicated by the armies waging war on my living room table. I continued, undaunted.

A few small skirmishes around the faceplate left the sample case blood-spattered, but not much worse for wear.

Some initial research revealed the following interesting facts about amlodipine beysylate:

There are several side effects that can be happen when you use
amlodipine besylate, since it’s not familiar with the function,
and then you need to introduce and describe what you got when
you got a hypertension. You will need to stop consume the medicine
immediately when you fee a massive heart beat, cool sweat rash,
itchy, hard to breath and also any, serious hurtful symptoms that
might be appear at the first time when you consume amlodipine
besylate , you should stop consume this medicine and go back and
see the doctor to change the medicine for your hypertension therapy.

We learn ever so much from the internets. Remember, if you fee a massive heart beat, you should definitely stop consume.

 At some point, someone told me that I probably had spent $3 on individual pre-wrapped tongue depressors. “Don’t be absurd,” I said. “They wouldn’t be labelled amlodipine besylate if they were tongue depressors. That’d just be silly.

However, I had the sinking feeling that I was wrong…tongue depressor wrong.

The invading rat army was quite irritated when they managed to take the central chamber and found out how wrong I was, and how right my naysayers were. Curse their correct eyes.

“God damn it, we lost 230 rat people to take these things, and they’re TONGUE DEPRESSORS? What were we THINKING?”

Between the endless complaining of both the rat men AND the space priests, I decided “screw it, I’ll just take the tongue depressors. Maybe they’ll help.”

No luck. Night settled. The rat men established camp, illuminating the medical sampler with their strange issue. At some point, I heard the screams of a very small sacrifice. That, and the weird red glow, lent a surreal cast to the dinner table. Eventually I left the rat men to their dark task.

Eventually, the sun rose, and the fruits of their labors were revealed. From their far-off camp, even the space priests were obliged to cheer a little, because say what you will about their hygiene, they were definitely good on the follow-through.

Aaanyway, happy valentine’s day!

Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin