Vividly

Now there's a word you don't see that often. Vividly. And I think that's even one of those words that if you say it too much it starts to lose its meaning.

I actually like the visual of this sign all the Ls in a row at the right. Vividly, Difficulty, Likely.

And it's a very staccato message. With the -ly at the end. Vividly. Difficulty. Likely. It kind of has a sing-songy thing going for it.

But back to the actual message. Do you want to know the funny thing about this one? I've started to pass out my Moocards. These are little mini business cards that you can print photos on. So I decided it would be funny if I printed Milt and Edit signs on the cards and passed them out like little fortune cookies to people. And last night was my first opportunity. So I passed this one out to a person who I thought could benefit from vividly realizing a difficulty.

And the first thing that my friend Cassandra said when looking at this card? "Why does it say a man?" That just cracks me up. I'm as much of a feminist as anyone. Seriously if you know me, I'm all about the women and the equal rights and equal pay. But if there's one thing I'm okay with, it's the quotes that say "man" in them. I'm not all about the need to "human" everything. I get it. I can make the leap from man to woman. It doesn't bother me. I've got other things to fight for like making sure that I get that dollar that my male boss is getting.

It was just so funny how I didn't even read that into the quote and that was the first thing that my friend saw.

Courage

This is another one of the signs that I'm not sure I understand what the sign maker was trying to say. Very zen like and philosophical but really, what the what?

I get the first part, it takes vision and courage to create. Create anything, writing, an album, a baby, a business, a mission statement, all those things take vision. The ability to see what people need that isn't out there and you need to provide it to them. The artist's third eye, seeing things differently. Apple's Think Different campaign.

But what about the second part? Faith and courage to prove? You gotta have faith, like George Michael says? Just as a little aside, I watched an episode of Eli Stone last night with GM and boy he looks rough. Drugs man, they don't do anything good for the skin.

Back to the faith. Actually the more I think about this quote the more I like it. That's typical of Milt and Edie. You start with vision, you end with faith but under it all is courage. Nice.

Dance

The funny thing about this sign was that it came in the middle of a very rainy period in Los Angeles. You can't really tell because of the blue skies behind Milt & Edie. But trust me, it's been raining more than usual in L.A. which is nice. I love the dry, clean, sparse feel you get from living in a desert...I've definitely got a little Howard Hughes in me, he loved the desert too...

But it didn't realize how much I missed the rain, even if only for a couple of weeks, until it started raining again in L.A. My windshield wipers didn't work of course because they dried out from never being used. And you can't see shit because there aren't any reflecters on the road. And everyone drives like crap because their windshield wipers don't work and they can't see shit. And the rain washes all the dirt off of the roads and makes it slick. See I bet you thought that everyone in L.A. couldn't drive in the rain because they were idiots. It's actually a combination of windshield wiper failure, lack of reflecters and dirt slicked roads. And everyone's a frickin' idiot.

There's definitely a lot of dancing going on lately in the rain though. It smells different in the city, like wet dog, but I kinda like it, mostly because I don't have live with a wet dog all year round. I'm sure if I lived in Seattle I'd just survive the storm. It's alot easier to dance in the rain when you only have a rainstorm once every couple of years.

I also like how we don't have hard pounding East Coast rain drops. We've got our own gentle Los Angeles varietal of rain that makes dealing with rain much more palatable and danceable. Plus we don't have lightning or thunder (I can never remember which) that's kind of weird, but I guess if you are a Southern California kid and you never grew up with it, you would never miss it. The sounds of rainstorms are muted in Los Angeles. The rain drops themsevles are muted.

We get rain-lite here and that's just enough rain for me to dance around and not feel too bad about the weather.

Journey

Okay this is one of my favorite sign posts so far. This is like a little message from the Fools Of Chelm.

But then it's also freaking me out a little bit. What if I don't know where I'm going? The problem is I don't know where I'm going half the time! I've got tons of directions that I'm going in, I'm not focused, I'm looking for a path in a million different places!

So that just means that I'm probably going to miss it when I get there. So I think I need to just take a note from Nissan's famously weird and annoying ad campaign and "Enjoy The Ride".

I kinda can't believe that I'm commenting on dry cleaning signs and quoting car company commercials, but maybe that's my path right now.

Friendship

Again once you start thinking about these a little too hard, maybe they fall apart. Because on the surface this seems like one of the sweet ones. It's a sign all about friendship cementing us together. Aw. This could be on a Hallmark card.

But what if sign maker was commenting on a loveless marriage? Where friendship was the only thing holding it all together. No more love, passion, romance, sex, intensity. All that couple has is friendship. And apparently rock hard cement.

Or if it is a couple of friends, really, that's it, that's all we have, friendship? Why wouldn't love also be the glue in our relationship? Or memories, that makes a great cement. How about common experiences?

I'd maybe take out the only. It seems so limiting.

Oh Milt & Edie, how you challenge my thinking with your deceptively simple signs.

Confidence

What the hell does this one mean exactly?

I like the first part, it's about spreading confidence. Positive, spiritual, easy to swallow, like "Pay It Forward".

But what is up with the "lack of confidence is contagious"? That's kind of a bummer thing to think about on my drive home Milt & Edie. So are you trying to tell me that every time in my life when I haven't had as much confidence, when I haven't felt like I've had my shit together, people around me were feeling it and feeding off it? My insecurities, which I thought that I was growing out of as a teenager but now just seem to be evolving into different things as an adult, leak into other people like .... I don't know... contagious viruses and colds. I was thinking something even more melodramatic because the sign put me in such a bad state, like I was leaking poison un-confident gas or something.

Jesus that's some heavy stuff.

All that from a dry cleaning sign. And you only have a couple of seconds to process it when you are stopped at a red light. That's why I love Milt & Edie. Cheaper than therapy.