Barn Dance

I am in love with my desk. "Scarlet Letter" didn't work out. (Sorry, Nathanial Hawthorne.) It came up far too rosy and meek. At first I thought I could live with it. Then I deliberately buried it in paper. Then it started to give me a toothache.

"What's neurotic?" asked Maria, the most hilarious, unfettered kid I've ever met. She's a sharpie, so I doubt she'll be asking that question again. But, if she does, I won't be offering up my desk as Exhibit A. Too many women disparage their hard work as neurosis. Me, I'll call it "Not Settling."

Round two had an inauspicious name: "Barn." But, when layered on top of Scarlet Letter (and two careful layers of shellac), it produced the most ardent, rousing, dazzling, intuitive work surface ever.

No brilliant outcomes are possible without the failures that preceded them. Remember that.