This pair of tiles come from Villecroze in Southern France. During a visit to my grandparents my brother and a friend worked one day at the vineyards. It was a sort of faux work / experience the owners provided as a favor to my grandparents. I'm not sure what they did, but as a child I thought they were crushing grapes in their bare feet. This may or not be true, but at this point it doesn't matter. As a parting gift they gave my brother these tiles as well as some wine. I can't remember the year, but I was very jealous. The owners gave me a fossilized trilobite. This more than erased my jealousy. The trilobite sat on the bookshelf of fiction in the gap hallway next to the bathroom in the loft were I grew up. The trilobite was black in a grey rock. It might not have been real, but in my memory it was a very real fossil culled from the turned over fields of the vineyard. I've since broke that fossil in half and lost it. Somehow I've ended up with these tiles. They are currently sitting on my side table for my bed. I actually feel very little attachment to them other than a proxy for the trilobite I've lost.
I picked this large clock up at a yard sale in New Hampshire. It was my 28th birthday and Sam took me skydiving in Pepperell MA. Killing time we checked out a yard sale. Originally intended for the garage, this large time piece dominates my room over my desk. It is currently hanging from a bent paperclip stuck into a nail hole a previous tenant left in the trim.