I turned 29 a few months ago. Right around the time of my birthday, my brothers wished me well and told me that my present would be a bit delayed, that it was still being "manufactured."

There's a word that peaked my interest.

What was it that needed to be manufactured? Obviously, it was a custom job of some sort. Last Christ, I bound up all of the Lies Magazines and sent it to them, so I thought perhaps they were doing something with Aiding & Abetting.

I pondered this for a few days, and then I forgot.

A couple weeks ago, they told me that my present was ready, that it was about to be shipped.

"It's big," one of them said.

"It will fit in the door, right?" I asked, mostly in jest.

"No," was the earnest reply.

Well, we quickly established that I had been talking about the front door of my apartment, and that he had been talking about the door to me car, but in any case we were discussing an object of large proportions.

"I hope you like it," was how he finished the conversation.

Well, it took a week to get here, and then I wasn't home to take the thing from the UPS guy on a Friday, so I had to wait until Monday. I wasn't around then, either, but my neighbors were, and so they held it for a couple hours. When I got home, I saw the note directing me to their door, and before I could knock, they came out.

"You got a package," one of them said. "It's big, but it's not that heavy." And she dragged a 2x2x4 box (which was bleeding styrofoam peanuts) out of their place and plopped it on our shared porch.

I took the box inside and contemplated it for a couple minutes. It was big, too big to fit in my car door. After being mesmerized for a few moments, I found the scissors and began the unveiling.

An appropriate term, as I soon discovered. My present was a work of art. Literally. A large piece of wood which had been painted and scraped, with large pieces of metal and other objects riveted or glued to the surface and covered with a large coating of acrylic. Let me restate that: The metal pieces are on top of the acrylic. Everything else is underneath.

The general design is abstract. I looked on the back for any hint as to a proper way to display the work, and didn't find anything. So I sat and looked at it for a while. My wife came home and did the same thing.

Barbara was very concerned with up having the piece right-side-up. She thought that if we could determine which way it went, we could make sense of the piece. I thought that it didn't matter a whole lot. My main impression was that the piece left a vastly different impression depending on how far you were away from it while contemplating its meaning.

We spent a couple days just sorta looking at the thing. Barbara tried on some art appreciation class interpretations, and I just looked with no real intent. The thing fascinated me.

Then my brothers told me there was a note (which had been lost among the peanuts) which might explain things a bit better. It did, though with ramifications that I hadn't foreseen.

First, the title of the piece is "Jon." This didn't bother me a whole lot (when I stopped to think of it, that made sense). But it bothered Barbara a bit, mostly because all of the imagery she could "identify" was somewhat malignant. She liked the piece, but not necessarily with the name "Jon."

What had happened was my brothers handed over a ton of my writings (all of my columns and work for Lies Magazine, and some other stuff too) to a friend of theirs named Willy. He then spent about six months creating this thing, either inspired by my work or using my work as a blueprint. Don't know which; I don't think an artist has to explain his methods. In any case, it's always more interesting if he doesn't.

Also, there is no correct way to display the work. "Jon" can be hung any end up, or it can be placed flat on the floor or perhaps leaned up against the wall on the mantle. As the piece inspires different interpretations as it is turned around, that makes this a more versatile and interesting work. In fact, as the piece is named after me, it is only fitting that there is no proper way to display it.

Needless to say, I like "Jon." It's weird, sorta scary at time but in any case, always worth looking at. For a long time, if necessary. Art is there to inspire, and I can't imagine receiving a better birthday present.

Jon Worley got an A in the only art class he ever took. Of course, this was in the 8th grade, where anyone who turned in every assignment, no matter how hideous, got an A.