In the Airport

A woman with blond hair barely confined by a kerchief looks at you. You look back, thinking how pretty she is.

She says, "Can I read you a poem?"

You say, "Okay."

Your sister says, "My sister really likes poetry."

And then you say, "That has to be the strangest thing anyone's ever asked me in an airport."

She reads to the both of you a wonderful poem by Mary Oliver.

When she is done, you think that you've never had such an experience before, and wish that more days could have a moment like this one.

You tell her your name, and she says, "I'm Abby. I read that in this book and I just had to share it with someone."

You and your sister spend some time talking with Abby and then she leaves to catch her flight to New York. You realize that few things in your life will equal the oddity and beauty of being read a poem by a stranger in an airport.



12/10/2011 EDITED to change link, the old link stopped working so I added one to Wikipedia instead.

Painting my suitcase cont.

Here are the rest of the photos. I've detailed the sea monster, added some texture to the continent and water and then aged it all.

Painting my suitcase

My sister bought me a wonderful set of luggage right before I went to Italy in 2002. A carry-on, a small case with wheels and a large case with wheels. Only problem is, it's the same color as everyone else's luggage. So I decided to paint it.

I love old maps, so I'm painting a map of Europe on it. I'm going to include a compass rose and a sea monster. Here's the progress so far.

Going on Vacation

So, I'm leaving on Friday for France. My sister Jenny and I will be visiting Paris, the lovely French countryside and also the Riviera. I'm pretty excited about it.

I'm traveling with my teacher from college. I've been on three other trips with her over the past six years, and I've enjoyed every one. This one will be my second to Paris. I'm going to need to go to Italy again. Really loved that one best, even though it was the hottest. I think it was about 100 degrees in Pompeii on the day we went.

This sign greeted us on the way to our hotel from the train station in Paris in 2004:


Wow, doesn't it just make you want to go in and get some pancakes! To be fair, though, I didn't have any bad food while in Paris. And I'm a very picky eater.

I'm going to try to blog and draw but we'll see how that goes.

Anybody want a souvenir? Maybe a kebab?

I Bought an iPod

Jumping on the bandwagon, that's me.

But, I just have to say. . .

IT'S SO COOL!

My Mother was a Selfish Bitch

One of the best things that my mother ever did for me was be a selfish bitch. Sometimes I really hated her. Especially when she sat on the couch and directed me and my siblings efforts to clean the living room.

But I realize now that she probably did it sometimes because she was trying to teach us self-reliance and independence. Other times she just wanted to sit on her ass and not clean up after us. My mother taught me to cook on the stove at nine. I started doing my own laundry and eleven. Not because she had a job, but because she was trying to give us ourselves and diminish some of her own domestic workload. (I understand this impulse, as living with any man seems to increase a woman's work.)

The reason I bring this up is because of a kid in one of my classes named Jake. He's got a blended family. Dad, stepmom, stepbrother and two brothers live together, and then his mom in another house. (Not sure if she re-married or not.) Recently he gave me trouble in art class. He disregards my suggestions, even when they're not really suggestions.

When told to add a background to a drawing of a wooden figure, he added a primitive looking goal post and wouldn't put any more details. His excuse was "But, I don't know what to do."

On his papier mache project, he refused to add more layers because, "we're moving and I'm going to have to throw it away anyway." When I was sick and had a substitute near the end of the project, some of the newspaper additions that he'd taped on fell off. Instead of retaping them, he pulled them all the way off and like that'd be enough.

I mentioned Jake's name to his teacher, and she told me about an incident that happened this year. Jake's dad and stepmom planned a vacation in another state. Jake decided that he didn't like the destination and refuse to go. His parents let him stay at his mother's house instead of going on the trip with the rest of the family.

I don't know about you, but I would have tied his ass to the car. Why did his parent's let him make the choice? What happened to the parents, in Calvin and Hobbes' words, as "Supreme Dictators for Life?" There's no way that my parents, particularly my mom, would have let me get away with that.

I worry about this kid. Jake's got no independence, no self-esteem, and every task's just an opportunity to argue with someone about why he doesn't need to do it.

Sure my mom was a selfish bitch. But I'm a better person because of it.