charm

There was screaming outside the library as we were shutting down the building yesterday, so I climbed on a chair and looked out one of the high windows. A man and a woman were fighting in their van. The mister slammed his door and stalked around the vehicle while the missus wailed and shook her hands. One of our patrons was sitting in the car next to them, and I was about to be worried for her safety when she suddenly reached beside her and handed the man a half-full bottle of whiskey. He took two long pulls on it and handed it back gratefully. She tucked it beside the driver's seat and didn't put the lid back on. They all drove away, unsteadily. Hmm.

Thank goodness I'm a such a calm and reasonable person, I congratulated myself that evening. The man walked by my tote bag, where my failing attempt at a first-place art contest entry was sticking up out of the clutter of books and empty sandwich bags. He made a sad noise. "Oh? What happened to your drawing?" I reacted as if someone had yanked my pants down, and screamed, "GET AWAY DON'T LOOK AT THAT!"

Calm and reasonable

And anyway, something had happened to my drawing: mostly me, accidentally using conté on top of graphite and then trying to erase it with a cheap pink eraser, which resulted in big black grease streaks imbedded with bits of rubber; but there was also a whole lot of cockroach poop and a gross glued-on roach egg casing, which was scraped off (badly) and then scribbled over in my attempt to salvage the old illustration board. I KNOW. But I haven't been paid yet. I was going to trim it. My latest endeavor is to try and win the Drawing Magazine annual art contest and then spend the award money on a garden shed/art studio (/chickencoop/nosy husband storage). The only problem is my lack of space, time, subject, and materials. I have two weeks to resolve this.Which I might, depending on how good I am at charming people into staying still while I draw them. Bribery counts as charm.