comfort zone

Well, they say you have to paint your way through a whole pile of shitty paintings to get to the good ones. My painting on Monday was terrible. But to be fair, that was mostly because I was too stupid to realize I was painting on paper disguised as canvas, and it was not a surface that liked oil paint.

Fuck you, paper, I thought.

Then I hurried to apologize, because paper is my first true love.

There's a statue of St. Michael at my kid's school that I like a lot. He's really pretty, with a wild helmet, a swirly skin-tight super suit, and alarming nipples. Most statues of St. Michael have him stomping on a monster's face, but this guy is just taking his time, walking over and listing all the reasons he's about to kick your ass.

 

  He'd make a nice painting. IF I KNEW HOW TO PAINT.

The wolves have been out in force this winter, devouring my friends and their children. I haven't been able to attend the funerals, or administer angry hugs, or pour coffee straight down their throats. All I'm good for are cutting remarks to insensitive jerks online and signatures on office 'get well' cards and blips of text in the inbox. So I ordered a couple packs of blank postcards. A piece of mail is like an amulet or a talisman that can keep the wolves back for just a few more minutes.

I hope.

And maybe they'll also remove their teeth from my pant leg.