non-hypothetical

I GOT THE GRANT. Heavy in planning mode now. Ordering supplies, securing house sitter, planning tickets and visa, browsing B&Bs. It's going to be Aberdeen in April, I'm excited! 

To balance out the good news, father-in-law has had a terminal diagnosis, so Mike is flying out this week to meet his siblings and visit their dad in North Carolina. It will probably be the last time they will all be together. I have nothing to say to that man that he would want to hear, so I am staying out of it. I just want the drama report when his wife tries to stop them from talking to him without her in the room (all phone calls have to be on speaker so she is included, and she controls the phone) and his brother finally has enough of it and throws her out by the scruff and seat of her pants.

Here are some of my practice pieces to test out canvas and get the hang of the 18th century color palette (vine black, lead white, vermilion [cad red light], scarlet sienna, raw sienna or yellow ochre, and Prussian blue):

No detail for this one, it's still drying and there was too much glare for a good shot

It's hard taking pictures of a painting at the correct angle, sorry. 

These are from 2 cameras; the detail shot is more accurate for color.

Painting my husband has been part of my therapy homework. When we were in college, I used to draw Mike all the time. I'd sketch him while he was doing schoolwork, or lying on the bed watching tv. He would let me drape him in sheets or put flowers in his hair when I needed illustration reference. I imagined having a home someday where we could hang art, and I would see him aging across the walls as the years went by. 

That didn't happen. He broke my heart and I threw all those drawings away. After reconciling a couple years later I tried to draw him again, but it brought up a lot of bad feelings and I threw those out, too. From time to time I would try again, but it didn't go very well.

Things are better now though (or different, anyway), and I was able to stare at his face for a lot longer before the bad feelings started resurfacing. Then we flopped down with our therapy workbook to fill out this week's chapter and ended up having a really good conversation. If his trip to NC goes well and he collects some green flags, we'll plan to travel to Scotland together. We haven't traveled alone, just the two of us, since having kids. If I get a bouquet of red flags next week, though, I'll go to Scotland alone and then start looking into moving to Canada. I am cautiously optimistic, though. He's a fun and easy travel companion.

Should probably gift this painting to his mom, though, just to keep it out of the trash if I get mad.

further adventures of the amateur detective

On Thursday morning, after dropping the boy off at the high school, Zenny and I parked by the library and walked down to the elementary school. We said hello to the family of yellow finches we see every morning, looked for snails in the wet grass by the fence, and waved at the pickle ball ladies at the tennis court. At the gate Zenny gave me a kiss and ran to class, and I walked back up to the library. By the gym I stopped to look at Ward, one of our homeless guys who collects cans to recycle. He was sleeping in his usual spot, lying on his back with a hand on his chest, and he looked like an accidental renaissance painting. I wanted to take a picture of him, but that would be rude. Also, he swears a lot when he's grumpy, and he wouldn't be happy if I woke him up. I might have risked it anyway, but some kids were passing by, so I kept walking, thinking that I should keep cash in my pocket to pay people to take pictures of them. And maybe to bribe them not to call the police for propositioning them for photos like a fuckin weirdo. How do street photographers get people to pose for them? Do they even ask, or do they lurk around with telescopic lenses and pretend to be journalists? I walked up the hill, turned off the exercise tracker on my watch (damned if I'll walk 10 minutes and not get credit for it), got my lunch out of the car, put my badge on, and unlocked the library for another long day of helping people print shit and then get their money out of the copy machine after they ignore all the signs telling them it's not the printer. 

After school, Zenny walked up to do her homework. "Someone died at the park," she said. "There were police, and a sheet or something covering something on the ground, and an ambulance, and they were all just standing around talking. Maybe whoever was lighting the trash cans on fire finally lit themself on fire and died."

"Huh, I don't think so, the guy who was burning the trash cans is still in jail for robbing 7-11 with a fake gun. I wonder who... OH NO."

Yeah, it was Ward. He was dead. I stopped and stared at him and thought about taking a picture, then just walked away and let him lie there for another 6 hours. You know, just like Nancy Drew.

Hark! A Vagrant

After walking by that other dead guy a few years ago, I started nudging people with my foot and asking them if they're alive when I see them passed out in the middle of the day. Dead people tend to look pretty dead - they kind of sink flatter, and your brain picks up on them not breathing, which gives you the creeps. But it was 7:45am and he was in his normal sleeping spot, and the last guy I tried to wake up went on a screaming rampage, so I just didn't bother. I feel bad about it.

Ward was 57, a skinny guy who always wore a baseball cap and cargo shorts. He joined the military as a young man and came back from deployment with some pretty serious trauma that went untreated. He stopped talking and started pacing everywhere. He tried to self medicate with drugs at some point, and wouldn't accept help. For the 11 years I knew him, he speed-walked back and forth from our town to the recycling station a few miles away, pushing an old baby stroller full of bagged aluminum cans. He'd buy lunch with the recycling money and sit behind the library eating out of take-away boxes with chopsticks. He never spoke except to swear to himself if he was having a bad day, and always accepted the bags of recycling we saved up for him. Never saw him smile, but he wasn't a scary or dangerous person, and he didn't cause any problems. I'm sorry he died. He looked peaceful, at least. 

Keep busy

It’s February? Why? 

I have been sneezing and coughing and feeling useless, so here is a bulleted list.

* Made Z pose for a painting. I’m still planning for the hypothetical grant and wanted to practice recreating a Henry Raeburn portrait. The girl only gives me 2 minutes to take a picture nowadays because she is tired of my shit, so I threw a snuggie over her shoulders, told her to make a face like a cat with only one brain cell, and snapped the shot. Nailed it. 

Now I just have to find time to paint the thing.

* Called out sick for a couple days and came back to discover someone had put a big OUT OF ORDER sign on the copier and called in a work order to fix it, all because some guy put $10 in the machine and then got mad when it only gave $3 in change. It has ALWAYS given a maximum of $3 change, that is why I have spent the last SIX YEARS warning people not to put in anything bigger than a $5. Also, it is WRITTEN ON THE COPIER. Had to explain all this to the patrons who were complaining that the copier had been "broken" for two days, and to the service guy who showed up with all his equipment and nothing to fix. "Maybe you should make a sign," each person said. It made me think about a recent dream I had where I was shoveling horse shit at a stable, and I was so happy until I woke up and realized I was still a librarian. 

* Went to Staff Institute Day. Ate a free salad, got high on Dayquil and accidentally led a round table discussion on self defense.

* Made a chocolate tres leches cake for family dinner. I was skeptical about dumping a milk bath over a perfectly nice cake, because that seemed like a good way to end up with a pan full of wet cake, but, you know, trust the process. Well! It was wet cake. Maybe I did it right? Maybe people like eating wet cake? That would explain cake pops. And people who eat cake with ice cream even though it melts and turns everything to mush. Anyway, I'm not writing that recipe down in the family cookbook.

* Gave permission for a university to use my picture books for an open access translation project, and they sent me $25! Never mad at surprise checks in the mail.

* Found where the chickens were stashing their eggs (garden shed behind the shovel). Dumped a bunch of papaya seeds into a pot of dirt and now I have about 20 little tree sprouts that will absolutely destroy the back yard. Feeling like a goddamn pioneer. 

* Still have not bought a truck. 

Time to get through another Valentine's Day. Good luck, folks.