Warning: bag will contain body parts

I signed up for a figure drawing class, which begins this weekend. I like drawing the peoples but sometimes I put together their parts wrongish and render 'em all weird. And so: learning.

In taking this class I hope to overcome the trauma of my first and only other figure drawing class, which I took in seventh grade. I won an art prize, and the award was an afternoon workshop at the local college. They didn't call it "figure drawing," they called it "life drawing," so I, a twelve-year-old, naturally assumed they were going to put out a vase of lilies or a plate of fruit. Fruit! Flowers! Life!

There were no flowers, but they put out a fruit plate, all right. Fruit basket? What's the euphemism for man parts? Anyway. Twelve-year-old me walked into a class filled with sophisticated college kids and was confronted with her first naked guy. It was not how she dreamed it would happen, if ever she dreamed such things.

I soldiered through the class, but I don't remember a second of it. I only know I stayed because I would have been too scared to leave, knocking over my easel in the process, somehow colliding with the model in front of everyone, etc. I'm sure I behaved in a polite and professional and terrified manner as I tried to make sense of the shadows and contours I was recreating on my newsprint pad.

Fortunately I am now fully grown, and willing to draw any and all private parts that might be on display, as far as a class setting is concerned. (The teacher will no doubt wonder why I disregarded the rest of the body, but never mind.) As naked people fail to worry me, I've been preoccupied with how I was going to tote the materials required for the class-- materials that include include the largest sketch pad ever in the universe. The class is an hour commute and a couple of subway lines from my home. A plastic bag wouldn't cut it for this monster. I like to worry about things, apparently. But it turns out that of course there are tote bags you can buy for even the largest of sketch pads. At any price point. Of course.

I ordered the low-to-mid-range one, and this is the box it came in today. I got worried again.

Henry asked, "What's in that?" and I said, "My new purse!" He didn't seem surprised.

Compared to the giant box, however, the bag is not horrifyingly large. Above the bag sits my annoyed cat. Whenever a box arrives, she expects to sit in it. Why can't she SIT IN THIS GODDAMN THING.

(As you can see, her diet is going well, coughcough throatclearing.)

More soon, possibly with artistic nudes, but I can't promise they'll be tasteful.

A list of celebrities and what they smell like

Because I think you should know.

Justin Timberlake: Vetiver, anise, llama tears
Glenn Close: Gummy bears and woodsmoke
Eric Bana: Dragonfruit smashed with a hand-rubbed mahogany desk clock
Anne Heche: Driftwood and ambergris, with notes of alligator
Tom Skerritt: Peach blossom, shrapnel, gooseberry bitters
Edie Falco: Madagascar vanilla muddled by porcelain doll feet
Peabo Bryson: The silk lining of a 19th century leather valise
Will Smith: Surprised bergamot
Selena Gomez: Leviticus 2:16
Craig T. Nelson: Juicy Fruit, civet musk, houseboats
Dianne Wiest: Peppermint-infused beard gloss
Michael Caine: A geodesic dome wrapped in handwoven butter muslin
Angelica Huston: Hematite, starfruit, irony
Jay-Z:  Absinthe diffused in a particle accelerator
Bryan Cranston: Turkish wildflowers picked during a sunshower
Emmylou Harris: Artisanal, locally sourced gyro meat
Clive Owen: Clouds

About a bird

Anxiety is high around here. August always seems to ratchet up the nerves. Summer has lost its charm, but not its edge. The humidity and the heat and the smells and strangers barking at each other in the street. Hurricanes and tropical storms are coming this way, they keep saying. One after another. Who can say what's next?

I've had conversations with not one, not two, but three loved ones who were beset with (they knew) irrational fears. I feel like I spend most of my time in Reassurance Mode. I'm glad I can be the one who's relatively calm (for once), but then I worry about their worry, because worry is bad for the health.

No one is sleeping. And when we manage it, our dreams are weird.

A few days ago I found a dying baby sparrow on the sidewalk. He blinked fast, flapped his wings, toppled over. His claws were mangled. There was nothing I could do, but I couldn't leave it. My downstairs neighbor came by. We sat down by the bird, in the middle of the sidewalk. Other passersby stopped and weighed in on what could be done. The baby bird kept blinking. I made some phone calls. No one asked why I was bothering with a baby sparrow, which I appreciated, but there was no real help to be found. We murmured to it. The blinks stopped. Mostly we were relieved. We wondered whether we helped the baby bird as it died, or terrified it. We did the best we could. We knew it wasn't much.

Yesterday that same neighbor texted me: "I am not kidding, there's another dead sparrow in our driveway," she wrote.

"Don't worry," I wrote back. "It's just Zombie Sparrow, come to exact revenge."

She was sure there was a bird epidemic. It would just figure, wouldn't it? The heat is rising, birds are dropping from the sky. What's next?

There's no question there's plenty to worry about. There's always a crisis. But I keep thinking how, on one of the hottest days of the year, people came upon two goofballs crouched over a baby bird, and they stopped to see what could be done. I don't know, I guess what I'm trying to say is we have each other, which is so cloying, but I mean it. Everything's scary, but we can be pretty great. Even in the middle of August, and everything dying around us.

Even more painting for you

I've been writing all day for delicious cash money, and I am all worded out. After I was done working, I spent hours trying to figure out the best way to scan watercolors. Turns out there's an art to it. Then you have to fix the levels in Photoshop, and that, my friends, almost made my brain go kablooey. But I did it, sort of! I even put a watermark in there--like a boss, I dare say. Someone high five me!  

Here's a view of the lake at Henry's camp.



And this is the Jizo statue I referred to in this piece. I like him a lot more now than I did then. I can't hold a grudge against that face. Henry is partial to this little guy, so now it lives in his room.