In drawing class today we were forced to draw hands. This always aggravates me because I have my own hands but I usually don’t have naked people lounging around the house. So it just seems like a pointless waste of class time to draw them. Not to mention the tuition money.

The model was holding some kind of rock. I thought it was kind of boring and remembered this image from Art History class last week:

It’s called Girl With A Kitten by Lucian Freud, the grandson of Sigmund Freud and considered one of the most important twentieth century painters of the human figure.

So just to make it clear- I’m not a sicko. This is not a scene that depicts animal cruelty. I love kittens, this one is completely imaginary, and no kittens were harmed in the creation of this drawing.

Sometimes in a life that includes drawing for 4 to 6 hours per day you have flashes of insight. Last week I realized that men’s genitals are darker than the rest of the skin but that you don’t want to draw them that way, or they become a focal point in your work, and then the work becomes either creepy or a piece of pornography. I’m not really into that. You want your work to look good, not necessarily completely accurate. If it’s just nasty, what’s the point?

Today I realized I had had enough of drawing our nude model’s grody colorful genitals. I put a fig leaf over that mess and I am a happier person. For your viewing pleasure:

Got new brakes this weekend. The truck stops a lot more readily and the moderately alarming shrieking metal noises have stopped. Sometimes I wonder if the thing is even turned on.

The car place guy told me several interesting things about my brakes. Another word for that might be, “mechanic.” First, brake pads should be smooth, and not look like this:

He said it wasn’t the most worn out brakes he’d ever seen, but was in the top five.

He also said that a problem with the Toyota 4Runner is that it’s so “sturdy” that you get situations like this one- it will still stop pretty reliably even though you have no brakes, and it will drive pretty reliably even though there’s no oil in it, and stuff like that. So I should pay more attention. I told him I would but I have to say his expression upon hearing this was somewhat skeptical.

Both lenses fell out this week. The culprit was a tiny screw that unscrewed itself and then disappeared. It is particularly hard to find brown screws the size of mechanical pencil lead on a brown carpet with one eye squinted shut and the other with a lens held up to it.

But it is relatively easy to grope around for paperclips. Unfortunately this means you have Crazy Person glasses and also blurred flying giant paperclip shapes in your peripheral vision.

Why it happens at 2/3 AM is a mystery to me.

I wrote a haiku.

daylight savings? no
real vacation. fresh sheets don’t
smell of unwashed man

The theme is Saturday laundry efforts and circular polarities of time.

Locked myself out of the house this morning. That jingle in my coat pocket was not keys, but loose change. This is why I clip the keys to my belt loop. It is to prevent Tragedy. Absentminded, they say.

It was a cold morning pissing with rain. Frigid. The day also featured playful gusts of wet, wet, wind – cruel like the whims of a child.

Very bracing weather. Such weather makes Men.

Fortunately I had Bruce, my landlord, on my cell phone’s speed dial. I stood stolidly on the porch, ignoring the elements like the neanderthal brute that I am. Eventually some toady of his showed up in a lined parka and opened the door. Our Hero was saved.

This, while not the optimal human circumstance, was a lot better than many human circumstances and did after all last only 20 minutes. And I was not naked.

I drove on to Starbucks where I consumed 20 ounces of coffee in 10 minutes and thereafter effectively joined the human race. I’ve been part of it for the rest of the day.

It’s so tedious when bloggers get book deals and then they yammer on about it. Who cares?

Why can’t we go back to the voyeuristic thrill of reading about the daily neurosis?

It is also terrible when a previously funny or tasteless blog morphs into simpering nonsense about children.

These are just observations, not complaints.

Did you know I gave up negative thinking for Lent?

I’m actually doing a pretty good job metamorphosing from a dark and cynical Hater into a sparkling, effervescent positive Force of Universal Love. I think. The printer went on the blink this morning and I calmly turned it off and then back on rather than hurling it out the window. Which I really, really wanted to do because I was PISSED. Control. It’s all about control.

Today painting a simple self-portrait went hopelessly awry:

I immediately gave up on the whole mess for today and decided to just sink into a black despair. Actually, this wasn’t really a conscious decision so much as the inevitable outcome.

I will never know why I decided to adjust the height of the easel without removing the mirror from it first. I’ve been thinking about the whole bad luck thing and have decided to reject it utterly. Instead I plan to have 7+ years of fantastic luck. Which I think has already begun because if I’d had bad luck when this thing fell, it would have sliced me to ribbons. As it is, I have walked – well trudged- away unscathed.

Something I ingested yesterday has turned the roof of my mouth into a pulpy, stringy mess. I seem to recall burning it on overheated lunch. I do not like this.

Galkyd has its benefits, principally that it dries fast. It also makes my lungs ache, and yes I am using it with adequate ventilation. And I must say I am not very excited about that.

Galkyd works well as a thin glazing medium so I think I’ll keep using it for the bottom layers of paintings. But today Venice turpentine reappeared at the tack store and really nothing beats it for versatility and sheer joy in paint handling. Venice turpentine has the magic in it. That is just the way it is.

Here we have it mixed with linseed oil to make an easy glossy medium that holds brush strokes:

And this is what we used it for:

We also used traditional Venetian glazing medium in this painting and the 3 others that we started tonight. (Why do I keep using the Royal We?)

And now it is time for bed.

The FAFSA (Federal Application for Student Aid) never fails to blow me away and/or make me cry a bitter tear for the failure of Capitalism. Or the triumph of Capitalism. I don’t know which is worse.

They tell me:

Your estimated Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is: $34,291

Ouch. I’m not sure exactly what EFC is, but I do know that the result of it is terrible financial aid offers. I think it means that they assume I am capable of making this much money so they don’t need to offer me any. That’s fine, except: Who is my mysterious benefactor who plans to chip in $34,291 to my education and living expenses this year? Other than myself, and I can only make that much money by working full-time, which means I can’t really be in school… and so it goes.

I am doing fine financially, but last year the two of us were living on a real income of $15,000 plus student loans. Now the one of us is living on a real income of $4000 plus student loans. I just think FAFSA is creepy and degenerate, and maybe deranged. I wish my budget was as magical as they apparently seem to think it is.

Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know, FAFSA.

Sometimes I long to call up Nextel with inane questions in an effort to drive their customer service personnel as crazy as they drive me.

Consider the following conversation which is:

Real. Holy. Sincere.

Real. Holy. Sincere. conversation follows

Me: I’d like to add the free nights and weekends starting at 7?
CSR: IT’S NOT FREE IT IS FIVE DOLLARS
Me: Oh… well, I saw on the website that it was free and if you wanted to have nights and weekends start at 5 then that was five extra dollars.
CSR: THERE IS NO NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS STARTING AT FIVE PM ONLY SIX OR SEVEN IT DEPENDS ON THE PLAN
Me: On the website it said 5… I thought…
CSR: I’M GONNA PUT YOU ON HOLD
Me: Okay.
Time passes
CSR: (accusingly) IT SAYS HERE YOUR NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS START AT 9 PM.
Me: I know that, I’m trying to get it to start at 7 which I thought was free- according to the information on your website.
CSR: NO!!! IT IS FIVE DOLLARS.
Me: Okay. I’m not going to make the change at this time.
CSR: THANK YOU FOR CALLING SPRINT WE TRULY VALUE YOUR BUSINESS

Where do they find these people? Even when I worked in phone customer service I wasn’t this bloody-minded*.

But if we can have this kind of fun with real questions, just imagine the amount of fun we can have with really dippy made up ones. About the intricacies of phone plans.

I’m sure it takes a special kind of person to call up these poor fools just in order to harass them.

A me kind of person. A me kind of special.

*a rare instance when the Britishism is the only word that really fits

My salsa has frozen. This is going to make it difficult to “Feel the fiesta.”

But I am a Man, an American, a College Graduate.

I am going to get through this.

Dear Butterfingers,

I understand what’s going on. Your number is (571) 237- 6374. My number is (571) 237- 6371. The 1 is above the 4 and you keep misdialing when checking your Goddam voice mail.

You have to stop this. Please. Please stop dialing my number at 7 AM. I assume anyone who calls me at 7 AM is having an emergency, not simply using their butterfingers to misdial their own voice mail. Please also stop dialing my number at 9:30 AM, 10:45 AM, and all other available times.

In the interest of good will I guess I will apologize for the following conversation that we had at 9:30 AM:

Me: (picking up phone from deep sleep) Who are you? Why do you keep calling me?
You: (mumbling some elaborate story in thick Spanish accent)
Me: What the hell? (I hang up)

Ordinarily I am up by 9:30 and busily at work*. Let’s recap the night.

2 AM: Go to bed.
3:30 AM: Wake up melting in extraordinary heat from suddenly overactive heater.
3:45 AM: Crawl down risky loft ladder to turn down thermostat.
3:45 to 6 AM: Lay (LIE!) in bed stewing about life circumstances. Divorce, bankruptcy, demented realtors, etc.
6 AM: Doze off
7 AM: Alarming phone call nearly gives me heart attack.
9:30 AM: Unfortunate conversation
11:10 AM: Finally drag myself out of bed, feeling like hell, looking like hell, tired as hell. Attempt to proceed with appalling, hallucinatory, sleep-deprived day.

You can see how your phone behavior is impacting my life.

Thank you for your consideration.

Kevin Inman
Insomniac,
Owner of the Cell Phone At The Other End of (571) 237- 6371,
and Concerned Citizen

*This is increasingly a total lie.