Abstract exercise –  graphite on 14″ x 17″ Strathmore drawing paper

One Saturday morning at drawing class, the teacher wanted us to loosen up by doing an abstract drawing.

Huh?  What were we supposed to do?  There wasn’t going to be a still life to draw from?  No! He wanted us to “Break up the page with diagonals and horizontals and then draw something in each section.  Use tones, lines, organic or geometric shapes. Anything.  Just try to make each section  different.”

This is what I ended up with.  And you know what?  I really liked it. And you know what else?  So did the teacher.  I knew this when he whispered to me that mine was his favorite.

My sister a/k/a “Big Ears” Alice overheard this and proceeded to call me “teacher’s pet” the rest of the day.  This was funny because since I was kicked out of kindergarten for (allegedly) spitting on the teacher and then spending the next 12 years hiding from and not being fond of (to put it mildly) the nuns and lay Catholic school teachers, I have never, ever been known as the teacher’s pet.

Look at me now.

I’ve spent the week reclining on, to quote Warren Zevon, “the davenport of despair.”  Deaths, illness and stress have me in a no-fly zone.  And don’t even get me started on Japan.  I see that and I want to hit myself for feeling sad, but who says this makes sense.  It doesn’t.

At least Charlie Sheen has been keeping me amused.