The Cuckoo Bee

Occasionally something will happen that reminds me how different things are now from what they used to be twenty years ago, for me I mean.  Today I was walking through the park on the way home and looking up at the opaque sky through some wintry trees gave me a sudden excited feeling like I used to have in high school when it was gray out.  Usually I am aware that this feeling used to exist but I don’t actually have it, and then when I do get it once every five years I’m like, Oh, that’s how I used to feel about things.

It’s the same thing as that short story assignment we had where we were instructed to overhear someone’s conversation and then write a paragraph of a story about it.  The two statements I heard, from two different people, were “I just got out of Rikers and I don’t have any money” and “I’m going down the drain anyway.”  Then in class we did not discuss the paragraphs we had written (which was fine because I never did it) but rather why we chose what we chose.   That’s the same feeling again.

The other feeling I had recently that I have not had for a long, long time, since before I was married, was what it is like to have fun with people, like the feeling that you are making new friends.  That’s swell.

Two more important things, also unrelated to the pictures I am posting:  First, I had, for the third time now, that thing where I wake up because I am laughing in my sleep, or rather this time my husband shook me awake going “What’s going on. What’s going on,” like he thought the house was going to explode because I was laughing.  This time the source of humor was a comment (in the dream) about eating raw liver at the dinner table.  Hm.

The other thing is that this morning while dropping off the younger son at school I totally lost it when the older boy started banging into the aquarium and throwing things at the babies and parents who were trying to get by us as we sat arguing in the entryway, because the younger son had insisted on flopping into the dirty snowbank outside the door and his socks were soaking wet, and he wouldn’t let me take them off.  So as older son came up and started taking off my hat and sticking something up the back of my coat,  I, as mentioned, lost it and started yelling like this:  “You’re in big trouble and I’m going to spank you! Dammit!”  Ahem.  We are not supposed to use swear words in school.  They were actually quite mad and I may be in more trouble later.  Unfortunately I cannot tell my husband about this because  he will also yell at me–it’s very much like when you get in trouble at school but are also afraid to tell your parents, so are kind of alone on that windy corner in west Philadelphia.  Maybe that’s what gave me the exciting feeling.

One more thing I just realized:  why would we ever follow the rules that other people give us?  Those rules are only for them, since they are the ones who made them.  It seems obvious, no?  Like swearing at day care.  On to ballpoint pen drawings.  They are very much like pencil in the way you shade, but of course one cannot erase.  Still much more forgiving than a pigma micron pen.

Lord.  There’s a lot today it seems. On to baby bok choy.  I saw this in the store the other day and I spent a week thinking about it, and then went back and bought one and drew some stuff.  Here are my three favorites:

This has become our new pet.  It sits in a bowl on the table in a puddle of water and looks pretty good.  It’s been there for maybe five days now and is still green.  The kids kiss it and are like “oh, it’s all right, baby bok choy.”  Sometimes to test me, one of them will ask, “Are you going to eat that baby bok choy?” and then I say, “No, I don’t eat babies.”  Really I could not think about eating it.  It’s a baby.  On the other hand, my son was growing basil sprouts in a little cup and before we left for Christmas vacation I ate one, since I thought they would all be dead when we got back, which they were.  It did feel very odd to eat a baby.  But it was very fresh and tasty.

This is getting mighty long so I am cutting down my selection here, reader.  You will have to come over to see everything.  A couple more.

rembrandt oil pencils and oil pastels

It’s  all right, baby bok choy.  I love you.