My Life As A Jock

This morning I was awakened at the crack of dawn by loudspeakers. I looked out the window and saw people running down the streets. Portable toilets and cheering spectators lined the curbs.

A marathon was taking place in my neighborhood.

I almost yelled out the window "GET A LIFE!" but was too tired to pry open my winter-stuck window.

I was tired because I stayed up half the night painting. Staying up half the night painting is my idea of a marathon. If those runners out there had any idea how much fun I had painting all night, they wouldn't be out there running at the crack of dawn. They'd still be in bed because they stayed up half the night painting.

And then maybe I could get some sleep.

The Future Has Arrived

The only things which kept me going this subzero week were coffee and cussed-mindedness.

But this morning...HELLO SPRINGTIME!

Familiarity Breeds Familarity

A friend of mine from college just called me up and said she thinks my blog posts are well thought out and carefully crafted. She said she's glad I'm not barreling around the Internet blabbering every thought and feeling I have every moment of every day, unedited, like some bloggers.

At first I took it as a compliment when she said that, but then I remembered she used to be a drinking buddy of mine and therefore is familiar with what it sounds like when I barrel around blabbering my unedited thoughts and feelings.

Open Season

A guy I know thinks I have a great resume. He says some people would kill to have my resume.

I assume that's the same group who'd die for a dessert.

I'm not big on killing or dying for anything, myself.

That same guy says my career maneuverings remind him of someone hunting the great woolly mastodon with a pop gun.

He's always amazed and delighted when I actually bag a great woolly mastodon with my pop gun.

Armed and Ready

Don't you hate the way we all get put into  categories? We're pigeonholed by age, gender, financial situation, geographic location, political leanings, body size, hair color, profession, height, clothing choices...the list goes on and on.

On January 1, 2001 I took a stand against pigeonholing. I created my own unique pigeonholing technique. From that day forward I lumped people into one of two categories: Armpit People and Non-Armpit People.

I'll take a moment to explain how I came up with the concept of Armpit People. One of my favorite people in the world stands a head taller I do and is very affectionate and demonstrative. When I see this person and lean forward to hug them, they enfold me in their strong, bearlike arms and crush me against their wide, muscular chest. As I turn my head to avoid being accidentally smothered... I end up with my nose in their armpit.

It's not a bad sensation to be hugged by an Armpit Person, provided you know who they are and provided that they bathe occasionally.

Most people of my acquaintance are Non-Armpit People. They're not prone to initiating lovey-dovey nuzzlings with sort-of strangers. However...when you get Non-Armpit people alone, watch out. All that pent-up hugging they've been harboring can overwhelm you suddenly without warning.

Which is also not a bad thing, with the right person.

In 2001 I did a few paintings about Armpit People vs. Non-Armpit People. Fear of Intimacy IV is one of my favorites.

Watchdogs

Two of my readers just contacted me regarding my last blog post, The Dog Princess of Tinseltown. One of them discovered a typo when he read The Dog Princess of Tinseltown at 3 a.m. Assuming I was asleep in the middle of the night (and indeed I was), he decided to wait until morning to let me know about it. But he fretted about the zillions of people who might be reading my typo-riddled blog while I slept my way through the night, unaware of the disaster. He was so worried, he got up early and telephoned me before he'd even had coffee to alert me about the typo.

I immediately fixed the typo.

Another reader emailed me, also first thing this morning. He was worried about my feelings. He thought I was possibly still traumatized by the Los Angeles-era hairdo crisis I described in The Dog Princess of Tinseltown. He emailed me a link to a  poodle workout video, saying if I watched it I might feel better about my poodle hairdo.

I did feel better after I watched the video.

I'm so glad I have such caring and discerning readers, getting up early to alert me to typos in my blog posts and cheering me up about a bad haircut I had 20 years ago. How well my readers know the kinds of things which truly matter to me!

Group hug.