2004-09-02 @ 1:05 a.m.
squirrels will only love you if you're a nut

Grrr!

He wrote me an e-mail last night and said he vaguely remembers someone playing the piano in slumberland, but that was about it.

After piano, I stopped at my mom�s friend�s office which is only a couple of miles down the road from Married Guy�s. She works in this little building out in the country which faces two ponds stocked with trout. I guess I stopped there because I was still feeling rather miserable about my appointment with �A� and about missing Married Guy.

Now this lady is a total flibbergidget. She�s in her early sixties, thinks every man is in love with her, talks non-stops, makes peanut butter sandwiches for squirrels, and has four cats with the name Sue St. Marie. That, of course, is their official �given� name. What? Did you think they all had the same name? Well, there�s P�Fluffy Sue St. Marie, Sandy Sue St. Marie, Cindy Sue St. Marie, and Granite-John (he�s a male) Sue St. Marie. And every morning when she calls my mom, she has to yell over the top of the vacuum, because Margie is vacuuming her cats.

But only after she goes through an entire loaf of bread, making tiny little crustless squirrel sandwiches with peanut butter and jelly. I�m not sure how she determined that squirrels didn�t eat crusts or even that they liked peanut butter and jelly. My squirrels will wrestled and gnaw a hole in my birdfeeder just so they can scavage a single .00001� big bird seed. So a P&B squirrel sandwich must seem downright gourmet to these critters.

So Margie was chattering and chattering and chattering. I got there around 4:15 and was still there at 6. She�s a sweet and funny lady so I don�t really mind. But she was talking, in her usual randomness about people I don�t know, making abrupt subject changes, cracking her usual silly jokes, when suddenly she stopped mid-sentence, opened her desk drawer, pulled out a big gob of bread, lobbed it about 2 feet in front of her desk, and continued to talk. Now the front door to the office was open. It was a nice day out. And suddenly this little gray squirrel hops right in through the door of the office, grabs the bread, sit upright and starts eating it.

A squirrel. In an office. With computers.

Margie: �Ha, ha, ha...there�s Tony Macaroni�

And then she keeps talking.

I just stared at the squirrel. Ummm, ok.

And then about every minute and a half she would throw another piece of bread over the top of her desk to the squirrel. And then she started throwing it near me, so he would come over to me. And she finally ended up feeding it by hand at her desk.

Tony Macaroni...the squirrel.

Today, since I�m so broke, I decided to forego, art with the Crazy Crazies. My car is nearly empty and I wanted to preserve what little gas I have for my drawing class tonight and for �A�s group in the morning. So I did my own version of Art with the Crazy Crazies. Except it was just Art with the...um Crazy. That�s me.

I just took one of my newly purchased canvases out in the yard and set up shop. Its a little disconcerting to work out there during the week, because my entire yard is under the shadow of a two story medical building. All the the windows of the building face out over my yard. So me painting out in the yard, is probably like watching a PBS documentary. Hopefully one about Art, and not one about...�Whee, look at what mentally ill people do all the day!�

I really enjoy painting in the yard though, and find it very relaxing. Unfortunately I won�t be able to share what I painted today because 1) I didn�t finish it. 2) Its way too big for my scanner. But it is an abstract, which I am finding, I enjoy doing very much. And its very colorful. And at first, while I was painting it, I really loved it, and then when I brought it in the house, I thought, �what a piece of shit� and then when I looked at it again tonight I went, �Well, it needs some more work, but it may be ok.� So I guess, we�ll just call it a work in progress. Sort of like me.

And then, after my survivor group, I headed off for my drawing class. I handed in my piece for our art show on the 25th. I�m not half as nervous as I was for the last show. This time I have been forcing myself to show people my work (I�ve shown �A�, and the people in my group and another woman I know). You wouldn�t know I was shy about showing my work, would you? Here, I throw up pieces all the time. But you don�t know me. And I don�t have to stand in the same room as you. In real life I am so painfully shy about sharing my work, that I nearly had a panic attack, when I finally saw my two pieces hanging in a gallery last February. I literally wanted to run and somehow divert people away from my work, because I was somehow ashamed of it, even though it wasn�t truly horrible.

Confidence, Witty. Get some.

So my class tonight was filled with the usual shenanigans. Ok, there were only shenanigans tonight because of who parked their annoying merry ass next to me. Charlemagne, the Annoying French Guy. The world�s largest flirt. The possessor of the world�s largest mouth. Ok...he is pretty funny. And I do enjoy funny. But he also had the worst cologne. Yark. I had to hold my breathe for nearly three hours.

And he takes forever to set up his art table. While most art tables are close to the ground, he has to set his up like five feet high which requires wrenches and elaborate screwing devices and a large clamp thingie. So when I was sitting next to him, I�m like looking at his knees. I think he does that on purpose.

He asked me, tonight, if I like sushi. I said no and he was totally blown away. YOU DON�T LIKE SUSHI??? WHAT??? How can this be? Everyone likes sushi (yammer, yammer, yammer). And I said, it was because I didn�t like fish.

Him: Well, what if it was vegetarian sushi?

Was that a joke? See, I don�t know anything about sushi, so I don�t know if he was pulling my leg or not. And then he turned and said, �Are you rejecting me because I�m black?�

(he�s not black, he�s Jewish, the big goofball).

Me: �Yes, definitely.�

So tonight�s drawing was actually more of a case of my mind wondering because of boredom than anything else. I mean I totally love my drawing class, and it is virtually my only social life, but sometimes, believe it or not, looking at naked bodies is not all that it is crack up to be, excitement wise. Sometimes it becomes, ho-hum, two boobs, two arms, two legs. Ok, let�s see how I can screw this up. Or, more often then not, in my case, lets see how bizarre I can make this.

Yeah, if you can�t see them, those little things running up the girl�s back are tiny flowers (not mosquito bites). I had to draw this pose for 30 minutes and drawing an ass for 30 minutes isn�t especially challenging, so I started out coloring the right side blue. And then I was going to do the other side red and thought of writing the word: VOTE on her ass in huge letters and faxing it to the local newspaper to see if they would print it. I thought it was very patriotic.

But the real seal of approval came during the break when the coolest, and I mean the coolest girl in drawing class came over. This girl, just has to be like a love child of Tim Burton or something. She�s about 20, has purple hair with like 50 Hello Kitty barrettes. She wears this heavy black Cleopatra eye make-up on, with fish tails painted off each eye, bright florescent green eye shadow, black 1950s nerd glasses, Nightmare Before Christmas t-shirts over biker shorts, black ripped fishnet stockings and pink hightop sneakers. I mean...sigh.

Can I be like you, even though I�m 46?

So she was walking by my drawing table and she stopped, and my heart was beating really hard since somebody so hip, was about to talk to me, and she said,

thanks. (blush)

wow...now, I�m officially cool (and I may even being eating sushi soon). And by next week when I�m getting ready for my drawing class, and drawing on my fish eye makeup, and pulling a safety pin through my ear and yanking up my ripped fishnets and tying my pink hightops, I�ll look in the mirror and say:

Lyrics by Lennon/McCartney. All angst copyright by awittykitty