The first thing I thought of was a banana peel. Then I thought of things that RHYMED with Peel–Eel, Seal, Sleazy Deal. Then it became obvious that an illustrated poem was the way to crack today’s challenge.
Here is a loose interpretation of a photo I took of myself earlier this morning. I drew this to distract myself from the injured knee that is keeping me home from work today. It worked so well I forgot to take my pain medication.
As with most of my drawings, I end up feeling that this drawing is not an end in itself but a stepping-stone to the next drawing. “The next one will be better” has been my mantra for many years.
Long ago my dear deceased friend Karen W gave me a book. I think it was called Owning Your Shadow but I don’t know for sure. The book was about facing down your dark side and making of it a tool for your betterment.
So, Karen, if you’re still interacting with the living, and checking in on your friends from time to time, this one is for you. The aspect of my dark side I wrestle with today is Arrogance. Arrogance manifests itself in being parental and dismissive of people who don’t meet up with my sometimes-arbitrary standards.
I do this today by taking one of the worst things I ever wrote, a mansplaining essay on how to be a better poet, and overlaying it with a self-portrait. (Arrogant artists do lots of self-portraits. Picasso did dozens and dozens.)
I also stuck a feather in there, a feather long discarded, as a reminder that even miracles of Nature get discarded for obsolescence.
The cure for arrogance is humbling experiences. The older we get, the more they occur.
I feel another Mansplanation coming on, so I will close with best wishes and humble thanks to you who read this.
Last post I said I would explain, so here goes. “Time running out” refers to employment-as-I-know-it. Late last week two managers kindly took me aside for a look at the handwriting on the wall, which says that they will require more hours from me in December than I am permitted to work and still keep my income under the ceiling imposed by the Social Security Administration. Upon the advice of one of the managers I have written an e-mail to Human Resources explaining the situation and outlining what I saw as my possible options. I courtesy-copied the e-mail to the two managers, and one of them was complimentary. I have not yet had a response from Human Resources.
A change in employment, I have read, is one of the ten most stressful life-events there is. So “the spoon reveals,” and continues to reveal, my reflection with its anxiety and uncertainty.
I will finish the drawing after I receive word from HR. One way or another, I expect to see relief on the final face.
Here’s a Threefer Wall:
Joined Shapes
Juxtapositioning makes strange bedfellows
Outcomes often are Hobson’s choicish
Inferences drawn in Freehandia
Never seem to reflect Reality’s grip
Edentate is the lower jaw of Time
Delivering a superfluity of bones
Meteoric Messages
Making contact may not seem
Either metaphor or meme
Till it leads to warm embraces
Expeditious tracks & traces
Or a bite from fly or flea
Rousing more’n Golly G
It’s so easy to confuse
Crankiness with front page news
Self Poor Trait
Soapbox pour esprit de mort
Endocrines do bar the door
Let us cellophane the Sea
First inquiring: Que vous dit
Two posted self-portraits in less than a week. All is vanity. The Poor Trait of the acrostic is an annoying tendency, similar to James Joyce’s, to obfuscate via private language and joke.
Behold a Fat Old Guy With Happy Feet On His First Day Of Vacation.
C’est moi, Friends!
One with Clay, Image and Text 