Catch a Falling Star

Here’s some proof that I was once a teacher and had actual students. I clipped this one from my Facebook account where one of the twins posted it because she is not only one of my Facebook friends, but is also capable of remembering me as a teacher. I cannot tell you which one of the twins posted this. Yes, her name is on the account, but even when they both had my ESL class two years in a row, I couldn’t tell them apart back then either. Dejann (probably not his real name) is in the back. I can tell him apart from the other two. He was from India. He knew 12 languages, I believe, but he was a long way from proficient and literate in English. Still, a brilliant young man.

I am moving farther and farther away from my former teaching career. This coming year will make the ninth year of retirement.

The older I get, the more my vision and my health seem to deteriorate. It is not long before I am both bedridden and blind. It does not make me happy.

Teaching has been on my mind of late. Not because of anything new I am writing. Rather, because the governor of Texas and the governor of Florida continue to assault the teaching of literature in their states. Particularly black literature and gay literature. Not because the baboons can actually read, but because they hold sacred prejudices in their tiny black hearts and want to suppress what any liberal thinks is good. And I have been watching numerous videos of teachers leaving teaching. And I mean obviously good teachers who are vital to the proper functioning of public education. I am angry. And it is not helping any of my health challenges that the fire burning in my heart may be at least partially angina.

I am currently on consecutive-post day number 744. And I am worrying about how much longer I can endure.

If you have a brain, use it… every day. Especially as you get older and your mind’s most important gears are getting rusty. You don’t want Alzheimer’s do you?

I don’t want that. But thinking all the time is hard. I don’t feel well. I sometimes forget to do things. It is impressive to me that I now have 743 straight days of posting here without forgetting.

You should not believe in ghosts. You should Carl Sagan the whole topic, not believing in something without tangible proof. I do, however, keep seeing the ghost dog in the old house we live in. We have a little yellow and white dog. The ghost dog is bigger. And dark brown. And sometimes I only see his hind quarters and tail. So, sometimes, it is only a half-dog ghost.

I have dismissed the ghost dog as a mere hallucination. Possibly a symptom of Parkinson’s, which my father died of. I have discussed the matter at night with Douglas, the booger-man. He used to live in the attic when the kids were little. Now, he lives in the library, and when I have to get up bleary eyed in the middle of the night to go into the bathroom next to the library to pee, I see his buggy eyes and his amused grin with all the teeth in it. And he agrees with me. The ghost dog is definitely just a hallucination, and I should treat it as such.

And I shouldn’t know so much about conspiracy theories. It seems if you learn too much about the JFK assassination, or what really happened on 9-11, or who might really have written Shakespeare’s plays, paying the glove-maker’s son to use his name as a pen name, and building a theatre for him just so he could revolutionize English literature secretly, you will alienate all your intelligent friends… and a few of the semi-intelligent ones, and end up arguing with literal Philistines who insult you like trolls under the bridges of Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

And you will accomplish nothing by it but misusing the word “Literal.”

And so, on a dark and stormy night in Texas on the second day of March, I have to come to terms with the fact that I like me the way I am, and I do not follow good advice.

The Paffooney above is called “Lillianna.”

The story behind this picture is probably more interesting than the picture itself.

You see, I was thinking about putting together a book about my blog-thoughts about being a nudist and the topic of naturism. It was going to be a book of humorous essays and artwork related to nudes and nudists, many of which you may have seen in this blog unless some of the first ones drove you away from the crazy nudist Mickey’s blog long ago… in which case you are not reading this anyway.

This pictured was created with the notion that I could use it as a cover illustration.

So far, I have only used the pen-and-ink version of the drawing to make this first attempt. I like it, within limits. But I may try again with the colored version.

The subject of the picture is called Lillianna. She was inspired by a Brazilian naturist girl from a video travel guide for naturists that I owned before my wife accidentally stepped on it. Lillianna is probably not really the girl’s name. They were speaking Portuguese in the video with an English-speaking narrator talking over them, so I never really caught the girl’s actual name. And I wouldn’t have used it anyway.

The picture doesn’t look anything like the girl in the video. She was blond and not a cartoon character. And my drawing ability is going downhill as my eyes get worse. And arthritis has ruined the accuracy of my lines. And I have poor quality colored pencils because my hands are not good enough to draw with the expensive ones, and the colors don’t blend well, so that kinda makes the black-and-white better.

And then I had difficulty making my various glitchy computers full of bugs communicate properly with the scanner and each other. It has taken me three weeks to get to the point I am at with this cover project. You are welcome to make your suggestions in the comments. And no, I will not set it all on fire.

So, there you have it… Lillianna.