In the 1960’s back in Iowa, family reunions started happening around this time of year. We would make long treks to distant parts like Spencer, Iowa or Coralville, Iowa to meet with cousins by the dozens, with Great Aunts and their great families… people we looked somewhat like and were actually related to, but usually didn’t see more than twice in any given year. And there were some who lived in far off Cleveland, Ohio that you only saw twice in the entire decade. And it isn’t real easy to play with the kids you are related to but don’t see every day. Squabbles happen more often than not. What was the solution to that kind of warfare? According to Great Aunt Marie, the solution was a nice piece of peach pie. The offending cousin and I would each get a slice of the solution to eat side by side…
I did a double-duty pen and ink illustration of two nude girls in a PG-13 sort of mode. It is not intended to be pornography. It is also not intended to draw viewers to my blog just because I happened to notice an uptick in views whenever I put a nude in an art post. I wouldn’t do that… would I? At least, not in a way that you could prove that was my intent.
Notice, you can get it for one dollar on Kindle, or free with Amazon Prime membership.
They could also be used as an illustration for one of the fairy stories, representing the two nude Storybook fairies, Gretel and Anneliese. They also appear in Recipes, as well as potential appearances in future fairy stories.
Anyway, I have already gone and done it, posting this picture I drew today, to give you a good look at either Shelly or Anneliese’s shapely behind. I won’t make the mistake of posting it on Facebook.
Yesterday, as I was reviewing a movie that is almost as old as I am (in December, 1961 I was 5), I couldn’t help but think like a teacher. If I were going to teach this movie as a piece of literature (and movies ARE literature! Don’t argue with me!!!), I would start with an anticipation guide… or I could call it a lesson focus. I would tell the students a little bit about why this movie is important to me. I would give the background information about how Walt Disney wanted to make a musical picture like The Wizard of Oz, and even bought the rights to Oz books by Frank L. Baum to make it happen. It was supposed to be a starring vehicle for his popular Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeers, and ended up starring Annette Funicello (and I would never mention anything about my childhood desire…
Angelfish are like the kings of the aquarium. They swim about in slow, stately fashion.
As a teenager I was very much into raising tropical fish in an aquarium. Having fish to watch and fuss around with is a healthy, mind-calming hobby that literally helps you learn about environmental issues. Keeping an aquarium is all about keeping fundamental forces of biology in relative balance.
The lovely pearl gourami is a fascinating finny friend that fills the tank with beauty and color.
Some fish are there just for beauty. The angelfish and gouramis I have pictured already are mainly that. Though you could also say that kissing fish, the pink kissing gouramis, also provide comic relief.
Kissing gouramis actually perform the kissing ritual in the tank, and I really don’t know why, but I suspect it is about courting and sex.
Goldfish are the pigs of the fresh-water tank. They are slow and rather stupid, and they eat massive quantities of fish food, so they also poop excessively.
Keeping an aquarium is a balancing act.
Albino Angelfish
Neon Tetra
.
.
.
.
a fancy Veiltail Guppy
If you put the wrong fish together, problems ensue. Fully grown angelfish will eat expensive guppies and neon tetras. Goldfish waste so much fish food and make so much fish poop that the tank has to be cleaned nearly every day to prevent it become a befouled cesspool of toxic filth and bacteria. Unless…
Cory Catfish
You employ bottom-feeders like the corydorus catfish or the red-tailed black shark (actually a loach, not a shark) to feed on the waste and be the janitor-fish.
A carefully balanced tank is a living work of art that grows and changes and progresses…
Red-Tailed Black Shark
…Until something goes wrong. Every fish tank I ever put together eventually had a crisis that made the whole ecology crash. All the fish would die and the tank would smell bad. This would usually happen when I wasn’t there to tend it as needed, when I was away at college or on vacation. Water has to be refreshed. The water can never be allowed to cool lower than seventy degrees, even in winter. The air pump can’t break down and stop aerating the aquarium. The filter has to be clean and unclogged. And disease has to be treated.
In a way, our entire planet earth is like that too. Of course, if it was all sealed under glass, it would be a terrarium, not an aquarium. But we can identify the same sorts of threats to the ecosystem of the terrarium we live in as would be found in a tropical fish tank. Donald Trump and his Republican fat-cats are the goldfish. Global warming threatens the air and water in the tank. An asteroid could break the glass and spill the contents out. So many things could crash our carefully balanced fish tank. And there is an even greater environment out there beyond the edges of our little solar system. Does the title make sense now in a way it didn’t before? No? Oh, well, I tried.
Two days had passed since the magic cat had given Valerie
the strange wooden statue. Now, it sat
on the crate that served as a table in the middle of the Ghost House. The newly re-formed Pirates were all there.
“I think it’s called a Tiki idol,” said Pidney.
“How do you know that, Polack?” sneered Conrad Doble.
“It looks kinda like the ones in the Tiki Bird Show at Disneyland,”
said Pidney sheepishly, “Mom and Dad took me there when I was twelve.”
“Didja like the show?” asked Doble. “The singing birdies and everything?”
“Yeah,” said Pidney matter-of-factly, “I have always loved
everything by Disney.”
Both Valerie and Mary Philips smiled at him. Pidney was always gonna have a lot of the
little boy he used to be in him.
“It reminds me of the book you were telling me about, Mary,”
said Ray Zeffer.
“What book?” asked Pidney.
“Ray was there when I showed the book to Mr. Salcom. He’s in my Modern Novel Class third
period. It’s the book about the last
voyage to the South Seas.”
“The one your Uncle Noah gave you,” added Ray.
“Noah Dettbarn is NOT my uncle. He’s just a family friend.”
“Did your Uncle come to visit you recently?” asked Danny
Murphy. “Since he came home again, I
mean?”
“He’s NOT my… Oh,
never mind. It came in the mail a month
ago. It’s where I got those stories I
was telling you about, Pid.”
“Oh, yeah. The
stories that you’re gonna share with us to become the Merlin of the Pirates,”
said Pidney.
Valerie admired the way Pidney’s eyes sparkled when he
talked about stuff that excited him. And
Mary’s stories were always something that excited him, no matter where she got
them from. Mary’s eldest half-brother, Branch
McMillan wrote lots of fantastic stories full of lies and jokes and other
nonsense. A lot of that had rubbed off
on Mary.
“So, you have a magic book after all? Like old Milt Morgan had?” Conrad Doble looked at Mary with an accusing
stare that made Val want to punch him in the ear.
“Well, it’s not a magic book. It’s a ship’s log book. It has latitudes and longitudes in it, sonar
readings, and some stories about what Captain Noah Dettbarn has been up to that
are either huge honking lies, or the most fantastic things that ever happened
to someone from Iowa.”
“Cool. You have the
book with you?” asked Doble.
“Not yet. I’ll bring
it to the next meeting. I have to read
all the stories myself first,” Mary said.
Doble squinted at Mary.
Valerie thought that must either mean that old King Leer didn’t believe
her, or that his tiny brain was being squeezed too tightly by all the
information Mary had just given him.
Surely it was the latter thing.
“What are we gonna do with the Tiki-thing?” asked Pidney.
“You really got it from a magic cat?” Ray asked Valerie.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s a magic cat, exactly. It’s that ugly white alley cat that lives
behind the Main Street businesses, by the water tower. Crazy old Miss Haire asked me to go talk to
it.”
“And did it talk back?” sneered Conrad Doble.
Pidney and Ray both glared at Doble, apparently not liking
the tone of voice he used with Valerie.
But it was pretty much the same ugly tone he used with everybody.
“Um… It talked to me…
yes.”
“But I didn’t hear it,” said Danny. “Only Val has the witch ears that crazy old
Miss Haire was talking about.”
“Witch ears?” asked Mary.
“She calls it the knowing,” answered Valerie. “She says it is using all your senses to tell
you more than any one thing can tell you by itself.”
“That’s real dog poop!” growled Doble.
“Miss Haire is rather eccentric,” said Mary, “but I believe
she’s a good person at heart. Did she
say anything about the Tiki idol?”
“We talked to her before we got the idol,” said Val. “We didn’t see her or talk to her
afterwards.”
“Well, I think we should look up more about it in the
library,” said Mary. “Val, isn’t your
aunt the head librarian?”
“My Mom’s sister, Aunt Alice, yes.”
“Can you, Pidney, and I meet in the library tomorrow
afternoon?”
“You bet!” Val liked
the idea of looking stuff up with Pidney.
Using his football muscles to pull books off shelves and turn
encyclopedia pages really appealed to a girl who liked to see football muscles
in use and up close.
So, it was settled.
The Captain’s log book would be the magic book that sealed the New
Norwall Pirates, and Valerie would get to do research with two of her favorite
people on Earth all because of a silly little wooden-headed man in a grass
skirt and a very ugly mask.
Some wonderful driver ran over the relay box in the neihhbor’s yard. So no Internet today. Since posting from my phone is difficult with arthritic fingers, I will simply show you a photo of the toy I bought to make myself feel better.
I intend to to spend a lot of time in this essay talking about Twitter nudists, but that is not what this essay is about. A rather large amount of the meaning behind all of this has more to do with setting priorities, what things to pursue, and what things to abandon.
A lot of my time on Twitter is filled with tweets by nudists, authors who write about nudists, Russian video artists, and Tom Hiddleston fans. I do not fully understand the connections between those things.
If I manage to stay alive long enough to see the next Avengers movie, and hopefully even beyond that, then I am going to have to budget my time and moderate my efforts towards certain endeavors. Does that mean I intend to give up all association with nudists? Or possibly twitter?
Of course not. I am simply not that smart. To give up on Twitter, I mean. It is an ungodly waste of time. It is a media of questionable value to me because I have achieved no measurable marketing value as a writer from it. I have learned a lot about actual nudists and naturists from it. I have made connections with naturist authors and thinkers and other websites through Twitter. I have even learned how valuable some young women and men find pictures and .gifs of Tom Hiddleston with his shirt off and smiling. I am not sure I understand it. But I have learned the obsession is very real.
This is an example of a nudist Tweet from Twitter that I get daily in my feed.
And I have come to accept, to a degree that nudism is a good thing. It is way of life that has good effects on the people who participate in it. They have more confidence in themselves. They are definitely firm in their beliefs about most things. They are positive. And they get enough vitamin D from sunshine to be happy most of the time, and are rarely depressed. I wish I had embraced nudism when I had the chance back in the 1980’s. I might have been happier and healthier than I am now. And even now they are a very accepting group of people, willing to welcome me even when I am old and weathered and covered in psoriasis plaques and sores. They are almost as inclusive as Tom Hiddleston fans. But I don’t actually know why his fans want to fill my Twitter feed every day with Loki’s face.
But I said this essay was really about setting priorities. And, like the video suggests, I have to be willing to let go of things. I have to adapt to circumstances and stop doing things that don’t really help me. I have to finish more of my long list of projects. I have to focus.
Drawing nudes that are not sexual or erotic in nature has long been an obsession with me. Anatomy drawing is essential to learning to draw believable figures… even cartoon figures.
Uber driving is on my list of things to evaluate and possibly discard. It does not pay well. The accident I had last August was a difficult financial blow as well as an effective confidence-shaker. The penalties for Uber driving become apparent at tax time because they don’t take care of withholding like other employers are required to. So there is extra money to pay at tax time. I will undoubtedly have to continue Uber driving for a while simply because I now have another large tax bill to pay on top of the expenses that go along with the sin of being in poor health. But I will work into the plan a decisive step of quitting Uber when I can and finding other sources of income.
I also have to finish things I have started.
Look for the BARE NECESSITIES, the simple bare necessities… forget about your worries and your strife…
I have to finish paying taxes. I have to finish rebuilding the retaining wall in the yard. I have to finish driving for Uber to make money. I have absolutely no problem finishing writing projects, considering all the novels I have published in the last three years. And I definitely need to finish this essay.
So, what have I decided to give up? Twitter? Twitter nudists? No. I might give up following rabid Tom Hiddleston fans, though.
One of the most important things about my blog has been that I can share my artwork. I have always been capable of a reasonably high level of drawing ability. I can also paint and create artistically original photographs. I have that artist’s eye that sees creatively. If you follow directions in this first Paffooney, you will see a wider variety of the kind of Paffoonies I post than I will post here. This will be, however, a picture post. I intend to share a bunch of my artwork here, both old and new. Take a gander. (And while you hold on to that male goose, look at some of my pictures, too.)
You have to admit that I am clearly not an artist like Van Gogh or Picasso… certainly nothing like Andrew Wyeth or Winslow Homer. I am more of an illustrator, or … worse, a cartoonist.
I painted this oil painting looking West on Highway 3. My home town in Iowa is just beyond the next hill. 
Catch a Falling Star 
Aquarium, Terrarium, Planetarium
As a teenager I was very much into raising tropical fish in an aquarium. Having fish to watch and fuss around with is a healthy, mind-calming hobby that literally helps you learn about environmental issues. Keeping an aquarium is all about keeping fundamental forces of biology in relative balance.
Some fish are there just for beauty. The angelfish and gouramis I have pictured already are mainly that. Though you could also say that kissing fish, the pink kissing gouramis, also provide comic relief.
Keeping an aquarium is a balancing act.
.
.
.
.
If you put the wrong fish together, problems ensue. Fully grown angelfish will eat expensive guppies and neon tetras. Goldfish waste so much fish food and make so much fish poop that the tank has to be cleaned nearly every day to prevent it become a befouled cesspool of toxic filth and bacteria. Unless…
You employ bottom-feeders like the corydorus catfish or the red-tailed black shark (actually a loach, not a shark) to feed on the waste and be the janitor-fish.
A carefully balanced tank is a living work of art that grows and changes and progresses…
…Until something goes wrong. Every fish tank I ever put together eventually had a crisis that made the whole ecology crash. All the fish would die and the tank would smell bad. This would usually happen when I wasn’t there to tend it as needed, when I was away at college or on vacation. Water has to be refreshed. The water can never be allowed to cool lower than seventy degrees, even in winter. The air pump can’t break down and stop aerating the aquarium. The filter has to be clean and unclogged. And disease has to be treated.
In a way, our entire planet earth is like that too. Of course, if it was all sealed under glass, it would be a terrarium, not an aquarium. But we can identify the same sorts of threats to the ecosystem of the terrarium we live in as would be found in a tropical fish tank. Donald Trump and his Republican fat-cats are the goldfish. Global warming threatens the air and water in the tank. An asteroid could break the glass and spill the contents out. So many things could crash our carefully balanced fish tank. And there is an even greater environment out there beyond the edges of our little solar system. Does the title make sense now in a way it didn’t before? No? Oh, well, I tried.
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Filed under autobiography, commentary, humor