Another celebration is in order. I have been blogging for a year and a half, a little more… And that doesn’t seem like very good progress, but the last 100 have come rather quickly. I think I am picking up momentum. Maybe somebody will get interested in reading my books.
Okay, so I didn’t actually win. I was only a finalist in the YA novel contest. But soon I intend to make certain this book gets published. I owe that to these three characters, Valerie Clarke, Denny Cole, and Tommy Bons. I like to say that this book is a comedy about freezing to death… complete with clowns. Honestly, I hope to make you laugh, and make you cry, and maybe stop and think for a moment… “Isn’t that true?”
When I was in High School, I was a Belle City Bronco. There was a certain pride that went with playing football, basketball and track for the mighty Columbia Blue and White. We went to the state tournament in basketball in 1973. I was sort of a part of that team. I sat the bench anyway. I got to start a couple of games at defensive end in football. It was a stand-up containment position, like an outside linebacker. Playing the Britt Eagles, a team that would go on to be undefeated and state champions in 2A; I met my Waterloo in the form of Fullback Bob Swearings. He rolled over me. The tight end hit me under the chin with his cast, and I didn’t know where I was when the coach pulled me off the field. Big Randy Bannerman took my place on the field, and I spent the majority of the next two weeks in the hospital. The doctor never diagnosed what was wrong with me, but I never got to play in any sport again for the rest of high school. I never earned the letter I was so hoping to get.
Things went better for beautiful Alicia Stewart, the apple of my eye. She was elected as a cheerleader in our freshman year and was a cheerleader continually in both football and basketball. She got the letter for cheerleading that eluded me in athletics. Don’t think, though, that I envied her. I pined for her. I worshipped her. But, goddess that she was, I never let myself lust for her. She was too pure and beautiful for me ever to ask her out on a date. I was not worthy to meet her eyes. I thought that if I could be an athlete and earn the respect of my classmates, I might make myself worthy, but I never did. I was a lost cause. My talent at catching a football and playing outfield in baseball were never known to the people of Belle City. I was a gifted after-school playground athlete. I amazed a few of my friends, but I never proved anything to anyone. I was a loser.
If you know me in real life, you know that I don’t use real names in these stories. Alicia was not her real name. The town is not even called Belle City. But the facts and the feelings are real. The details and the themes are there to be recognized. If you know me you can probably figure out who everyone really is. But fiction is for the purpose of defining yourself by your own perceptions, not those of others. Alicia never knew how I felt about her. She may have suspected, but if so, she never let on that she knew. My life as a loser has been no one’s doing but my own. I defined my goals that were missed and my successes that were lost. I am the author of my own tale. The gawky teenager, who tried so hard, only to be swatted down by Bad Bob on the Britt Eagles’ home field, is only me because I made him so. I may yet redefine myself as a winner. Time will tell, and I will tell the story. I may draw the picture too, as I did here. By the way, it doesn’t look like Alicia, either. It is just an anime-style toon.
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Here is a study in Looniness… I have always wondered where the edge is… the border between silly, cute, and creepy. I believe I have found it with this bizarro character study. I attempted to add to the effect by making characters seem unbalanced, off kilter, and even growing out of other characters’ ears. The background pulls at your perceptions and senses as much as the primary objects do. And so… I pull a Salvador Dali with a mixed bag of Dr. Seuss, Disney, and Warner Brothers. Melting and fused toons in place of watches and human bodies. If this isn’t surreal, then I don’t know what is. Okay, I admit it. I don’t know what is!
This Paffooney is of a game-character wizard. After a hellish weekend of ill health and stress from family and job, I feel much like I am him. My wisdom comes from walking through fires that burned me black. My magic is made from fighting fire with fire. I will continue to walk in the ways of a wizard. My magic is meant to spare folks from my fate by humor and anecdote. But I know that for many, the most I can do is help them recognize the experience and be able to call it by name. I hope that gives them power over it.
My last post, “The Time is Coming”, was about as down and depressed as I am capable of getting. I am better now. Maybe I should explain how I did that.
I brought myself out of depression by grading papers. I know, teacher cliché, right? But there is much, much more to it than that.
In my last period class, I have one precious girl student who has been paying me for my many cartoon drawings on the dry erase board. You see, I have for many years been using my cartoonist skills to illustrate things on the board and draw attention especially to the lesson focus and objectives. Kids love these. It inspires them to commit random acts of doodlery. They imitate my toons and sometimes create their own. I don’t do Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny any more, not because I can’t, but because the owners of those copyrights have become unreasonably litigious and have sued teachers for imitating their copyrighted work. I only use cartoons of my own creation now. I have developed my own cast of characters. Some of my students have done the same.
The girl, whose name and identity I cannot here divulge (it is the law that protects student identities, but I thoroughly buy into the notion) turned in a paper yesterday with Chibis all over it. She gives me drawings of her own creation because she likes to repay me for sharing my cartoons with her. She also covers her papers with these things because of the laws of doodlery. When you are in a high school English class, your life is at risk because you could easily become bored to death. The first law of doodlery says that you must use every spare moment of the lesson to draw something. This keeps both your mind and your hands active enough to keep you alive. The second law of doodlery requires that you make maximum use of every blank part of your answer page. The third and final law of doodlery is to draw things that are different. If you draw too mundane, or too much the same, your mind goes numb and death by boredom is looking in through the windows of your mind.
So today’s Paffooney, this offering of Chibis, is the same set of doodles that pulled me out of the darkness. I copied the pencil Chibis from her paper, as precisely as I could in every way except size. Then I inked them and colored them. I won’t tell you what the Vietnamese word means or why it is there. You are entitled to your best guesses.
A Chibi is a version of a manga or cartoon character that is child-proportioned or deformed by an exaggerated cuteness. I gave the main figure blue hair because in manga language blue hair means youthful, energetic, cool, and introverted, a perfect description for my little Bishoujo, my little Chibi-doodler. She is now officially a life-saver, a heroine in my book.
Yesterday’s post was dark and depressing, and I fear the issues that created it are real, and they are not going away. But don’t worry for me. I know how to handle such things. And I do have help.
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Over the years as a teacher, you run into a large number of students that you will absolutely fall in love with. And sometimes… they will fall in love with you also. Oh, my! What a potentially dangerous situation! But it doesn’t have to end in hurt feelings or criminal charges. Sometimes you find the perfect balance. The little girl that sits in the front row can be the apple of your eye… and you never actually take a bite… and neither does she. It becomes a silent dance of swirling smiles, and laughter. The occasional tear… the valentine card… Making her parents feel good with your testimony about what a wonderful scholar she is. Nothing ever has to be wrong… and if it isn’t, the picture stays with you for a lifetime. One day you will have to paint it. Sweet, sentimental perfection.
There was a time when students who hated me and wanted to ridicule me called me Gilligan. I was young and thin and dorky, and they really wanted to belittle me. Well, I started calling my classroom “the Island” and they soon realized that Gilligan was on a deserted island with at least two beautiful babes who were also single. (Yes, I did for a while have two girlfriends at the same time in real life… Well, I did. It’s not completely untrue!) The joke got turned back on them. Kids started to like the class. Some, who learned a lot, began calling me “Professor” instead. We went coconuts for a while. I could say “no pun intended”, but it wouldn’t be true.
This postable Paffooney is really not so wonderfully postable. It got a little bit moisture damaged in the garage where I found it improperly stored. It is an oil painting from before I had a family of my own back in the 1980’s. It is called Madonna of the Golden Door. The girl is my sister, the younger of my two sisters. The boy is one of my favorite students from the 1980’s, one I fed and helped raise in addition to being his teacher for two years.
This painting inspired the following silly free verse poem;
Open the Golden Door
Can a man…
Love a boy?
Not a son,
Not a nephew,
Not an in-law…
Just a boy?
Not for lust,
Not for profit,
Not for gain,
But for the gift…
Of being able…
To teach,
To learn,
To coach,
To cheer,
To mentor,
To shadow,
To see,
To feel,
To reach,
To hug?
Simply to love?
I would say yes…
But what do I know?
I am only a…
Teacher,
Author,
Poet,
Painter,
Wizard,
Instructor,
Confidante,
Mentor,
And Friend.
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This acrylic painting is called “the Family Outing”. Believe it or not, I painted it before I was even married. How did I know that families have to constantly fight dragons together? Well, before I became the dad with the sword, I was the son watching from the mouth of the cave. The mom in the picture is not my wife. No dragon would ever dare attack my wife. The helpless blonde was more like an old eighties girlfriend, a much less dangerous woman. The dragon, of course, is only just barely dangerous. He represents something like fear of death and dismemberment, not the kind of life threatening dangers of married life, like credit card bills.
Catch a Falling Star 