Art Sicko

Yesterday was a long day.  I am doing serious battle with a pisser of a cold, and both children had apparently raided the fridge in the middle of the night and gotten into Jeff's stash of Rock Star.    I felt like my energy level was somewhere at a negative four, and theirs was about eighty-gajillion to the power of google.  And my voice is gone, so yelling at them, while normally pretty ineffective when I can reach 140 decibels, proved to be completely useless when I sound like a squeaky toy.

I'm not gonna lie.  I let them get away with everything short of premeditated homicide yesterday.  I just didn't have it in me to enforce whatever lax rules I instill on a regular basis.  Rollie discovered how much fun a ping pong ball and a ceiling fan can be.  And I discovered that Elsa make it from the arm of the couch onto the end table in a single bound, with only one in four attempts ending in disaster.

I also discovered that they are surprisingly self-sufficient little buggers when they want to be.  I'm pretty sure they only keep me around because I'm taller than they are, but not when I'm lying slug-like on the floor surrounded by snotty tissues.  They spent a good part of the afternoon pushing upside-down rubbermaid containers around the house and climbing on them to reach things: food, junk mail, Wii remotes, the toaster oven.  They were like little ninjas, scaling furniture, retrieving items, disassembling the couch and leaping across the cushion-strewn room (ninjas do that, right?).

I had to get a bit creative when coming up with ways to entertain them without me having to budge.  I think the activity Rollie enjoyed the most was dictating scenes for me to sketch onto a big piece of manilla paper.  This activity also led me to yet another discovery:  I suck at drawing.

I think my days as an artist peaked in sixth grade.  I was actually in this program called 'Special Art' (original name, right?) in elementary school.  While all my less artistic classmates were studying for spelling tests, me and a select few other supposedly gifted students were yanked out and brought into the art room, where we spent thirty-five minutes getting high on fruit-scented markers and rubber cement.  This might explain why I am a terrible speller and whenever I catch a whiff of watermelon I have acid flashbacks.

So anyway, I lay on the carpet with Rollie and created a masterpiece.

Rollie: Draw me and Elsa and Bonnie's mom petting Bonnie (Bonnie is our neighbor's dog)
Me: Okay.....
Rollie: No, Mom...Bonnie doesn't look like that.

Me: Well, she kind of does, right?
Rollie: Now draw the kitty cat down the street.
Me: Okay.

Rollie: What's does Bonnie's mommy have a spaceship on her head?
Me: That's not a spaceship, that's her hat.
Rollie: Her hat doesn't look like that.
Me: Rollie, just work with me here.
Rollie: Now draw Ryan's house and Ryan inside.
Me: Okay.  There.
Rollie: Why is Ryan eating the kitty cat's tail?
Me: He's not...it just looks like that.  It's called perspective...or something.
Rollie: Why is it called perspective?
Me: Who else should I draw?
Rollie: Draw Will.
Me: Okay.

Rollie: No, Mom.  Will doesn't look like that.

Me: Rollie....give me a break.

Cemetery Period circa 1986

Sadly the finished work is not much better than my Special Art drawings.  I actually have one such piece from that time period.  I call it my Cemetery period, greatly influenced by my Big Brother Matt and his early work during his Barbie Doll Covered In Red Nail Polish period (which was directly preceded by his Shark Attacking Mustachioed Surfers Period).

Rollie also wanted me to draw a picture of Jeff, Dora and Boots eating pretzels and drinking juice.  I tried my best, but after insisting that the Boots I drew looked NOTHING like the real boots, Rollie gave up on me altogether.  And after studying this piece for a few seconds, I can't say I blamed him.  Although I think my Boots is probably the most accurate of the three figures I drew.  Last time I checked, the real Jeff doesn't resemble the Jeff featured right in the slightest.  Thank God.

Luckily, I am feeling slightly better today.  Not well enough discourage the kids from reenacting the movie Tremors in our living room, but not on the verge of death, either.  Perhaps tomorrow I'll have to strength to stop Rollie from playing the part of Kevin Bacon.  But today I think I'll work on my latest sculpture: Used Tissue Still Life.