Duenorth's Journal

     My painting adviser & instructor set up our weekly meeting for 9AM Mondays, which I agreed to since it'll be good for me to get in early & get more studio work done. Not that I appreciated this distinction when I was corraling my child & rushing her out the door this morning! All went surprising well & I saw my instructor enter the building right after me @ 8:30. I debated parking on the main street near the art building, but it's one hour parking and though I've never gotten a ticket, decided I didn't want to press my luck by leaving it all day nor have to run out and move it...so I drove out to my usual parking two blocks over and hiked back. Stopping at the cafe to pick up two muffins and a Springtime in Paris tea. Ya know the tea is delicious and part of my campaign to cut down on caffeine, but the name really sold me. There's just something hopelessly optimistic and cheerful about drinking a cosy fragrant tea by that name in single digit temperatures looking out at the huge snowbanks.

     I had time to get out some of my monotypes from last semester that he wanted to take a peek at and see how my work had developed while he was on sebatical. I put out my self portraits from last week's session and had one oil on canvas started. He liked the self portraits very much and was really impressed with my work from the fall, especially my more cohesive compositions. He gave some very useful critique and feedback as well as the attaboys. We talked about applying some of the ideas and formal elements that are working well for me in the monotypes to my paintings. As has been typical, we talked past our alloted time and he had break off to teach a class.

      I didn't have class until early afternoon and first relaxed with a blueberry muffin & sipped my tea. Then pulled out my Existentialism text to pour over the day's reading assignment and review some past sections that I had merely skimmed last week. Finished with my reading and confident I could contribute to discussion in my afternoon class, I got ready to paint. After surveying my previous work with dissatisfaction, I rotated the canvas 90 degrees and began reworking it. I like the new direction I'm developing and was particularly pleased with the upper left quadrant where my color and brush marks have high visual interest and are strongly evocative of the mood I want to express. Now if I can bring the other 3/4 of the painting up to snuff I'll be a happy camper.

     I painted until noon, cleaned up and stopped into the computer lab where I wrote up my discussion of the philosophy reading prompt; after which I had ample time to get to my class room. Arrived 10 minutes early & ate my other muffin while glancing over the text one more time. I was able to make several points during the dicussion and enjoyed class much more than last week when I didn't have time to read so in depth. It turns out, there was a skipped section that is the reading for next time which I've already finished. So a quick review is all I'll need for Weds.

      I debated whether to go back to the art building to monotype, but had several other errands to run and wanted some late lunch. So I headed back to the car via a stop at the cafe for homemade chicken tortilla soup and another tea.

      The car didn't start. No click, no turnover nothing. I thought maybe the battery cable had come off, but both appeared to be attached. I was a block from where stbx hangs out so I walked over. His buddy was nice but dismissive. He said stbx was supposed to be arriving any minute and gave sort of a defacto invite to wait for him, then ignored me. I pulled out the Nevada Barr novel that I've been working on and read for about 15 minutes. Then felt like I didn't really want to hang out there too much longer and got up to go back to the campus and perhaps call for help from the art building. Buddy immediately offered for me to use his phone to call stbx, who said he was almost there. Another 5 minutes felt excruciatingly long, I was wishing I'd just called him from campus. He arrived and was very nice. Checked out the car and said the old factory cable clips/terminal thingies (very technical language yeah) were corroded and kept loosening. He'd noticed that they needed to be replaced when he helped with my new battery. So he twisted one until it was tight and the car started right up. He offered to put on new thingies if he had time later this week and showed me how to tighten the old ones again if needed. That sounds so pathetic, but I hate dealing with automotive infirmities.

      We also had an interesting conversation afterwards where he essentially hit on me. I have mixed feelings about that. Well it did lead to some more meaningful exchange about our relationship and our daughter. I told him about her bedtime breakdown last week and he definitely reacted when I related some things she said. So though he didn't admit, I think something "clicked" about what set that off in her and he was appropriately concerned & said he'd make sure she didn't overhear anything upsetting in the future. He apologized about Saturday. I think he really does regret not answering the phone and not helping when I was sick, but stuck to the phone problem story. He seemed so sincere that I actually feel guilty and petty doubting it, when I know it's not true. It's a small thing, but showed me he hasn't changed, isn't ever gonna either.

     Picked up DD a bit early so that we could shop for a few necessities. She was overall well behaved but did whine a lot for me to get her several things. I was in a calm enough mood to just talk her out of it with reminders that she got to choose 1 and had asked me to take her to the dollar store to pick it out. I flatly refused to buy candy and finally threatened to get her nothing if she didn't stop whining. Fortunately at that point we were checked out and I did take her to the dollar store to pick something out. She got pom-poms and was cheering the rest of the evening. lol I refused to buy candy again and she wisely let it go quietly.

     I'd gotten a roasted chicken for supper and served it with a green salad. DD ate both appreciatively and didn't ask for dessert. I think she was full. At bedtime she picked a Dr. Seus book for us to read. A few minutes later she came out for a potty break and tried to engage me in paying more attention to her and wringing some more time out of the bedtime rituals. I did give her some attention, talked to her and tucked her back into bed, got her a drink of milk. But then extricated myself with the admonishment that she needed to stay in bed! She did and apparantly fell asleep without any more delaying tactics. :)