Monday's Story - Vol. 2

I once attended a very distinguished southern university. I was only there for a year, but  year in college can provide stories for a lifetime. This story happened to my friend Jack. 

On the night in question, as he was staggering away from the circle, with his date in his arms, he had one of those flashes of consciousness where you wonder what in the world you would have thought if someone had snapped a polariod of this moment and time-mailed it to your younger self. Say, you at age 16. The crowd that they were leaving behind was still standing in a shocked hush, but the further they got he heard the murmuring and chuckles pick back up. 

But perhaps I should let Jack tell the story in his own words:

Ahem. So I was a junior in college taking a class on - well, nevermind what class it was, but I sat next to this girl, Lindsay. We weren't really friends. I mean, we were friendly. We'd chat during class and stuff, but we never hung out or anything. She was a nice girl. I mean, I dunno. I didn't really think of her a lot, she was just the girl who sat next to me. From time to time though, I kind of got the impression that she had a little crush on me.

Is that cocky or conceited to say? No. It really was true. Later events confirmed that. But at the time it wasn't even a thing. I was sort of keeping my eye on someone else. So when my friend Charlotte asked me one day if I would go to the dance with Lindsay, I said sure. I thought it was a little weird that she didn't ask me herself, but whatever. I said yes. 

The dance was this 20's themed thing where the girls dressed up like flappers and there was swing dancing. She seemed really excited about it and we talked about it in class a few times leading up to the dance. I guess girls just like that sort of thing where they force guys to dress fancy. I dunno why she was so pumped.

...

...

We went out to dinner first and we were with a few other couples and it was nice. We were having a good time, everyone was cracking jokes and getting along and it was going good. I think she was enjoying it a little more than I was, but I was by no means miserable. She's a nice girl, I was having fun. I tried not to think too much about the dancing that was coming up. At the dance, there were swing dancing lessons and of course we were really good at it. After a while, as all white people at a dance will do, we circled up and different people would take turns dancing in the middle of the circle. Its very customary. There were the serious swing-dancers who had probably been waiting all year for this dance and who had like, dropped suggestions a million times about how "We should really have a spring formal with, like, a swing dancing theme..."

And there were the people who just danced however they wanted no matter what kind of music was on...

  And who made things awkward because they spend a reeeeealllly long time in the middle of the circle...

And the people who were clearly having the worst date of all time.

And then it was our turn. Lindsay and me. So, she was ready, she was all like, "Let's go!" But I thought that we needed a plan, so I pulled her over to the side and asked her if she had ever seen that SNL Spartan cheerleaders skit. She hadn't. I wasn't deterred. This was going to be really good, I knew it would, so I described it to her and there was this part, I told her, "where you'll like squat down, and I'll swing my leg over you and then you'll jump up and we'll keep dancing." I don't know. It's all a little blurry now. But I'm sure I said that. She was like, "Yeah, I sort of think I get the idea. I can do that. Ok, got it." So we jumped in the circle. I just knew it was going to be hilarious. 

We were almost through our routine. The crowd was loving it. Suckers!! They WISH they had thought of this idea. It was time for the leg-swing-over. She squatted, I was glad it was ending, because, to be honest, I was getting a little tired. I gave one last burst of energy and swung my leg as hard as I could and somewhere about 12 inches from passing over her head, I realized that she was starting to stand up.

Not good. I kicked her. Hard. In the head. She went down immediately. I was terrified. I thought I might have knocked her out. The circle was horrified. I just... did the first thing that came into my head, I was thinking "All these people are staring, I need to get her out of here so she can recover without everyone looking at her." And I just picked her up and started to run away. Well, limp away because my shin hurt like heck after kicking her in the head. It turns out that was my fatal mistake.

See, I didn't know this, but you do not EVER, EVER pick up a little person. Its very offensive to them. I had no idea. Did I mention that? That she was a little person? I would have said midget, but I learned that term is also offensive. The correct term is "little person". I didn't know. How could I have known? She was hurt, I had just basically roundhouse kicked her in the head, people were staring at us, I thought I had to get her out of there. Not a good move. She took it like a trooper, she really did. She was ok, and she was even laughing about it. I think that was only because she sort of had a crush on me still. At that point. Later, after mulling it over, I think she kind of got over me pretty quickly, but at that point, things were still a little in my favor in her mind. 

Things went downhill for us from there though. I was never ever invited to an event sponsored by that sorority again. I actually ended up kind of being branded as this big jerk because I picked her up. I had no idea. I mean, it wasn't the kicking in the head that did it. It was the picking up and running with her. So. Lesson learned, I guess. Well first, don't pressure your date into re-enacting a SNL skit with you, second, when she does, don't kick her in the head, and third, do not EVER pick up a little person.

Monday's Story - Vol. 1

*to protect the sort-of-innocent I have changed the name of the girl in this story.

Shayla McBird liked to kiss boys. So what? It's high-school. From what I hear, that's pretty much all that goes on there anyway (I wouldn't know. I was home-schooled.) Shayla wasn't the most popular girl in school, but that didn't stop her from approaching the most good-looking guys. Or the guys on the football team. She would catch a glimpse of that letter jacket as she was standing at her locker and, I don't know... something would come over her. The crushing, oblivious crowd would fade away as she focused on him. The one with the curly brown hair and the delicate shadow of a downy mustache. She began to walk towards him, quietly and calmly.

As soon as he saw her coming, she knew it would be much harder.

20 feet. A few girls caught a glimpse of her and stilled their chatter.

15 feet. Quiet, quiet.

10 feet.

He sensed something. He turned. She caught the look of horror on his face for the slightest second before he was off - oh, was he fast! No wonder he was on the football team! And she was after him, just like that! She might weigh a few pounds less, but she wasn't as light on her feet. Sheer terror is a winged shoe on the foot of the pursed, but Shayla trailed her quarry with plodding determination. You know, like when a mummy is chasing Bugs Bunny in a cartoon. When Shayla caught him, it would be the same as it always was, hold him down, sit on him if necessary, wrestle and push her face closer and closer, and he'd squirm and buck and try and fling her off, but usually she'd get her kisses. Boys usually had reservations about being too rough with a girl. Even one who was hanging on their back, trying to kiss them. Go figure.

So, now you know Shayla. And you'll know why Stephanie was not excited to see that the seat usually occupied by her Biology lab partner was, on that day, filled by Shayla's stout frame. She paused at the door (I imagine) and rolled her eyes and huffed in annoyance. Finally she plopped down next to Shalya, did not say hello, and determined to ignore her the whole class. She took out pencils and a notebook. She was all business. But... she was also a little nervous.

That is Shayla McBird right there, on the left. Nothing fancy. No name brand clothes, no Jansport backpack.

(do you like these stools I drew? This is what stools in science class look like right? Like they came from a french bistro? Yes, I always imagined as much. Oh, and they're not hovering, I just forgot to draw a floor. Newbie mistake, I know.)

Back to Biology. For a little while things went as planned. Stephanie worked on her own, took her own little notes and tried not to notice whatever Shayla was doing on her side of the table. She poked around reluctantly in the cat and felt sick a few times, and then wondered if she could have anyone over to spend the night this weekend. She didn't notice when one of the tools went missing.

At Stephanie and Shayla's public school they had all the correct utensils for dissecting a cat.

From left to right: Tongs, trident, cleaver, butter knife, runcible spoon, dead cat, spatula, serrated knife, tweezers,.... missing scissors.

Try as she might, Steph couldn't completely ignore Shayla. She was glad that Shayla was keeping to herself, but she was acting a little weird. "Weird is normal if it's Shayla," Stephanie reminded herself, as she snuck a sidelong glance in Shayla's direction. What was that sound?

It was like... like a ripping noise. No. More like... cutting.

It was hair.

Shayla's own hair. She had been snipping away at it while Steph was diligently trying to mind her own business and as soon as she had, I don't know... a respectable sized hair-pile, she turned, and threw it on Stephanie. It didn't flutter like confetti, or make crazy whirls and twists like paper planes might, it was like a bomb. The air was thick with it (or so I imagine) and the long pieces stuck to Stephanie's face and the short pieces got in her mouth, and the cat had a sprinkling of it on him too. Of course there was screaming and, I imagine, some pretty regrettable name-calling and some accusations. The teacher didn't see what had happened, but Stephanie was screaming, and there was hair everywhere, and it certainly looked like Shayla McBird's hair, and after all it was Shayla McBird we're talking about, so he shipped one off to the principal, and the other to... the nurse? And to this day (at least this is how it seems to me) whenever Stephanie gets a hair cut, as the long strands and the short little bristly bits are all getting swept up into the dustpan, she can almost feel it again, Shayla McBird's shorn hair, falling softly on her shoulders like a thick January snow.

Tell Me a Story

I love stories. I love hearing stories, I love telling stories, I love funny stories. When I hear a story that I like, I will tell it over and over, not realizing that you may have already heard it. People who I work with get a little exasperated with me sometimes, due to this fact.

When we were first dating and early in our marriage I would always demand of my husband, "Tell me a story," to which he would exasperatedly, reply, "I don't KNOW any stories." "Tell me a true story then. Something that happened to you," I would say. "I can't think of any," said he. So I'd ask him questions until I received some interesting answers, or until something triggered a memory, and he would say, "Actually, there was this one time..." and I would hear the story of a time he was really scared as a child, or a story about that boy in the neighborhood who always hurting everyone because he was such a klutz, about his first kiss (at camp, a girl who's dad few planes), the few times he was ever in a real fight, etc. I've become good at asking probing questions. That, and I am surrounded by people with funny and interesting stories, I guess.

When I was little my dad was a truck driver, and he would come home exhausted every day. Despite this, each night he would read to my brother and I while we were in bed. We had separate rooms, but I'd usually sleep on the bottom of his bunk bed anyway. Somewhere along the way, dad would usually fall asleep mid-sentence, and we'd wake him up with little grace and extreme frustration. This was not a book club. We had a standard list of books, and once one was finished, we would go on to the next, in an endless rotation. My Dad read us the Chronicles of Narnia as part of that rotation. He also read us (brace yourselves for some serious nerdiness) the two Star Wars books that come after Return of the Jedi. Several times. He read us 'The Princess and the Goblin' by George MacDonald, and 'The Princess and Curdie' also by George MacDonald. There were definitely sections I couldn't understand when he first read those to us, but they were added to the rotation and as I got older I understood more and more.

Re-reading a story is wonderful, because after the first read, you carry a version of the story around in your head, and it isn't quite right, even if its lovely in its own way. Then, when you go back to the real version, you add to the facts that you always carry around with you, until, gradually, over several readings, you have a storehouse of understanding and memory about a book that has grown up with you and even grown organically in your memory. Its one of the best ways to know a book, I think. And that is how I feel about books like the Chronicles of Narnia, and the MacDonald books. And yes, even the Star Wars books. Some nights, we would demand a story, made-up, on the spot. One night we said, "Tell us a story." groan. "Once up on a time there were two children named Hannah and David - " "NO." we interrupted. "Tell us a story about Star Trek." "What?! A story about Star Trek?" "Yes. And make it good." This really happened, and although I can't remember the story that we were told, the fact that my dad did tell us a story about, of all things, Star Trek, tells me that I come from a line of masterful story-tellers.

My grandfather is, in fact, one of the best storytellers alive today. Cormack McCarthy notwithstanding. He grew up in Bolivia, South America, in a large house with servants. He could charm birds, and kill attacking dogs and once got shot in the mouth with an arrow. Every time my family gets together we will sit around him (preferably outside with a fire and some coffee) and ask him questions like, "Was there ever a time you thought you were going to die?" "What was the first fight you were ever in?" "Have you ever seen anything supernatural happen?" and get amazing answers.

So, when I first headed to college, I had to decide between my two real interests, art and books. I knew I didn't want to be a literature major, so I was a studio art major. However, over the course of time (and I had plenty of it, as it took me 8 years to get my bachelor's) I realized that my true love was storytelling, so I changed my major and got a degree in Creative Writing. I would suggest this course of action to anyone interesting in working at Starbucks rather than having a real job ;-). Just kidding. My friend Becky has a degree in writing and she has a lovely job where she gets to use her degree!

Anyway, to combine my interests, I've decided to do some weekly illustrations for a few of my favorite TRUE stories, as told to me by my friends. You should check back with me every Monday for a new story with illustrations. Warning: many of these stories have a moral: Do not scare a woman who has just given birth. Do not sit next to the quiet girl in Biology. Do not kill a cow that does not belong to you, especially in broad daylight. Do not tell my great-grandfather no, because, apparently, he will pull a gun on a crowd of strangers.

Looking forward to it!

Reading, Imagining, Creating

I have such happy memories of pouring over books as a child. I would look at the pictures as often as I would read the stories, and seeing an illustration from an old book can bring back the memory of a quiet afternoon spent lying on the floor in my room, flipping pages, as easily as a hearing those lines that began so many wonderful journeys. "In an old house in Paris, all covered with vines, lived 12 little girls in two straight lines," or, "Once upon a time there was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it, " or "'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,' said Jo."

As a child, my favorite books were often influenced by the illustrations they contained. Like the Madeline books. They were always checked out at the library (so frustrating!), and I didn't own any. I have wanted them for years, but I just now got the complete set, bound in one large volume, for Davy, my little girl. Everyone in the Madeline books is drawn like they are all leaning into the wind, or in the middle of gliding along quickly. So simple, but I love looking at them!

One of my enduring favorites was any of the books in the Little House series. Garth Williams' illustrations had just enough detail to engross me for a few pages (I'd keep making Mom turn back so I could look at them again, if she was reading aloud) and just simple enough that I got to imagine some of the details on my own. Like colors.

I have my original set of Little House books, and most of the illustrations feature my color-job, like the one above.

Even books that weren't really picture books; even when I was much too old to read books that were true picture books, I remember scrutinizing the details in the increasingly rare illustrations that I came across. Encyclopedia Brown was one of my favorite series at that time, and helped to convince me that I was a secret child-genius if I ever solved the case without turning to the back of the book.

After I have forgotten all but the most insignificant details to some books, I can remember the illustrations clearly. I spent forever online one day trying to find the title to a book that I remembered reading over and over as a child. I couldn't remember the name, the author, or the plot. Only that there was a man who could turn into a swarm of bees and a man who could turn into fire, and a redheaded king with a pointy beard and green clothing leading a group through treacherous mountain paths. I could tell you what color the mountains were, but that didn't help the google search. Finally I found it. It is called, "The King with Six Friends". This was one of the few illustrations from that book that I could find online, and I need to buy it so I can look through it again.

I like that this princess is a brunette, and that her crown and collar are so different than most princesses'. It was unique and captivating. I'd like my little girl to have this to look at when she's old enough to flip through paper books (without devouring them).

This illustration is by Gordon Laite, and I first saw it in an Anthology of Children's Literature that I had when I was small (and have still). I like his unusual version of the fairy godmother, and the colors that he chose, i.e., not pink.

Of course, I had to save one of the most influential for last. Pauline Baynes, illustrator of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia is a lovely artist and I can't imagine Lewis' stories finding a better expression than her drawings.

The only other illustrator who I've seen do justice to the Chronicles is Christian Birmingham, and he is fantastic. He works in pastels, which I've also used a lot. I rarely see chalk pastel illustrations that I'm drawn to, but his contain everything wonderful about the medium. They are light, soft, and rich. He has illustrated a shorter picture-version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe which I own and love. The faces of his children are so innocent and joyful and, in that sense, realistic. Here is one of the White Witch and Aslan. Isn't it perfect?

Here is an illustration from the story 'The Princess and the Pea', illustrated by Christian Birmingham. All the greens are gorgeous!

This picture is form a version of Oliver Twist that Birmingham also illustrated. I like how bright the whites are (you know they're rich because they can get their linens so clean!) and all the homey and rich tones of brown, and how it really looks like a cozy, sunlight morning.

I imagine that my own style is a mixture of my own personality and the influence of artist and styles that I love and grew up with. I tend to be light-handed with pastels, watercolors and graphite. I have never had any success with oils and never used acrylics. This small water color is one of the few I've done in that medium that I liked.

I have taken so many art classes in my life, and the best were the private lessons I had when I was 15, and the one class that I took when I was at Baylor University. Every other class has just been 'practice' time, really. I would finish up whatever (usually lame) set-up we were assigned to draw and then goof around for the last hour or so. The following picture is one of those goofing around times, and turned out much more cartoony than any charcoal drawing I've ever done, but I like it. That's my had in the the mirror there. I doubt my wrist is really that small.

This next picture is much more true to my natural style, and was also done one class when I finished the assignment and was looking for something else to do. I just threw this sheet over the chair and leaned my portfolio against it. I'm really happy with how it turned out, but unfortunately its done on newsprint.

I drew these next three pictures one afternoon for my little girl when she was a few months old. I had been reading that babies like to look at faces, or pictures of faces, and that they are drawn to black and white things, and didn't have either to offer her. I drew them from photos of her, and did them pretty fast with a Sharpie. I never use ink unless I'm doodling - it makes me nervous that I can't erase it. She wasn't super interested in them (she was about 2 months old probably?), but I saved them because I think she will get a kick out of them when she's older. Its a style that kind of reminds me of the illustrations from Encyclopedia Brown, or even the ones that you'd find in a Nancy Drew book.

This last one was done from a photo of my brother when he was little, and it is also very characteristic of my style when drawing people. I think it must be very Garth Williams inspired.

One of my favorite things is finding a book that I haven't looked at since I was small and flipping through it, remembering my intrigue with the illustrations and seeing pictures that I once scrutinized. I like remembering, "Oh, that's right, that picture where she has the pink dress I always wanted!" or, "I had totally forgotten how perfectly he is standing in this picture, just like he really is afraid and working up courage." It's like tasting a kind of ice cream you used to love as a child, or smelling something that your grandmother would cook every Sunday. I try and stock my library with books that will give my own children this experience. I'm mindful that the picture as well as the story can create a lasting bond with books.