I could make it to work by making only left turns, if I went around a block. However, I couldn't make it to work using only right turns, even if I went around a block.

I still can't believe I failed my art class. I was taking it pass / fail. If she felt that I was doing that poorly, I wish she'd let me know at midterm, so I could've dropped the damn class. Fortunatly, it doesn't affect my GPA, as it was a pass / fail class.

NASA thinks they've found a way to use the Lagrange points to make it easier to toss probes around the solar system. Oh, and apparently, the "New Horizons" mission, the probe to Pluto and the Kuniper belt, is back on... only now it will also be a test platform for neuclear propulsion.

Someone reminded me that my birthday is creeping up. Ugh.

I'm unhappy about how quickly I can go from "Yeah, I've got money, things are okay," to "Damn, I'm broke."

Of course, it probalby doesn't help that my margin of "yeah, I've got money," is pretty small.

I guess that's all the interesting stuff there is. Tune in next time, when you'll hear Cowboy R say, "No, those can't be real...."

I failed my art class.

That'll be the last class I take that I don't absolutely have to, until I get past all this.

I knew the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull before I could read. My mother had an eight-track of someone reading the book, and I listened to it over and over.

Later, I discovered Mr. Bach's other books. While some of them have been a little strange for my taste (noticably One), I've read all of them, and enjoyed most of them a very great deal, indeed.

I live with ferrets. Ebisneezer Scrooge, David Copperferret, and Oliver Twistyweasel live near my bathroom, and occasionally deign to share their weasel games with me.

To my surprise, these two pleasures have now merged. A week or so ago, auophir pointed out two books to me on Amazon... Rescue Ferrets at Sea and Air Ferrets Aloft, both written by Mr. Bach and "his ten ferret advisors."

Written for children, the author plans aparently quite a series. (I'm betting that one of the following books will be Space Ferrets in Orbit, from a casual mention made in Rescue Ferrets at Sea).

I wanted the books, but so far, they're only available as hardbacks, and I just couldn't justify spending the money.

To my surprise, my girlfriend bought them for me, without telling me. They arrived today.

I sat down and read the first one, Rescue Ferrets at Sea.

It was excellent. It has the flavor of the books I loved when I was a boy... Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys, Tom Corbett... full-on adventure with smart, brave protagonists (in this case, primarily a heroine, Bethany Ferret) who never pause for angst.

It was a quick read, and a marvelous one. I strongly recomend the book.

It rescued the day from being crappy. I went in to work today at the usual time, to find a bitch-o-gram from Den Herr Boss. I put out fires, did several things, and went to art class.

Art Teacher Chick had to leave town to attend a family funeral. She'd gotten a substitute. We weren't impressed with each other, and I ended up leaving class early. I doubt I'll go tomorrow.

So, when I came home and discovered the box of books, it was a Fine Thing_TM.

So we had our second day with a nude model today. This time, it was a cute little blonde girl who was six months pregnant. She was a skinny little thing, and barely showing... she had less belly than I do.

Still, it was fascinating to look at her. I got to observe something that I'd read about in various medical texts, but had never seen before... her nipples were really dark. See, all but one of the women I've ever slept with have never had children, so I'm used to seeing nipples about the same shade as lips.

In a woman who's pregnant and / or lactating, though, nipples darken.

So that was interesting.

I let her have both of the long-pose pictures we did. She admired them, and if I kept them, they'd just be locked away in a sketch book, in a portfolio, probably in a closet.

Of course, she'll probably put them in a closet somewhere, too, but who knows? (The Shadow Knows...).

Gah. I'm tired, and I probably have at least another hour's worth of work to do at work. Bleargh.

We had our first model in class today. This is the first time anyone I'm not intimately involved with has posed naked for me, and the first time I've ever done a drawing of them, which involves a lot more staring intently at them than a photograph does.

I was sort of expecting, from Art Teacher Chick's stories, a geriatric man. Instead, we got an atractive woman of about my age.

It was an interesting experience. Here was this woman, naked, posing for us. I was staring at her very intently, and yes, I'll admit it, feeling some physical attraction and stimulation. At the same time, I was looking at her body as a body; not as part of a person, but just as something to draw. As a collection of lights and shadows, of hard spaces and softer ones.

I don't know what else to say about it right now. Just that it was an interesting experience, and one I'll have to think about s'more.

D&D tonight, and I'm already wrung out. Bleargh.

I'm watching several hours worth of Cowboy BeBop. I should probably be working on my art assignment. It's due on Monday... another crappy self-portrait. Full-length, life-sized.

She was trying to talk us into doing nudes, but you know... no one wants to see fat, ugly naked guy.

Have I mentioned that I really dislike doing self-portraits?

Yeah.

Anyway, aparently next week we're going to have a model. Rah.

On my way home tonight, I found myself unable to resist stopping at Casa Video. They had the Phantom Menace on DVD, and I was interested in watching the extra material, so I rented it.

There's a very interesting scene in the 'making of' bit where Ewan McGreggor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) chooses his lightsabre from a box with several in it. They're interesting, the ones the Jedi Council use in the movie. Most of them are fairly simple.

Am I being unreasonable and geeky about the whole 'building lightsabres' thing?

Watching the documentaries has made me think about a life I passed up. In my late teens and early twenties, I was involved in the family business... I was an actor, a theater tech.

My first serious girlfriend was a theatrical carpenter.

It was marvelous to be part of something creative like that; it was marvelous to get applause.

The other day, we were complaining about self-portraits asked of us by our Art Teacher. Why am I so resistant to drawing myself, she asked.

Because I don't look at myself. It's taboo. My father, you see, was somewhat vain. He would never talk to you; he'd always be talking to himself in a reflective surface. So, by way of reaction, I don't look at myself. I barely look at myself in the mirror in the morning, when I get out of the shower.

I could easily live without any mirrors at all.

Paula Abdul is 40 today. This amazes me; I will probably always think of her as the tiny little twenty-something she was when I was letching on her videos.

Speaking of letchery, today is auophir's first day as a full-time nursing student. I'm wishing her well.

I had my midterm review with the Art Teacher yesterday. She says that she thinks I'm showing improvement, but I need to be more agressive with my art. She says that my working style is to be "precious," painstaking and uptight about every charcoal line; that I need to be more willing to destroy things.

It's hard for me to do that. Being uptight and painstaking is a survival strategy in everything else that I do, from work to the science classes I'm taking.

Had a good time at D&D last night. We got in a big fight with a demidemon and a mage... Oobeedoob's 'deflect blasters' skill came very much in handy, because reflecting the magic missiles the demidemon was sending at me was the only way I could hit him.

Of course, the Force was my ally, and he couldn't hit me, either. (Wearing no armor, Oobeedoob's AC is 19 (for you non-gamers, that means that a baddie has to roll very high on a twenty-sided die to hit him) because of his Force bonus).

So we have control of the room where the golden dragon is being held, but we haven't yet figured out how to release him.

And Roland says there's an astounding evil in there with him. So we'll either have to be careful, or do our usual reckless abandon and loose a character or two.

I've been on the go since about seven this morning, with one thing and another. It's close to seven, and I still haven't left work.

I have to go home and work on the stupid reflection piece, which I haven't even started yet. Damn it.

deyo posted a cool hovercraft link which I'm too tired to duplicate at the moment.

Saber Kits is offline for a few days while they catch up on back orders. Just as well, I can't afford to order anything right now, anyway.

I need to find a photograph with a strong one-point vanishing point by noon tomorrow. Anyone got a cool one they'd like to suggest?

Man, I'm tired.

Bugger all for a lark.

Our assignment for Art class, due on Wednesday, is to draw another self-portrait, this time in a distortive, reflective surface. This doesn't thrill me, because, were I to make a list of twenty-seven things I was interested in drawing, I wouldn't be on the list anywhere.

But that's the assignment, so that's what I must do. Of course, tomorrow night is D&D, so I have to do the bulk of the assignment tonight.

I have found that there are surprisingly few reflective surfaces in my house. There are mirrors in the bathrooms, and one in the larger bedroom. Mirrors, however, have a minimum of distortion, which was the other requirement of the assignment.

I'm thinking about using my sword blade. It's only a narrow strip, only enough to see my eyes, really, but that should be enough, since she was fussing at us for using a symbol of eyes, rather than what our eyes actually looked like.

She also says that I don't get enough variation in my color palatte, not enough depths of grey. So I need to see what I can do about that.

Part of my problem is that I'm supposed to be working with charcoal, and I end up making smudgies all over... it's not a very neat material, and it's very hard to keep the color where I want it to be, in the proportions I want it.

Bugger all for a lark.

I've decided that, rather than considering dropping the class, I'll see if I can take it pass / fail. That way, a poor grade (and yes, I consider a C to be a poor grade) won't hurt me terribly.

As I was on the bus today, going back to work after class, I was thinking about Alfred Bester. Not the PsiCop from Babylon 5, but the science fiction author for whom that character was named.

He wrote a number of interesting books, including The Stars, My Destination and Demolished Man. Both of those books deal with psychic abilities... the first, primarily with teleportation; the second, primarily with telepathy.

As a Star Wars fan and a player of fantasy role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons, I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about psychic powers.

When I was younger, I was very open minded about such things. I hoped that they existed, hoped that I would see evidence of them in my life. I had dreams of being a Jedi Knight, of having those powers for myself.

Of course, I also dreamed of having Green Lantern's power ring, and Spiderman's ability to crawl walls.

As I've grown, gotten older, I've come to realize that psychic powers are about as common in the real world as Green Lantern's rings. And, honestly, I now think this is a good thing.

The other night at D&D we were joking about some of the uses the Jedi Mind Trick and a Jedi's telekenisis could be put to. (vague waving motion) "You want to have sex with me." (vague waving motion) "It was the best sex you've ever had." (vague waving motion) "You want to have sex with me again as soon as you can."

I am glad that no one has that power. No one can plant suggestions in my mind. No one can move things without touching them. No one can read my lecherous thoughts about her while I'm discussing films... or whatever.

In The Stars, My Destination there's a character who is a telepath, but no one wants to be around her... because she has a flaw... she broadcasts, only. Everything. Every stray thought, every doubt, every everything, picked up by everyone around her, all the time.

I imagine that a society of telepaths would be like that. It wouldn't be a case of universal acceptance, I don't think, but of universal disguist, as all our polite social masks were stripped away.

(vague waving motion). You read this entry. It was the best you've ever read.

Aparently, it's a work holiday that no one told me about. I'm the only one here. Kelly came in for a few minutes before her class, and Matt came in and looked like a lost calf for a little while before he, too, disappeared.

Not that I'm complaining, you understand... it meant that I got to finish up what I was doing with the computer in the girls' office without anyone looking over my shoulder and complaining that this or that wasn't done. And it is summer, and I do work in acadamia, so I guess it's not terribly surprising that folks should take off without notice.

I just wish I'd known ahead of time, so that I could have had some creative goof-off time today, too.

I was thinking about the art class as I worked on my self portrait this weekend. The teacher said that she wants us to spend at least three hours on each homework assignment. Plus, we're spending three hours a day, every day, in class. With three homework assignments each week, that's twelve hours a week right there. Plus, I work.

Then, on top of all that, she wants us to make one drawing of whatever in our sketchbooks every day.

The girl's on crack. When do I have time to even think about my sketchbook?

I'll probably be dropping the class at mid term.

If you listen closely, wherever you are, you might be able to hear a giant sucking sound coming from the direction of Tucson.

That would be what I did in art class today, sucking shit through a straw.

There are about twenty people in my art class... fifteen or so women, five guys. Of these fifteen people, I'm the absolute bottom of the heap, the one who has the least artistic talent.

Today she had us making "marks" on paper to express feelings. I thought she meant it literally, and made... marks.

Everyone else made these little drawing things.

Then we did some other drawing crap, and mine looked like crap, and other people's were very expressive and stuff.

Feh.

I feel drained, defeated.