Photo from Dad's Lawn

Dad's lawn., originally uploaded by _stringsong.

Flickr test.

Cottage in the City.

film4, originally uploaded by _stringsong.

One of the eight decent (read salvageable) photos from my first film attempt. I was trying to learn to manual focus, adjust aperture etc. and next time might try the whole roll on autofocus to see how that works out.

One week til camping!

Monday

Problem:

No one makes a desk tall
enough for her short legs
and long back.

Perhaps they do make them,
that wouldn't be hard to believe.

But what good is it if no one
uses such a desk?

In what classroom, office or
library can she find and use
such a thing?

Instead she'll sit hunchbacked,
over her work desk or
slouched down in her chair--
lower back concave,

trying to
concentrate.

Hi. It's Me.

I'll
bake your
bread.

Thinking 'bout

Routine v. Ritual

At the ROM

Watched the Free Palestine protest.
I stood and watched from atop my bicycle
and was surprised by the small and shrill female voice coming
through the amplifier.

There were flags waving and a rallying cry
but also this huge calm,
at least I felt it.

The loud voices caught something inside me.
I felt a sway and wondered what tragedies went
unnoticed today.

MAY

Summer here,
there was a bomb in her head.

The Artiste

She showed off what she'd done then
but she didn't want correction.
She didn't want to be corrected at all.

She pressed her fingers to the strings to make sounds
but she didn't want to hear it
and she didn't want a callous to form there.

She didn't want any mark to be made
permanent or impermanent.

Last Night a Bug Flew In

Image Paper Tiger by *contraomnes on deviantART via ffffound.com

Last night a bug flew in, a beetle
and it was buzzing around our window sounding
just like a kazoo.

The lights were off but we couldn't ignore it.
Andre got out of bed to have a look at the thing. "A June bug"
I said. But it was something else.

The unknown in an insect is never a good thing and Andre immediately identified teeth
and a stinger. The word stinger should never be uttered anywhere
near bed and blanket.

At that moment our cat Mowat piped in.
It was almost a chirp, the sound he made,
with his tail twitching like a windup toy.

Andre soon knocked the thing to the carpet,
and now both our cats were circling it. Patting it with their paws,
gently bludgeoning.

Mowat attempted eating it but spit it out in a hurry.
"It bit him!" yelled Andre
and he acted out the chomping of the insects' jaws.

I imagined now that some sort of mini-winged-rhinoceros
had made its way into our bedroom;
such a frightful thing.

And when Andre got the oven mitts I was glad.
Gladder still when he tossed it out the window
and explained consolingly to the cats they couldn't hunt it anymore,
it was gone.

Dish Debt

Image from ffffound

Doing the dishes is like paying my credit card bill;
I have to do it incrementally.

If I have breakfast this morning then
that's a debit.

One spoon, one bowl, one knife,
one cup.

I'd like to make a dent in debits owed so I'll wash
this morning's breakfast away and also the teapot
from Monday evening and just the lid from Tuesday's
spaghetti pot.

My debt is payed in lavender dish soap, time-served and the number of prune-like
wrinkles on my fingers.

geithner

geithner, originally uploaded by _stringsong.

Drawing from a photo in the Globe and Mail Report on Business, Mar. 25th, 2009. I like to follow American politics and draw politicians, apparently.

elephant

elephant, originally uploaded by _stringsong.

I've been wanting to update my sketches for a while as an impetus for drawing daily and am starting with something really old for some reason. I really need to know how my sketch journal heros Jillian Tamaki and Lauren Nassef upload such pretty images with no smudge marks. Is it just the curse of lefthandedness that causes them? (I actually love being a lefty and in no way think it is a curse.)