MY NEW PRICELESS MOLESKINE

Original art by the one and only Amanda. I could hardly bring myself to draw in it. Question for veteran moleskiners: watercolor beads up. How do you handle that?

BRUSH PEN STARBUCKS

Things come out differently with a brush pen. I still haven't quite got control of it. But that's a good thing. I think.

ANOTHER PICTURE AND COMMENTARY THAT DON'T MATCH

What a badly-written load of crap 'The Da Vinci Code" is! I have nothing against loads of crap, they can lots of fun, but reading bad writing is like being forced to sit through a Scooby Doo marathon. An easy target, I know, but this guy is making a brazilian dollars off this stuff. Why doesn't he invest some of it in a writing coach, or at the very least, a research assistant? Here's an example: he ascribes a fascination with goddess myths to Walt Disney, of all people, and then cites The Little Mermaid, which was made years after he died! As long as I've tumbled off my zen pedestal, I'm also irked that downtown Norfolk has been hogtied by an infestation of wiry little geeks in spandex and ridiculous little outer-space helmets forcing us to be reluctant witnesses to them riding their expensive little bicycles around and around our streets like lunatic hamsters. It's a free country and all, but why can't they do their exercises in a deserted warehouse somewhere instead of in front of us earthlings? After all, I don't do squat-jumps in front of the general public, but I promise that would be a spectacle you'd never forget.

BLOWY, RAINY DAY

But I have a cute little brush pen and a seat in Starbucks and a McSweeney's Quarterly and an espresso brownie and all's right with the world.

DETAIL, EPWORTH CHURCH

I walk past it on the way to the art supply store, and since I had a brand new micron pen this morning, I decided to finally draw it. A couple of church people came out and invited me in, thinking I might be standing there hesitating to take the plunge. Fools! When I revealed my true self to them, they tore back inside and prostrated themselves at the altar, shaking and sobbing. Ain't I a stinker?*

*Bugs Bunny

CHUCK'S LYDIA'S HOPPER'S BROOKLYN

To make any sense of this at all, you'll have to go to Chuck's blog . Of course, if you've been there in the last 8 months, you've seen it, cause that's how long it's been since he's posted anything newer. Too busy "working", or whatever it is he does. I suspect he derives his income from soft-core plumber videos, but that's another story. So anyway, I finally picked up the hot potato, and now it's someone else's turn. Catch!

BLIND CONTOUR FIRST FRIDAY

The assignment was "Out My Window". BCF Headquarters:

REMNANT

Sandwiched in between a pawnshop and a hot dog place is this chunk of craftsmanship. I suppose when this was new it was no big deal, just something you put over a door when you built an office building. Now it stands out like a Fabergé egg on a roll of wood-grain shelf paper. Like a cameo brooch on a World War I army blanket. Like Zsa Zsa Gabor touring a wastewater treatment plant. You get the idea.

TOYOTA, TENT, TREE

The wittle twees are all bursting out in buds. The fools! They have no idea what's in store for them come October. A little frost'll wipe that smile off their stupid faces. Spring....bah, humbug!

Just kidding. I really love the Springtime. I love all seasons, and all people. I see only the good in people, and trees. My cup is half full, not half empty. Everybody else has a goddam full cup, but I'm happy with my half-full cup. I appreciate every wonderful drop of whatever's in that cup, even though everybody else has twice as much. I don't feel cheated in the least. Let them drink their full cups. there's twice as much chance they'll choke on it, and wouldn't that be a pity? I'd hate to see them choking on their full cups, falling to the ground gasping as their face turns red, then a ghastly white as the life force drains out of them and flies begin to land on their soon-to-be-rotting corpses. I'm going to stop right now and say a little prayer for all those poor people.

KEVIN PAINTING

Tongqing aihu: Ying er zai muqin de huaibao li, ke huode zui baogui de anquan gan. Guli xiao pengyou xi'ai dongwu, fahui tongqingxin, zi'yang le zhengchang de qingxu.

FUN WITH PAINTER

I decided not to put verisimilitude at the top of my priorities tonight, and I had a lot of fun. Painter is just an amazing program. I swear, you get a lot of the sensuous pleasure of moving paint around, or gliding black ink over a white surface. It really starts to feel physically real. So I just played tonight. Andrea was a beautiful model, too.

THE STARBUCKS SAGA, CHAPTER 45

WHAT I DREAMED LAST NIGHT

What a cliffhanger, huh? I think it was the 74 Wasabi peas I had before bed. But how can anyone resist Wasabi peas? Right now it's thundering out. This is kind of a rarity around here. When I lived in the Midwest we used to have big Biblical thunderstorms. Once we were driving down a country road and a big thing of ball lightning rolled across the road in front of us and split a tree across the road. I wouldn't even try to tell something like that if it wasn't true.

WAITIING FOR THE PARADE

I'm still fumbling around for a style in watercolors. One roadblock at the moment is I can't find my good brush, and I'm using this monster brush that looks like it was made to paint "Get Out of Iraq!" on railroad board. So detail work is out of the question. It would be nice to be able to paint like James McMullen--remember him?

TRYPTICH

Czlling this a tryptich is my clever way of making you take this seriously for a few moments until, after a pause for reflection, you say "tryptich, my ass!", or as my Dad would have said in more genteel times, "my achin' back!" "All you've done," you will continue, "is put together three unrelated doodles. That's not a tryptich, not like the Gesundheit Altarpiece, you faker!" Well, that's one of the perks of calling yourself an artist: by definition, whatever you create must be art. I least that's what it says on my membership certificate.

LOOKING WEST ON PLUME STREET

The Trader Building is still going up. They haven't abandoned it yet. At the end of the street you can see the USS Wisconsin. If you squint, you can make out Churchland in the distance, then Emporia, and if you're eyesight's good, Bristol. And then lots of mountains, West Virginia, and on a really clear day, the Pacific Ocean. It really helps if you're on eye steroids, too.

WATERCOLOR MODEL

Has anyone out there not yet heard "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap? Evidently she has created a software instrument that does things with her voice (on a Mac, of course) that are beyond description. You should stop reading this and go find that song.

NEW CRUISE TERMINAL

A beautiful Saturday, breezy, warm in the sun, cool out of it. People wandering around doing Saturday things. Pete Decker jogging along the waterfront. Everything where it should be. Tugboat burbling across the harbor, flagpole hardware clinking against the pole, a kid screaming far away. Life propelling itself on its own exhaust.

MY VISIT TO MONEY MART

Another happenin Friday night for M. Donatello. Actually, it got better. Went out for chili and Neil Young movie with Bart. Neil's definitely looking older, but he sounds just the same. Emmylou Harris, on the other hand, looks mighty good and sounds good too. Pretty interesting movie, and San Antonio Sam's chili is hotter than a two-dollar stamen.

NOT ABOUT STARBUCKS

Whatever it's about, it's not Starbucks, I'm almost 100% positive. I thought to myself, what's as far from Starbucks as anything can get? And it came to me: contortionists!