If something needs a planner, you know it's gotten too big. Huge weddings are so pitiful, it's like the bride's trying to impress upon the groom just how final this thing is. Wishful thinking! She wants him to think it's like electing a pope or something. You can't just abdicate the throne every time you feel like getting a little Judaism on the side. But guys just don't get the message. All they're thinking is, okay, she got a 20 brazilian dollar wedding, now I won't feel guilty about buying a Double Hummer with a plasma TV in the back seat. And what's the deal with airline food? Sorry, I was drifting into a Seinfeld monologue there. Did you know they don't celebrate Memorial Day in Portugal? Bastards.

This picture speaks for itself.

Who out there knows who William Zanzinger is?

The power of the nude! The artist cowers in abject terror in the hot light of her nakedness. No he doesn't. I don't know what I'm talking about. I think my hair is falling out.

Susan was in a car accident earlier today, but Mark insisted that she model, or else he would see that she "never got a modeling job in this town again." And she did the whole two hours without complaint, the poor thing. No, I lied about what Mark told her. He never said that stuff. What he said was, what he did to that plaster bust last week he'd do to her if she didn't get those clothes off. The guy is a loose dannon. I meant to write 'cannon', but it's funnier this way, like he's a pile of yogurt. See, that's how humor happens. You see a mistake and you take advantage of it. Plus you lie about people.

This is the first time I brought in the computer for shorter-format sessions. There were a lot of unfinished pictures. These are done with Painter's sumi-e brush.

It's a grand old Memorial Day tradition in Norfolk. Come downtown, park, and stand around. The Afr'am Fest was at Town Point Park (it's really Towne Point Park, but I refuse to add the quaint "e"--why don't they really dress it up and call it Towne Pointe Parke?) and I can't exactly say I mingled--I'm not just a white guy, I'm a gawky, out-of-it white guy--but nobody beat me up. It'll be a different matter today at the office, of course.

The closest I ever came to a cruise was on the Spirit of Norfolk, which headed up the river to the Naval Base, and then came back. Which would have been fine, except as soon as we left the dock, they trotted out a bunch of high school kids to sing and dance for us. And the first song was "New York, New York"! WTF! We were too far out to jump and swim back, although a few people tried. We were trapped like rats. "New York, New York" is excruciating to sit through when performed by professionals; these high school students relied on shouting at the tops of their lungs, because that's how you sing in musical revues, they were obviously told. I wanted to kill someone. But it's hard to plan a perfect murder on a three-hour cruise. Unless you had some kind of superpower, like invisibility. But I'm starting to doubt that such things exist. When I was little and said bedtime prayers, I would pray that I would wake up as Superman. Failing that, my backup wish was for a room full of Snickers. How hard would that have been for God to grant? No luck on either count. Every morning I knew without getting out of bed that I was going to be disappointed. Because I was still wearing pajamas, and not a Superman suit. And no one was shouting that one of the rooms of our house was full of Snickers. But I haven't totally given up hope. But I'm a little bit worried that if I became invisible, someone would say "Where's that smell coming from?"

Just for fun, I added up the penstrokes in this drawing. 378,441! That's a lot, huh? What I was thinking just now was: if you left yourself alone, didn't lift a finger, you'd grow hairier and stinkier day by day. Without doing anything! And it wouldn't reach a balancing point and stop, it would keep getting worse until somebody hospitalized you. So I guess the lesson is, you can't just do nothing. You wouldn't remain in equilibrium, you'd slide backwards. Maintaining equilibrium requires doing stuff. It's just not fair.

This is the USS Wisconsin, a battleship that protects Norfolk against unruly tourists, like if one is getting a ticket for parking in a loading zone and he's not loading? And he's yelling at the meter maid? So she gets on the radio and pretends she's talking to the Wisconsin, and she starts calling in coordinates, and man that tourist shuts his yap right away! By the way, that picture on the bottom that looks like a pencil? That is not a pencil. You don't want to treat that like a pencil. Like don't try to write with it. And for Sweet Jesus' sake, don't try to sharpen it. 'Cause you know how the pen is mightier than the sword? Well, this pencil is mightier than the pen and the sword put together! Much much mightier. Hundreds of thousands of times mightier. Even more, maybe. We might be getting into six figures here. So don't even think about writing with it. Hey, but you can use the eraser. Yeah, it would make a good eraser. Ha! Hey, Saddam baby, we got an eraser for ya! Oh wait, he's been caught. They found him in a spider hole. If they ever have a poll about what's the funniest new phrase of the decade, I'm going to vote for "spider hole". Um. Am I still on topic? I don't remember.

I sure do flit around among a bevy of styles, don't I? Does that tell you anything about me? Like why I haven't made more of myself in my four decades on this planet? Is it fear of success? I thought that was just an affliction of girls. I would have thought fear of being a girl would trump fear of success. For a guy, I mean. A little late for me to be trying to sort this mess out. I should just shut up and do my little drawings. If I could only--=ZIP IT. But I--ZIP. b--ZIP!

You know what I would do if I were Art? I'd submerge my face in mud, then I'd walk into an art museum and I'd find a nice clean white wall and I'd roll my face on it like they do with your thumb when you get arrested, then I'd stand next to it and shout "Here I am!" over and over again until they threw me out. It's the throwing-out part that's critical. It's like getting your parking ticket validated. And then I might walk around on the street forcing people to take my autograph. I don't know, I haven't thought that part all the way through yet.

....is a green plaster ball.

Looks kinda tense, don't he? Some people think a certain level of tension is necessary to maintain alertness and keep the shield activated. Like Homeland Security level orange. Relaxation equals surrender and, extending the metaphor, death. Pretty pitiful, huh? Soon it all becomes internalized, and the poor sap doesn't even know he's tense. Until someone comes along and holds up a mirror. That's where I come in.

These people happened to be in the same place, physically, this morning. But they never acknowledged each other or even glanced at each other. They were invisible to each other. They all looked at me, though. 'Cause I wasn't wearing any pants.

This marks the last sketch in my Kavanagh Edition Moleskine. And it's depressing me. I felt special when I was carrying it around.__

It's true, my drawings sometimes undermine my desire to be or appear to be a little buddha, oozing lovingkindness from all my pores, Christian charity suppurating, festering beneath my skin. Then along comes a drawing like this to knock the blocks out from under the monument to Me, which tumbles once again into the swamp, the papier-maché relaxing into the brew like noodles.

It's a toss-up which is more disturbing. One thing's for sure, the outside view is aging a lot faster than the inside one. And it's only going to get worse, they tell me. Oh, by the way, I'll have those 1983 pix to put up soon. My friend Wayne hid them from himself. It's mostly because he's the same age as me. It's a game we play, Hiding Things From Ourselves. Another one is See If You Can Tie Your Shoes Without Farting. A more advanced version of the game is See If You Can Tie Your Shoes.

As requested by Mr. Baronet.

The Trader Building is getting its 'skin' now, as you can see. You know what would be fun to do? Put on a hard hat and get a long rolled-up piece of paper, and stand in front of the Trader Building during lunch hour, looking at the rolled-up paper, then looking up at the building with a puzzled frown, and then shouting "Oh, no!" and running away as fast as I could. But I'll never do it. I don't do anything of note.

Okay, no more carping about comments. thanks to Cindy, Julie, Doc Research, cg, and joyce.