I thought of it this morning. If we'd ever hired an [insert: "overtly religious" to replace defamatory phrase] type, I could have named him C. L. Eric. (I thought of it because some weirdo who parks in our lot bought those letters, like you use to put your address on your house, and labeled his car, "Eric.")

I have a leaf. I picked it up out of the parking lot. It has a nice shape and some nice veining. If it's not dead by tonight, I'll draw it.

There were some other leaves down there, but this was the prettiest so it's the only one I picked up.

It must be sad to be the ugly leaf.

My work e-mail has taken to goobering out and spitting 400+ old messages back in my face a couple of times a week. I must remember to tell the R.C. that we'll have to stop using work e-mail to chat during the day. It's a little appalling to see the sheer volume of personal messages that they're storing on the server, you know? And sometimes I'm rude about work, or about how I'm not working.

Fortunately, this document is password-protected. As long as Word doesn't crash on me (triggering the system's automatic "tmp" file back-up), they can see it's here, but they can't read it.

Okay, so much for this morning's random thoughts. How about the weekend?

Well, it was gorgeous. Boy, am I ever loving these cooler temperatures.

Unfortunately, it wasn't that successful, diet-wise. Who knew, when they said they were opening a "Whole Foods" across the street from my house that what sounds like a whole-grain, organic tofu kind of store would also feature a lavish pastry department and a showcase of gourmet chocolate? Normally I do a weigh-in on a Monday morning, but I was afraid to today.

Shopping-wise...well, Frugality was a tad more successful. Granted, I spent $100+ on new blouses, but I desperately needed them and if I'm going to be back on the job-hunting parade, I need something decent to do interviews in.

Other than that splurge, I was pretty well-behaved. I got two books off the Barnes & Noble bargain table on Saturday. One drawing, and one called, "Karma 101" which I wanted desperately the moment I saw it.

Sunday I spent about $8 at the drugstore, which would have made it a very Frugal day had we not swung by Whole Foods on the way back home. ($37. Junk food.)

And, speaking of job interviews (which I did mention in passing, a few paragraphs ago), no, I haven't heard back from Coco yet. A quick scan of the job sites proves, once again, that I should have gone in for accounting or done the training to be a legal secretary. There are always a lot of jobs for those two fields.

I did have one offer from a business associate, to put me in touch with a recruiter looking for office managers for healthcare offices. I don't feel it's something I'm qualified to do (or would like) and I'm not sure if the money is there, but I may get that desperate.

Every time this happens any more, I have the same thoughts. Is this going to be the time? Is this going to be when prospective employers take a look at me and decide I'm too old and not skilled enough in specialty fields, and that they can hire some 18 year-old and train them for half the money? (And I'm having my usual panic. I need to learn macros! I need a certificate, proving I can use PowerPoint! I need to take an accounting class! I need skills!)

To distract myself from these depressing thoughts, I'll talk about drawing for a while. If you don't mind. (And even if you do.)*

So, this weekend I had a minor triumph in the matter of Drapery. In fact, I drew a Highly Successful Tea Towel. Highly successful.

Having accepted that I have at least two drawings 'due' on Wednesday that require drapery and realizing that my complete inability to render a piece of cloth convincingly was going to be something of a handicap, I pulled out one of my drawing books and put in several hours of solid practice yesterday. In fact, I put in about eight hours of practice.

(Writing was a lot easier...at least until I became aware of my own deficiencies in that arena. When you're drawing, it's a lot more difficult to overlook your own inadequacies. They stare you in the face rather more blatantly.)

Encouraged by the Successful Tea Towel, I drew two sections of curtain, a jacket (of limited success), an unconvincing striped shirt, and a Random Pile O'Cloth (known as "inert folds" and very complicated). I am not yet ready to spring forth upon the world as a Master Fabric Illustrator, no, but it's a nice feeling anyhow, to have done something right.

The weekend also included a Very Interesting Experiment with pastels, three versions of a very, very poor still life, a lot of 3d shapes, just for practice, and a promising, although not really 'artistic' start on a room interior where, yes, I got the perspective right (and I did it without a ruler, thankyouverymuch) but then the scale of the furniture wound up off by about 40%. A couch that should fill about 10% of the page came out looking like doll-house furniture. Sadly, I starting shading it in before I realized it, so it's going to be ugly to erase. (Having already drawn two huge bookcases full of books, I don't feel inclined to start over. I spent a lot of Friday on that thing.) That's going to be tonight's assignment.

To figure out how to expand that couch by at least 50% without creating a gross mess in the middle of my drawing.

This, which I think of as "scale," is a big problem for me. ( Like when I was drawing people and the heads were either tiny or humongous.) I know it's a matter of practice, but I can't practice any more hours a day than I do. I'm already spending 80% of my free time on it, which is a lot more than I'd anticipated or expected when I signed up for the class. (It's just that...I'm so obsessive. I can't just dabble with things, noooo. If I find them interesting, I have to dive in head-first.)

There's a technique in the perspective book, where it talks about using a grid to size things accurately. I need to practice that. I have transparencies. All I need to do is to print a grid onto one. Presumably practice will help make the grid less necessary.

As I was telling the R.C. yesterday, I'm learning a lot, but I'm not certain I can say the instructor is actually teaching me a great deal. When I couldn't get "tone" or "modeling" right, I went to one of my books and learned from it. When I needed to do drapery, I used a book. For perspective (which she's saying we'll be learning this week), I got my lessoning from a book this past summer. Of course, the class is the impetus for me learning all of this so quickly, so I'm not saying that it's a waste of time. Far from it. I'm enjoying the class enormously.

I'm just saying. If you want to learn something, buy a book.

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* This week, you will be glad to know, will be Class Three of the five classes. If you can live through this and two more weeks, I should shut up about this topic.

And (this should excite you) the next class doesn't start until November! Heh.

If I become unemployed, you may long for the days I was burbling about drawing instead of sobbing over job searching.