words by paula drawing by larry

Larry said let’s go to Starbucks and you’ll write about someone we see and I’ll draw them. And I said, yeah like that loud guy we always see there talking to someone new every time, we can do him. Then we got there and sure enough he was there. But I don’t think he’s a bum.

One time we were sitting down with him and talking to him and our twelve year old son Jacob was with us and he was warning Jacob to always listen to his parents, us, because he knew. And Jacob was buying a new cell phone from earning money from shovelling snow and he was telling Jacob which guy to talk to in the Rogers for any problems he might have. And then he noticed my cell phone and said, oh yeah, the little chocolate bar, which is a good way to describe it, it’s very thin, and that he used to have the same one. Then he showed us the cell phone he has now and then the other cell phone he also has now.

So I was ordering Larry and me our coffees and he left his chair and was beside me telling me how there’s e-bay cards on the internet for seven hundred dollars, how he couldn’t believe they were for seven hundred dollars, then he showed me his Paul McCartney Starbucks card and said he looked it up and it was only worth one dollar. Which didn’t seem right to him.

I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. But I had to agree his Paul McCartney Starbucks card did look very nice. It was much more unique-looking than my Starbucks card. And feel sorry for Paul McCartney that his value was so low in whatever internet assessing plastic card world he was talking about.

But I didn’t ask him what he was talking about because I didn’t want to talk to him even though one time we had been sitting down together and the audiences of each other.

For once the pair of comfy soft purple chairs had become available – people were getting up and leaving them - and Larry grabbed them. What I said about their availability he responded to with more commentary.

I sneezed hard two times and he said bless you, you could tell it was bless you, but in a language I don’t know, it sounded like Yiddish, in his same loud voice that cut through the coffee shop and reverberated, two times too.

iggy and lilu

Our 2 kittens wished Paula a Happy Mothers Day.

i submit

So I've done a lot of drawings over the last 10 months since I lost my job as a teacher when the Art Institute of Toronto expired. This month I've put together a portfolio site and I'm going to send e-mails to galleries here in Toronto by way of submitting my work. I've never had representation before as an artist except as an illustrator and that had some positive aspects. Wish me luck please. Cheers all. The site address is www.larryeisenstein.com

baby kittens

We have 2 new kittens. Iggy and Lilu. Everything looks cute to me now. I've got cute colored lenses affixed to my glasses and am blinded to the truth that they're just big hairy cockroaches, scuffling in my dinner, sniffing for food everywhere, what mooches. Roachmoochies.

7 of 22

That's how many pages I've got drawn in my accordion book. It's from China and I bought it at Gwartzman's Art Supplies. It's got thick tough paper and took a beating. I've been going downtown to this art supply store since I was 15. That's 40 years. The same guy still owns and runs it. He's as crotchety and imperious as ever. His build is wiry, his features handsome, his speech laconic and he still scares me. Now I go to his son the dentist with my whole family. He makes cracks about his dad while he drills in my cavities.

wrinkle

I use the cheapest paper to work on. I hate to waste good paper. Since I always start every drawing believing it's destiny is abject failure only the crappiest . So my crappy paper goes gnarly and rippled the longer I paint. After 4 weeks of stroking this one has the geography of dessicated parchment. It aged with me so it's not Dorian Gray.

what you feed your mind

So now I understand that I've spent most of my life asking terrible questions. And that the answers my mind has come up with are only appropriate to the negative inquiry.

Now when i go to bed I feed a fresh batch of hopeful, happy questions into my brain and I wake up with excellent answers. Today I feel sure that everything is going to turn out well.
It's a great feeling.

love understands

My eldest son Eli is in northern Israel where he's volunteered to help out in the rear as the war with with Hamas widens. I hope he'll be safe. Eli's mother, my ex-wife, doesn't understand him and rejects his decision to participate in the operation.

He was just at the end of a vacation/tour when the war broke out. He decided to stay. A couple of months ago he met a young Israeli woman traveling here in Toronto. She had just finished her mandatory service in the Israeli Army. I think they're in love. Eli and Nofair are going to rendezvous in Israel in February. The ongoing conflict will be the backdrop. I guess there's a very romantic story there. I'm worried for him, but it's his time to be a young man in the world now.

happy sad

I must cry for 2008 though. It was the best year of my life. I'm a capricorn. We start out old and get younger. Each year of my life seems to be getting better lately. This last one was my favorite. So I grieve because it's over and I'm worried it will never be as good again. But so far 2009 is even better!

happy new year

2009 spurts of splorching gobs of joyous creamy love to you!

I've been away, in a depression. Now I'm feeling better. I'm sorry I dissappeared. I miss being here. Be safe and happy and healthy for the next 12 months and then we'll ask for the exact same thing again.