Little lines/ Why do I like grey?

I went for a great run this morning in the Whittier hills. I went up some steep stuff, and got really tired and sweaty, and it felt really good. Sunday afternoon, I spent a long time on the internet trying to get a sub job but to no avail. Usually they come on my phone, but it was drying out. So I was feeling kind of depressed, like I'd wasted a whole day. It was great to get out this morning and go for a long time in semi-nature. And there was no one else there! Except a guy who was sleeping in his car in the parking lot, a guy that I thought was dead.

After running I climbed back up one of the hills with my portable easel (thanks to Cindy) and painted this painting.

Its not all that great. I definitely can't paint little lines for some reason. All of my paintings seem to have the same grey background. I think grey (yes, with and "e") might be my favorite color. Since I was little, I've liked grey days. One of my favorite G.I. Joe's was this guy wearing a grey camouflage snow-suit thing.  For a while, I had a super-hero persona named Grey-Man. I don't know what his powers were, but he wore all grey.

I don't think too much

I have something to confess. My brain is sometimes in stupid mode. Pretty often actually. Its not very disciplined. Its like a dog that you didn't train when it was young, so it runs all over the place with its tongue hanging out while you're trying to call it. Or just laying there in the sun outside when you're trying to take it for a walk.

I'm going to get a buzz when I go home for Thanksgiving. I think about my hair way to much. Thats about the stupidest thing to think about. It makes me a little bit sick to think about how much I think about it. I feel successful if I think my hair looks good, and I feel stupid if it doesn't. So I'm going to cut it off again because when its so short, you don't have to worry at all, because there's nothing to change.

I'm Mr. Nostalgic though, and thats going to be a little hard for me. Welcome to my crazy mind, but I often think things like "Oh, I had this hair when such and such happened." I guess I didn't need the word "but" in that sentence. I do the same with clothes. Even washing them. Sometimes after being home, I put off washing clothes for a long time, because I think "Oh, the last time I washed these pants was at home" and I don't want to wash any of home off. So I don't want to cut my hair off, because it has some good memories in it, but I think I've got to. Its part of moving on too. Huhhmmmm.

The sharper sword is sharper than the pen

This is my third time re-writing this blog. I like starting and finishing things more than I like the middle.

I wrote about substitute teaching the first two times. I'll summarize: thats going well, but probably due more to teachers leaving good lessons, and having well-behaved kids than to my prowess as a pedagog.

Now I'd like to write about something else, but I'm not sure what.

Actually, while writing the above sentence, I was thinking "I'm going to write about fantasy," but I kept writing it anyway. I was even thinking about writing these two sentences.

I started reading fantasy books when I was little. Actually, it was probably my parents reading them to me first; Narnia and Anthropos, and the Magic Bicycle series. Although the bicycle one isn't really fantasy is it.

I started reading on my own, and for having always prided myself on being a reader, I think most of my life I've been a bit behind. I didn't read Redwall until Jr. High, and the Lord of the Rings until well into High School. As a sophomore in college I started Harry Potter.

Other than the Wheel of Time series, and shorter things like The Once and Future King, thats about all the fantasy I've read actually. Its weird, because I like the genre a lot. I don't know what it is, the magic, and running around in the woods, and swords or weapons made out of sticks and rocks. I guess similarly to a lot of other people, I just like escaping into it, or the excitement, or something. I've even tried to write my own a couple of times, but it never works. I get a couple of chapters in, and thats it.

Well, all that to say, I want some new fantasy book to read. Preferably a series that I could start. Maybe its a waste of my time, but I think its better than watching TV or hanging around on the internet. Maybe not better than blogging though.

The Magic of the Wizard's Dream

You never know when you'll come across something that will change your life. Maybe this will be it for you.

That's Saruman from The Lord of the Rings if you didn't know.

Nests of wool

Inside of a thick, leathery jacket, was a dense warm wooly liner. In the middle of the liner was one small pocket. And inside that pocket was a tiny little feathery bird. He liked it there in his improvised nest, where he had been placed by a large rough hand. It was warm and dark, and he was sleepy.

He was a brown little bird with dappled feathers and his feet tucked up under his round belly. His dark eye was blinking between half-open and fully closed. His peewee head, covered with closely packed sleek feathers was tilted just a little to one side. His body was surrounded by the thick wool that was more comfortable to him than any home he had ever made or found in the dark, rainy world outside. He was a happy bird now.

But was he free?

Old Mr. Grampit's Gold

Mr. Grampit had two favorite things to do with his money. Buy sausages, which he would cook to perfection over an open fire in back of his shed; and bury it. He liked to dig a small hole somewhere on his small lot, always in a new place, and put the golden coins down deep in the ground. 

Mr. Grampit had few friends. Some called him miserly, some stingy, some just unfriendly or rude. He whenever he would go into town to the market, people tended to avoid him. He was hunch backed, and usually his eyes never looked up, they just systematically swept the floor, so it didn't really bother him that they tried not to look at him. Some people might gaze down because they're afraid to look others in the eye, but not Mr. Grampit. He had spent so much time gazing at the ground that it had become habit to him. The expression on his face was always hungry, and excited.

Oop, time to go.

I hope its not sacrilegious

What do you think of this picture? What did the artist intend us to feel?