by Marty Coleman | May 9, 2011 | Anonymous, Well Wealth - 2011 |
Do you know how much money Einstein had? Do you know how big Mark Twain’s house was? Do you know if Florence Nightingale had expensive clothes? What kind of car did Amelia Earhart own?
Chances are you don’t know the answer to those questions. That is because their wealth and worth weren’t defined by their money and material possessions. What about you? Are you under the impression that your wealth and your money are the same? If your money goes away does your wealth go away? How can you protect your wealth even if your money and material goods disappear?
Perhaps your wealth is your legacy, not your money. What does your wealth look like now? What would you like it to look like?
Quote by Anonymous
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by Marty Coleman | May 8, 2011 | Marty Coleman, Sunday in Sunrise - A short story |
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapters Ten & Eleven
Epilogue
Chapter 3
By the time I arrived home it was time to feed my dogs. I have 2 dogs. One is named ‘Flat’. She got this name when we brought her home from the pound 3 years ago. My precocious youngest daughter, Maria, (which her mother insisted was to be pronounced“MAR e uh”) age 7, asked if it was a boy or a girl. When I said it was a girl she said with a snicker ‘Then where are its boobies?’ I said ‘girl dogs don’t have boobies that show unless they have babies.’ Her deadpan older sister, Daria, in middle school and growing unequally in her various body parts said, ‘In other words, she’s flat.’ The name stuck.
The other dog got its name in similar fashion. We found it roaming the streets in a rain storm. We brought it home and before I could dry it, it shook all it’s wetness off, all over me. That same precocious daughter said ‘It likes to shower people!’ Its name is ‘Shower’.
After the dogs were satisfied, I noticed the little yellow light on my phone was blinking. Getting a message was almost as rare as getting mail. The voice on the other end was gravelly but clear. The man speaking said he was interested in the art lessons I advertised. He said his kid wanted to learn how to paint and he couldn’t afford the money or take the time to drive to the museum school in the city 30 miles away. He asked if we could do lessons on Thursday afternoons as it was his only day off.
I called him back and we made plans for him to bring his ‘kid’ over. He must have said ‘my kid’ about half a dozen times. He had that type of voice that you imagined had at least 30 years of cigarette smoke behind it. Right before he hung up he said ‘Oh, the kid wants to learn watercolor stuff most of all. Do you even know how to do that type of art?’. I assured him I did.
Maria, asked if I really was going to give art lessons. I said, ‘Yes, why do you ask?’ She said, ‘Because you are REALLY going to have to clean your studio now!’ I was not looking forward to that.
By the time Thursday afternoon rolled around I had done a pretty good job of cleaning up. I had found 3 sets of watercolors I forgot I had, a broken electric pencil sharpener that I put on the large pile of things to fix on my garage work bench, an apron I had used when I was a waiter and, down in the back of the bottom drawer of my art dresser (where I was stuffing the apron) a very old card I had received from my unwife. Yes, I call her my unwife. She calls me her wasbund.
The card was a first anniversary card. We had been living in a very small farmhouse in Michigan at the time, close to the graduate school I was attending. It made me tear up to read how happy she was about our first year of marriage and how excited she was for our future. The painting on the front was of a sunrise.
As I wiped away my tears I heard a knock on the door. Maria ran to the front door first and opened it. Walking up I saw a grizzled old guy in a pair of bib overalls, a John Deere hat and boots with dry, caked-on mud. He had a face that matched the voice I had heard on the phone. And next to him, with eyes as big as an owls, was red headed Melissa.
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by Marty Coleman | May 6, 2011 | Anonymous |
It’s funny how close being self-conscious is to being self-aware. Actually, aren’t they the same? One is conscious of self, one is aware of self. Same. But that really isn’t the case. Self-consciousness isn’t really about being aware of self, it’s about being aware of what other’s think of your self. You are conscious of other interpretations of your self (even if they haven’t ever been thought or spoken by another human).
Having raised 4 girls I can testify to the destructive power of self-consciousness. The concerns of what others thought of them was, at times, paralyzing. Would they think I am fat, flat, false, fearful, fatuous, farty, flamboyant, flakey, fanatical, frigid, freaky, flippant, foreign, figidity, fortunate, or maybe fake?
Self-awareness, on the other hand, is not about what others think, it’s about what YOU think about your self. Being self-aware means you KNOW others will have different opinions about you (when they think about you at all that is). But you also know that it’s YOU who ultimately judges whether your self is the self you want or not.
Quote by Anonymous
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by Marty Coleman | May 5, 2011 | Albert Einstein |
Have you ever been stuck in a rut? As I get older I feel more susceptible to that feeling I think. Sometimes even going to bed every night seems like a rut. That’s silly of course, we all have to sleep and we have to do it every night (unless you are a college student). I don’t think it has much to do with thinking about the next day in my case. I think it just has to do with it being the same exact process every day, evening after evening.
Honestly, that is why I stayed up to watch the Royal Wedding instead of going to sleep, then waking up. I was home alone (my wife was on a business trip) and it just seemed like a way to break up that monotony of bedtime a little bit.
What about you? How do you keep yourself balanced? Does it take breaking up a routine once in a while or do you find your balance in the comfort of that repetition?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
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by Marty Coleman | May 4, 2011 | Frederich Nietzsche |
The enemy of Al Qaeda is no longer just the US and Europe, it’s the freedom movements of North Africa and the Middle East. I am glad a new enemy has arisen.
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by Marty Coleman | May 3, 2011 | Anonymous |
It didn’t take long after news came that Osama Bin Laden was dead for conspiracy theories to come out. They were pretty much what you would expect. It was faked. The military had the body all along and just waited until Obama wanted some political mileage out of it. He wasn’t really buried at sea but is alive and being held in a secret location. Many are continuations and mutations of the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
More absurd theories I have never heard and I have heard conspiracy theories all my life. I even believed one for a while. The JFK assassination conspiracy was one I felt had some truth to it. That is until I read a number of books, both pro and anti-conspiracy books. I came away after my reading convinced there was no conspiracy.
What I have learned is that when your theory contains more than about 3 people, it’s VERY unlikely it will be kept secret. There are too many reporters, citizens, and alleged participants who will want to expose the plot and make a buck off it or use it politically to think it will be kept quiet. It won’t.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman with help from Elvis and Marilyn (who are alive, married and living in Costa Rica)
Quote by Anonymous
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by Marty Coleman | May 2, 2011 | Quote Authors |
Today I draw a symbol. It’s not a symbol of hate or revenge or politics. For me, it’s a symbol of justice and peace. I am not drawing what was done to those buildings and the people in them. I am drawing what our best response can be to what happened to those buildings and the people in them.
In 2001, Two days after 9/11, I drew the following drawing for my daughters and put it in their lunches.
It’s about freedom. Freedom comes when you have justice and peace. If you aren’t allowed to have those things, either from within your country or from without, you are allowed, indeed it is demanded of you, if you want freedom, that you fight to regain those things.
Seek justice and seek peace. That is where you will find freedom for you, yours and your country, wherever it may be on the earth.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
The first half of the quote, having to do with justice, is by Francis Bacon. I added the part about peace.
The quote on the vintage napkin is by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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by Marty Coleman | May 1, 2011 | Marty Coleman, Sunday in Sunrise - A short story |
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapters Ten & Eleven
Epilogue
Chapter 2
I rode from the Village Mart to Selma’s Quilt Shop. I was riding a bike, not driving as I usually would. The bike is an old, I mean really old, derailleur type. I found it at a garage sale in the neighborhood I sometimes walk in. The lady selling it told me she couldn’t ride it anymore because a spider living under the seat bit her. She said it was a nasty spider and the bite had left a nasty scar on her derriere. Her husband had found a bunch of spider eggs underneath the seat confirming that that was the spider family abode. She said she was afraid to ride it now but it was a good bike. While I felt sorry for her derriere I was happy to get the bike for cheap.
I go to Selma’s because her store doubles as an art store. I get pencils, markers, watercolors and paper there. Selma is funny and sassy. She wears very thick glasses and very low tops. Imagine a cross between a librarian and a burlesque dancer and you have Selma. She is another who ended up in Sunrise with no idea how she got here. Nobody else has figured out how she got here either.
I needed to check if my little advertisement on her cork board needed replacing. It was one of those simple ones offering art lessons where you take the little tab at the bottom with the person’s name and number on it. I would get a call once in a while but usually not from people in my town but from the larger town a few miles away. The ad in that town I had to replace more often. The ad at Selma’s only had about 3 tabs ripped off, just one more than had been ripped off last time I came by a month ago.
I was also needing some new watercolors and she usually has a set sitting off in a corner waiting just for me to come in every couple months. Today, however, the set wasn’t there. It was instead in the hands of a young girl waiting at the counter. She was perhaps 10 years old, maybe 11. All I could see was her shoulder length red hair, flopping down to pretty much obscure her face. The skin on her shoulders was a mottled mix of brown, red, white and tan, as if she had recently peeled from a sunburn. I got behind her and waited for Selma to return from helping a customer find American flag fabric.
I said to the little girl, “You know, you stole my watercolors”. She turned around with big eyes set in a round freckled face and said “Really? but I really need these today.” I said “Sorry, they are reserved exclusively for me and no one else is allowed to buy them.” The girl looked a bit scared but right then Selma returned and said “Do NOT pay any attention to that man! He thinks he’s the only artist in town but now there is another one and he’ll just have to get used to it!” The girl caught on quick, realized the fun going on and said “That’s right, he will just have to get here before me next time!” I responded “Oh, next time I will be here at sunrise, you can bet on it!” She smiled and paid for the paints. As she skipped towards the door I said “Don’t use too much water with those watercolors”. I wasn’t sure if she heard me as the door closed and she went out of sight.
Selma looked at me sternly and spoke, “You scared the daylights out of her”. “She was ok, I was just about to let her off the hook and tell her I was joking when you came up.” I said. “Yea, well you better be nice to her, Melissa hasn’t had an easy life.” Selma responded. But she didn’t say any more.
I rode my bike back home. As I passed the house of the barking dogs I heard Selma say her name, Melissa. Maybe she is the Melissa of the beautiful sunrise envelope I thought as I speeded up.
© 2011 Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Apr 30, 2011 | Quote Authors |
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by Marty Coleman | Apr 29, 2011 | It's A Tornado! - 2011, 2013, Marty Coleman |
In honor of the Royal Wedding of William and Kate, which I stayed up all night to watch (yes I did) I present you with the one hat you should have seen, but didn’t because Posh changed her mind at the last minute, dag nabbit. Another chance of fame and untold wealth down the drain. Oh well.
Drawing, exquisite design and pithy commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Millinery Consortium, LTD.
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