by Marty Coleman | Sep 9, 2013 | Don Marquis, Mr. Xperience Says - 2013 |
Last time Mr. Xperience gave you essential advice about sex. Today, he is guiding you in your child rearing. He just wants to help.
My mother told I did this many times on the changing table. She also said more than once she did not block it effectively. I probably should have apologized to her for that.
Moms, has this happened to you? Men, don’t wait to be told this story by your mother. Go apologize to her for peeing so rudely. And now that you have control of your limbs and bladder, lift the seat up before and put it down after.
_________________
This public service announcement provided by Mr. Xperience
Quote by Don Marquis, 1878-1937, American writer
_________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Sep 6, 2013 | Mr. Xperience Says - 2013, Yvonne Fulbright |
I am starting a new series today called ‘Mr. Xperience Says’. Some lessons and warnings we can hear again and again but it doesn’t take hold until Mr. Xperience tells it to us. They aren’t lesson I in particular learned via Mr. Xperience. Some I did learn that way, others I haven’t had to deal with but I know many close friends who have. Mr. Xperience is a busy man. Ms. Experience is too.
The Mistake
I have a number of friends who have done this, in spite of them being warned by friends and family that it was a bad idea. It wasn’t until Mr. Xperience told them that they really understood how bad an idea it was. It’s amazing how many people only pay attention to Mr. Xperience. It’s even MORE amazing to realize there are some people who never listen to Mr. Xperience and as a result make this and other mistakes again and again. Those people are hard to watch live life. It’s one thing to give advice, see it ignored but then see Mr. Xperience give the advice and it being learned. That is frustrating but at least you know the finally listened to the advice. But when they don’t even listen to Mr. Xperience, that is torture to watch.
My Xperience
I never had sex with my ex. Well, I did before she was my ex, but actually we slept in separate rooms for almost a year before she moved out so we weren’t having sex well before she was my ex, and that just logically continued afterwards. It’s not that we didn’t have the opportunity after she moved out since she had her own house, I had mine. But she wasn’t about to let that happen and I moved on relatively quickly as well.
Tucson
Many years later we spent 5 days alone together in Tucson, Arizona. We had gone there to talk to one of our daughters and try to persuade her into coming home with one of us. We did see her the first day but she got scared off by what turned out to be wrong tactics on our part and didn’t show up the next day for our expected conversation about things. We hung around for a number of days hoping she would show up, talking to her friends and landlord, but she never did. In the meanwhile we spent every day together, driving here and there, eating meals, waiting in this one cafe. We got along pretty well, with only one small tiff, and it was pretty much a version of some of the tiffs we had had during our marriage about child rearing. Not a huge fight or anything, just a difference of opinion.
Reassurance
We also stayed in the same hotel, about 3 doors down from each other. This scenario of course led to a bit of anxiety on my wife Linda’s part. She wasn’t really worried about anything happening between us, but at the same time, if something were ripe to happen, this situation was definitely letting it happen way to easily. So, she had some worries. Each night I called her and reassured her of the truth. The truth was, 1 – I loved her, not my ex. 2 – I didn’t want to have sex with my ex. 3 – she didn’t want to have sex with me, either. This made her feel better. I was very happy to have married a woman who trusted me in that situation.
My ex was (and still is) in a relationship herself. I wasn’t privy to her conversations with her boyfriend, obviously, but it would not surprise me if he had some of the same worries. I might be wrong, she could have spent years railing against me, talking about how much she loathed me, but I never got the impression she did. At the same time, she did divorce me and she never showed any interest in the possibility of getting back together in any way, sexual or otherwise. I don’t know her boyfriend’s personality though, besides him being a nice guy, so I don’t know what their mutual worries or thoughts were about it. Whatever the case, we both spent the days as caring co-parents to our daughter, not as ex-lovers yearning but denying ourselves sex with each other. I am glad of that.
____________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Yvonne K Fulbright (and many others)
____________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Sep 5, 2013 | Darien - 2013, Travel Napkins |
The Flight Home
I spent 9 days on the east coast, going to my HS reunion, visiting my sister, an artist friend and my daughter Rebekah and my first Grandbaby, Vivian. But alas, I eventually had to head back to Tulsa. I was excited to see Linda again, it had been a long trip, but I was very sad to say goodbye to Rebekah and Vin. I spent the hours on my flight home drawing.
The Executive
I got into a conversation with the woman across the aisle as we both sat down but I was on the window seat and when my row partner sat on the aisle, the conversation pretty much stopped. Later the woman on the aisle was trying to sleep and wasn’t having a very easy time of it so I traded places with her so she could lean her head against the interior of the plane. By that time the woman across the aisle, Catherine, was reading so I picked up my sketchbook and started to draw her. I captured her face first, then her hands as quickly as I could since I know they were the most likely part of her to change at any moment, which they did. She brought out her laptop and at that point I started drawing the background.
The entire cabin was dark and the light from her screen lit her face in a beautiful way. I wish I had taken a photo so I could remember the lighting pattern now. We started talking again after a while and I found out she was coming to Tulsa for just one day for work. She was an executive with a large software developer and had a series of meetings starting early the next morning. She was tired after a while and laid her head back to sleep.
This is the drawing before I painted and colored it.
____________________
The Flight Attendant
After my aisle mate started napping I noticed the flight attendant sitting in the jump seat straight ahead. She was in the dark, with one single overhead light above her, and some light from the galley on her left. She was looking right at me so I mouthed the words, ‘I am drawing you.’ and she responded with a smile and a thumbs up.
She sat still for almost the entire time I was drawing. There wasn’t anything going on in the cabin, almost everyone was asleep or at least had their eyes closed. She could have easily changed her arm position, crossed her legs differently or adjusted her clothing or hair, but she did none of that. She just sat still and looked straight ahead. Once in a while she would look at me and I would mouth the words for wherever I was at, ‘I am drawing your legs now.’ or “I finished your dress.” I knew she couldn’t hear me since I was actually making no audible sound, but it was obvious she knew what it was I was saying. She sat that way for probably 20-25 minutes, long enough for me to get a thorough line drawing done.
She had to explain her stillness to her fellow flight attendant at one point, and the other flight attendant came over to see how the drawing was progressing. She thought it looked pretty good and gave Jessica the thumbs up. That made her smile. It was very cool and otherworldly to do the drawing almost in complete darkness, almost like a special bond formed between us as a result. I showed her the line drawing after and she was very happy with it. She introduced herself as Jess and we exchanged contact info so I could get the finished drawing to her. Here is the line drawing before I painted and colored it.
And with that we landed, the lights came up and I was able to be greeted by my lovely wife at the airport. It was a wonderful journey meeting old friends, new family, and strangers who became friends.
I love traveling into the past and finding the present.
_____________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
_____________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Sep 3, 2013 | Alphabet of Word Origins - 2013 |
B is for Beauty
From awe-inspiring cathedrals of redwoods to baggage-laden scars of human life, no single thing has driven me in more ways than the idea of beauty.
Greek
In Classical Greece (500-323 BC) the word for beauty was Kallos. Later, when Koine Greek (during the Hellenistic period) was spoken, the word was Hōraios, deriving from hōra, meaning hour. The idea of beauty was intertwined with the idea of being at the right moment, the right hour for your particular beauty. Being what you were not, a young man trying to look older, or a older woman trying to look younger, was not beautiful because they were denying their ‘hour’.
That is a lesson about beauty that we still hold on to today. Someone who tries to hard to be young again, with bad plastic surgery or skirts too short, is not usually seen as beautiful. Instead they are seen as perhaps a bit desperate to regain their ‘hour’.
Latin
Bellus was the word in Ancient Rome. Obviously, it’s where the romance languages got ‘Bella’ and other similar words meaning beautiful. In ancient Rome it referred to human beauty, mostly with children and women. As a matter of fact it could be seen as derogatory to men, labeling them effeminate by use of that term.
Words like ‘Bellisima’ (very beautiful) , names like ‘Belle’, and descriptions such as ‘Bella Donna’ (Beautiful lady) all attest to the roots of ‘beauty’ and ‘belle’ being the same.
By the way, Bella Donna also is the name of a poisonous plant, the Deadly Nightshade. So, why is it also ‘beautiful lady’? Because women would put drops distilled from the juice of the plant in their eyes to help dilate them, making them more beautiful according to the style of the era. Also poisoning them to some degree. But then as now, people will suffer to be beautiful, won’t they.
English
Here is how Latin’s Bellus became English’s Beauty; Bellus became Bellitat (Vulgar Latin) became Beltet (Old French) became Bealte (Middle English) became Beaute (Old French replacing Middle English) became Beauty.
It now is used to describe for more than just the appearance of a woman. Most anything and everything can be described as beautiful now. But, at least for me, it still retains a certain element from it’s original definition. The word ‘fine’ kept popping up in the old definitions, and I think that is still true. A person, place or thing that I describe as beautiful will have an element of ‘fine’, ‘exquisite’, ‘elegant’, ‘exalted’, class’ within it’s look. If it doesn’t have some element of those things then I am much more likely to use the words pretty, cute, gorgeous, instead of beauty or beautiful. And of course a person, place or thing can be all those things, including beautiful, at differing times.
Who and what defines beauty for you?
_______________________
_______________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
_______________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Aug 29, 2013 | Marty Coleman, Plan On It! - 2013 |
This will be spot on for some people, and not for others. I planned it that way.
Sheesh, another drawing of naked people, what’s up with you Marty!? Well, I like naked people. Some of my best friends are naked at least once a day. But beyond that, nakedness is a visual metaphor of our stripped down, exposed self and the cathartic transformation that occurs when we allow it to happen.
Megan LaBonte
Megan
That may be something that happens physically, like it did to Megan, a Photographer friend of mine in Massachusetts, who recently decided to go without makeup now for a number of months. She was petrified by the idea but she did it. She stripped herself clean of the mask and went out into the world not knowing what to expect.
This is what she wrote upon posting this photograph:
Before and after. Realized yesterday I have now been through my first whole season with out make up. What a difference it has made not only in the health of my skin but in my happiness as well. I love waking up each morning and facing the world just as I am, never realized how much I was hiding until I took this mask off. I now will wear it every once in a while to go out but other than that I don’t miss it at all and in fact for such a seemingly little thing it really has made a big impact on my life. I feel free from it and look forward to the next three seasons with an all natural face.
There are a lot of things Megan can’t change about herself. Genetically she is pretty much set and short of plastic surgery she isn’t going to change her natural face much. In other words, she has her spots. But she still could do a lot. In the simple act of not wearing makeup she took away some color, and added texture. She took away strong line and exchanged it for more subtle transformations of tone. In other words, she changed the color of her spots.
Reading her statement, it’s about much more than a physical transformation. It’s about a psychological and emotional transformation. She says she is happier. Happiness is not physical, right? It’s about attitude and emotion. She also said she realized she was hiding much. Was she hiding some hideous deformation on her face with the makeup? No, she was hiding something psychologically deeper. While the transformation was physical on the surface, that mask of makeup represented something much deeper and it was facing those deeper issues that was transformative far more than just going without foundation for a day.
Deeper Planning
Just to clarify, the napkin scene above is not related to Megan. She is just an example from among my friends about a physical transformation and she had a recent illustration I thought captured it well.
The Napkin shows a pretty horrendous family scene. It’s fraught with sexual tension, distress and possible abuse. It’s not hard to make the assumption that the family has highly dysfunctional relationships throughout. Who knows what terrible things have happened to make everyone run away in pain. We know all the children are running out into the world with spots. Spots that came from that home, that set of parents. Spots that hurt, spots that scar, spots that fester.
So, how do we go about transforming in these situations? With courage and a deliberate decision to do it.
For example, I have a family spot called alcoholism. The only way I found to deal with it in my own life was to stop drinking. I turned the scotch colored spot to water colored spot (whatever color that is.) I had to choose to change the color of that spot long ago or lose what mattered to me. The spot is still there, but it is pale now compared to the color I initially inherited.
What about you? Perhaps your spot includes a gravy colored spot called eating. Well, you aren’t going to stop eating. But you can transform the color of that spot to green for more vegetables and less gravy. Perhaps your spot is the green spot of envy. What color could that spot be turned into?
What about other spots you would like to transform? Whatever spots you choose, they won’t fade or change colors on their own You have to decide you want to change them, and yourself. You can do it.
__________________
Drawing, quote, and commentary by Marty Coleman
__________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
