only words survive

i want to write about words in a moment. quick mention first to an update in "my blog family" on the right.

i have written often about my daughter in this blog. you can search the blog top left for "jourdaine," "cartoons," "nonconforming," and "nonconformity" and read some of it. her cartoons are cool. some of my favorite stories are here, here, and here.

she's had some great influences in her life, my twin primary among them, as well as being slapped pretty hard for being an individual. every time the latter has happened, the girl stands, dusts herself off, and says, "is that the best you got, a'hole?" remarkable endurance and depth for a 16 year old.

she bailed on some previous blogs when The Others impugned Satanic Rituals in sentences like, "for my 16th birthday, i want strippers and cheap vodka," and "if i could be any kind of tree, i would want to be a dead one, because i think trees take up too much space and they annoy me." The Others saw potential rape and pillage in a cartoon that depicted a girl scout about to be executed because she brought the wrong flavor of cookies. some guy even left a comment on my post about it that he would have his kid in therapy if she drew like that.

really? therapy? and when you discover that your kid smokes pot (which mine don't), you'll consult with a dozen people, practice in front of a mirror, then sit with her and say things like, "where did we go wrong? don't you like me? i try so hard? how could you do this to your mother and me?" whereas i would stare intently and occasionally say, "wtf?" and then glance down at the cattle prod and do-it-yourself-at-home-like-an-expert-frontal-lobotomy kit on the coffee table, adding, "choose your poison, little girl." lest you dismiss my approach, remember it is your kid doing weed or lifting your wife's prozac, while mine is merely writing about them. yeah, funny, your wife is on prozac - does that tell you anything?

alright, enough of you. my daughter has returned to posting - check it out here.

i want to talk about words. twin says this morning - people use the same words, it is just that some people treat them like treasures found on a beach, while others only collect them from the dollar store. what a great point.

i am not thinking of somebody writing, "i am writing you myself because i want to insure that you understand." really? you want to financially underwrite this issue? methinks, grammarian, that you mean "ensure." that is just someone that doesn't read often enough to see words in proper context, so they rely upon their hearing and false intellect.

i am thinking instead of those people that say, "i guess this is it. have a nice life." oh. and such an epitaph to the most casual of relationships joined only by a mutual friend that was thereafter moving to Away. "have a nice life?" how utterly presumptive. beyond the obvious - maybe i don't want a nice life - how about the dimissive statement wrapped around a presumed complete knowledge of the rest of her life and its interactions? i frankly don't care if i ever see her again - and i haven't in the three years since those words were so flippantly tossed out. but what an abuse of language!

words have a way of lasting - they explain the look on someone's face, they accompany an action. the same precise act coupled with two sets of words can have diametrically opposed interpretations. people put more faith in, "did you hear what he said?" as opposed to, "did you see the look on his face?"

all i have left of my dad is one pic i refuse to look at because it is too close to the image i carry of him in his casket, some fishing flies, some shirts, and his words. the flies only mean something because of a story we shared. his shirts carry the meaning of dinner table conversations when he came home from the factory.

so people need to treat the words they utter more as if they are sharing a found treasure rather than having just filled the basket with seven items for $7 plus tax. when you are dead, only your words will survive - your choice: remembered as a treasure hunter or common trash?

nonconforming cartoons

So I am working the girl to crank out some drawings. Forgive the lack of a question mark on the end of the interrogatory posed by the girl inside the mirror. Even an exclamation point would be better. It's tough getting kids to care about grammar and punctuation, dammit! But, alas, who am I to criticize art. Perhaps the selection of the period is meant to inspire in the viewer a combination of shock, horror, and resignation. Art can be so deep sometimes. Makes me feel inadequate. Small. Unimportant. Coal trash (well, that part is true).

Is there a painting class for adults I can take? I like paint-by-numbers. I never did one, but I remember my great Aunt Irene use to do them. I recall a real pretty doggy. It was in a quilt or next to flowers or something. I could do that. I think. Is that stuff erasable in case I go over the lines? I suck at coloring books.

nonconforming cartoons

My daughter seems to be taking some time off from expressing her angst. Having received an invitation from her new school "to not apply for re-admission" may have registered, but I doubt it - the letter also applied to her brother who never went there! How funny is that? It read something like, his "application for admission would not be accepted." Gee, guess who's the common denominator? The sole thing that bothers me is that
the writer did not have the personal integrity to call me. It is an integrity issue. Hiding behind a letter is always coupled with running in the opposite direction. Onward.

I watched my daughter work this drawing on PhotoShop. It is remarkable to me what she does with no training. I mean, I was just as fast and used the programs as robustly 20 years ago without training, but that was Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect. I made number add up and look pretty. I spell-checked and paginated, dammit! And I was good at it! I knew what WYSIWYG meant before it was cool to know, before the spreadsheet-wannabes jumped on board. But I didn't do the layering and blurring and whatever thingeys that she does.

Makes me feel a little old. Kinda pisses me off.

Here is a page from her sketchbook.

I've always loved idle drawings. My best friend is an artist and I sneak a look at her sketches sometimes.


I am spacing right now. Must need more coffee.

We'll get Jourdaine cranking some more stuff as the summer unfolds. Must be some focus for her apparent evil. Or am I the puppet master, detroying all that lies in my path? I plow through young lives with seeming impugnity. Amazing, eh? I rather think of it as dwelling as equals, keeping my eyes open. I know what kids do more than their own parents. The ostrich parent has a star child who can do no wrong. He's a cutter. Did you know that?

Tis remarkable what you can learn when you find your kids, rather than requiring them to find you.

of lawyers and other whiners

Vladdie Putin is sooo funny. Reagan’s dream of a missile-defense system is in the deployment stage. So, Vladdie is in full temper tantrum mode. An article a few days ago read that Vladdie claimed he could get around the system. In the link above, he is saying he’ll just have to select targets in Europe. Wait, if he could get around it, then why would he need to change targets?

I remember when the Strategic Defense Initiative was publicly proposed. The libs called it “Star Wars.” Said it wouldn’t work, was nothing more than a pipe dream. This is, boys and girls, I was close to the programs in the early 1980s. They had been in development for years before Reagan publicly announced the initiative. They were already off the drawing board and into prototype mode. The development now has Vladdie stomping his feet and holding his breath. If he wasn’t worried about it, he would be encouraging its deployment or staying silent.

If you ever want to know how scared someone is, listen to the empty threats they toss around. I almost feel sad for the guy. Must be frustrating to have your entire offensive arsenal rendered useless overnight.

After a critical assessment, I have been determined to be most like the disease rabies (so is my daughter!) What disease are you?

The Beatles have launched a new site dedicated to Sgt. Pepper. June 1, 2007, marked 40 years since its release. What I find very telling is that John’s voice is not among the snippets of discussion on the site – Paul, George, RIngo, George Martin – but no John. Rather underscores the a-holic nature of Yoko.

OK, I suck at true math. I can do financial analyses, but I don’t speak algebra too good. So where’s the error?

a + b = c
4a - 3a + 4b - 3b = 4c - 3c
4a + 4b - 4c = 3a + 3b - 3c
4(a + b - c) = 3(a + b - c)
4 = 3

I am thinking that I am headed back to practicing law – learning too harrowingly that the corporate world has little interest in buying the cow when it can have the milk for free. Found this cartoon. I better print it out to remind me that I have some old skills to recall and new proclivities to dampen.



My main practice area was criminal law. My teaching since was in criminal justice. I think a future practice for me will be in criminal appellate work. Found a couple more humorous cartoons on point:



Bye for now ...

Nonconforming Cartoons

My daughter is back at the drawing table ... well, chair with drawing pad on bent knee. I am familiar with many of the issues that cross her RADAR screen because I am in constant contact with students through work.

There's an issue with kids cutting these days. It's probably always been an issue in one degree or another. The difference today is that parents and teachers are frightened to address issues head-on. Perhaps it is - understandably - because of today's litigious society supplemented with instant communications. I suggest that another segment of these folks are paralyzed in inaction because, well, they are just plain incompetent. Regardless, kids have a refreshing way of handling other kids. You want to cut? You are trying to draw attention to yourself? Go for it! Just cut! Kids know the difference between attention-grabbers and those in real need of help. If parents and teachers would stop chasing their own fears and simply relate one-on-one to the kids - find them at their level - then maybe the difference would become clear to them, too.

A "wigga" is a white ni--, well, you know. Google if it you don't. Kids spend a lot of time emulating other people. When I was younger, I saw teens dressing and acting like Elvis, then The Beatles, and then, well, they were mostly too high to remember who they idolized. But that was the point - they emulated people they idolized, and they idolized people that had achieved some sort of broad-based success or notoriety. These days, the emulation seems to be, at best, of the notorious and, at worst, of each other. A lack of higher goals seems pervasive.

I remember asking my students what they would do if they were handed $1 Million. A freshman piped off with her wish list - so we priced it, deducted it from her bank account, and watch it depreciate. She was broke within months. Her answer? Get another million! Thankfully, other students were more conservative with their newfound wealth.

cartoons from a budding nonconformist, continued

So, with the heat from the Figures of Authority growing more intense, the realization that but for having a website traceable to her, but for saying during study hall (to another student!) that she wanted cheap vodka and strippers for her birthday, she wouldn’t be faced with public excoriation. What’s girl to do but feel like, well, a dunce.

I disagree with the assessment, but I have stated that over and over again. My best friend had a conversation with the very same point guy with The Opposition. She summarized it perfectly, “It is interesting that you think there is just one kind of Christian.”

I recall a vignette I heard years ago. Two guys are very good friends in life. One dies and goes to Heaven. The other follows years later. Upon meeting his newly deceased friend at the door marked, “Heaven, this way. Reservations required,” a few questions are asked.

“Tell me,” new-dead guy asks, “what’s the most surprising thing about Heaven?”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” dead-a-long-time guy responds, “what I find most surprising is the people here that I knew in life and never figured them for Christians.”

“Very cool! How about the most shocking part?”

“Really, you want to know? The people that I knew in life that I was certain would be here, but aren’t.”

Now she is left with cartooning talent but self-imposed restricted content. “Just can’t think of anything to draw,” she says. She thinks, and realizes the idea is precisely that. Instead of having the light bulb go off above her, she sits on a pile of them and declares herself void of ideas.

Quit insightful for a young lady.

Her Blue Period kicks in. Well, some shade of grey, I guess. A happy elf? Sure doesn't look happy.

It is sad to me to see the colors and humor go away, leaving behind simply a talent for drawing. The vibrant thoughts streaming from brain to fingertips were tapped out like a plug in a maple tree during spring. A learning experience? Of what nature, pray tell?

Ah, a glimmer of hope. Yes, still shades of grey, still somber, but ... wait for it ... "Smile like you're on crack" (grammar correct, thank you, baby) and a snapping squad waiting for a mouse treat. Yes! Slowly but surely coming out of the fog, humor intact. So very cool!

There is still some unfinished business, however.

Remember the leader of The Opposition? Seems he was just reacting, at least initially, to a part-time volunteer, full-time gossip monger at the school. Seems she claims to have "accidently found" my daughter's cartoons on the net.

"Accidentally?" Really? How does that happen, exactly? I accidently find porn, telly tubbies, and gay sites (sometimes all on the same url). As of February 2007, there were 108,810,358 distinct web sites. And you just so happened to wander upon hers? Darling, take me to the race track with you, please. If there is one thing in this world that I detest, it is liars.

Oh yeah, the cartoon. Um, Ms. Liar Mom, it's you. You're welcome. Have a nice day. Glad we had this conversation.

So what does she do now? Plays her iPod and thinks. That's my girl. I love her so much.

cartoons rooted in nonconformity

A few months back I began blogging about my daughter’s travails in society: a budding nonconformist meets Figures of Authority.

Here is the first writing, and here is the second writing.

The nonconformity is expressed in her cartoons. Yeah, her word choice sucked at times, but I trust she understands that aspect of it now. Well, she bailed on her websites, so I asked for jpegs so I could post them here.

Here is the first drawing she put up. She captioned it “Little Girl.” I think it equally works as, “Sometimes Toys Must be Punished." My first reaction to the drawing was to remark at how amazing I thought her freehand and PhotoShop skills were. I saw that curtain in the background and viewed the drawing as performance art. Did I think it indicated a need for counseling or group therapy or a prayer circle? No. Still don’t. She is compelling an inanimate object – a teddy bear – to stop making her hear voices. Isn’t that normal?

Next came two drawings. The then-15 year old wanted to fly away on a balloon. So she did. I found the character being developed in these cartoons to be compelling. Now, I don’t know about you, but one fear I would have flying away on a balloon would be getting tangled up. Well, it’s cartoon world, not real life, so the hope-I-don’t-get-tangled test came next (mind you, she has already flown away). How best to test? Certainly cannot be an inanimate object. First, the teddy bear has a knife through its forehead – that would mess with aerodynamics by being a little top heavy. Also, it would not be realistic in that it wouldn’t move around during flight. Aha! A bunny! The Russians have been doing that for years. Unfortunately, the bunny didn’t make it. See the value of test flights?

Next on the Cartoon Hit Parade is a reflection of labeling. Just because a person picks out her own clothes based upon her personal tastes, as opposed to dressing like Mommy (even though you’re a boy) or finding a picture in “16” Magazine that has a dreamy boy looking adoringly at some airhead named Sammi, does not make that person “gothic.” Even if it did, why is it so bad to explore one’s own path? How’s this for a statement: When I was a kid, most of the people I knew were kids, so I’m like an expert. Every single one of them, including the pastor’s son, had a private side, an experimental side, a dark side. Those that were stripped of it paid a heavy price later on. Suppression is pathetic. So when wonder boy shows up and says, “You’re Gothic,” the natural response is to say, “Don’t use words you can’t spell.” Then draw out you fantasies.

Fantasies. Get it? I asked my boy one time about the violence in games. He was 9. “Do you think this affects the way you view things?” “Dad, it’s a game.” Different generation, people. They understand the difference. This cartoon, however, became Exhibit “A” in my daughter being expelled from school after other parents threatened to pull their kids out before she murdered somebody. Whoa. No exaggeration – the phrase, “Columbine waiting to happen” was used. How sad to be so afraid.

Continuing on the guns-in-print theme, a student at the former school says to her, “I hate taking care of the cats. I would just as soon kill them. Can you draw me something like that?” Mind you, this student is the pride of joy of Mother and Father’s hearts. He does little wrong. “He’s a good boy, ayep,” says Father, “must’ve done something right along the way.” People, people, manage the deviance you see – manage it, do not suppress it. Freud really did have something in his concept of Sublimation. Smart guy.

Let's continue on the gun theme. Now, the issue is not a direct response to some kid asking the same question ad naseum, but instead a general frustration that we all share. Girl Scout cookies come around all too infrequently. Imagine when they finally do get here, and they don’t have your favorite kind! It can be more than just an everyday level of angst. Desperate times call for desperate methods. I think the Girl Scout understands now that, “Sorry, no. But I do have Peanut Butter!” is simply unacceptable. They shouldn’t leave something as important as Girl Scout cookies to children.

Notice how the character is developed now. Also, she researched the uniform colors on the net. Should I shudder at the subject matter? She has never shot nor has any interest in shooting a gun. She is the type of girl that is not a conformist such as is typical with Girl Scouts and cheerleaders. That is not to denigrate girls that join such organizations or activities. Different type of person. The language? Cut me a break. I hear it everywhere, including out of Girl Scouts and cheerleaders.

In honor of George Washington, the next cartoon is a combination of dishonesty in the face of incontrovertible facts and an utter lack of patience. Patience? Well, she hung puppy, but couldn’t wait for the process to complete.

It’s like a combination George Washington-Mexican Burrito Preparation-Piñata party. Notice how she captured the look of innocence. I think she looks in the mirror and draws. I have seen that same plaintive look on her.



One of my favorite drawings is "Bathe the Kitty." I love the persona of my girl sitting with her headphones on completely oblivious to the plight of those around her. She's my hero.

Furthering the theme of being oblivious, here is forced oblivion. While surrounded by angry people spewing their venom, she sits passively in her heels and pearls. Not only does she filter the ugliness of those around her, she gives color to the words. She is preserved in her romantic view of the world in spite of the world itself.

Such depth of understanding. I am so proud of her for this simple drawing.

Last two for now. I have about seven more for another post.

Who doesn't like a hot babysitter? The view and reaction of the boy is perfect. I may not have been as young as the boy depicted, but I certainly remember waiting for the new babysitter and having certain expectations.


Do you think he's hearing the story?

Alright. That's all for now. Enjoy your evening.