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I am waiting.

Patiently.

Who am I kidding…I have no patience.

whenever I order anything off the net I find myself going mad waiting for it to arrive. Little Miss Instant Gratification, that’s me.

In this particular instance I ordered three things; two from Amazon.com and one from a site called JetPens.com.

From Amazon I ordered two books: one called ‘Generations’ and the other is ‘Piece by Piece’, a biography of Tori Amos. The second is pretty self-explanatory, the first, I thought it best to do a little ‘cut and paste’ summary:

Book Description
William Strauss and Neil Howe posit the history of America as a succession of generational biographies, beginning in 1584 and encompassing every-one through the children of today. Their bold theory is that each generation belongs to one of four types, and that these types repeat sequentially in a fixed pattern. The vision of Generations allows us to plot a recurring cycle in American history — a cycle of spiritual awakenings and secular crises — from the founding colonists through the present day and well into this millennium.

There.

So, the third item, the one from the JetPens site, is a set of 8 pens with the finest point to date: 0.18mm. About the width of two human hairs. Came out in Japan…apparently the Japanese have an even larger affinity for fine point pens than I do. I am a self-confessed card-carrying pen junkie. I do not wish to calculate the dollar amount of the pens I’ve had in my possession, past or present. Rapidoliner, Koh-i-noor, Staedtler, Rotring, et-ce-te-ra et-ce-te-ra. I love drawing in ink, hate drawing in pencil. Too fuzzy. For all my pen and ink drawings I do the preliminary sketch ONLY with my Koh-i-noor Rapidomatic mechanical drafting pencil, 0.5mm.

(I just had a flash to Forrest Gump giving his narrative about how much he “loved using his Flex-o-Lite ping pong paddle”).

I find it ironic that I can spend hours with a 0.25mm pen drawing a cathedral in minute detail yet find it insufferable to wait 3 bloody days for my packages to arrive. As does my husband. I puzzle him on many levels. I think I provide interest and amusement in an institution (marriage) which is typically stereotyped by monotony. So he giggles and goes on.

My attention to detail makes it difficult for me to be expressive in my painting. I’m so busy trying to be meticulous that all emotion and expression is lost via a template and ruler. And a small-ass paintbrush. That’s why I like painting so much with filberts, flats and brights; painting on the edge gives much more precision than the tip of a round. (My apologies to those who passed up art class in high school and have no idea what I’m talking about. Too bad for you).

Stop, children…what’s that sound…everybody look what’s goin’ down…

Voulez-voulez-vous goin’ down.