Ava Thursday: High fashion

I love this drawing by my 5 year-old daughter, Ava. I assumed that it was her with a dalmation, but she told me that it was just "some girl."

Dig the cool, leggy pose, the purse, the sunglasses up on the girl's head -- this girl's got it goin' on. That's a collar around the dog's neck, Ava tells me, not a scarf.

One more reason why I love this drawing: Andrea tells me that Ava drew this outside in the front yard, while sitting on a blanket, with no images from magazines, no girls with dogs walking by. Nothing for her to base this drawing from -- just her and her imagination.

Illustration Friday: Night

I finally got around to doing an entry for Illustration Friday. This week's theme is Night, and so I thought I'd depict a moment one night when Ava actually got up on her own and went to the potty. See, she's the heavy sleeper type. She sleeps like a log and it's very hard to wake her at times. So imagine our surprise when we hear Ava's sweet little voice call out from the hallway, announcing her next venture. Andrea and I were a bit spooked by hearing her voice at such a late hour because our initial thought was that something's terribly wrong -- this was such an unusual situation. But thankfully, it was a false alarm -- just a trip to the loo in the middle of the night..

And yes, that's me with a beard. I'm trying to grow one right now. It itches like the dickens.

To view larger, click on image to go to its Flickr page, and then click "All sizes."

HARVEY BIRDMAN and the Rebirth of ASIFA-Atlanta

I'm happy to announce that ASIFA-Atlanta is back up and running, with a brand spankin' new screening to prove it! (And an updated website, too.) After the unfortunate passing of our chapter's president, Lou Hertz, back in July, there was this uneasy feeling regarding the future of the organization here in town, since Louie was practically doing everything. It was one of his many loves. Knowing this, there were several of us who banded together afterwards and met in secret bunkers deep beneath the city to lay out a plan so perfect, so diabolical, there would be no way to ignore it: create a new ASIFA-Atlanta that actually tapped into the animation industry here in Atlanta -- with fantastic screenings that tempted and tantalized your animation-soaked brains, and workshops & panels that offered mind-blowing information and knowledge that you could use to your advantage, to benefit you in your evil, hostile takeover plans. (I know what you're up to, I see all.)



And thus, being the screenings organizer for ASIFA-Atlanta, I'm very happy to announce our first screening since the rebirth: AN EVENING WITH HARVEY BIRDMAN: ATTORNEY AT LAW. Next Monday, November 14th, at 8PM at The Red Chair (550-C Amsterdam Ave, in Amsterdam Walk), in Midtown. It will be $5, but FREE for ASIFA members. Click on the poster above for a nice, larger version to download and make copies to pass out around your office or school. Annoy your friends, family and co-workers with glee.

So what's with a HARVEY BIRDMAN: ATTORNEY AT LAW screening? Well, the show is produced and animated here in the A-T-L, so we wanted to pick up on this fact -- that there's a multitude of productions going on here in town with many doing some wonderful work. The great thing about this particular screening is that we've gathered some big-shots on the show to come and talk about BIRDMAN, how the show got started, what goes into the making of each episode, what goes on in the minds of the animators, who actually does any work on the show, etc. Secrets will be bared, tears will be shed. We asked the filmmakers to handpick their four favorite episodes: "The Dabba Don," "The Devlin Made Me Do It," "X Gets The Crest," and "Birdgirl of Guantanamole." Which big-shots will be there? Check it out: creators/writers Michael Ouweleen and Erik Richter, director Rich Ferguson-Hull (he won his catagory in Ottawa, by the way, for BIRDMAN), and producer Evan Adler. The animation crew is expected to show up and talk trash. It's bound to be a marvelous evening.

Hey, did you know that Primal Screen has a connection to BIRDMAN? Yes, Primal did the infamous open, with Rick Newcomb as art director, and Reese Lloyd doing those fun pulp-style illustrations. Rick and Reese will be there at the screening, as well. (Be sure to buy the first season on DVD, as there's a nice bonus section with a live-action version of the opening, with each and every shot lovingly recreated with real humans, done verbatim.)

If you're in the area, do try and come out to the Chair. We'd love to have ya.

If any questions or need more info, check out ASIFA-Atlanta's site, or contact Joe Peery.

Announcing Ezra Mondays

Okay just kidding about that. That would've been pretty wild if it were to be true, huh? Imagine a weekly drawing from a 17 month old -- that's just crazytalk, I tell ya.



However, he did do a drawing a couple of weeks ago while hanging out at my work. He was fascinated by grabbing one of the many red Col-erase pencils I have laying around my desk, so I gave hime one to see what he would do with it. He immediately started to jab with it at the piece of paper that was in front of him. Curious, I drew a simple doodle of a baby on the paper, to see if I could garner a reaction from my little energetic budding artist. He started to "draw" on my drawing, in a reptitious manner. Attack is more like it. That poor drawing of mine didn't stand a chance.

I was able to do a quick sketch of his hand holding the pencil, while drawing:



So is this the beginning of a brand new artist? Who's to know. I am enjoying just watching little Ezra explore this big, bold world around him for the first time. With his bright eyes all wide with wonder, I see him bound around our house and in the front yard with such a fervor to experience everything for the first time. It's quite an event to witness. It serves as a constant reminder of how I should experience this world around me: with new eyes.

It's hard, but I try.

One Year of the Ward-O-Matic

Today the Ward-O-Matic is one year old. It's hard to imagine, isn't it? In the world of blogs, this is called a "blogiversary," but I can't seem to work up the nerve to actually use this term. It seems rather forced and gimicky. But I don't mind saying that today is my blog's birthday. Because it takes up a lot of my time, at times wearing me out, as well as forcing me to stay up late at ungodly hours in the night, I'd say that The Ward-O-Matic is essentially my third child. I'm just happy I don't have to change its diapers. That'd be rather odd.

To mark this wonderous occasion, I've redesigned the template. This is something that I had been dying to do ever since I started this thing. The image you see up in the header there was done in late November of last year. It's taken me that long to figure out the silly coding to the Blogger template that I currently use. Amazing.

I also have a new background pattern. I was always a bit bored by the basic greenish-grey background that I had, so I found a pattern courtesy of Squidfingers, altered the color and tone a bit to fit the look of my blog, and then plugged it in. I'm kinda happy with it. The entire redesign thing is a bit of an accomplishment for me because I tweaked some items that I was really unsure of, plus I could never find the time. But it works, I think. I am a bit worried that it may look wonky in various browsers, so if anyone is experiencing some quirky glitches, please let me know. Nevermind all you feed readers because you never see the blog the way I intend it anyway.

Let me know what you think of the redesign, though. I figured that since this is an art and animation blog, there should be some sort of artistic flare in the look of the site, don't you think? I hope it looks okay.

Because it is my blog's birthday, I figured I'd do a little year in review for you all. The past year, by the numbers:

1. There have been 182 posts (including this one).
2. There have been 1,953 comments, give or take a few.
3. Top commenter (not including me): Jared Chapman with 86. (Andrea a close second with 82. I have 231, by the way.) Jared, do you want a cookie?
4. Based on my Technorati profile, The Ward-O-Matic is currently ranked #7,170 (but changes daily), with 412 links from 160 sites. (Big ups to all of you who do link me. I really appreciate it.)
5. Busiest day: January 18th, when I was mentioned on Boing Boing, with 11,081 unique visitors and 14,814 page loads.
6. Averages per day since January (when I started using StatCounter): 594 unique visitors, 872 page loads. (Although it's much lower if you check out the last couple of months.)
7. My current Google Page Rank: 6/10.

I wished that I kept a list of all the countries that every single visitor to my blog was from, but alas, I did not. I do know that I have readers from all over the globe -- from Denmark to New Zealand, from Iceland to Malaysia, from Alaska to Peru, you name it. The world is a smaller place for me now, all thanks to the wonderful world of blogging. It is simply amazing.

The connections that I've made throughout this past year have been tremendous. To be able to have friends that I've met only through my blog is quite an intriguing thing for me. All I have to say is I wish that I could meet each and every one of you in person! If we could somehow organize a Ward-O-Matic convention where all my readers and commentors could meet up, I'd be totally down with that. It's amazing for me to know that if I were ever to venture off to another city there could be a Ward-O-Matic reader there. I can't seem to wrap my brain around that, it's too wild of a notion for me!

To say I'm honored to be a part of your daily internet entertainment is a grand understatement. It is overwhelming for me to know that hundreds a day come around to check out the latest rant and rave, the latest Ava Thursday, the latest ephemera find. I am completely amazed by this community and I love how it is contantly evolving, always on the go. This is a great, wonderful time now, to experience the goings-on and everyday minutia of the Everyman and Everywoman, through blogging. The wealth of knowledge and experience, of talent and resources that are available for you find on hundreds of blogs now is unprecedented. Enjoy it, people. This is a good time to live in. Enjoy.

Some thanks are in order. I must thank first my family: Andrea, Ava and little Ezra for the constant source of support, inspiration and humor you give me on a daily basis. I have plenty of material to write about, all thanks to you three. Andrea, thank you for being so patient with my ongoing late-night typefests. I'm just kicking myself now for introducing you to the glorious world of blogging, but then again, I am not. You kick some serious blogging butt with your amazing way of writing and pictures. Seriously. Please don't ever stop. You have a gift.

Thanks to my mom, dad and sis for your great supportive, and often quirky, comments. I always enjoy getting a comment from one of you guys. Thanks for being so understanding of this odd little fascination that I have here. And thanks for laying the groundwork for what would become The Ward-O-Matic. Don't think it goes unnoticed.

My Atlanta peeps, you guys rock. Thanks for your support. You know I'll see you later.

To all my internet and blogging friends, buddies, and supporters, I can't say enough about how cool it is to get to know you all through this crazy computer world. It's astounding to know just how many friends I've met through all this. To Jared, Amid, James, Jerry, Johnny, Claire, sThig, Jay, Matt, Patricia, Jen, Paige, Eric, Jan, Cin, Roque, Lindsay, Glen, Joleen, Allan, Liz, Fyse, Newsquirt, Gemma, Jamie, JMorrison, (Slim, you're on an entirely different level) the list could go on and on... thank you all for your time and energy, whether it be through comments, or through emails -- you name it. Like any artist, I crave feedback on my work, and all of you do so with gusto. I really couldn't go on without all of you guys giving me your thoughts, your suggestions, your patience -- you could say that all of you have made The Ward-O-Matic what it is today. Thank you.

One last thank you goes to God, for giving me the talent and desire to create in the first place. You are the Ultimate Artist.

So, what's in store for the next year? Oh, don't you wish you knew! Well, so do I, actually. I do know that it'll be more of the same fun and games that you would expect, plus a few surprises. You never know.

Ava Thursday: Fun collage

When you have a mother like Andrea, of course part of your playtime at home will involve making collages. Ava has had ample collage-time with mommy before, but she was very proud with this particular collage because it was the first time she got to cut out the images all by herself. Grabbing images from a children's clothing catalog and a few tidbits that mommy had saved, Ava has created a wonderful outdoor scene. I watched her thumb through the catalog searching in earnest, and then very carefully cut out the perfect head, the perfect body, the perfect shoes for the main girl character here. I love how she doesn't have any arms -- but gotta have the gloves, of course.

Won't be long before Andrea and I both will be asking Ava for some pointers in our artwork.

Click on image to go to its Flickr page, and then "All sizes" to view larger.

The Fine Art of Doodling

There's a great freedom to doodling. I love the non-commitment in the act -- I don't have to think about all the stuffy issues with composition, color, layout, design, physics -- you name it. Doodling can be a liberating experience for the artist. Whether it be while you're on the phone, in a meeting, or just sitting around, it is so fun to just draw without a care in the world. No strict deadlines, no possible client rejections, no hurried breathing of producers down your neck... just you, your pen/pencil, and your little piece of paper. No guidelines, no fear, no worries.

Just you and your imagination.

Here are few doodles and sketches that I've managed to scan. Some fun, some odd, but all of it off the top of my head.


Fun little sketch of the family.


Dancing people are fun to draw.


Flying girls and some old dude.


I think the guy with the hat is Barry McGee (aka TWIST) from some magazine I was looking at.


Drawn during an ASIFA meeting. I do this thing during meetings or conference calls where I start to doodle faces. Many faces, all stacked on top of each other, all packed together. It becomes some sort of game for me to see just how many different faces I can come up with. Also it's an exercise for me to try and break out from any potential artistic rut that I sometimes see myself get into. This exercise is very addictive.


This was during a conference call. This one guy began talking so my mind began to wonder off.


I was playing around with the india ink pen in the middle here. I then sketched Ava when she was walking to the car. Being the constant dawdler, she had grabbed a piece of chalk and began drawing x's on all the stones that make up our footpath from the house to the car. Silly girl.


Kinda sorta me, kinda sorta not. This doodle was found at the bottom corner of the page after that previously mentioned conference call.

I might post more soon. Let me know what you think.

Creepy crawlies!

I love Halloween. I was one of those kids who really got into this fun holiday. I mean really got into it. One year, I made myself up as a skeleton-like zombie, with a paper maché eyeball hanging from my taped-shut right eye. I found some old clothes that I had grown out of and ripped open holes, tattered the edges and dabbled fake blood in all the appropriate spots. In order to give off the impression that I was a 'complete' skeleton, I even had my mom buy me some black tights and painted white bones that would show underneath the ripped holes in my jeans. I then walked around the neighborhood with a fake rubber hand (which I affectionately called "Hans") asking for candy. I was hard core, man. (Throughout the years, you would find Hans left in the freezer occasionally to give my mom and sister a little jolt in the morning. Just to keep them on their toes.)

I loved Famous Monsters magazine. I once got in trouble for reading the magazine during class. It was one of those classic confrontations in grade school where the teacher stopped the class and asked me to bring what I was reading up to her. I can't imagine what she thought when I handed her issue #158, with ALIEN on the cover. I'm surprised my mother wasn't called immediately.

Ah, but it was all in the name of good ol' fashioned fun. I loved all the horrific creatures and blood-soaked walls of the horror genre. There was so much originality and creativity put behind all those films -- I guess that's why I was so drawn to all of that. There was so much creative energy put into each film, and all just to scare the pants off of me. Even as a kid, I knew it was all fake. Those films and creatures all frightened me to death, but I loved it so. Isn't it funny how that works? Why is it that we are so drawn to what scares us?

So, yes, I love Halloween. It's all about having fun and the thrill of being someone (or someTHING) else. Good-natured heebie-geebies -- no satanism or demonic gooblety-gook, mind you. All about having a great time spooking and being spooked.



To put you all in the mood, I wrote a two-part commentary on one of my favorite animated films, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, late last year. I felt compelled to write about the film after watching it multiple times with Ava and realizing just how well it held up after 10 years. I kinda went overboard analyzing NIGHTMARE, but it was worth it. Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2. Hope you enjoy.

Have a great Halloween!

Blog in the family

You are all well aware that my beautiful and talented wife has a blog, hula seventy. And I've mentioned a while back that my sister-in-law also has a blog, Lulu's World (she's married to Andrea's brother, Nate). Now, in my Things post, I spilled the beans that there were two other family members who blog:

My sister, Amy, is big Alias and Lost fan, thus she's spawned The Evil Puppet Masters, a Bad Robot newsblog. Bad Robot being JJ Abrams' production company. Yes, the same JJ Abrams who created Alias and Lost and who is currently directing MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3. To prove just how much of a fan she really was of the shows, she decided to start up an official fansite for Bryan Burk, executive vice-president of Bad Robot, and executive producer for Lost. Yeah, I know all this sounds so geeky, but geekiness runs in the family, I'm afraid. Amy has become quite the devoted fan who happens to have connections. (Don't believe me? Just click here.) Amy tells me that there are many people out there who would love to be her friend. I'm sure that's no lie.

Lotus Geek is the perfectly titled blog started up by my cousin Rocky. The blog is devoted to anything remotely associated with Lotus Software, but Rocky somehow manages to include snippets of his hectic life in there to soften the blow. Like I mentioned earlier, he's written books on Lotus, like this one and this one. It doesn't surprise me that Rocky would be so completely immersed with computers. Back in high school, he was a member of the Computer Club, of which he tried to convince me to be a part of. I did try my best to get involved, but I wasn't digging all the code you had to put in just to make little square dots look like snow falling for a computerized snow scene. It was crazy. I was outta there.

So, uh... yeah, I wasn't kidding about the high geek factor in my family, was I? The cool thing about Amy and Rocky is they both know that they are geeks. They've come to terms with their geekiness, and now fully embrace it.

And I'm right there along with them.

Ava Thursday: At the farm

Ava drew this last Sunday while at the Buckhead Barn, this horse farm right in the middle of the suburbs of Atlanta. They have a polo club, too. We were there for this fall gathering for my mom's company, where they invite the whole family to come down to have loads of fun and eat loads of food.

There were horse rides, hayrides, games and all sorts of arts & crafts for the kiddos. Ava got to ride on a horse for the very first time (she'd ridden a pony a few years back), and she was so excited -- although you would've never known it, because of her quiet nature. She's funny like that.

So, in the drawing here, that's Ava painting a horseshoe (it was part of the arts & crafts), with Ezra riding a horse -- however, I can attest to the fact that he never got on one. I think. That's Ava's friend Stella, at the bottom of the page there. Not sure who that is over on the left in the chair. I'll have to check with the artist and get back to you on that.

A fun drawing that perfectly documents all the fun we had on that great autumn day!

(As always, you can click on the image to view it in my Flickr, whereupon you can click "All Sizes" to view it larger.)

Things

There are many bloggers out there who do that 100 Things meme, where they list 100 things about them that the reader didn't know (and in some cases probably didn't want to know). I'm not going to go that far. Some people are very good at it, and can make it actually interesting to read. Me, on the other hand, not so sure. So, I'll approach this a little differently. I'm going to list a couple of things that may or may not interest you, may or may not bore you. If you'd like to know more about any of the items listed, let me know and I'll go into more detail on said item in a future post. (This is just to pass the time while I continue to work on my Ottawa installments. Procrastinating, is more like it.) Here goes:

1. I had no cavities until my mid-20's, even though I would eat sugar (and powdered sugar) by the spoonful when I was a kid.

2. I used to wear hard contact lenses when I was in sixth grade. Not fun to put in, believe me.

3. I have a younger sister. She and I are polar opposites when it comes to personalities and interests, but somehow we make it work. She blogs, too.

4. I've broken only one bone in my entire body: my collarbone. You know you can't set that bone correctly? Ever?

5. Andre 3000 once held Ezra up in his arms, while he was fussy in a bookstore.

6. I have a cousin who also blogs. He's written books on LotusScript, Lotus Notes, and Domino. He's a genius, I'm told.

7. I swear, if I had the chance, I would drink my weight in Coca-Cola. In one sitting.

8. I ran a marathon once. I didn't finish it. I was 14 at the time.

9. Throughout my 36 years here on earth, I've witnessed three births and one death. All family members.

10. While throwing papers at 4am, I was shot at by a man in a small truck with a .22 caliber pistol.

11. I love McDonald's Egg McMuffins. I like to wait to have my favorite fast food breakfast item on Friday morning, as if it's some sort of prize for making it to the end of the week, or something. "I'll have the No. 1 with a Coke. And a cinnamon roll."

12. I am the worst procrastinator and will get easily side-tracked, even if I'm right in the middle of sentence while talking wi

13. Back in the day, I still would order just vanilla at Baskin Robbin's 31 Flavors ice cream shop. Too many choices! Too much pressure!

14. I once was called "that little white dude" on air, by Charles Barkley.

15. In college, I drew a weekly comic strip titled, "Urban Diary," for the school paper. It lasted only about 8 strips.

16. My first real crush was Lori Boatright, grade 5. Because I knew that she would never give me the time of day, I drew a picture of us amongst an ocean and a beautiful sunset. I was so dorky.

17. I love the smell of cut grass. It reminds me of my childhood.

18. I never attended middle school. We went straight from elementary school (1st through 7th grade) to high school (8th through 12th). Talk about being dropped into the belly of the beast. Eighth grade was a very trying year for me, considering that I was your classic, grade-A GEEK. (And did you know that the 8th grade was considered "Sub-Freshman?" Upper-classmen loathed us and called us "subbies," in a derogatory way. But we loved that term and used it to our advantage. I don't know how, but we did.)

19. Because I was a big Prince fan, our whole family went to go see PURPLE RAIN when it came out the summer of '84. Yes, I know it was rated R. During that big love scene, if you happened to have looked over at me in the theater, you would've found me slowly sinking down, down, down into my seat out of embarrassment.

20. I've always felt years younger than I really am.

Fun Vintage Commericals

By now, you should know that I'm a big fan of 50's illustration and animation design. Not only do I love children's book illustrations from that decade, but also love the artwork done in ads and commercials, especially the animated ones. A couple of years ago I was assigned to direct a spot for the Boomerang network, where we were recreating the look and feel of old commercials but with Hanna-Barbera characters put into them. We even were allowed to redesign the classic HB characters to fit the style, which is practically unheard of when it comes to network icons. I chose the 1950's, of course (with Quick Draw McGraw), and I went on a mad hunt for any and all animated commercials from that era. We had a tape at Primal with a great collection of vintage kids-related commercials, and for resource I sat down and grabbed as many frame grabs as I could from the tape. I couldn't stop, I tell ya. I got so into it, I literally had to pry myself away from the monitor at the end of the day.

Out of my extensive research, there were a couple of spots I really enjoyed that had a fun look and great styling to them. I've put some of my favorite frame grabs from these spots into a new Flickr set titled, Fun Vintage Commercials. Here are a few highlights:

I Want My Maypo became one of the most popular commercials of that time, all thanks to the infamous tagline belted out by the "Maypo kid," shown here. It aired in 1956, with John & Faith Hubley doing the production, and Emery Hawkins, a former Warner Bros. animator, doing the animation (you can read more about Emery HERE). I love the design of the kid -- you can see why I chose him to be the icon for The Retro Kid, the Flickr group I started. Another bit of trivia, this spot is briefly seen in Brad Bird's THE IRON GIANT, when the Giant's hand is watching TV.

Pepsodent's The Yellow Went was one of the earliest TV spots that was aimed at marketing to a growing teenage market. The zippy animation and editing help this 60 second spot seem like it is only half that long. And guess what? The animation production was done by Tex Avery. Oh, and the jingle was pretty much a big deal too, with the "You'll wonder where the 'yellow' went, When you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!" running around in the heads of many in 1956, when it first aired. I have to say that Suzi, the girl in the spot, has one of the swingingest walks ever recorded on film. Check out the other frames I grabbed from the spot, and you'll see that teenage boys will do anything to get the attention of a cute girl.

I don't know the title to this spot, but The Cheerios Kid was introduced in 1953, along with his female pal, Sue, to promote the energetic possibilites of eating a bunch of little o's. This particular spot aired in 1955, with the character and background design done by TOOT designer, Tom Oreb. I love the way the mountains and how the waterfall were depicted, with everything very stylized and very angular. Fun animation, too.

Check out the set to see more images from these wonderful TV commercials. (And by the way, I plan on updating this set periodically, so be sure to check back often.)

Ava Thursday: Mommy and Ezra

Ava's been on a drawing tear recently, and whenever this happens, new developments are sure to be evident in her work. She drew this the other day. It is of Mommy and Ezra, out for a walk on a nice, sunny day. Ava tells us that Mommy has a "pretty little hat with special things that hang off it." She's particularly proud of the colorful swirly pattern on the dress there. In Mommy's hand is a "rainbow seed that grows rainbow flowers," she tells us. Now, who wouldn't want a flower like that? On the ground is a seed with a flower sprouting out from it. (I thought it was one of the "rainbow flowers," but I was wrong.)

Not only are Ava's attention to details impeccable (the hat, the tassles on Mommy's poncho, the fun swirls in her dress), but I notice that she's trying something out with the arms and hands. When Ava usually draws hands, she draws them as simple three-fingered stick-like hands -- generally when she's drawing on a whim, not ready to tackle the difficult task of drawing out all the fingers, and such. But here, Ava focused more on the thickness of the arms, hands, and especially, the fingers. Notice that there are five fingers on each hand. This is something new in her artistic development, in my eyes. She's thinking about volume and density here.

But why would she slight Baby Ezra in the finger department over there on the right? My guess is that he's smaller, therefore the details of the fingers would've been very difficult to render. But I do enjoy all the details that's she's given him still: the way that his feet have a few toes, and especially his blue cast, complete with doodles (we all signed and drew on his cast before it was taken off).

A fun, cheerful drawing. Makes me happy.

Drawn! on Attack of the Show

TiVo alert: Drawn!, that über-cool multi-author illustration/comics/animation/art blog-thing that I'm a contributor to will be mentioned on G4's Attack of the Show today, 7pm EST/4pm PST, with repeats at various times throughout the week. The blog's creator, John Martz (aka Robot Johnny) will be on the show to talk about Drawn's recent posts, the contributors, and various other geek-related stuff, I'm sure. Support!

Poncho hair

I work close enough to home that I'm able to eat lunch with Andrea practically everyday. It's a much-needed break from the harsh deadlines and assistant interferring that ensues throughout the rest of my day.

Yesterday we had to swing by Ava's school because I had forgotten to put her milk money in her lunchbox. Andrea and I knew that they would allow Ava to get a milk anyway and to put it on her "tab", but it gave us an excuse to see Ava at school, see how she's doing and see her interact with her friends.

When we pulled up to the school, all the kids were outside for recess. Apparently, since the school is going through some renovations -- including the playground area -- recess right now is basically all the kids hanging out in front of the school, running around and chasing one another with no elaborate jungle gym to climb on, fall off of -- no big objects to play on or hide behind (a few trees, maybe). Just a big bunch of kids running around left to their own devices. The teachers are watching all this mayhem, of course, but it's quite a peculiar scene if you don't know the backstory.

We sat there briefly to watch the loud and wild scene. I tried to locate Ava but couldn't find her. "Where is our girl?" "I don't know... you don't see her?" "No."

Just then, Andrea caught a glimpse of magenta flying through the little people. "There she is," Andrea said with a chuckle. I looked and saw a bright red shape moving about the crowd, arms stretched out wide, like an airplane. It was Ava and she had her magenta poncho covering her head, with only her bright little eyes peeking out through the hole. This was her "hair," she told Andrea. She had pulled her sleeves down to where she covered up her hands, which were firmly gripping the sleeves tight. This is what she looked like:



When Andrea walked up to her, Ava jumped up into her arms and gave mommy a big ol' hug, never taking the poncho off her head. When she had enough of mommy-love, she immediately got back down and instantly took off, tassled poncho hair madly blowing in the wind.

Ah, to be a kid again and not worry about social graces or being "normal." I was only a little concerned about Ava's social interaction with other kids before yesterday, but now I'm terrified.

Honestly, I do kinda like the idea of grabbing a poncho and putting it on my head all day at work. I really don't think anyone would notice.