I feel, in a way, like I am fiddling while Rome burns. Of course, I am fiddling with paints and books while things seem to be collapsing or blowing up – including relationships — as the virus waxes, and misinformation abounds.

Once upon a time I could make COOTIE Catchers

How 2020 Is Going So Far…

We almost had WWIII
Trump was impeached
Australia and California are on fire
There’s a global virus outbreak
We couldn’t wipe our butts for a while
Homes are now schools, offices, and pubs
The stock market crashed
Kim Jong-Un died and came back
We all gave each other terrible haircuts
Biblical locust plague in Africa
Murder hornets invaded
Gas prices dropped but there’s nowhere to go
On the bright side — I got $1,200!
~Compilation of internet memes  [plus a few additions by yours truly—tg]

Now This

The Last Week of October 2020

A Ray of Light

But one bit of good news is Two Murder Hornet Queens have been captured. I never imagined I would ever write a sentence with that information in it.

What sentences have you written during this time that you never imagined writing?

We are keeping such a low profile, that some days I hardly see my shadow at all.

It’s the first time in my life, I feel like it’s OK to be a wuss; except when I remember people and places and things that are now off-limits.

So, I finished listening to You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexis Coe and finished a pumpkin painting. The book created a portrait of the first President with details I never learned American survey courses.

Last week, I finished [listening to] James McBride’s Deacon King Kong, Doris Kerns Goodwin’s Leadership and three of four small paintings.

If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday. ~Pearl Buck

Cue the Beatles: Yesterday

The paintings number nigh on to ninetyish. Many are small, 5×7, or 8×10.

No, I am not quite embarrassed by this obsession . . . they have been good tutors, showing me how to keep my hand and brain working together.

And other people’s biographies and stories continue to edify, enlarging the boundaries of the bubble in which we live.

Like this quote from a bio that was quite a stretcher:

“Political partisanship, Washington predicted, would reduce the government to a crowd of bickering representatives who were very good at thwarting each other but got very little accomplished for their constituents. And for all his talk of unity, he had come to see people as for or against his administration and had little patience for criticism. Unbridled partisanship was his greatest fear, and his greatest failure was that he became increasingly partisan.” ― Alexis Coe, You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington

For now, I will keep fiddling with paints and books. Reminds me not to spend too much time looking back: I am not going there.

What I have come to believe as 2020 wanes