May I Borrow Your Crystal Ball?

Had a bit of a scare this week...

As some of you know, I teach microbiology part-time at a local community college. When the semester started this past Monday, I had only six students enrolled in my class. That's not very many, and I know the college folks were seriously considering transferring the six to the the morning class, taught by another instructor. And I'd be unemployed for the rest of the year.

However, all six students work full-time during the day and were unable to switch. Since micro is the last course these guys need to continue on into nursing school, simply canceling the class would have screwed them up majorly. So the class will continue on, and I'll be receiving a paycheck for the rest of the year, barring complications on my part.

But the scare brought to mind why I promised myself, years ago, that I'd never again have only one financial lifeline. It's so easy to have that lifeline cut for any number of reasons, or for no reason at all. I'd love to have a Plan B -- some kind of income-generating enterprise to supplement the teaching position.

Frankly, other than selling paintings, I don't have a Plan B, and art sales are definitely suffering during these horrid economic times (which could get worse in the days ahead according to some economists).

The only thing I can do at this point is to go ahead and make paintings that will be put up for sale...some day. I don't know if this recession will end in my lifetime -- I hope so, but who knows?

In any case, I still plan to paint landscapes that I want to keep -- but sell them if/when the right opportunity comes. Not just any opportunity, but the right one. I won't be so easy-going in the future, even if it costs me sales. I just can't invest large quantities of time or money, or have pieces hanging in a gallery with no financial commitment on the part of the gallery owner, while I try to figure out how to survive.

Sometimes I really wish I could look into the future. Maybe I could then figure out where to go with things. But I guess all I can do is my paint my best artwork possible and hope enough people (who are surviving the recession) will like the paintings, too.

Fairies in the Desert???

OK...we normally associate fairies with green, fern-filled, moist, woodsy habitats, which is entirely understandable. So what are we desert lovers supposed to do if we kinda/sorta like fairies, too? Why, we paint desert fairies!

Like this one. Size is 12" x 12" / 30cm x 30cm and is available at Crystal Fantasy in Palm Springs, CA. Stop by and check it out!

New and Improved

I finally finished a revision I wanted to make to a painting I completed about three years ago. The version on the left is the old, original image, and the revised work is on the right.

Frankly, I like the newer version MUCH better! I'm happier with the "new, improved" view of the desert in springtime.

When Food Is the Enemy

Alright, I'll admit it: food has always been my drug-of-choice when I think I need a pick-me-pick. And if you're trying to lose weight, a little excess (aka "cheating"), on occasion, isn't such a bad thing.

But if you're a diabetic, it can be dangerous. Or deadly.

I'm one of the many Type 2 diabetics in this country. We don't have to shoot up insulin -- that's a "privilege" normally reserved for the Type I folks. We make insulin, but for various reasons, we're "insulin-resistant" -- meaning, the insulin doesn't work as well as it should. Being overweight is one of those reasons -- as I understand it, the fat around our cells literally gets in the way of the insulin, which is needed to get the sugars into our cells. (That's why we're supposed to get our weight down and keep it down).

Well, last night I cheated. The Wiffee came home from her sister's around dinnertime and wasn't hungry yet. So I snacked on a little leftover macaroni salad. And a bite-sized Snickers bar. Then The Wiffee got hungry and Carls Jr hamburgers sounded good.

Now -- one each of any of the fastfood burgers has my maximum number of carbohydrates for one of the three major meals: around 45 grams of carbs. But my snack had carbs too, and I ate it thinking The Wiffee might not get hungry for anouther two hours, when it would have been OK to eat again.

But nope! I went right over to get the burgers -- three of them -- and we split one of them. That probably put me up to around 66g of carbs, plus the macaroni salad and the candy bar. Then we had dessert -- a bowl of ice cream. I'm already had too many carbs, and now I added even more. Bad mistake for a dude like me.

First came the headache. Even before I was diagnosed with diabetes, I would often get bad headaches if I ate too many Christmas goodies. Untreatable headaches. Very painful headaches. And I sure got one last night. And it went downhill from there.

Briefly: nausea. Profuse sweating and feeling like I was burning up. And on the verge of passing out.

I should have tested my blood sugar while all of this was going on. But I wasn't up to it. But I did check it when I was feeling a bit better, and you know what? It wasn't that high. It was only a few points higher than what it normally is before having breakfast after I wake up in the morning.

I suspect my blood sugar was too high, and then dropped quickly. I crashed.

In the end, I'm still alive and functional this morning, although I still feel a little drained. And icky from all that sweating last night.

Food feels like a friend, and most of the time it is. But sometimes food is the enemy. It's an unregulated drug. I believe in "all things things in moderation," but I'm not moderate enough about food. It tastes too good, especially when chocolate is involved!

Even Confucius advised against making food too tasty, less we're tempted to eat too much of it.

Ahem, bro!

Relief Is in Sight!!!

The end of my teaching time is only about two weeks away! If only I can survive that long!

If you don't remember, I've been teaching at a local community college since mid-January: microbiology, zoology and a lab for basic biology. (The first two each have lectures and labs). Teaching, especially putting together lectures for zoology, has been my life this year. As art was the only thing I did before, zoology is all I've been doing in 2011. Unfortunately, the textbook publisher provided very little instructional support, and I've had to put it together as fast as I could, doubtlessly not the best quality.

One of the bureaucratic obstacles I and other P/T instructors have to deal with is: decisions about who is teaching what and when are made at the last minute. That's fine if the lesson plan is already put together, but when I'm asked to teach a subject that's totally new to me and with very little time to put it together, it ends up making me look bad.

Why? Because the students get to evaluate their instructors every couple of years. But if some of the comments are bad, students continue to evaluate the instructor every time the course is taught, until the reports come back entirely positive.

I can see that this is a setup for failure. And I've come to realize I may have to say "No" to teaching requests in order to stay out of those situations, as well as to save myself from the overwhelming task of trying to stay ahead of my students.

All of this to say: I'm beginning to miss doing art again.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm grateful to have a job when so many others don't. The hourly pay rate is better than any other job I've ever had. We still don't have medical insurance -- my wife always had that with her employers, but she lost her job last November and hasn't been able to find anything since then.

And frankly, I keep getting reports about how bad the art shows have been this year. If the economy really is getting better, it's still a long LONG ways from SoCal. In addition, I've been so busy with teaching, I feel I never had the chance to get over being burned out from art. I still need a break. Badly.

Soon enough. When the college is out in late May, I plan on taking two weeks for doing...nothing! And evaluating what I need to do and where I need to go. Teaching has been bringing in the $$$, but I feel like I can't depend on it for more than a semester at a time. All my eggs are in one basket, and it ain't a very stable one.

As usual, I have to do lots of thinking and planning to do. I haven't got it all figured out yet. But first, I have to finish out the term. Take a do-nothing vacation. Then paint and, maybe, re-work course materials for next fall or spring semesters, in case they need/want me to teach again.

Or I'll try to develop a Plan B. Would that be art? I wonder...

Rats!

This weekend was quite the time for critters. Living in a rural/semirural desert area, one expects to see critters -- especially when they're encouraged to come around when people like us put food and water out for them.

Unfortunately, some critters are more welcome than others. Like ground squirrels. They can be pretty destructive.

So we invested in a "catch-'em-alive" trap so we could catch them and relocate those little varmints to other parts of the desert.

But we weren't prepared for the bees we saw for the first time yesterday! They took up residence under the roof where there was no piece of lumber to keep them out. $200 to have them removed this morning. They, like the ground squirrels, were taken to a rocky place out there where they can do what bees do in peace. They weren't Africanized and thus weren't dangerous, but they were too close to our front door and walkway.

Then there were the rats. The rats we have in the desert aren't like the disgusting Norway rats one finds in the cities. They're actually kind of cute!

They seem to like moving into a bale of Bermuda-grass hay that we use to add bedding material for our pet bunny and guinea piggy. But since that hay must stay clean, I caught the two rats and relocated them elsewhere.

Then, in the afternoon, we heard some faint "squeeks" coming from the bale, and my worst fears were confirmed: baby rats! They had fur but still had their eyes closed:

So, what do we do with them? I doubt they were old enough for us to take care of even if we had a way of doing so. I'm sure they were young enough so if we wanted to keep them as pets, they would have been perfectly socialized to life with humans.

But where does one get rat's milk? With two critters already keeping us busy, where would we put more critters (there were three babies)? I doubted Animal Control would want them. And I didn't have the heart to kill them myself.

So we thought about it, and -- as cruel as the Circle of Life can be, we decided to continue the Circle: we set out a shallow container and put the baby rats in it. For a roadrunner to find.

It didn't take long. The babies disappeared, one at a time, and thank God we didn't happen to see the roadrunner take them.

I hate stuff like this, and I wish we could have thought of an alternative. I hate killing, or being responsible for the killing of, animals, especially the cute ones. It literally sickens me. Sometimes the guilt is overwhelming. And it makes me hope there's a critter heaven someplace where beloved pets and wild animals alike go and spend eternity without fear of being attacked or harmed.

Is that too much to hope for?

Changes, Continued

Life this year has been so-o-o different from the life of the previous ten years. As I mentioned in a previous post, I decided not to continue as a professional artist; at least, not until I see a good reason to try it again.

So far this year, I've made almost no art. Instead, I'm spending a LOT of time teaching at the local community college: microbiology, zoology and a lab for a biology class intended for non-science majors.

Before, my days, nights, weekends and holidays were all about making and selling art...and that was it. Now, my days, nights, weekends and holidays are all about teaching and preparing to teach...and that's it. Next week is Spring Break, but it'll be no vacation for me. I've got lab books to grade and more lectures to prepare for.

I'm not complaining...well, not really, I guess. I'm certainly making more $$$ than I ever made from art.

But I'll have to admit: I'm looking forward to late May, when classes will be finished, the grades will be turned in, and I can collapse and sleep all summer. I know I'll miss my students: it's hard not to get at least a little emotionally attached.

But I'll be more prepared to teach those classes again in the future should the college want me to, and this summer I plan to make revisions and changes so the classes will be closer to what I want them to be.

And I expect to do more painting again. And (dare I push my luck?) pursue my other hobby/passion: model railroading.

The light is at the end of the tunnel. I've needed a break for a long time, and I'm totally expecting the break to come in late May.

I'm ready.