bad metaphor

After bugging E for months to borrow his tablet, and generally being a pest, I let it sit for awhile before I got around to using it. It was a little tricky to get used to at first, but I am coming around. Odette here is my first result:

I haven’t doodled nearly as much since being out of school, as I don’t have as much drive to procrastinate! I’d like to get back into it, and update the blog with Odette’s adventures from time to time. Ideas welcome of course!

The insomnia gnomes reared their ugly little bestockinged heads again, so this morning I got to an early start. While I don’t love not sleeping, I do love observing this little town in the wee hours, just as it’s waking up. Especially on the empty downtown strip. There’s such an air of expectancy, of waiting; it’s as if the pavement has absorbed the energy from the thousands of people who walk it during the day, and stores it up carefully to warm itself during the evening hours. It’s a far cry from walking about in, say, a dead urban area, in which not even the ghosts of past pedestrians linger.

So I was walking along, generally of cheerful disposition (despite the lack of sleep and the slight headache from last night’s bourbon), when I came across the most terrifying tree I have ever yet encountered in my travels.

A pale rendition of the subject in question. The actual thing can be seen at the corner of 9th and Kentucky, in front of the old Lawrence Arts Center.

I noticed the bird first, and faded fears of avian flu quickly revived. The flu fears dissipated, however, when I looked up at the sprawling gorgon of a tree crouching eagerly over its fresh kill. Clearly, the bird had not died of natural causes (and I shall not count murder by tree as something that generally occurs in nature).

Now, as I have discussed previously at great length, I am no fan of birds. I generally cheer their demise. Still, I found I could not quite root for the tree on this battle.

-edited per the boy’s suggestion: “no mouth is fine, but it just isn’t American without the whiskers.”