Night Painting

I am a plein air painter. I paint outdoors at my easel. I paint around Chicago. This past Saturday night I painted, for the first time, at night. Yep. I bought a coal-miner-style headlamp from Target and redorkulated and everything.

A small faction of the Plein Air Painters of Chicago (PAPC) headed to scenic Riverside, IL for this night paintout. It was in the hopes of creating some spooky or creepy, yet realistic, paintings for Poefest (a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe - Oct. 26 6PM @ Stars and Cigars in Berwyn).

At any rate, it was an interesting expereience and I wasn't quite sure what color paint I was putting on paper. But it was fun and I had a good time (see my painting above).

Riverside, IL is this crazy cool suburb where little kids can ride their bikes all over town when they're 7. It's that safe. It's like Mayberry. While I was painting some older boys rode up to me to check what the heck I was doing in their town painting with a headlamp. Well, they were out of high school (19) and riding their bikes around town on a Sat night (real achievers). After I explained what I was doing, they continued to hang out. I was finished so I packed up. They're still yapping away to each other and calling some girl on a cell phone. Then one guy asked me for my phone number! What the? I said "no, you can't have it". He said "why?" - I said, because I'm somebody's mamma! "So what" he said. I said "I'm married". Then I said "I'm 37". This, to my great pleasure, was recieved with much surprise. The instigator said "oh, I thought you were 19". His buddy, the smarter of the pair, - said "wow, you don't look older than 27". They made my night!! Sweet 27!

It gets better.

While chewing the fat with a few fellow night painters, at the local corner ice cream shop (it's so picturesque I could barf) - a gal asked me if I was "Becky". It was my old friend from grade school and high school - Halenia! Wow! She just moved to Riverside with her family from Chicago. She looked fab! She was always very cool - very athletic and smart - and from the old neighborhood. She told me I look exactly the same. I interpreted that to mean "same weight". It's not true but I'll take it!! Woohoo! I was no skinny biotch back in HS but I'm 15-20 pounds heavier now. Although I am very fit now. My abs, aside from the mommy trauma, are better than back then.

Ok, now that I'm looking at the photo of my abs - I'm wondering what *!@$ possessed me to put it up there in the first place! It's this - I work hard in the gym and am proud of being fit - even if it doesn't translate into a perfectly flat stomach or perfect body. If I can be proud, so you can you. So don't believe all that media hype gals! We ARE good enough. Oh, and flatness doesn't mean strength. I have strong abs with a layer of fat over it for good measure :-) (I'm crazy)

I digress.

This is what happens when you don't blog for awhile. And, no, I have not been drinking while blogging.