Birthdays, the irony of insanity & more on art

Rather than narrow the range of topics for this entry, I'll just -- in the words of one of my former (and now dead) bosses -- "throw some shit onto the wall and see what sticks."

So first up: Happy birthday to S2, who turns a whopping 39 today.

S2, despite what I said a few weeks ago about how you "look older than me," you are aging beautifully and have the body of someone considerably younger than 39. Have a healthy, happy year. And lead the assault on 40 for me and The Clairvoyant, as we're nipping on your heels.

Happy (belated) birthday, too, to my bro, JAWs One. I once told him he was the "worst April Fools joke anyone ever played on me," but the truth is he ain't all that bad. I actually kind of like him. ;-}

Next: A little irony from the Homes for the Criminally Insane.

Friday, I worked a swing shift (3-11 p.m.). Shortly after I arrived, I sat down in the living room with one of the residents, who was watching TV. It turned out she was engaged in a marathon of "Law & Order" reruns. We watched a few episodes together.

Here's the ironic part. One of the cases involved an insanity defense. A guy had snapped in a rage and killed his kid's hockey coach. The defense attorney claimed they were the actions of someone with a "mental defect."

I have mentioned, haven't I, that I work at the Home for the Criminally Insane? That the residents are all people who've been found guilty of a crime except for reason of insanity?

So imagine all the things I *might* have said when the woman with whom I was watching this show suddenly started talking back to the defense lawyer's claim that his client was mentally ill. Imagine what was going through my mind when she said, "What kind of lame excuse is that?!"

And further, when she added, "Oh, give me a break! Is this serious? You kill someone and you want to get off with some kind of 'mental defect' business. I'm so sure!"

You cannot imagine, my Fair Readers, how much I would love to share with you the details of the crime that landed this woman in the state mental hospital. But for ethical and legal reasons, I cannot publish any details that might reveal her identity to anyone willing to do the legwork. Suffice it to say, she could've killed a few people, but luckily did not.

In any case, if there's one place I expected to be able to watch a fictional insanity defense case on television without the other viewers scoffing at the idea, it was at the Home for the Criminally Insane.

It just goes to show: There really are no sacred cows.

Lastly, even though I wrote at length yesterday about my view of our respective lives as individual works of art, I'm making myself crazy -- my own insanity defense is forthcoming! -- with an art project I'm doing for my Couples Therapy class. I'm engaged in an activity here with which I have no experience whatsoever except for a slightly traumatizing childhood memory.

One summer when I was 5 or 6 years old, I attended an arts & crafts program of some sort. The only two memories I have of it were both very, very sticky. The one relevant to tonight's issue is having a "teacher" at the camp -- could've been a teenager or an adult -- yell at me for how I was using the paintbrush. I had pushed it down directly on the paper and was twirling it, and this woman *screamed* at me, "You're ruining the brush! What's wrong with you? Are you stupid?! If you do that one more time, you can't paint anymore."

I did it one more time. I got yelled at again and got my hand smacked.

I have never been able to pick up an artist's paintbrush without thinking of that moment. One of my exes was an artist and tried to "undo" that memory in several ways, but judging how I recall it every time I pick up a brush, it seems unlikely to change. It doesn't bother me, but I'm curious about why it's such a tenacious memory.

But I digress.

The point isn't that I have this recurring memory, it's that I'm painting things. I've got no clue what I'm doing. But at least it seems I still have an ounce or two of adventure in me and will try something new. Might have been useful to get some instruction or pointers....

I may be on the verge of making something that no one will appreciate, least of all me. But I have a feeling I'll get an 'A' for the effort anyway.