Herbert the Snail

My drawing exercise for today was a shell. I've decided that I'm the worst at shading in the whole of the world. I probably only make it worse because I get impatient and start scribbling, then I get patient again, but it's too late; I've already ruined it. Then I think, maybe I'll get creative and smudge everything with my fingers (this is fun), and try to balance the silly shading that way. It-never-looks-good. Month #1 sketching log: I'm the worst artist in the history of ever.
Right now, practice doesn't seem to be making perfect, it seems to be making pathetic. I'll keep trying.
So for my drawing project, I think the shell is for a mollusc, but when I was drawing one of them, I got frustrated and added a really silly looking snail. I like him a lot - he reminds me of the music machine and Herbert the Snail (have patience)
In other news, I've started reading The Brother's K (Duncan), and I'm getting along. I'm liking it more than I did on my first attempt. I think I like it all the more for having read the Brother's Karamazov (though the similarities are few), because in my head I keep pretending there are connections.
At church today, I drew a snail, a bird, a turtle and a fish, and none of them are on the same gravitational plane. The pastor discussed Thomas, and made him out to be something of an ISTJ, which I appreciated. I think there is more to Thomas than the doubting fellow we disdain, though the Bible contains few passages that even include him.
I won all the games today - I'm pretty much the luckiest.
That was my day.
And snails.




silent the shell your ear is in
echoes the ocean within,
for this mollusc has never been
subsumed by the sea.
oh, I exude the ocean -
it wells in my eyes,
runs in runnels down my spine,
wets my brow.
I swim in my mutable brine
and I am an island, John
unto myself, and this shell
is echoes of me, and I
am contained wholly inside -
hold your ear close and hear me
for I am the sea, old man,
and I will ever be
wild and whimsy -
don't pretend you know
the depths of me, or the swells
of my emotions.
How high I rise when the moon
summons me, and low I sink
when she moves beyond my reach
though she hides her face
or ripples in my waves
her gaze pierces my hide, this shell,
and I sing, howling at the night sky
oh, what heights I'll go
(though never sufficiently)
and in the end, she chose the night
and bears what's beneath behind
as the trail of a wedding dress
spiraling down into a whisper
that echoes in this shell