Collage Spread From An Old Journal

In the final days of 2004 I started filling this sketchbook with depictions of thoughts, actions, and the observations that inspired them. At the time I had just completed 5 years of college. I'd been working full time (simultaneously) to cover tuition, so I only had 10 or so thousand dollars worth of loans left to pay off. But my intolerance of accruing interest led to an obsession over odd jobs to obliterate my debt.

My degree to be an elementary educator never fully appealed to me. I love children, but I'm no fan of rigid classroom structures. I prefer to be out and about, teaching (and learning) things, but not necessarily anything in particular (just yet.)

My Leo horoscope instructed me to spread my good intentions; be brave in promoting my ideals; ramp up my powers of persuasion to a new level; but not waste my time trying to win over dumb beasts, bad listeners, and narrow-minded dogmatists. To this day, over 5 years later, I remain in that battle.... but like the weaker person in an arm wrestling match, whose hand is perpetually tilted backwards, but never all the way against the table. Forever in it to win it!

FOOTSIE NOTES:

1. AYUDA MUTUA means mutual aid in Espanol.

2. THE PIONEER ANOMALY is an observed deviation from predicted trajectories and velocities of various "unmanned spacecraft", most notably Pioneer 10, 11, and my life.

3. Oscar Wilde once said, "a cynic knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing."

4. Farid El Atrash, born Syrian, raised in Egypt, is widely considered "king of the Oud."