Gorbachev's Tank

I just went out and got myself a bunch of art supplies. Easel, a bunch of acrylic colours (the only stuff I had left from last time was a pint each of red and black), brushes, the works. I just started on a painting which looks sort of like someone has regurgitated a mixture of absinthe and chocolate. It is supposed to be a forest, but firstly it is not yet finished and secondly I am probably the worst painter in the world. I am far too lazy to use different brushes, and I resent having to clean the brush, which leads to a lot of crappage. In a few years, this will hopefully be seen as a facet of my beautiful genius. I will, of course, keep you posted as regards my career as an artist.

I am haunted by some sort of sickness this week, and as always when I have a sickness that involves fever or fits of shivering, my dreams have been stranger than usual - I even had a nightmare!

I guess I am one of rather few people who almost never has nightmares, but at around 5 a.m. Monday morning, I woke up in a sweat from a dream of some sort of snake telepathically pulling me into a tv screen. Not that I usually fear snakes at all, so it was sort of weird. I will admit, though, that a snake pulling me into a tv would freak me out in real life as well, but not moreso than a badger trying to pull me into a toolshed or an egret pulling me into an episode of Frasier. I also fell asleep on the couch this evening, sleeping for more than three hours (which is so not me - I only sleep at night, in my bed) and dreaming of airplane restrooms in some sort of emergency situation and educating an acquaintance about the presidency of Boris Yeltsin. When I related this to her as I woke up, she asked "Who the hell is that?" so I had to repeat the process - how tedious! I remember having one fact wrong in the dream although all the others were spot on, and that was that I said that Yeltsin was riding Gorbachev's tank. Then I dreamed of a crying old lady in clown makeup, lamenting that her dog had just been run over by a train, so we sang about 40 things to do with a dead dog. Very odd. I hate having a fever.

Back to reality: The book Cowboy Angels which I am currently reading is one of the best, how shall I put it, stories about men doing things together. A Tom Clancy-esqe action-packed novel about covert ops and guns, that is. Plus a bit of time and space travelling. The difference is that Cowboy Angels is one of those books I found quite hard to put down. I am almost finished with it, and I must admit I was a bit disappointed by a few details, but all in all it is an essential read for those who want a few hundred pages of Adventurous Male Story.