Illustration Friday: Spring

CATFISH
Originally uploaded by Olias444.

Spring means baseball is here!
This is a watercolor of my boyhood hero, Catfish Hunter (RIP).

Illustration Friday: Monster

JETBIRD
Originally uploaded by Olias444.

Another from the hybrid series...
"What if we mounted engines on a bird's skeleton?"
"It would look like some sort of monster."

Illustration Friday: Feet

spiderwalker
Originally uploaded by Olias444.

Another in the 'bug' series....with feet like these, who needs Dr. Scholls?

Today was my birthday

I suppose that when anyone celebrates their birthday, it should be something special, and it has always been this way for me, but perhaps I think I have celebrated my own birthday in ways that most others have not...I have celebrated many of own birthdays on my own....but not today, I had some champagne with a good friend, this to me was a wonderful way to spend another year in this world..... Another year....
As birthdays go, I can remember the thrill when I was a kid, of the upcoming birthday party that I was going to have, and the presents that I would get!! ohh maan, the toys, the games!, like GI Joe accessories, or Man From Uncle attache' sets, or toy machine guns....and Hot Wheel cars, those were the best...
Birthdays are the best when you're a kid, you have an empty canvas ahead of you, and even then you don't realize it ...then birthdays become a little more complicated when you reach your teens...you're growing up, you don't know what you want (or at least I didn't) and your parents seem to understand this, but they don't understand you, or what you even want, either materially or spiritually, but that's okay, it seems almost normal.
And then you reach your Twenties........and here's where the later birthday stories come.....
When in college, you get thrown into Chico Creek when it's your birthday...when it became my turn, I ran and dodged and faked moves just running away from the guys in the dorms, they chased me all along the green, in fact I admired myself as I did some artful dodges, like football moves, but they caught me, and as the tradition, they all carried me to the creek and threw me in!...the water was cold, and as I climbed out...I had long hair at the time...I shook my hair like a dog and drenched them all!
....ha!
After that, in 1983 my parents took me out to dinner on my birthday, they wondered when I was gonna get a real job, then a week later I DID get one! at North Star Computers...I considered it a birthday present.
Then I was on my own...literally....my birthdays were always spent in ways that had at least a certain symbolism.....
You see, I'm an only child, and as I grew up with no siblings, except for my cousins, I swear I had the whole world to myself...though my parents made sure not to spoil me too much, they probably did....but that aside, it was living day to day, working and playing and spending a lot of time on my own....I wasn't lonely, I didn't know any other way, and I did have little buddies in the neighborhood I would play with....quite frankly, when I would see how other siblings would bicker and argue, I welcomed the solitude...
When I got older I just did things on my own, especially on my birthday....it was just to travel or go to events like basketball games, I did that for many years in the 80's....on my 27th birthday I attended a U2 concert at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. In the 90's I would travel to Arizona and watch spring training games, those were fun trips, even though I was by myself. During this time I would sometimes experience extreme bouts of lonliness, even though I was used to doing things on my own, I recognized the lack of human connection, and the feeling of being on the periphery....more so in the 80's, but thank God for friends you find along the way.
Over the years, I became friends with others who were born in March, other Pisceans, so in 1989 or so, we had our first Pisces Party, and we've been having them ever since, every March. Sometimes I throw them, sometimes others do, but they're always a fun get-together with good friends. It's become more like a birthday season, instead of a specific day.
As I get older, the day itself is not as significant, or no less significant as any other day when it is just good to be alive.

Illustration Friday: Insect

BUGCOPTE
Originally uploaded by Olias444.

I have always thought that helicopters look like giant insects, like dragonflies. Here's the comparison.