I'm me&nobody... that is a vintage photo of me for, uh, security reasons. Yep. The old rusty truck is one of my watercolour paintings-- there are a couple more on here. I can draw and paint anything in any style including cartoon but I'm OCD compelled to detail and realism, not sure why.
I am a last day of September midnight-born Libra baby. I think my moon is in Honda and I'm a Toyota rising. Ok, so I went to look this up-- I'm a Virgo moon and Cancer rising. What does this mean to me? Nothing because I don't follow it or understand it.
How old am I? Well... I'm younger than Stevie Nicks, Debbie Harry or Kate Bush... if you want to know more, you'll have to cut me in half and count the rings.
Grew up on a farm and learned to do all the farm stuff, plowing, cultivating, cutting, raking, baling hay, etc. Learned to drive at 12 standing up on the tractor. My father treated us all like small genderless labourers. We picked stones until we could not see our bleeding hands in the dark and we built fences knee-deep in bug-infested swamp water, fed cattle after school in minus 40 F winters, chopped wood, weeded, helped deliver calves in the middle of the night... but we also played Tarzan swinging on ropes in the barn, found kittens in the hay, went swimming, berry picking, fished (including ice), went snowmobiling, played hockey, skied, snowshoed, winter camped and did other fun stuff.
When I got to high school and found more musical instruments than just a triangle, I fell in love (with a girl and a trumpet) so then all I wanted was to be a trumpeter -- orchestral or studio-- was obsessed and practiced up to 8 hours a day. Became a soloist. A brass player from the RCMP band heard me play and offered me lessons but I was 16 and my parents would not sanction it-- I would have had to travel and it would have been expensive. Broke my heart.
I was competent in art so the idea was to send me to college in Toronto for graphic art. Straight from the farm to the big city at 17. That effort ended in my first semester after I went head and shoulders through the windshield of a car, was seriously injured and lost my year.
Thus I entered the work world and a string of jobs from landscaping to courier to postal worker to serious (brutal) forestry work where I had to get a chainsaw license, cut tall trees and brushed out acres of forest dressed in full gear in the heat of summer, and in winter I skidded logs with a team of beautiful Belgian mares who I bonded with. I was also a researcher, copy editor, proofreader in government departments and finally for a few Senators and in the House of Commons. I tried to paint while supporting myself but was so unfulfilled and restless.
Then I won a place in college to train and eventually became a Class A auto mechanic at Honda. Later I was hit by a physically debilitating disease and eventually had to leave the trade.
The government sussed out my artistic past and put me through rehab then college and I finally became the graphic designer I started out to be 15 years earlier.
As for music, I did get to play lead guitar (and some bass) in a band which I loved doing. I also published two books, some magazine articles and won some writing competitions. I was once shortlisted for a Canadian Writer's Union short story competition. So I've had some compensation for my lost love of musicianship.
Despite my limitations I still wrench in my backyard, restoring an older truck and helping neighbours with their larger and smaller engines. I spend far too much $$ on tools. 'Have Tools- Will Travel'. I am addicted to "Will it Run and Drive?" old abandoned car rescue videos and restoration videos. In fact, off to watch one right now... Cheers!
