Update on Illustration Friday and the virtues of slowness

The pink parts in the lower corners are my toes as I tried to hold the picture flat on the floor to take this photo... (click on it for a larger view).

I haven't done much over the last few days except paint over this picture and paint over it and paint over it. (This is the "before" version.)

It doesn't look much different (or better) than it did before, but I learned some stuff.

I used to be very achievement-oriented: being efficient and fast was a high priority.

Lately I lecture myself on the virtues of being slow. Being slow, being a mono-tasker, these are luxuries in my life as a solitary empty nester.

Recent activities: hours spent doing Yiddish homework of no value to anybody but me; making midi files of 8-part double choir motets just for fun; painting a lousy picture over and over; darning a sweater so tattered that even after this attention I can't wear it in front of regular folks.

Tain't Nobody's Biz-ness If I Do
Words and Music by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins (and Saffire)
There is nothing I can do
Nothing I can say
That folks don't criticize me
But I'm gonna do
Just what I want to anyway
Don't care if they all despise me

If I go to church on Sunday
And I honkytonk all day Monday
Ain't nobody's business if I do

And if I should get a feeling
I wanna dance upon the ceiling
Ain't nobody's business, oh it ain't nobody's business if I do

If I stay out all night
Spend all my money, well that's all right
It ain't nobody's business if I do

You try to tell me I got no right to sing the blues
What gives you the right to tell me what I should do?
It ain't nobody's, ain't nobody's business if I do

If my friend ain't got no money and I say take all mine, honey, 'Taint nobody's biz-ness if I do, do, do, do.

If I give him my last nickel and it leaves me in a pickle, 'Taint nobody's biz-ness if I do, if I do.

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