Fish. With Lipstick

October 26, 2005

Because work is supposed to be fun, our trainers passed around stacks of papers with fish outlines printed on them. “We’re going to play a colouring game,” they said. We went through the pile picking out all sorts of fish: happy fish and sad fish, pikes and salmons, and even the occasional carps. Once we all had our fish, we fought furiously over the coloured markers.

I clutched the browns and reds and held them in my fists, growling whenever someone asked to borrow them. The way I figured, browns and reds are the most useful colours when colouring fish. There aren’t too many neon-green fish out there, and if there are they’re probably not worth eating. All real fish are brown. And have intense, red lips.

The exercise brought back vivid memories of childhood and eating pencil crayons. The last time someone asked me to colour shit I was five; luckily since then my skills haven’t diminished. With a few careful strokes I turned my outline into an epitome of realism — the fish nearlyswam off the page. All the other fish were confined and neatly coloured, but mine had legs and spine!

Unfortunately, my co-workers didn’t appreciate my fish as much as I did. Some even laughed at it. People are blind to beauty. So I cried a little, and then took my artwork home and hanged it on the fridge in all its postmodern glory. This morning 2 out of 2 teachers who share that fridge agreed that my creation is pretty great. Sherry even gave me a golden star. Score!

Posted by Tudor at 11:24 PM in Working Life | TrackBack

Comments

where does this fish fall on the evolutionary scale?

Posted by: karen on October 27, 2005 at 12:52 AM

Didn’t you see its feet? That fish stomps on the evolutionary scale and makes the needle fluctuate wildly between 15 and 290. It’s hiding out in the bathroom till the stupid humans kill themselves off, and then the lipsticked coelacanth will be the dominant species on the planet.

Just like God planned 400 million years ago when he invented them.

Posted by: regan on October 27, 2005 at 01:49 AM

Jeez, Regan! I haven’t laughed like that in a long time. Thanks.

P.S. Zac gave me a cd to give to you.

Tudor: Sorry for hijacking your wonderful post.

Oh yeah, still going to model for Amie’s class?

Posted by: Kathy on October 27, 2005 at 12:28 PM

Last I heard, Wilfrid Laurier University will pay me $60 to take off my clothes. hahaha. So, yeah, I’m definitely modeling for Amie’s class. Thanks for hooking me up, and I promise you’ll get more details soon.

Posted by: Tudor on October 27, 2005 at 08:05 PM

OMG, I don’t think I could do that in a million years… Wow. I just hope they keep the room warm for you…

Posted by: spindriftdancer on October 27, 2005 at 10:02 PM

hey that’s not too bad at all. How long do you have to sit? If that was just an hour or two… man, awesome gig

Posted by: sra on October 27, 2005 at 11:19 PM

The session lasts two hours (with some breaks in between), so it’s not a bad gig at all — but then again I haven’t done it before and I’m kinda nervous about it (what if they all attack me with pencil crayons at some predetermined moment?)

Posted by: Tudor on October 28, 2005 at 07:43 PM

usually the people drawing you are just as nervous, if not more so

just one word of advice: don’t try to look at any of the drawings while still naked (it’s not a pretty scene, trust me)

Posted by: karen on October 28, 2005 at 07:58 PM

I was mostly wondering because Amie said you had to email her prof to make it official, and I wasn’t sure if you’d done that yet. I didn’t want you to miss out on the opportunity.

Posted by: Kathy on October 29, 2005 at 12:59 PM