Why I will only draw your portrait if your head is made of ice cube or box

"Draw me something," my friend's daughter pleads. "Draw me something so I can color it!"

The usual nervous response: My mouth goes dry. I realize this when I release my smile and both sides of my top lip are stuck on my bicuspids. Everyone has their tell, I guess.

"I can draw you a rainbow, how's that?" I suggest. A rainbow consists of eight concentric half-circles, culminating in a puffy cloud at either end. I can do that. I would feel more comfortable if I had my drafting compass, or at least a protractor, but I'm pretty sure I can draw it freehand if I concentrate and hold my breath.

"No, I want an animal. A dog or a cat. Or a dog and a cat, in a pet store. And Selena Gomez works there."

"Heh. Listen, small person, I don't do carbon-based life forms. How about a three-dimensional box? Or a hexagonal prism?"

Blank stare from the kid.

"How about a very real-looking ice cube floating in a cylindrical glass of lemonade, which has been left sitting on a flat surface at exactly noon on the vernal equinox at the equator, so that there are no shadows cast in any direction? And guess what? It's Miley Cyrus' lemonade!"

"Or..." she bargains. "Or...a puppy and a kitten in a pet store, and if you want to draw an ice cube in there, you can if you want."

"Fine," I relent. My mouth feels like paste now. The worst thing about disappointing kids is how they try to play it off like you didn't disappoint them at all, but inside you know they're wondering if there's something wrong with an adult who can only draw boxes.

It doesn't bother me that I can't draw, but I'm tired of embarrassing myself and being a constant disappointment to every child I know. So a few months ago, I enrolled myself in a drawing class.

The first day, the teacher pairs us up, and explains that our first activity will be to draw a portrait of our partner. The tricky part, and the part that makes absolutely no sense to me and makes me hate her hard in her damn hippie face, is that we are NOT ALLOWED to look at our papers at all during the activity. So...that means prolonged eye contact with a stranger, while drawing a portrait of that stranger, while they watch you draw a portrait of them, while you have no idea what you're drawing, while the entire room is silent save for the soft sounds of pencil on paper. It will be a quiet, reflective time, a time to nurture your artistic spirit, a time to create, a time for you to become closer to you, says Damn Hippie Face. This means it will also be "No fart time," I remind myself. Seriously, Becky. There's really no leeway this time. It's super quiet in here.

My partner is a young, chubby, painfully shy, semi-mustacheod Japanese boy. I introduce myself to him and hold out my hand to shake, and he introduces himself to the wall and holds out his limp hand like a princess requesting assistance down from her carriage. I immediately recognize him as one of my Aspergerian brethren, take two of his fingertips between my thumb and index finger, shake them delicately, and sit down to draw his portrait.

Alright. Draw the boy, but no looking at the paper. The trick, I decide, is to not take your pencil off the paper at all.

Hm, he's got kind of a round face, I observe. I draw the shape of his head, then promptly lift my pencil off the paper. Dammit. Too early in the game for stupid mistakes like that.

I feel for the edges of the paper and reorient myself with where I think I've just drawn the head, being careful not to peek, and I add an ear to each side, pretty confident that I've estimated their exact location within a few millimeters.

I learned back in elementary school that the eyes are supposed to go at ear level, so I trace a short line with my finger from where I ended the last ear, and draw his eye. Then a fingerspace, and the other eye.

I bet nobody else in this class has figured out the trick to this game, I think to myself, smugly. Everyone else is gonna be like, "Becky! How'd you figure out where the eyes go without even looking!" and I'll just shrug and say, "Spacial intuition, I guess."

Wait til they get a load of this.

The nose. I don't do noses. You get nostrils, fella, that's all.

This boy has got a great mouth, really full lips. I definitely need to showcase his lips, they're his best feature.

You know what's weird? Nobody ever notices that little divot between the nose and upper lip! Why does everyone forget to draw the divot? It's called the philtrum, I believe. Well, I don't leave out the details, I'm an observer of the world! The beauty of the human face is in the details!

Crap, my paper slipped. It's okay, it's okay. I found my place, I think. Aaand... (carefully drawing, eyes squinting up at the ceiling so I'm not tempted to peek)... done. Philtrum complete.

Alright, this is challenging. He's obviously trying to grow a mustache, and it's not coming in very well. Do I just ignore the mustache? He's only got about 9 hairs, but they're so long he's clearly been working on it for some time now. That's weeks of growth right there.

Alright, it's decided. The mustache stays.

Lookin' good, Tom Selleck!

"Your wire-rimmed glasses really compliment your facial structure," I tell him. His lip quivers, and he stutters a thank you.

"I haven't peeked even once, but I have a good feeling about this portrait," I smile. "I think you're really gonna like how this turns out."

We're really bonding now, becoming fast friends. "Maybe if it turns out as good as I think it's turning out, I can make you a copy and you can give it to your parents as a holiday gift," I offer generously.

DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER:

JOYEUX NOEL ON THIS MOST HOLY DAY

OF THE BIRTH OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR.

WARM REGARDS,

STEVEN

Done! Phew. Look at me, finished with minutes to spare! May as well work on his hair a little, go over the lines with my pencil and make them darker. Add a little contrast and weight to my portrait.

I'm not sure where my original hairline started, but maybe if I count three fingerwidths down from the top of the page and start there...*scribble scribble smug artsy haphazard I-could-do-this-in-my-sleep, sketching-while-I-stare-off-disinterestedly-at-the-far-wall face*

Oh! And eyebrows...I forgot to add eyebrows...*blindly measures fingerwidths, scribble scribble*

"Time's up!" chirps the teacher. "Pencils down, take a look at your portraits and share them with your partners."

I open my eyes and gaze down upon what I'm sure is my finest, and my only, artistic achievement to date, and:

Me: GAAAAHHHH! NO! NONONO!! NO! (lays on desk, covering paper with torso) NO! NO! NONONO!! (rolls paper into a tube, sticks it down front of pants) NEVERNEVERNEVER!

Teacher: Oh, let me take a look. If you put effort into it, a piece of your soul will shine through like crystal sunlight pachouli clouds...

Me: BACK OFF! BACK THE FUCK OFF RIGHT NOW I SWEAR TO GOD!! (Tears a corner off the paper, pops it in mouth, chews) I'LL EAT THIS WHOLE FUCKING THING, I SWEAR IT.

Teacher: Becky. Sweetie. Let me just take a look...

Me: (claw swipe) REOOWWW!! HISS! (stuffs another wad of paper into mouth)

Teacher: Hon, don't eat your portrait. Shhh, it's okay. Becky, come on. I'm sure it's...let me...let me see...(pulls paper out of my pants, loosens my fingers one by one)... It's okay sweetie, let go, good. Let go a little more, and there. See? Now what could be so bad... oh.

(sucks in air through clenched teeth)

Oh.

Me: I didn't even... I DIDN'T LOOK! I WASN'T ALLOWED TO LOOK AT WHAT I WAS DRAWING!

Teacher: The eyes, the eyes are just so (tilts head sideways)... and is that... is that a tooth? A buck tooth?

Me: It's the PHILTRUM! The LIP DIVOT! My paper shifted up and I didn't realize it!

Students: (whispering behind hands, shaking heads in disapproval)

Me: I know, I know what you're thinking, and I agree, it looks bad. Really sorry. It was totally unintentional.

Japanese boy: Hey. Don't feel bad. I kind of like it. You drew my mustache really well. Really long on the sides.

Me: Really? You like it? I noticed your mustache right away. It's quite silky, really.

Japanese boy: Thanks. I've been growing it for two months. (proud smile)

Teacher: Aw, that's sweet. (smile)

Me: S'nice. (smile)

Japanese boy: When it's my turn, I'll draw your mustache really good too.

Me: (sad face)

This post is so awesome, God just called and asked me to go steady

By nature, I'm very literal. Sarcasm eludes me most of the time, although I'm putting forth a lot of effort to learn how to better interpret as well as dole out sarcasm. Like, for example, if someone says something that may or may not be sarcastic, like "Nice work, you totally housed that pizza, I wasn't really in the mood for dinner anyhow," I will ask, "Was that sarcasm?" and they will either say "Yes" and I will feel like a Nobel Prize winning linguist, or they will say "No" and I will then ask, "Was that a sarcastic no?" and on it goes. But I always get my man eventually. And by "my man" I mean "my answer regarding sarcasm". Hey, was that sarcasm what I just said? I meant one thing but said another, so I nailed it, right?

A flashback, if you will...

Come with me for a moment, back to high school...

Becky closes her locker and walks down the hall, as one by one, books and assorted items begin to tumble from her backpack.

Mean girl: HAHAHA!! Nice work, Becky. Oh, real nice work!! HAHAHA!!! 

Becky: (picking up her things) Actually, that wasn't nice work at all. I must not have been paying attention when I zipped up my backpack. That's pretty much the opposite of nice work, if you ask me! It's careless is what it is!

...aaaand we're back. See what I mean? Literal. 

This inability to grasp the nuances of the language makes blogging a little more difficult. Like for instance, the first time anyone ever LOL'ed in my comments section...

Becky: Oh my God. Wow. This is fantastic. I made someone laugh, audibly even. They laughed so hard they laughed out loud, for all the world to hear! And they have, in turn, gifted me with this LOL, so that I may know that I earned the highest of all responses: The laugh that will not be contained. I've never been more proud.

Eventually I had to look up the meaning of "ROFLMFAO", and...

Becky: Whoa. Rolling? On the floor? Hold on now. That seems a little extreme. I've never in my life rolled from laughter. Now, this sounds like it might be hyperbole. 

One of my facebook friends consistently writes at the end of her status updates, "LOLOLOLOL!!!!" and I'm left to wonder...is it possible to laugh out loud out loud out loud? It must be a Zen thing. My brain hurts just thinking about it.

So I get it now. People aren't destroying their monitors with spit-up coffee, nobody falls to the floor and rolls around their office unless of course they're on fire (Stop, Drop, and ROFSHSIBIB*) and they even write LOL without cracking a smile, which seems like the biggest lie I've ever heard of. The discrepancy between what is typed and what I imagine might actually be going on makes me feel uneasy sometimes.  

But okay, I'll go with it. LOL. See? That was practice. I was flipping channels while I typed that. ROFL!! I typed that one while I was scratching my boob and thinking about burritos. How does it feel? Not good, right? Right. So let's do something about this, here and now.

I propose that in lieu of LOL and other such insincerities that only a master linguist specializing in the art of colloquialisms or maybe just someone not located at around indigo on the Aspberger's Spectrum could decode, comments should go one of two ways:

OPTION ONE: Complete sincerity.

Like this...While reading the second paragraph of this post, I exhaled sharply through my nose three times in succession, which I believe qualifies as a "snort". I felt amused in that moment. I didn't read the rest of it though because I had to pee really badly, so after I established your intended tone in paragraph 3, I felt I could comment appropriately enough to make you think I read all the way through. 

Or this...I thought the part about the cat and the balloon and the turkey sandwich was funny. I didn't laugh audibly, but a pleasant feeling originated in my stomach and resulted in a smile. I have written similar posts, yet I have far fewer followers. This confuses me.

Or... I, too, dislike bad drivers. This was not laugh out loud humorous, although I did emit a soft "Heh" sound when in an ironic twist, the bad driver was you. I have had a similar experience. I can relate. 

OR...

OPTION TWO: If you're gonna lie, go big. 

As in...I just laughed so hard I spit up coffee on my computer, which triggered my gag reflex, and then I yacked everywhere. I'm so overcome by laughter-induced hysteria that I'm making festive hand-print turkeys on the walls with my own excrement. My husband and children have passed out from shock. What a morning! Thanks for the laugh to start off my day! 

Or...I just laughed so hard that I bent over and blew out the windows of my office with a high-powered shit missile. Funny stuff!

Or perhaps...Oh my God, I laughed so hard I'm peeing right now. I can't stop, seriously. It's like a fire hose. I'm going to have to cut this comment short because the pee level in my apartment is rising quickly and I have to locate my scuba gear and get the pets to higher ground. Kids!! Run!! Run to Aunt Linda's house before it's too...*gurgle* 

Lastly...After reading this post, all my organs failed at once. I am dead. My ghost has instructed my cat to finish this comment. Meow. It was THAT funny. PS: I have an award for you over at my site!:-) 

Don't get me started on those bullshit liar emoticons. 

*Rolling On The Floor Saying Holy Shit It Burns It Burns

***

PS: I just discovered that there is a new LOL, called RL LOL. It means "Real Life Laugh Out Loud". Finally, the two-faced LOL is revealed for what he is: A liar, a scoundrel, and a confuser of Me's. This new RL LOL will change everything. Now I will know when you guys are laughing out loud, for real, in real life. Now I will have peace.