Sunny sick day

Today I am beginning to get over a cold. I was sick all of this week and Keith was just as sick the previous week. Coughing, congestion, sore throat, exhaustion and a low fever are the symptoms... not the influenza with aches and high fevers as we were worried it might be. No one has been very clear about the flu symptoms since they report shots aren't working  this year so we had now way to know what we had. Last night, I got word from my brother that our dad was struck yesterday with some sort of seisure and is in hospital with mom at his side. Mother called this morning when she got home from her over night vigil and reports he is talking and doing some better with the treatments and is in good hands. We will have to wait awhile longer to get more tests done on Monday. 

The sun is shinning brightly and the air is cold. I am staying in but have lots to do tomorrow my first real day out in the world again since I got sick last weekend. Tonight is the Academy awards program and we will enjoy seeing the program but we haven't seen any of the nominated movies this year. Last year I made an effort with Keith my partner to go see as many nominated movies as we could  before the awards were given and it made the big event more exciting.  It was also fun chasing after the different films. They put out so many at the end of the year that are good films worth while to go see and then they go to DVD or cable channels and you no longer have the chance to see them on the big screen in the dark theater with a few of others in the room. I like best to see a movie in the theater but this year it is going to be hard to catch any of them. Once the awards are given out winning films don't usually stay on screen very long before the freak shows for kids begin to rule the marquees. Starting tomorrow I have to go to a meeting and then in the evening I will be hosting the first male figure drawing in three weeks. We had a long break also due to a model getting the same bug I have this week. Hope I can pull it off without spreading my cold to anyone else. Tuesday back to my Doctor for the usual check ups and then on to deal with the laundry on Wednesday. 

I am sure I will be going out to see how my Dad maybe Thursday evening. 

This week I am reading a new book Speaking for Vice subtitle: Homosexuality in the Art of Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, and the First American Avant-Garde, by Jonathan Weinberg, published in 1993. I think I have read it before but I can't recall what happened to the book. If it was the same book I read back in the early nineties then it was one that set me on a course that made me more proud of my urge to make art of gay men. I began the male figure drawing group I run at home in my rented house on 11th St. NW with a collection of guys from the Washington, DC  gay artists group TAG and my boyfriend Denis as our first figure model.  I am still, 13 years later, hosting the male figure drawing group. We meet now on Mondays at the Warehouse downtown Washington, DC and have a great time drawing lots of different models. After three weeks without a session due to illness and holidays I am really looking forward to getting back to draw tomorrow.