homework is fun!

so The Teen and I have an inspirational chat. . .

or rather, he listens to something I've said (wonders will never cease). . . and takes a small degree of inspiration from it - his thoughts fly in a direction he hadn't anticipated and he is pleased with the result. . .

which is all a bit weird, because usually he treats me and my suggestions (should that be my suggestions and I?) with a tolerable degree of derision. . .

he's currently planning his art work for his upcoming exam and has had idea after idea after idea (I knew dragging him along to those exhibitions was not a waste of my time or his); one of them involving Che Guevara; I gently point out that perhaps the visual iconography of Che is an artistic area within which he feels comfortable because so many teens do and thus he is familiar with the image - over-familiar, in fact - and perhaps he could be more original. . . ?. . .

I did point it out very gently, I hasten to add. . .

never one not to want to be original (which teens aren't?) (it's kind of a paradox, isn't it? they either want to all be the same, or they all want to be different and are thus all being the same anyway) (is that a paradox, or just irony? or perhaps I need a thesaurus) he looks at me curiously and seems to think about what I say and goes off to do a little more thinking. . . he comes back and we talk a little more and we end up discussing the printed word and fonts (a subject close to my heart, as you, dear reader, know) and I look thru my art cupboard for supplies and then on-line for something else which leads me to a place where I even manage to find him a MetallicA (sic) typeface. . .

. . .found myself a Coca-Cola one, too

somehow a small degree of brightness enters my heart and I genuinely smile for the first time in days

it's a good feeling