While I was drawing this 2 men stopped, at different times, to talk to me.

While I was drawing this 2 men stopped, at different times, to talk to me.
The first one, who was carrying 2 plastic shopping bags, wearing flip flops and shorts and sporting a pony tail, complimented me on the drawing.
'Hey,' he said, interrupting me so I had to take the headphones from my ear holes, which made me slightly annoyed, 'I just wanted to tell you that you really captured that, like, you know, you really got it,'
I told him thank you and that I very much appreciated his compliments.
'Well, I better let you get back to it,' he said.
'Okay, thanks,' I said, feeling very happy that he was now leaving me alone.

Then, about half an hour later, with my patience levels shriveled to zero by the relentless sun, I was interrupted again by a buckled shadow casting itself across my drawing.
I looked up and saw another man with a pony tail.
This one was wearing a baseball cap, also, and some kind of American football sweater and was hunched over, the cane he leaned on seemingly keeping him upright.
Looking into his face I saw that he was drunk and he had sores all across his face, as if he has been attacked by someone with long fingernails.
He leaned down toward me and said something I couldn't hear, forcing me to take my headphones out which made me want to scream FUCK THE FUCK OFF YOU DRUNKEN FUCK, I AM FUCKING MOLTEN UNDER THIS SUN AND I WANT TO GO HOME AND SIT INSIDE WHERE FUCKERS LIKE YOU WON'T DISTURB ME.
But I did not.
I just asked him to repeat what he had said.
And what he'd said was- 'That's really gorgeous. You really are so talented. Bless you.'
Then, feeling like an utter bitch for having such vicious thoughts, I thanked the man and smiled and said 'Well, I'd best get back to it, I'm really hot out here and I'd like to get home,'
'Of course you would,' said the scratched-up buckled drunk man, 'yes, of course you would.'

While I was drawing this a young woman stops and starts to talk to me.

While I was drawing this a young woman stops and starts to talk to me.
When I look around to respond I she she has a very pretty curly-haired toddler, with very snotty nose, with her.
The mother tells me the toddlers name is Matilda and so I offer Matilda the chance to handle one of my pastels and make some toddler-like marks on my paper, while her mother and I talk.
It eventuates that the mum is from Germany, Stuttgart, and the dad is from Mexico, both of them trained musicians who have just come back from Europe to San Diego, via Tijuana.
We talk a bit about the food in America and then she offers me some pie.
'It's an American recipe, my first try at one,' she says, 'and it has peanut butter in it.'
'Doesn't everything have peanut butter in it?' I say, and as baffled culinary outsiders, we both laugh,
We talk on a bit about how much we like San Diego, what her husband and her hope to do job-wise, and that Matilda is learning English, Spanish and German.
I tell the mum I am learning Spanish and she tells me hers is very bad.
Then, after Matilda runs up off the street, the mum chases her, bringing her back and telling me the child is tired.
I give the mum, Anita, my business card and she tells me how much her husband wants a tattoo.
'I can sort him out,' I tell her, and then we both decide it has been a fortuitous and pleasant meeting and that we will get together again for sure.
'I'm happy to meet lots of people,' I say, 'I could be here for months and I am taking the opportunity to meet people and get lots of art done.
Then, parting, I tell her, as she is a classically trained musician and all, that I have a dulcimer at home and she should come around and have a look at it.
'Great', she says, 'let's meet again,'
'For sure.' I call out, turning back to my view and drawing, hoping to finish before another ridiculously inflated SUV pulls up in front of the house and blocks my view.

 Go to my shop and see my art and buy

Pasquale’s garden.

My friends Joe and Jacqui have a new kitchen in their house.
Jacqui always makes tea in a tea pot.
Zeus the wonderdog is there under the table and now they have a big new kitchen island that Joe can stand behind and wipe while he talks kindly and with much care at me.
On the walls of the kitchen hang a lot of art.
I left these three drawings- The Garden, The Porch, The Poolside- with the Pasquales and they had best be hanging in that kitchen the next time I am there.
All A4 soft pastel on black paper

There’s a sign out of the front of a house in the road in Hawaii where I sit drawing this picture.
From where I sit you can’t see it, but it’s made of what looks a sheet of white corrugated tin.
The letters are in red sprayed paint.
The first word is FUCK, but the next word I’m not sure of and there might even be another word in there somewhere, and the last says QUEER.
The text is almost illegible, but the message is clear.
The QUEERS should FUCK off.

It’s a shame, for the gay/queer haters that the gays don’t come from somewhere else, like their own country, that the Gay isn’t a race of its own.
Then they could say -We don’t like your fag ways round here. Take ‘em back to Gayland, where you belong!
Like they say to Muslims.

Or like an English person once said to me when I knocked on his door and asked him for a piece of string to lead a dog home that I had found in the street.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I hate dogs,’
I looked down at this really small, scared dog that I was hanging on to by the collar and then I looked back up at the man and said-
‘But..but…how can you hate ALL dogs?’
And the man said to me-
‘Oh, why don’t you fuck off back to where you came from.’ and shut the door in my face.

Maybe he didn’t like my ‘string wanting’ ways.
………..
This is a pastel drawing.
Approximately A4
I’ve got a hardback black paper-filled book I bought years ago from Habitat and I’m filling it with drawings.