Diane Pugen

            I was scheduled to work at OCADU on Tuesday at midday, so at 9:30, after doing all of my usual morning tasks that started at 5:00, I decided to lay down for an hour to ensure that I wouldn’t feel sleepy while posing. I didn’t seem to need that much rest so I got up after 45 minutes. Before leaving for work I packed up my new laptop with the intention of working on my essay during the breaks. As soon as I was going out the door I had to use the toilet, but I didn’t have time to go at home so I held on during my ride downtown. I got to work with at least fifteen minutes to spare, as usual, so after dropping off my stuff in the classroom I went to the washroom. Holy crap! I must be bigger on the inside like the Tardis!

            When I came out of the Loo, a different teacher than Diane said hi to me. I had worked for her before a few times but had forgotten that her name was Echo Raillton. She informed me that Diane Pugen was in the hospital after having had a stroke. I wondered if she’d ever had a stroke before and Echo answered that apparently she had but she is expected to make a full recovery again. I told Echo that Diane had been the very first art teacher I’d ever posed for back in 1982.

            I turned on my laptop, relieved that I had one again with a functional battery. I stuck in the flash drive that contained my essay, but when I tried to open it I realized that I’d forgotten to install Word on the new portable. This was the second time in three days that I’d been stymied from using my laptop for homework at work. I worked instead on rereading Armand Ruffo’s “The Thunderbird Poems”. I still don’t think the poetry is very good.

            Echo’s teaching style is very different from that of Diane. While they are both very encouraging of their students’ efforts, Diane is more driven towards getting lots of drawing time in and not wasting model hours that are much more dear than they used to be. She also likes to have the class draw lots of short poses and so I’m usually bound to have a workout when I model for her. Echo is more relaxed and likes longer poses. She did mark someone as absent when they came in half an hour late though.

            During my coffee break three students gave presentations, one on Goya, another on Warhol and a third on the Stone Age statue known as the Venus of Willendorf. The first two students sat by Echo’s laptop and gave their talks in almost impossible to hear voices. Only the last one stood in front of the screen to project his oration.

            Echo provided a sheet of newsprint for students to write greetings to Diane. At the end I asked if I could write something and I wrote: “Dear Diane, I think that you misunderstood. We wanted you to demonstrate your brush stroke.”

It was an easy gig.

I stopped at Freshco on my way home where I bought grapes, milk and yogourt. I was hoping that they still had their deal on 925-gram cans of Maxwell House coffee for $6.99. I saw someone carrying one but there were none that I could see on the shelf. I walked around for about ten minutes to see if there was a display, then I went back to the coffee section, bent a little further over and saw there were two left, and that they were the dark roast too. The line-up for each cashier were quite long, but luckily the head cashier walked up to me and told me she was opening number five. She’d probably singled me out because I was halfway down the express line but it made me feel special anyway.