Joan Evans

            On Friday morning my foot didn’t feel any better and I was still limping.

I posted “J’entend des voix off” (I Hear Them Mouth Off) by Serge Gainsbourg on Christian's Translations.

            I did some writing in my journal but I started feeling very sleepy and since I'd planned on taking an early siesta before work anyway I took it earlier. I woke up after ninety-minute nap and that’s usually enough but I didn’t want to get up. However I had no choice because I had to get ready to leave.

            I worked for Diane Pugen, who I’ve known since 1982. Although I’m fond of her, even when I don’t have a foot injury I dread working for her because she makes me work so hard by asking for short poses from beginning to end.

I told her I couldn’t do standing poses because of a foot injury and she sympathetically said, “Oh dear!” She kept referring to my “leg” injury throughout the class.

I helped her onto the stage so she could stand beside me and use me for an anatomy. She uses the end of the handle of her brush to point out where the bones are and this time she poked me with her stick even harder than usual. There’s no reason to touch the model at all since she can point at every part without jabbing the body. It’s also straight up against the rules but I don’t say anything because it’s Diane. I consoled myself while being stabbed with her dull dagger that she’s old and wouldn’t be around much longer anyway.

One of the students was a very large woman with a bright orange coiffeur that was crowned on the left side with a bright bouquet of artificial flowers. It looked like she’d shaved her eyebrows before painting in their place a set of long and wide orange eyebrows to match her hair. She also had very big lips painted with black lipstick. I don’t know if this was her regular look or just a Valentine’s Day tribute. If a kindergarten class had been expecting a clown and she had walked in they might have easily mistaken her for a comedic circus entertainer.

As the class was wrapping up she was having a very casual conversation with the woman next to her and telling her about her kink lifestyle. She spoke of the masters she has served and how some have taken her to new thresholds of consciousness through pain.

When Diane and I were the last ones in the room she told me that this would be her last year because she was finally retiring. I told her that it’s been great working with her all of these years and she returned the compliment. I commented that it would be the end of an era at OCADU because there is no one left. She was surprised when I told her that in Illustration almost all of the drawing and painting classes are being taught by TAs now. She said that could never happen in Fine Arts because the instructors have to know what they are doing. I wonder if that’s true. I asked her what she would be doing and she said she would keep painting and she would continue to attend ceremonies with her Ojibwa friends but she would also travel. She has a friend in France that she would like to visit more often. She said she can’t really afford to retire but she has to. I told her that I’d like to retire as well because I have things I’d like to spend more time on like the book of poetry I want to publish. She said she also has poetry that she includes in some of her paintings and she would like to publish those poems sometime.

It was another bitterly cold day to be riding a bike. I stopped at Freshco on my way home. Their grapes are still overly soft and so I just bought five bags of cherries, which are also too ripe but more tolerable. I got a bag of naan bread, two containers of Greek yogourt, a jug of orange juice, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, a bag of super fries and a can of dark roast coffee.

I had a late lunch of two pork ribs and some yogourt.

I took another siesta for an hour.

I worked on getting caught up on my journal.

When I’d grilled the pork ribs the night before there was an extra rack that wouldn’t fit the pan and so I cooked those that evening. I made a barbecue sauce out of olive oil, ketchup, Chinese chilli paste and Worcestershire sauce. I had a few of the ribs for dinner with French fries and gravy while watching Zorro.

This story begins with the Dela Vegas being woken up by Captain Felipe Arrellano who tells them that the California governor had been in an accident on his way to Los Angeles and he needed to stay at their house while recovering. From his bed the governor appoints the captain the acting governor. There is a movement towards California becoming independent of Spain and the governor is confident that the captain will promote Spanish loyalty. After a public meeting in which the captain encourages citizens to take an oath of allegiance to the king, the governor’s daughter Leonar goes for a long carriage ride with Diego. When she returns the captain has a jealous outburst because he has long been in love with her. We learn that she has made it clear that she is not romantically interested in the captain but has experienced many similar outbursts from him in the past. The governor hears of this and begins to rethink his decision to have him continue as acting governor. Meanwhile the captain has been contacted by a pro independence leader who tells him that all he has to do is leave the governor unguarded if he wants to become the full time governor. The captain tells Sergeant Garcia and Corporal Reyes to leave the governor's door and ride someplace with him. Diego sees this and decides that the governor requires the help of Zorro. As he is changing to his costume Bernardo watches the governor’s room from behind a secret passage. An assassin comes into the room before Zorro is there and so Bernardo has to go into the room and smash something over the potential killer’s head. They move the governor to the bedroom of Diego's father and put the unconscious assassin under the covers in the governor's room. Two more assassins enter and Zorro fights them but not before one of them stabs the person he thinks is the governor. In the aftermath both Diego and his father are suspicious of the captain for having left the governor unguarded but the governor still has faith in his protégé.

Leonar is played by Joan Evans, who is named after her godmother Joan Crawford. Her first film was Roseanna McCoy and her parents lied that she was sixteen rather than fourteen so she could get the part. When she was seventeen she became engaged to a car salesman named Kirby Weatherly. He parents tried to get their friend Joan Crawford to dissuade her from marrying him but Crawford not only approved of the union but she held the wedding in her home. The marriage lasted and Crawford continued as a lifelong friend of Joan Evans but not her parents. Joan retired from acting in 1961. She became an entertainment journalist and the editor of Hollywood Studio Magazine. Later she became the director of the Carden Academy.