When I was in tenth grade, at age 15, I was in that nasty rah-rah school. I had a nice art teacher, though -- well "nice" isn't the right word. I respected him, and thought he was ok. He died a year or two later, which was too bad. He liked me -- I can see why, now. We had various interesting projects most of which I can't remember, but one was to do a portrait in pencil of someone. Everyone around the room drew from photographs of boyfriends, girlfriends, etc. I drew Gandhi -- how weird I was. I had that drawing up until the water heater leaked in my last place (the incredibly tiny house on the cattle farm on Ward Lake) -- I lost an awful lot of artwork then, mostly mine but also a painting by Louise. I can see it still, however, in my mind's eye. Just a 9x12 shaded pencil drawing -- but a good likeness. Another strange thing I remember from that time is liking to read about Spinoza. Today I don't like reading about Spinoza, nor can I even remember a thing about Spinoza -- at that point I was not so set in my ways, I suppose. At some point one realises one needs to keep a mild focus, I suppose -- not tunnel-vision, but expend energy in the general direction of the Main Thing, perhaps, or maybe it's necessary to bite off a little piece from a variety of things to find what tastes good. I know not.