Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Portrait #31: Jordnnland


The influenza epidemic at SLC has come in 2 or 3 different stages, ensuring that for about 2-3 weeks, there has always been a couple sick people in any given social, political, or academic group of students. Jordan followed me in-to-fluenza in the second stage and was a trooper to sit for me while he was feelin real ill. (And also a trooper to wash his hair for the occasion as promised.) The drawing sesh was supposed to happen at 5:30 but since both of us fell asleep and accidentally took 4-5 hour naps, it had to be postponed until 11.

Jordan sat very quietly reading while I drew him. At one point his face contourted a little and I asked him if he needed to sneeze. He said no but asked if he could blow his nose. So I passed him the tissue box and told him the story about how Spencer was really intensely like "uhmmbeth? is it ok with you if I scratch my nose?" as if it were really disruptive to the process. That's one of the stories I told at the quaker-style Spencer memorial/meeting in November.

Jordan and Spencer went to high school together, in both situations being a freshman and a senior, respectively. The first time I talked to Jordan was at the memorial dance party for Spencer called "Wolf's Teeth". I was like "hey didn't you just add me on fbook?" and then we acquainted ourselves by dancing in a circle with our friends to some really hip band Spencer liked like The Gossip. We've been hanging out and listening to more hip bands lately, but we don't really talk about Spencer that often since I guess both of us only knew him for 2 short periods. However, we both often wear the colorful Spencer pins that were passed out at Wolf's Teeth (made to look like hipster band merch) so the idea of him is totally on the mind. Especially since Jordan is really tall and his pin is at my eye level.

Also you might notice the introduction of a baby quilt on my bed in this picture, unlike the other pictures... usually the only other noticeable decoration is my world map poster. Maybe this marks the beginning of the "early quilt period" in Sketchy Lady history, from post-flu epidemic era of Sarah Lawrence.

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