artist stranger

So yesterday, I spent a few hours at a local Starbucks studying for horrible horrible torturous not-fun-at-all upcoming exams. I was at my little round table, sipping on an Earl Grey and contemplating something along the lines of population mean differences or frequency distributions, when this guy came in, walked past my station and made himself comfortable at a table next to mine. You probably think that you'll hear a description of his hotness next, but no. This guy was kind of on the hobo side. He was older, appeared unkempt, had a ginormous canvas backpack and random objects in his hands. As he settled down, he took out more random objects from his ginormous canvas backpack and proceeded to plug in some crazy-looking machinery right below my computer. I am ashamed to admit this, but I thought, great! Here is this guy, shamelessly taking advantage of a business, when he could clearly find fitting accommodations at a local library or in an alley downtown or I don't know, in the alcove of the building of that McDonald's on the corner of University and Shattuck.

However. When I came out of another statistics-induced trance and glanced over at his table, my jaw nearly hit the pristine Starbucks floor. He was reading a book on Primitivism in 20th Century Art and painting with pastels and watercolors. He carefully studied the lines and brushstrokes of the figures, replicating some and creating some of his own. Sometimes he softly muttered to himself something about amazing works of art. It was a Goodwill Hunting moment like I've never experienced before, and I think I learned my life lesson.

Oh, and the crazy-looking machinery was really an electrical pencil sharpener. For his pastel pencils.