i'm still standing

i have been a long-time fan of elton john. as a ten-old-year i had several of his tapes and remember my older brother complaining that's all i listened to (which was pretty much true). he tried to heavily influence me with van halen, yes, and u2...to name a few. i didn't really have an option to dislike van halen seeing how our home was decorated with smoking babies with wings and long, blond-haired men posing in spandex. might as well jump. anyway, back to elton. in sixth grade, i wanted to dress up like elton and perform to crocodile rock for my peers for an english class presentation. so what did i do? dressed up, borrowed a friend's blow-up crocodile pool float (remember those?), and danced around the room lip-syncing to crocodile rock. holy heatwave batman! what in tarnation was i thinking??? i guess that's why they call it the clue(less). i was clueless...no wonder i had such a hard time in middle school. i was such a dork. such a dork. to make things worse...i was elton john for halloween as a ninth grader...yes, i said ninth grader. kinda of embarrassing. the school that i attended in ninth grade allowed you to dress up for halloween, so off i went bearing a top hat, bald cap, leopard-laced red jacket (that my mom wore as her going away out fit at her wedding, ha), black parachute pants (compliments of my brother), and white golfing shoes. oh, and i can't forget the huge yellow, squared-rimmed sunglasses. all of the kids at school were like, who in the heck is she? i was so offended. :o) my dad gave me EJ's box set collection for christmas that year (tapes, of course...didn't have a cd player until my junior year in high school), and subsequently various vinyl records to collect over the years. my mom took a friend and me to his sleeping with the past concert in the early 90's, and she let me go up front "by myself." i was in heaven. it was pretty amazing (now that i think about it) being just a few yards away from the man while he played your song on his grand piano. i knew he was really singing it to me. ;o) i have to say though the obsession has worn off to a huge degree, but i can't deny the man that influenced me as a kid. i haven't been so much of a fan of his music since the mid 90's, but the greatest hits volumes are definitely on the nano. he holds a special place in my heart. here's my latest creation:
[17 x 22 in. / medium: ink, pastels, and oil pastels]