What is an artist date?

A few days ago Dana tore off the front covers of a few of my softbound books. So I put her shoes on and we took a trip to the sari-sari stores to buy scotch tape. Dana enjoys spotting animals. She can identify "bird" and "'ats" (that's cats in Dana-speak, she always drops the 'k' sound, and she calls all dogs "ats").

Some of the stores were already closed so we walked around the block to Mercury Drug. We passed by a public school along Malakas Street and Dana laughed at the murals on the school walls. There were pictures of students smiling doing their homework and cleaning their surroundings with slogans such as "Clean and Green"--ideal, but far from reality. Dana enjoyed looking at them though and laughed at them with glee.

Note: I over-intellectualized. She simply enjoyed what she thought was amusing.

So it gave me an idea. We went to Arts Center on the fourth floor of Megamall. The current exhibition was portraits of musicians. There was one that my Dad would like: John Lennon and the Beatles. Dana didn't laught at the paintings though. So I went, hm... I thought she likes pictures?

There were bronze sculptures of ballerinas with exaggeratedly huge bums in dance poses. Dana laughed at those!

A-ha! Artist dates are meant to be what amuses you. What releases a childlike laugh from in you! I need that these days. Childlike laughter. Gleeful. Like a bird let out of its cage.