Thing I am working on.

There is suburban filthy snow

and the rhythm of cars,

alone/along 287.

There is your shadow

riveted by tire tracks,

as we stand at the foot

of the haunted woods,

but where we didn't necessarily stand,

but left our markers and elegies

good enough for cut white flowers

from the grocery store.

Will I get to take
you, drunk on wine,

on my floor?  Forget what

was important just last moment?

There's the waves of tires

and the waves of you,

and another storm - 

fresh then grotesque -

entrapping you to my bed.

Recommended by a friend... sultry, even raunchy... and right up my alley.  So good.


"Like Kurt Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout, laying down world-saving truths in the pages of disposable stroke magazines, Bill Hicks was trying to light the way into the 21st century – on the stained-carpet stages of strip mall chuckle huts, usually following a juggler."
-Patton Oswald on Bill Hicks.  Article.

First of all, this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvcl3_DHJI0

Then, this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Kr_OFoqbI


Good things:

-Still writing this.

-Joyful hang over

-On the anniversary of his death (20 years):

-Fleeting sense of magic in my bones.

-Decent advice

ugh. fuck it.

-Sitting out in bitter cold, smoking cigarettes and talking about anxiety and Tarot.  Skin on my hands still raw.

-More cigarettes in warmth and Jeff Buckley, specifically "Lilac Wine".

-Another reading last night, good conversation with a missed friend.  Happy to make her laugh.

-Romantic illusions.


Today's resolution:


-More romantic illusions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PC68rEfF-o

Anais Nin

You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications.

- Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947

Day 1

There's a sheet of palette paper on my desk with just Titanium White, Naples Yellow, and Ivory Black, all untouched.  Well, the black has one broad brush streak through it, which resulted in a shadow that pissed me off so I gave up.
I'll try again, maybe today.

Once a friend accused me of never finishing anything I start.  He was half-right.  What's that line about nothing ever being finished, only abandoned?  Who was that?  That was a smart guy.

I am a self-proclaimed artist... a painter, specifically.  Some days it can be really difficult to answer to that.  There are thoughts like, "Shit, wasn't I able to do this in college?", or worse:  "Shit, wasn't I okay at this in high school?"  Anyway, screw that.  Hard.

~



Update:  The exact quote is "Art is never finished, only abandoned."  And it was a smart guy:  Da Vinci.
My memory for such things is terrible, at best.

Anyway, it's towards the end of the day... (I've been using 9 PM as my "early bedtime".  If I didn't do this, I would go to sleep at maybe 6:30).  But here are a couple of things I got out of bed for today:


-Coffee and the first cigarette of the day

-To take care of my African Violets.  They are a living thing in my care, and they're still doing okay after about two months.

-This article:  http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116701/patton-oswalt-picks-five-comedians-who-should-be-dramatic-actors?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=4081028

-To listen to The John Lennon Collection, which I forgot I had on vinyl.  This is the photo on the insert:

Also, I found two 45's hidden in the sleeve:  one is George Harrison's "All Those Years Ago", and "Writing's On The Wall".  The other is The Beatles' "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You", and (heh), The Beatles' Movie Medley.  My record player is unable to play such things, but I think my dad's might.  We shall see.

-To see my kitty friend, Humphrey/Elsie chill in my window, enthralled by the world.

Okay, I think I might keep this sort of list-making as a format.  It's at least a form of writing that I do daily.  It doesn't necessarily cheer me up, but it gives me structure.  Here is a great article about lists:  http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/01/four-famous-new-years-resolution-lists-jonathan-swift-susan-sontag-marilyn-monroe-woody-guthrie/