Emotions are a pain in my ass

I'm coming down with another stupid cold. I guess it would be more accurate to say that I'm deep in the throes of another cold. I started feeling it around Thursday. I think it was the misguided courtesy of a friend that caused this. I was out and saw a friend who kissed me hello then immediately followed up the kiss with the phrase "I feel like shit. I have a cold.". Wonderful! Fucking awesome! As far as I know I don't have an immune system. Like Nazis on the French countryside, I could feel the bacteria invading my system and taking over.

Thanks for the kiss............oh, and the two weeks of pounding headaches and lungs filled with mucus the consistency of joint compound. Bitch.

Anyway, despite my diminished capacity I helped a friend move into her new house on Saturday. She is an ex-girlfriend, but the breakup was almost nine years ago and we've been in the same circle of friends since college. We've remained close......ish. The move went relatively smoothly as she had moved a lot of the small stuff over the past few weeks (much appreciated). She had rented a u-haul for the bigger things, and showed up with it a few minutes after I arrived at her apartment. She was with, what I can only assume as her new boyfriend. If not boyfriend, someone who is probably interested......first one there, helped to pick up the truck, last one to leave.....you get the idea. Either way, he seemed like a nice enough of a guy. I was pretty much useless because every few minutes I had to cough up something. My main job of the move was that of the sarcastic prick who made everyone laugh...........except for the guys who were doing the hard moving, like getting a couch stuck in a doorway. So that's how the pack-up went........me cracking jokes, making some people laugh, while pissing off others.

--- Quick aside ---

After the truck was pretty much all packed up I heard a couple of the guys talking about getting together and jamming or singing or whatever. After listening for a while I realized that, although it will sound horribly pompous and elitist, I hate hobbyists. That is, I hate people who only do things half way. I think it's an insult to people who actually do it professionally. For example, when I talk to people who say that they paint in their spare time, because it's soooooo relaxing, I try to be nice, I really try to care, but just want to break their hands. As if what I do is just a full-time hobby. Sometimes it's frustrating to describe to people how difficult what I do is. Once again, I'm not complaining, I love what I do. I wouldn't trade it for anything...........................I also wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

--- Back to the move ---

We all got into our cars and made it to her new home. It's small, but cute and on a nice little suburban street. We got everything in and relatively organized in less than a half hour. After all the moving was done we were all standing on her front porch, when one of her friends drove up. She brought her 11 month-old girl. Yeah, I'm not really a kid person. I don't talk down to kids, and at 11 months this little girl wasn't getting any of my jokes. I refuse to use baby-talk. In fact until a person can carry on a full, lucid, adult conversation they're pretty much useless to me. Both of my nephews were able to do it by the age of two, that's why I would happily die for them.......my niece, she's getting there.

Our little party broke up after about an hour. I left my friend and her new.....whatever at the house. As I drove away I noticed that I was feeling depressed (that feeling lasted all night). I'm not exactly sure why. Is it because I see other people building normal lives, and I know that's not the road that I'm heading down? Am I giving up that stuff for pursuing my work?

Or worse.........Was I jealous? Not of the homes and the families, but of my friend. In the past I've always kind of chided people who got sad when they see a long-past ex out with someone else or getting married. Now I'm not so sure, but why?

I wouldn't want to be a kid again.....at least now

I was driving in to the studio this morning....around 11 am, and was amazed to see the amount of middle school-aged kids on the street. Was there a half day? School fire? Water main break?

Either way, for some reason I was fascinated by them. First of all at least half were on cell phones. Now I know they are ubiquitous, but c'mon why, in the name of all that is good and sacred does a ten year old need a cell phone?!? I don't know, maybe I'm showing my age. All I know is that NOTHING ever happened in my life, when I was ten, that warranted constant communication.

I saw two boys, who could not have been over, thirteen smoking. It was one of the funniest things I had seen in a long time. They seemed so proud of it too. I think they might have been strutting a little.

There was a large group of kids hanging out outside of a corner store. I was a little scared to see how eerily similar their social dynamic was to what I see when I go out to a bar. Granted, I was only able to watch them for the length of a red light (and the time it took some asshole to turn left, without signaling of course) but you could see the "alpha" people, the "fringe" people, who liked who....................I swear it was like I was on a safari.

All of them were trying to look and act as if they were much older. I never understood why kids (and this includes myself at the time) are/were in such a rush to be older. For fuck sake it happens naturally at a fast enough pace, there's really no reason to hasten it on.

It's this kind of crap that freaks me out a little about ever being a parent........not that that's a possibility now or even in the near future.

Maybe it's a Buffalo thing

Friday was St. Patrick's Day and Sunday was parade day. As Buffalo has a large Irish population it tends to be a big celebration. As if anyone in Buffalo ever really needs a reason to drink publicly. The parade goes in a simple straight line, right down Delaware avenue. It has the requisite politicians, police, firemen, and float after float of wee Irish dancers.

I started the day relatively early (noon-ish) at Fat Bob's. I made the mistake of parking illegally in a parking lot. I didn't get a ticket I just got parked in until around 8:30. The dining room at FB's was surprisingly crowded and a lot of people were enjoying their corned beef and cabbage. I had my first drink by 12:30. A couple of friends (Mara and Jen) showed up and we stayed at FB's for a while before we ventured into the cold. We made our way to a parking lot of a corner gas station. The place looked more like the parking lot outside of a football game as people had kegs and grills and folding chairs etc.

I made my way to my friend's annual party. She lives in an apartment on Delaware and her patio overlooked the busy scene below. It was nice to have the option of standing outside or going in to be warm.....and get another drink. Plus the food was good and the bathroom was clean --- I'm kinda girly when it comes to my appreciation/demand for a good clean bathroom.

After being removed from the parade festivities for a while I made my way back to FB's. The scene on the way there was a little different, or should I just say drunker. The strange thing is that no one was really that obnoxious, which is usually the case. In general I refer to days/evenings like these as "amateur nights", where people who have no business consuming more than two drinks decide to have a dozen or so, usually with annoying, or at best comical results. Although most of the people who I passed were visibly drunk, not many were of the fall-down variety. I dunno, maybe I got just lucky. Back at FB's it was wall to wall to wall people, and I hate that. Luckily they had erected a heated tent on their back patio, and the crowd there was much more manageable. I spent a few hours there then again decided to venture forth.

I wandered to Cozumel (another place that I like, only because of the staff). Saw lots of friends, lots of tipsy friends. I ended the evening at the Old Pink (several years ago In-Style magazine voted it as one of the best dive bars in America, a fact that the owner was exceedingly proud of at the time). I was happy to see that my friend Drew was back in town and back behind the bar. After talking for a while I decided to make my way back to my car, luckily the douchebag that parked me in was gone.

Some may say that I'm getting to old for this kind of shit, and on some days I might be inclined to agree with them..........................some days.

Meh

Dammit, but that blinking cursor is mocking me! Telling me that I really don't have anything even remotely interesting or important to write.

............and yet I prattle on.....

Maybe it's because my work is going so well, that I got nuthin'. Maybe all I have to say is already being said in my work. OK, even I don't buy that line of bullshit.

I have been researching a lot online lately.......grants and artist residencies. I figure, fuck school! It's for quitters. There are hundreds, if not thousands of opportunities out there to travel and live and work on somebody else's dime........What? I'm an artist. I'm a leech on humanity. Although I am up for going anywhere, I'm focusing on Europe and Japan. There are actually a bunch of residencies all over the country that I'll be applying for.............so, you never know, I might just end up living for a short time near you.

I'm just wrapping up two applications for grants. Foundations are awesome. There only reason for existence is to give away money...............hopefully to me.

Oh yeah, the blow-up doll won. Her name is Sally.

Dead Moms suck

A friend's Mom passed away this past weekend. I went to the funeral yesterday with another friend. It was kinda rough. At times it was really difficult to even look at him, even though I knew a lot of what was going through his mind. It wasn't until the afterparty that I was able to speak to him (and do shots, of course. There is no warmer hug than that of booze). It was good to see that he was doing relatively well. We told him that his family extended far beyond his relatives. It's nice to know that the same is true for me.

Got another opening tonight. This one should be fun, openings at the Burchfield-Penney usually are.

I'm feeling incredibly lazy, I don't feel like working that much. Work seems to be going very slowly. I can work for several hours on a painting and make very good progress, then stand back and see that it doesn't look like I did very much of anything............just a little frustrating.

HAPPY WEEKEND!!!

I'll live......................................big deal.

............and so I stand triumphantly, bathed in sunlight, in front of the ACME Nipple Manufacturing Company.

So much for my liver scare. I'm gonna go drink now.

Like a school house on a Saturday.............no class.

It was an interesting weekend. Met friends for happy hour Friday, at one of my favorite places in town.....Papaya.......the name, being meaningless to anyone out of Buffalo reading this, but let me assure you, the place is great. Pacific rim/Asian fusiony food, the best fucking calamari I've ever had and the sushi just keeps getting better.................the spider and eel rolls are acts of God! I really do like this place because although it is an upscale place, it doesn't come off with any pretension. I mean, I showed up right from the studio, my pants with splotches of paint all over them, and one of the owners.........whom I recently met.......met me with a handshake and a smile, at the door. So Friday was fun.

Saturday..........didn't start out so great. I woke up a little groggy, got my mail, and lo and behold....I got rejected from grad school! I gotta be honest, I was a little surprised. Fuck that I was shocked. For fuck sake, we're talking about the University of Buffalo, not Yale. I've seen the grad students that they've been cranking out for about five years or so, and with few exceptions I wouldn't let them even wash my brushes. Granted, I wasn't going back to school to learn anything, I just wanted two years of working on my stuff and the degree. Everyone that I spoke to about my li'l rejection was shocked or surprised. The best reaction came from my friend who is, of all things, the curator of the University gallery. She said my rejection was unconscionable.

Fuck school! Most of the reason that I was applying was out of fear. Fear that I'll forever be broke. Fear that I will never have anything resembling stability in my life. This is an evil profession to be in.

Anyway, the rest of the day was great. I went to a couple of art openings at Big Orbit and Hallwalls. The people were more fun than the artwork, and it was too crowded to really get a good look anyway. I'll have to go back...............to actually see the work.

Sunday was Sunday...............painted. Painted badly. Luckily I didn't manage to really fuck anything up.

I'm getting my results of my CT scans and my blood tests tomorrow at 11:40. I'm sure everything's fine and this has just been a huge waste of time and money. At least now when I finally do have some form of cancer I have a good doctor to go to.

..................look at me being all glass-is-half-full and shit.

My cat's been scanned

I've never had one done before, and it was kinda neat. I gotta be honest I was a little unnerved by getting a CT scan done in the first place, even though they are routine as hell. Maybe it was because I had it done in the same hospital that my Mom died in, and in my book that makes them 0 for 1 with members of my family.............but I digress (for an interesting change of pace).

I had finished off the banana-flavored barium colada earlier in the morning and showed up at the hospital a little early. The whole process from check-in to pull-up-your-pants-sir was less than an hour and a half, to my astonishment. The staff was really cool and friendly and took my sarcasm and cynicism surprisingly well. They gave me an I.V. to...................um, I'm not 100% sure........activate the barium?.........whatever. The nurse told me it was going to feel warm..............HOLY SHIT!!!! She wasn't kidding! This really cool internal heat hit my shoulder then my throat. It made its way to my heart and once there shot immediately to my.............um.........well......cock. I swear, if I had to piss even the tiniest bit, I would have let loose. My God it felt great! All together it wasn't a bad experience. While the test was going on I didn't hear the dreaded words "hmmm that looks interesting" or "What the fuck is that growing in your small intestine?" or "Holy shit! Guys, you gotta come and see this freak!"

So now I wait until the seventh to find out that there really isn't anything wrong with my liver, but unfortunately they detected a rare form of intestinal cancer......................I dunno, is that being pessimistic?

Work is going well, sorta. I wasted all of my time at the studio yesterday. I was useless. It was as if I had forgotten how to paint. Everything I touched turned to shit, and I spent most of my time fixing mistakes that I was making. Not wanting to surrender to this futility, I ended up staying at the studio until after midnight. Ugh! What a waste of fucking time. The one good thing is that I came up with an idea for another painting.

The problem is with the raindrop painting. I think I left it before it was really done. I moved on and painted other things (the lake horizon) so much better, and more in line with the way I was thinking. Now I have to go back and either re-think it, re-do it, or completely trash it. I know I know.........what's the big deal? It's only a painting. In the great scheme of things it doesn't matter one bit. It's just the thought of months of work going for nothing that bothers me, and I know myself I won't let it happen. I'll end up spending months trying to fix it. It's funny, I usually give up on things so easily, especially if there are many failures along the way, but I can never give up on a painting. Is that some dopey shit or what?