The perilous journey to 5am

The routine lately is this: go to work, come home, sit on the couch, have a Popsicle or two...then come 1am or so, descend to my lair to begin a night of endless paint squishing and ink splattering, and if I'm lucky...hacking things to bits with an exacto knife. It feels good to sit and work for a few hours uninterrupted by the nagging of life during daylight hours. Its easier to get in to the zone when I know everyone else is sleeping, the weird is more at liberty to come out and wander. However, it is inevitable that all perspective will be lost when you're in the middle of an all nighter. The sun starts to come up and you realize the thing you've been slaving over looks like it was made by a 10 year old, and there is only 2 square inches of the damn thing that is worth saving. I've made things and fallen in love with them, but those always feel like an anomaly. Like maybe the brush was possessed or I was, and it was some kind of lucky mistake. Maybe if I stay awake long enough...It reminds me of an incident many years ago when I was working on some painting or other in to the wee hours, holed up in the greenhouse of my family home. I took a step back to consider the mess I had made and was feeling like giving up, when I had a really vivid auditory hallucination. This gravely male voice demanded "KEEP WORKING!" It scared the shit out of me, so naturally I fled and left the painting for the next day. Upon reflection it was probably due to the close quarters and the incredible amount of turpentine I was unwittingly inhaling. But the sentiment still rings true. If I smear enough paint around, that lucky mistake will have time to happen. Until then, I'll keep my day job.