Such a perfect day

Its been a long time since I felt compelled to do anything, and I dont just mean drawing or making stuff. This pertains also to getting out of bed, showering, feeding myself or a myriad of other mundane tasks that can seem insurmountable when you are being crushed under the invisable weight of a serious bummer. It only took me two years of wondering what the fuck was happening to finally admit to myself I MIGHT be depressed. It was hard to wrap my skull around, I never thought of myself as a depressive person. Prone to moods surely but all us artsy types are, aren't we? Anyway Ive been around enough people with serious depression to think that maybe I was just being too self indulgent and needed to get more fresh air. Alas no, it could be ignored no longer. There is nothing romantic about being depressed, it didn't make my art better. It made me an insufferable bore who couldn't draw herself out of a paper bag, and probably wouldn't want to anyway because its quiet and dark in there. But thank the baby jesus for modern psychiatry. I am proof of "better living through chemistry." Its like somebody pulled a plug in my brain and let all the shitty cold bathwater drain out. Low and behold I am once again able to make stuff. I also get high as a kite off one cup of coffee which is pretty fun, but sleeping is a little iffy. Days like today I remember my real life. The one where I sit on the beach by myself, drawing and thinking and letting the sun burn through my eyelids until everything has a heavenly bluish glow. I am not sure what the rest of it is, mindless chatter, confusion, ideas about what I am supposed to be doing that arent mine. But my head is clearer and I can tune that shit out. I am having a feeling I had almost forgotten about, or though would never come again. I am on the edge of something, it is nagging me to usher it in to creation, but its just outside of my line of sight. The more I work the closer its getting. My drawings are changing, getting better, or I am feeling more confidant about them. I think I am about to shit my masterpiece.

Just when you thought I'd given up for good...

Ok six months has gone by since my last post. The three people who still read or care will be PUMPED for my graceful return to self indulgent internet musings. Just to be clear in those six short months I did manage to graduate from college...like for real. I have a BA. I dont ever have to go to school again if I dont want to. But I do. So I will. I never thought I would really do it. There is this insouciant teenage drop out within who was dragging her feet the whole time going, "who caaaares! what is it all fooor!" But persistance and a very good therapst have aided in my prevailing over the worser parts of my delicate psyche in order to slay the dragon that IS college. Oh shit what do I do now? Oh I know...work at the palm and draw pictures in my spare time. The same thing I was doing before only I am twenty grand in debt and so much fucking smarter. I am giving myself some time to just chill and process all thats happend to me in the last year. Wait for some sign from god to point me in any direction at all. It was this time almost exactly 365 days ago that I was wandering the streets of Berlin falling in love with the city and with the people I was getting to know and with Feminism (capital F). What I wouldnt give to go back...but I do all the time in my mind. The most delightful side effect of that experience is the endless daydream fodder (and the beautiful friends I met). In any case, I am forcing myself to get back on my dwarfish and lame pony and start making things again. The going is slow and painful. I am in another one of those phases where everything I make looks silly and pointless and I am not sure why I do it at all, except that the not doing it makes me feel worse. So I do it. Night after night, fighting my way in to some semblence of "THE ZONE." I know its in there somewhere. And when I least expect it, Ill make something great. Just enough to keep me hanging on. But until then...

Why you keep doing something even though it threatens to drive you mad...

Last night was like most, its late enough to start drawing, so I sit down and begin the task of trying to make something that isnt too wretched to live. But alas it was looking like one of THOSE nights where everything I touch turns to watery shit. See below...

I couldn't really find my way in to THE ZONE, and I wasn't really interested in arguing my way in. I have resigned myself to the fact that sometimes you have to make a few ugly ones before you get something thats worthwhile. The hardest part is pressing through the crushing defeat to keep working. But on this particular night everything I made was making me feel lonley and washed up, so as a final fuck you to the whole affair, I grabbed a canvas (something I rarely do) and with a camel light dangling from my lips, I half heartedly sketched a figure. I tend to shy away from painting, as I always thought it unwieldy. I could never figure out the proper use of color, everything always seemed to turn in to a primary color nightmare. So I stuck to my strengths, drawing with pen and ink. But if Im in the mood to fuck things up good and proper, and I was, paint is the order of the day. BUT THEN...I dont know what happend! It was good, and VERY GOOD!! Im not sure if having my expectations in the toilet freed my from my usually limited range, but I then proceeded to make one of the best paintings of my whole life. It was like it was painting itself through my hand, and mostly I am watching kind of bemused and amazed. It has a little more subtlety and nuance than I could formerly acheive with paint. Not that its a master piece by any stretch...more of a personal best. I have no idea how I did it or if I could ever repeat last nights magic, but its nights like that that keep you chasing the dragon.

Into the evenings

I have resumed my previously forgotten schedual of staying up into the early morning hours and working on things. Its a good time for the creative process, when everyone else is sleeping. I know I am least likely to be caught in the act, which is something I hate. I like to begin just as the footsteps of my roommates over head die down, and end when the morning birds start their pre dawn routine. There is a freedom to this time, I know nothing else wants for my attention. The downside is I then sleep for most of the day...I like to think I am sleeping through the boring parts of life. But its the habit that feels good, even when the work is shit. Its good to have a steady flow after months of nothingness. Thats why I always refer to drawing (insert any long suffering creative endeavour) as "the lover that never leaves." I can neglect it, fight against it, promise to never do it again. But when I submit, it is always there just as I left it and ready to embrace me again.

Back from the almost dead

I haven't made a single motion to update this shit since I got home from Europe. It didnt really seem right. Traveling was the whole raison de etre...and I felt like after that what could I possibly have left to say? Europe has become one of those major lines of demarcation in my life, along with the death of my mother and sundry ex boyfriends. Everything is figured into a before or after kind of time line. So basically the plane landed in LA, I balled my eyes out to be home in California...and then I flatlined. Its hard to be skipping from lecture to cafe to bar to bed ad nauseum in a half dozen amazing cities, and then come home and go back to normal life. I mean, I was warned the come down would be tough but jesus christ. I lost all intrest in drawing, writing, all the things I THOUGHT gave my life meaning. All I could do was sit on the couch and knit and try and make sense of what the fuck just happend to me, question every single thing I had been doing with my life pre-Europe. I havent even come close to figuring any of it out but I have shaken off enough of my slump to start drawing again...if only after a few warm up glasses of wine and the aide of some mopey bullshit on my headphones. I made a big commitment and bought myself a few new pens, sharp nibs, and a fresh pot of ink. Not sure to what avail. But its something. Its funny, when I quiet down and get as serious as Im going to about drawing, I start to remember things. Little things I forgot about, or thought too inconsequential to put somewhere more easily accesable. Like tonight I remembered that every night in the Czech Republic (deep in the mid trip depression) I would stand in this courtyard outside the apartments and smoke one final cigarette before going in for the night. I would be for just that brief time, totally alone and quiet. And it felt good to be that far away from home and familiarity, but still find comfort in some small ritual. I miss that feeling. I like when they come back like that, to let me know its not all gone. Everything that happend that whole four months is stuffed in this brain somewhere and it will float back to me at will. Probably when I need it most.

Dublin

5 days alone in Dublin...here are the stats: 2 novlels, 9 movies, 1 French film star, 3 new dresses, 0 Irish boyfriends (unless you count the bum I gave a cig to who offered me a date). The upside is I have learned to appreciate my own company more, or at least entertain myself so I don't go stark raving mad. I can always fall back on my inside kid tendencies and read or draw, good time killers (though do little for making me seem like less of an unaproachable douche bag). However my love of drawing with pencil has been saved from the annals of history, if only because Im sick of a dreary selection of ball point or sharpie. In little over 5 days my grand European dream will reach its natural conclusion. Ive been here forever, but also not so long. I never want to leave, but Im also desperate to get home. I'll miss moving to a new town every two weeks. I'll miss my wild pack of feminists. Fuck this I want do overs. Oh well, theres always Yuck.