Continuing Mission

Crap.

Getting kicked out of the lab.

I'll have to come back and write this later.

sdafdasgdfghdfgjhdf!;;;;;


Sorry.

*hours later*
Okay, I have returned. This is one job I don't like leaving half-finished; God-forbid someone actually comes along and reads the thing.

Okay, so let me lay this on you: there's an artist residency over in Dayton that sounds pretty awesome. The application deadline is tomorrow so I will need my patented brand of Quickness to get my materials in. Luckily, it's all here- i just have to craft a legible statement of intent. Should be cake.

On the chance I am accepted, the gears will start up immediately; in the first week of December the three chosen applicants will be whisked away to beautiful Yellow Springs for six weeks to do something. So yeah, I want to go be a part of that.

I do. Despite the logistical mindwarp that would require one to exist in different places at the same point in time, I want in. Also, if you're curious, here's the press release for the residency.

I knows me something about shared environments...


okay boss, you win...

Room to Grow

I marvel at this room, how a single space could contain so much. We do so much of our living here. It's a stage for every sort of scenario: drama, comedy, tragedy, and others; all unfolding from a blissful spool of hours, mornings and nights. More so than any place I've ever called home, this room contains the highest concentration of memories tied to a single spot.

What I've learned here is that if anything is to get done, the previous mess must be cleaned; the space rebuilt and organized; a clean slate.

And that's why I'm procrastinating: there's much to be cleaned before I can get to work again. Bah;

I consider the rampant abuse of the semi-colon these past weeks and how long I can get away with this new brand of punctuational evil.

I;love;you;all

Clear the Air

There are things I'd love to say; to fling back the curtains of my soul and exclaim 'Ah HA!' But that won't happen today. I've tried putting the sounds in my head into comprehensible language, but to no avail. It comes out like the sound of a deflating balloon, or sometimes like a roaring tyrannosaurus.

So I am stuck communicating to you through our common language, with all our familiar symbols and characters. Jab-tap-jap, from the keyboard to the screen. But it's not enough. It's never enough to convey what's in here (leans in to you and pokes your chest dramatically).

Where are the poets in this age? Are they like us, hidden away, clinging to the flotsam, adrift somewhere in this ocean of the Communication Age? In this dangerous place where people inscribe messages via keys on a small electronic device while driving cars.

I'm serious about finding the poets, if they still exist: people to weigh the words. Someone to explain our purpose here;


God help us.

Strands

Thanksgiving is tomorrow. I asked a guy from my class if he had anyone to spend the holiday with, and he said no. I started to invite him over and then remembered that we'd be out of town. We exchanged numbers though; at least we'll try to get him over for Christmas.

Hard to connect that paragraph to anything else in this "inward-looking" blog. Kindness may be an alien concept at times, and I'm terrified of coming off as sounding (more) self-righteous (than usual) when I write about 'nice things I did today.' And who wants to read that?

Instead:

This morning; 9:15am; that familiar ache sets in that tugs my feet in the direction of Hagerty Hall. Stand in line at some odd angle, glance once at the 'flavor of the day' sign, glance twice at the television, pay, and then flee with my prize.

It's horrible, I know, but if you picture a cat running with a chipmunk in its mouth, that's a small part of how I feel during that episode.


...incoherent drivel.

And Gone

Haphazard forms in the bleak pre-dawn lurch toward unknown destinations, and I can't help admiring the silhouettes we make; outline and contour, and I think about charcoal between fingers and the quiet raking sound it makes on paper.

I think about guns today, and my brother's old habit of shooting outside my bedroom window, usually during those early weekend mornings. "Sighting in his gun" he called it. Though some mornings he was just content to rev his dirt bike and fly up and down the yard like a maniac. I may have been less angry about the noise if he had tried combining the two elements; firing his shotgun while airborne on a motorcycle. Now that would be a neat trick.

I always wondered how I turned out so different from the rest of my family; being surrounded by all the trappings of local culture, but not finding a sustained interest in any of it: hunting, dirt bikes, four-wheelers, et all. Ah, but who knows? I blame video games and a childhood aversion to high-velocity projectiles.

Amuse Amuse

Today I collided with a chunk of debris while navigating through the warrens. We live in the belly of a submarine: constant noise, sirens, alarms, the ring of metal collisions, and the din of life packed into tight compartments; so running into things isn't exactly new. But the topography changes on a hourly basis, and I've tripped over an inventory of objects in dark rooms that include guitars, metal folding chairs, laptop computers, circular saws, and drum sets to name a few.

Today's injury won out in the category of horrific things not to happen to your pinky toe. Whatever I connected with this time was metal and unyielding, and I'm not embarrassed to say I spent the following moment face-down on the floor in a whimpering, quivering pile. I won't be any more specific about the details other than 'things had to be taped back together.'

Thankfully, we live in this age of wonderful home remedies to anything: namely stero-strips, adhesive medical strips, and anti-biotic ointments, and presto! we're walking around again!

But toe injuries were not on the agenda for today's blog; the position was snatched away from deeper philosophical bleating. So I'll have to cram it in here as a kind of footnote; something to pick up later on in the week:

It is my desire to exhibit artwork again, though I've become spoiled in my hiatus: I'm not sure I want to deal with 'the art crowd.' I'm reluctant, because I'm not sure we'll speak the same language anymore. My speech has grown into something coarse and bristly; my disposition is easily annoyed by 'clever, cute shenanigans,' and I get bored easily by a lot of this fanfare. Okay, footnote footnoted. We'll pick this up at a later time once I figure out what I'm actually trying to tell you.



...who's my goat?

Ugly Green Dude

Even though it directly contradicts what I said last week, I'm sharing some new artwork. I wanted to show my dad what I've been working on. It's small, but heavy. And oh-so-ugly. I love ugly paintings. The ones that shrug and say, "Here I am. Now deal with me."

And I stand back and admire my handiwork, like a proud parent glowing over their newborn's first poop.


...stink or swim?