If I gave up art

I could
* spend more time with my friends and family
* save money
* read more books
* learn (a) language/s
* be more interested in my job, which is not uninteresting, and do it better
* take up a proper exercise program
* cook more and hence eat better
* take up sewing, crochet, carpentry, or any other skill or craft
* be at peace


It's a theory, anyway.

Things be happening

This is my abode-to-be:





I think it's big, but I can't properly remember. We are at the back (obviously I can't have a mansion to myself, der. It's a flat). Plenty of space for both to work at home, though. The rent isn't that cheap but it's manageable and it's not in outer woop woop, which is a nice surprise.

I'm expecting lots of guests, all right?

In the meantime, I have a week off between jobs and will be packing up the ol' house. I completely don't know where to start with anything at all.

Update

It’s been a really interesting day today that seems to be summing up lots of the stuff that’s going on.
1. MW and I went to see a house (apartment) that we really liked and it was before the proper inspection and a private rental so maybe we can even have it! It had a big kitchen with gas and a bathtub and was in Summer Hill near all the shops and 2br and overgrown garden. But it’s likely the saga of looking for a place will continue for some time. That’s just how it is, full of disappointments and rallying and so on.
2. I had an interview for a new job that could be very good and is actually perfect for me right now, with an academic art and critical theory publisher. It’s part time but only just, which makes me somehow feel constricted and tight in the throat like Diane Keaton’s character in Love and Death where she says ‘can’t breathe, open a window, no, the other one, the one in the kitchen’. I don’t want to work jobs at all! But anyway, it would beat the shitkickiness I’m engaged with at the moment, which wants me to become permanent in three weeks and be paid 30% less per hour for the privilege of losing my flexibility (which is the point of that job).
3. I went for lunch with MW and chose the salad over the omelette with chorizo. It was the healthy choice, and I still want that omelette now, but I exercised a discipline uncommon in my general life, hence felt powerful.
4. Had a hair cut. My long curly locks are now a short short bob. My hairdresser is six months pregnant, something I didn’t know was happening. I felt all peaceful and relaxed and had lots of head massages and they brought me tea and it was all luxurious. And now my head is all 1920s, which is good.
5. A blur … I have a lot of follow up work to do on the exhibition I have on at the moment. Emails, images, opportunities to grab … lots of pressing blah better get on with it …
6. Went to a nice opening and talked to good people. People I haven’t been talking to for months because I’ve been locked down working on my show, and now I can go out. Solved some of my worky problems in a nice social environment. Sometimes these things look after themselves.
7. Came to MW’s house, he is making lasagne and listening to his iPod in the kitchen. As I type, I can sometimes hear him singing along. Warm feeling.
8. I was sent this link, thoughtfully. It made me want to write this post, so I did.
In conclusion, life is good and change, although it can be stressy, makes you feel alive. You know you are alive because you are in your life, living it. Currently.

It's a world of procrastination from where I'm sitting

I'm so tired
I haven't slept a wink
I'm so tired
My mind is on the blink
I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink
No, no, no

I'm so tired
I don't know what to do
I'm so tired
My mind is set on you
I wonder should I call you
But I know what you would do

You'd say I'm putting you on
But it's no joke
It's doing me harm
You know I can't sleep
I can't stop my brain
You know it's three weeks
I'm going insane
You know I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind

I'm so tired
I'm feeling so upset
Although I'm so tired
I'll have another cigarette
And curse Sir Walther Raleigh
He was such a stupid git

You'd say I'm putting you on
But it's no joke
It's doing me harm
You know I can't sleep
I can't stop my brain
You know it's three weeks
I'm going insane
You know, I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind
I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind
I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind

Huh what right uh

I think I am too self-centred for music. How eye-openingly ... I don't know. Lyrics make me overstimulated.

I am listening to a mix CD I made recently to give to a friend. It's really good. Right now I can only listen to Led Zeppelin or the Beatles or the Velvet Underground. Or quite a lot of other things. Hmm.

When I started blogging, it was this kind of free diaristic kind of thing. Now I have all these phantom audiences of readers (you know who you are! ha. I even know who you are, mostly. probably) that I consider when I 'blog'. I like having readers. My ego likes it. But now I think of the diferent audiences and self-inhibit. Not that this was ever a tell-all deep thing anyway. But maybe it might have been.

I feel that I've blandified.

Anyway. I've got to work on that.

I am moving furniture. I've been all over the shop today. Up, down, up. Unreleased energy, then tired, then antsy, then happy. Now moving drawers and shelves. At 12.30 am. Ah! Peaches is on. Must dash.

I've got a short little span of attention and oh, my nights are so long /Paul Simon

Another day nothing done.

All the disadvantages of being frozen, but none of the benefits.

I need to get past some crap work I don't want to do (and haven't been able to make myself do) so I'm able to do my own thing.

I'm sitting on two chairs (or whatever that German phrase is). Can't do new thing until old thing I won't do is done.

Meantime, my life trickles away quietly.

Here is where the sky is blue

I am staying at my parents' house while I prepare work for a show in their city.

They have the most beautiful garden, which my mother in particular obsessively works on. It's tasteful and alive and not fussy, and there are secret places and different levels to discover all around the perimeter of the house.

My mum has a great sense of colour and design, but is loose enough with the garden that it has an energy and a sense of a life of its own.


My dad used to grow a lot of vegetables, but because of the lack of any rain, ever, he's sworn off it. My mother has invented all sorts of crazy water recycling systems involving drip systems made out of pipes, hoses, plastic bottles and a customised wheelie bin. They've ripped up all the dead brown lawns and put in brown, I dunno, woody stuff. Chips. You know, it gets stuck all over your feet. Because it doesn't rain where they live any more. Ever.



Visiting them in spring makes me want to move to a country acreage and make compost. Unfortunately, I have no money for that and would probably find it too lonely by myself.

odd feeling in belly shock

I feel WEIRD.

What's that they say, I feel peculiar I think I should go outside or something?

I have all these projects still to be done. Yesterday I told my supervisor who is working full time and finishing his law degree on the weekends that the only way out is through.

Why can't I take my own advice?

Take it already! Jeez.

Prodctive and ennobling poverty Days Five and Six

Blah blah procrastinated watched a movie caught up with peeps, packed, made lists, had meetings about stuff, made phone calls, paid some bills. Slept badly. Took all the drawings stuck up on my wall off my wall and put them in a box. Time to make some new drawings. Note to self: remember to draw triangles, cubes, scissors, cylinders, arrows, letters, clouds, rainbows, pins, blah blah etc blah. Went to pub full of hillbilly chic and porkpie hats. So hot right now. Were given birthday cake by strangers. Touched. Tomorrow driving to the bush to focus and be productive properly. Also opshop and make May of the Dead costume. No further excuses to be accepted.

Productive and ennobling poverty Day Four

Wake feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. No time, no time, no time. Call J to try and postpone planned collaborative work for weekend. Make lists. Rush off only just on time to mind gallery for entire afternoon. Arrive at gallery. Stare out of window vapidly, accidentally driving away those passersby whose eyes I momentarily catch. Make more lists; realise I am duplicating lists produced earlier in day. Day saved by chatty friends who drop by to visit. Talk art all day.

Finish up. Curse yesterday's laziness while struggling to fit bicycle in back of two door hatchback. Pizza for dinner. Calm down slightly. More talk about art. Let flatmate down via lack of supportive gig attendance.

Nothing produced today but lists!

Productive and ennobling poverty Day Three

Spend inordinate amount of time writing simple letter to get new studio (in which to be productive, natch). Feel warm community-friendly feeling due to proximity of desired studio to house. Still running late so must drive letter up road. Holly's opening. Ride bike into city in accordance with new healthy intentions. Feel slack as didn't help Holly install show as promised. Drown sorrows with three beers. Accept lift home, leave bike in town.

Productive and ennobling poverty Day Two:

Awake early in accordance with First Day of Rest Of Life mentality. Look at clothes on ebay. Halfhearted attempt to clean room. Watch adults dressed up a wizard and fairies on commercial TV for a good fifteen minutes before snapping out of it. Yum cha with the ladies and first band meeting. Realise we need instruments. Committed to this for next meeting, which may more fairly be labelled practice, hopefully. Am ahead on this as already have instrument, behind as can't play it yet.

Quiet night at home. Eat fresh salmon. Lots of email and music. Feel warm and good. Decide need more music due to being out of touch. Work on room cleaning project. Sister comes over to tell me all her gossip. Also complains about Gmail and leeches off my internet. Going to sleep with Slaughterhouse 5.

Productive and ennobling poverty Day One:

Awoke hungover. Too ill to live. Cancel morning activities. Back to bed.

Afternoon movie. Companion wants to smoke dope so watch movie wet due to all discreet places at Circular Quay being rainy. Movie all right (Paris Je T'aime). Too much jumping around but quite good bits. Meet J re collaborative work planned for weekend. Drink Diet Coke during meeting, perk up, feel creative.

Home to sleep early.

While reading I want to be a writer

The reason I said that loving a writer’s work can be lonely is that in order to read (or be read to) you give yourself up/over while the words are being read. You can connect those words to yourself and feel alive while reading, but when you put the book down, it’s like you don’t live in that world any more. You can still take pleasure from the memory of it (especially when there’s still more of that world to experience, ie you haven’t finished the book), and enjoy that sort of secret knowledge that you carry with you while the feeling lasts, but it’s ultimately not the same world that everyone around you inhabits. It's too private. Even when you share the experience of reading, like discussing a favourite writer with someone else, there’s something cold about it; it’s so different to that experience of reading, of living in that other world. Because it’s happening inside your head, and we all know the bitter truth about how accessible our heads are to other people (not very).

It’s a little weird, I suppose, to find loneliness in something pleasurable and life-affirming, simply because the experience can’t be sustained. Glass half empty etc.

I don't know any more

Today has been pretty durn average.

How do you type the sound of a deep sigh with the air forced through the lips to make a kind of horsey exhaling sound? You know, like, audible resignation?

Next time I'm feeling GREAT I will force myself to blog, just for a bit of balance.

Good things:
* The place I'm staying at in Brisbane has a swimming pool and my work is paying. I will get to go to art openings as well as exhibitions while the office foots the accom/tansport tabs. This is a pretty good deal.
* I am out of debt. Long time coming. Soon as the tax bucks arrive I'll even be (gasp -) ahead.
* Christmas is coming and I will be going; to Thailand with my sister to drink cocktails and lie on the beach reading or drawing or staring snoozily into the middle distance (reputedly Margaret Thatcher's special skill, the staring bit I mean.)
* I am not Margaret Thatcher. The shame would be terrible.

I've run out. Note to self; collect list of good things to post on blog. I can do better than this, surely.

Average, average, average.

Banal personal revelations

Today I couldn't believe how openly stupid people were being to me at work. My incredulousness was palpable ... I was all 'what are you THINKING?' 'am I the only SANE ONE here?' etc etc. It was like a twilight zone of stupid.

Then when I get home my flatmate assures me (with a conspiratorially superior air) that it's because Mercury is in retrograde, communication's all fucked! Ha!

So that cleared everything up. Just gotta sit out the waning of Mercury. Once it like, ameliorates or whatever, then everything will be DANDY.

Then we sat in front of the heater affirming our freedom and financial independence (15 minutes a day for three months, right?) before saying goodnight.