Ah Well

I just read a cool line in a book I borrowed from the library ... But we are idiot artists with no thought for the future. I like that.

In my hard drive I have books and poems and stories I've written over the years, much of it read only by myself. In my cd rack, I have cd's with hundreds ... thousands of photographs I've taken and photoshopped, and shown only to my great friend who is also a photographer. In my head I have more and more ideas for things to try, art to create. What will I do with all of this? Very likely nothing more than keep it for myself to enjoy.

Every so often, my thoughts turn to monetary gain, and I dabble with the idea of selling my art. I vow to submit my writing, my photographs, find a place that will display and sell my works. Somehow the idea never really takes root and it quickly fizzles away. Laid back to rest in the back of my brain until the next time I get the tentative urge to look into things again. I don't feel at all badly about this. For me, it's part of who I am as an artist. The fact that I've created art is what moves me. The sense of being a creative person, that is what makes me happy and content in my own skin.

I do have a new idea I'm toying with. Something to do with papier mache. I'm gathering supplies now - toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls, flat boxes of a certain size.... I have three or four ideas, and have sketched them in my notebook. These things I plan to make, if they turn out well, will not be for me this time. They will be for sale. I'm concentrating on getting going on this before my interest runs out and the ideas retreat back into their shells again.

My New Year has started with a fizzle. Sears didn't ask me back. They told me they were pleased with all my hard work. My extra effort did not go unnoticed, but they will only be needing one of us Christmas staff to return, and so they've asked the woman who caught a thief and saved the store $600.00. I feel a little ripped off, since I pretty much ruined my preChristmas by wearing myself out working extra shifts, but that's life. I had a verbal agreement with the head of the kitchens at a local college. I was to start working for him in January. I dreaded the idea of returning to kitchen work, but at least it would have been a job to bring in paycheques while I looked for something more to my liking. But that has fallen through. He didn't honour our agreement, and has hired someone else. And so I'm printing my resume and will go out today to apply for jobs. At least my resume looks better than before, now that I can list my Sears retail experience.

As for my secretarial job dream, I've decided to move away from that idea. What kind of a secretary would I be if I'm afraid to use the phone? It sounds ridiculous, I know, but I can't seem to lose my horror of answering that insistent ring. I've recently figured out the reason for this fear, but who knows if I'll ever get over it. Anyway, I've got another idea to check out. Just because I can't be a secretary, doesn't mean I can't do something similar. I have computer skills, and my English is university level (according to North Island college). There must be many other jobs for me in this field, maybe even something I could do from home. Anyway my two younger sisters are checking out some things for me, and once I have this information I'll talk to someone from the college who can counsel me further.

I'm feeling a little down, but not unbearably so. I have a bad cold. It's raining and my window continues to leak - I've moved my plants under the drips so they'll be automatically watered. Having lived in B.C. all my life, I know that this dismal weather will continue for months to come. The man living in the apartment below mine, wakes me up every morning to the sound of his tortured retching/coughing. Throughout the day he continues to roar out the phlem from his lungs until finally, mercifully, he goes to sleep. But ... yesterday as I practiced my yoga, the sun streamed through a parting in the clouds and filled my apartment with pale gold. I was reminded that spring will come, as it always does. And I remind myself that this summer I will find a better apartment that feels more homey, and by then I will have a nice job that I enjoy, and maybe I'll have my other job idea running smoothly, and maybe I'll have one or two of my papier mache ideas completed, and maybe....

We just never know what will be around the corner.