I recently began to draw again after a really long time.In my past life I drew for hours every day.Then I graduated school and had to get a job. As each year went by I drew less and painted not at all. I did have a 2 year burst of drawing and painting energy and output after I quit my retail job and decided to work under the table for my dad after a summer’s long stint trying to sell my art on the street didn’t pan out.But this ground to a halt, not surprisingly, when I moved in with my boyfriend and his brother and another roommate. Living alone affords all kinds of privacy and no needing to adhere to anyone else’s ideas of what a proper bedtime should be. Mine is never. My boyfriend can’t stay up after 10 pm if he’s home. If he’s in the studio he can stay awake until 3am. I was lucky to find a large dining room table perfect for drawing. I didn’t get going,though and so this table became a dumping ground for all kinds of crap.
Something told me I needed to start up again. I hadn’t drawn a single thing in almost 7 months and the more time that went by the more I was afraid to start.What if I ‘d lost it? Use it or lose it is kind of true. My drawing has always been about confidence. This confidence is bolstered up the more I draw. The more I draw the more sure I am and the less fearful of the big white blank piece of paper.
I assigned myself some drawing lessons and said I would draw an hour a day at the least. I haven’t really stuck to this because I did get about 4 new clients all at the same time. But the table is cleared of the crap and my tools are laid out and on it there is new drawing started just an hour ago. I feel better already.
Category: Personal Blog
I have a big mouth
My boyfriend and I were relaxing after spending the afternoon with his mom who is in town for a few days.
I was at the computer desk he was watching the basketball game and we were chatting about random things when out of the blue he said “I’m going to live in Colorado one day”.
I asked him why and he said for skiing. I immediately thought of Unmentionable, an old boyfriend who I hadn’t seen or heard from since 1997. Unmentionable used to take off from Long Island to Colorado to work at some ski resort and drive a bus in trade for free ski slope privileges. He’d be gone for the whole winter and never call me.
Needless to say it wasn’t a great relationship, very much in the unrequited category with me doing all the requiting. And it ended very badly. After one of his Colorado trips,he’d been back for a week or two before I even found out he had returned. Not only that but he’d finally gotten Ms.Thing to be his girlfriend and hadn’t bothered to let me in on it. Our mutual friend The Other Ms.Thing was the one who let me know. It was really devastating. Real Lifetime Movie Materiel.
So when Awesome Boyfriend said skiing and I thought of Unmentionable, I said so. And without thinking I began to describe some of the bad associations I had with men and skiing and Colorado and I happened to mention that Unmentionable and I were “together” for about 6 years.
Awesome Boyfriend took this hard. I think it was the 6 years part that got to him. Rather than the fact that I’d had a boyfriend before the boyfriend before I met him…if that makes any sense. I might have had a few boyfriends but I never had a good boyfriend until Awesome Boyfriend.
Most of my relationships prior to Awesome Boyfriend looked very bad on paper and this one I’m talking about was the worst and why would I want to talk about that with Awesome Boyfriend? I’d already told him the other guys I’d been involved with had failed me in the commitment department.
The 6 years spent being tortured by Unmentionable was just a hap-hazard grouping of painful events that yes, spanned 6 years of my life but no one could ever describe what went on as me and Unmentionable “being together”. And if Unmentionable and I had not had The Other Ms. Thing as a mutual friend it wouldn’t have lasted more than 1 day.
I tried to explain this to Awesome Boyfriend but I was feeling horribly guilty because of his reaction and I couldn’t verbalize that well. He just got angrier, like I’d been hiding something all this time we’d been together.
I do not feel I had been hiding Unmentionable or the length of time I knew Unmentionable. I just didn’t think it was an important aspect of my life previous to Awesome Boyfriend that he needed to know; such as if I’d ever been married or had had a child ( No, No ) before I met him.
Children of Men: a very late recommendation
Children of Men is out on DVD which makes my writing a review of it or even simply recommending that you rent it kind of useless. I’m assuming anyone with half a brain has already seen it. I won’t review it because by doing so I would have to give information about the movie and I saw it with only the knowledge that in the film no one could have a baby and Clive Owen was starring. Which was basically all that was written on the movie poster.And it was more enjoyable to have the film unfold without anticipating various scenes(something I invariably do after reading a detailed, just short of a spoiler, review)
But I will say this: it kicked my ass.
So to you all without half a brain:tough luck, rent it.
Clean is a lifestyle choice.
This is my kitchen as it looked tonight after I cooked dinner.(Ravioli with homemade pesto sauce)
I have been cooking since I was 11 and I was taught to clean as I went because someone was going to have to clean up after you and the idea was you should make it easier on them.
I was raised with quite a lot of kids and there were always tons of dishes to wash without adding a total kitchen disaster to the job.
My boyfriend was also raised with quite a lot of kids,too,on a kibbutz. Unfortunately, they had another system. One did their job. If your job entailed cooking the meal and someone else’s to tidy up after the meal, you didn’t worry too much about how you left the kitchen. If you made a huge mess in the cafeteria kitchen(the majority of kibbutz’s ate communal style, hence the cafeteria)there were about 10 folks assigned to kitchen duty and they could handle the mess.Also the industrial dish washing set up didn’t hurt.
Anyway, he did work as a cook in the kitchen but was never taught my Quakerish ideals.Now when he cooks the kitchen is destroyed and that’s just after a meal for him and me!
And even when he cooks his dreaded Sunday shakshuka(I don’t know how to spell it) breakfast,for himself because I won’t touch it, the destruction is total.
He’s gotten a bit better, he’ll wash the frying pan. But he will not wash the cutting board or knives or other pots and pans let alone his own plates and silverware.Or mine.
I’ve come to hate living like a dirty bum. I guess it’s age but a dirty kitchen and bathroom gross me out and depress me. No one else I live with has once cleaned the toilet. We’ve lived in this space for about 2 years. Can you believe that? Am I a doormat or what? I can’t let things get so bad that it has to be cleaned.But that is what has to happen in order for my roommates to clean. It’s a problem when there are differing “filth thresholds”.