Motivated Self Starter

The sense hit me hard today that my life is made up of the myriad little decisions I make in a day. I probably read this on a bumper sticker in Bear Town.

I had a few hours to kill before my next appointment this evening (dinner with the Swedes! I am so blessed) and I was nearly overwhelmed with the options. I could take a bicycle ride in the Baylands. I could spend money I don't have and get coffee and draw. I could go to the library to check CL (something I am obsessing about this month). Even the library had an almost overwhelming number of options. I thought that having no money would narrow it down, but it doesn't. The internet, the stacks-- these jewelled moments are like diamonds in my hand. Its a gorgeous day, even staring out the window would be a lovely thing to do.

I made a choice. I decided to look for more rooms on CL. Now I am blogging. How is this molding my life, I wonder? What kind of person will I be?

Good-Bye, Hello

what I will be leaving

I have had the the itch to move away from Flip Flop for years. Most of the time I can ignore it, or I can remind myself about the lovable qualities of my present situation (they are legion-- ample parking, proximity to freeways and beaches, friendly, small-town people, great weather, big kitchen, rocking parties).

Yesterday these all seemed like good reasons for staying until I woke up and found myself on the H's couch, fighting consciousness and thinking that the positive things keeping me here are mostly ephemeral; people (who might move on) and the beautiful land (there are other beautiful places). Its not like I have a real job here, or kids in the school. My work always seems to be elsewhere. My lovely housing situation could could change at any moment (the landlords could evict us or a housemate could move away). I had plenty of perfectly suffocating things keeping me here-- inertia, the fear of changes, the fear of culling my collections and the fear of causing others inconvenience. I have been here in this house for nearly five years. That suddenly seems like long enough.

I don't know where I'll be in August. I'll keep you posted.

John B, thinking again

Blog Meridian: In which the Meridian loathes Kinkade and gets religion without knowing it

John B wrote a great article that got me thinking about my favorite immortal questions, like "what makes good art?", "how do we justify disliking bad art?", "what is God's truth?", "what is my role as an artist", "is art a holy calling?", "what makes my invented world worth propagating?", "if I am an artist, does that make me some kind of minister?", "is my art good?", "how about my English?", "is my ass big?", "how are we going to get into the castle?", "once we get in, how do I find Count Rugen?", "what is truth in these fuzzy, postmodern times?", "if I declare a truth, am I declaring war?", "is art war?", "if I make bad art, is it a sin?", "should I apologize for bad art I have made in the past?" and "how can I write intelligent comments without knowing very much on other people's blogs?"