It's such a little thing to weep,
So short a thing to sigh;
And yet by trades
The size of these
We men and women die!

There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

I'm going to start medication next week. I don't know how it will affect me, what it will do to my feelings of loneliness--invalidate them or leave them unchanged. I hope for invalidation for the sake of my sense of ambition and drive to move forward. Without a way to disconnect from what I've so far perceived as an irreparable and permanent sense of loss I don't see a clear future. I still hold out hope for an impossible outcome, for the story to end a different way. I just can't conceive of the possibility that all of this is not real, or that I'm wrong somehow for feeling the way I do. A year later and still the emotional attachment persists and I find myself completely unable to focus my attention on someone else. Every time I begin, at some point I'm forced to abandon it and start over. I know how wrong I was in what I did in the past, and I've wanted only to make things right all this time. Being completely denied the opportunity has resulted in a huge internal struggle which almost tore me apart several times. I understand why things have to be this way, but not if they have to be this way forever. I will never accept the explanations I've been given, or the assertions that degrade the importance of a relationship that profoundly changed who I am and what I believe in and stand for, what I want out of life, and made me realize how much I'm willing to work on myself for the sake of someone else.

I hope that someday something will change. Right now some form of logic is dictating the way things are, but any type of logic can't endure when it comes to love. I will continue to wait, to live my life as best I can and do what I need to do to be comfortable, and keep hoping that someday will come. I know how unlikely it is, but I see no alternative except to bury my feelings completely and try to love again with half a heart. If I live forever in a private purgatory holding on for a day that never comes then so be it.

I keep writing and writing and never come to any resolution. I don't feel like I've been treated like a human being, and so I don't feel like one anymore. I feel more like an animal, or some kind of nuisance. Nothing brings me any satisfaction, I'm doing things to fix what I can in my life, like my debt, my living situation, but without purpose. I don't know why I'm doing those things, just doing them because of some vague notion that it's what I'm supposed to be doing. What I wouldn't give for some sign that someone cares, that someone wants to see me happy. That would make all the difference for me, but the more time that passes without it, the less I see it. I need someone to help me, and no one will. So I've withdrawn even more. I don't know why, I just can't deal. My life was ripped open and shown to the world, so now I don't trust anyone, I don't talk to anyone, I just want to be left alone. But at the same time I need someone to be close to, and that's not going to happen. I just want to disappear, to vanish and never be seen again. I'm sick of this world, I'm sick of this body, this mind, this defective machinery. I hate it. I don't want things to hurt anymore.

"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.  
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.  
For want of a horse the rider was lost.  
For want of a rider the battle was lost.  
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.  
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

"All neurosis has its root in vanity."

I'm owed quite a lot of money by Besim at the moment. While we were moving the store I asked him to stop paying me and just log my hours. I think I'm owed about 2 grand by now, but I thought it was the right thing to do. Stock has been way down for awhile now, and two days ago he got about 24 boxes of cigars in. It was a six-thousand dollar order, so by not paying me he got a third more cigars than he would have been able to otherwise. In the middle of winter I wouldn't do something like that except for a week or a few days because it's too hard for him to catch up and he'd wind up too far behind. But right now I can pay my bills with what I'm making working for Jim and I just think of this as a forced savings. Things are getting busier, and during the summer money really isn't a problem, and 2 grand is nothing. I'm not worried about getting the money, and I'm trying to allow him to keep putting it off until Memorial Day so that we can have as many cigars on the shelf as possible. The more stuff there is the more people buy, the more word of mouth will spread that we have a good selection, etc. It's a kind of investment. I was hoping to be able to even put things on my credit card for him, but I haven't been able to do that yet. Like I said, money is never a problem here during the summer, so I'd get that money back, and the better he does the more bills he can pay and get out of debt, and the more the business can succeed.

This week, if we start Wednesday, I've so far worked 47 hours. I started at 6 AM Wednesday morning, worked til 11 PM, then came and opened the store Thursday morning, went to therapy, came back and worked the rest of the day, started at 6 AM Friday, went to Brooklyn to pick up a car for Jim and bring it back, then did his errands, left at 6 and came to close the store, and I opened this morning. I made $430 just working for Jim, and both jobs are starting to compete for my time. Almost every day now Besim calls me to come in at some point. I'm scheduled for 30 hours at the store, but I probably put in 35 or more. With Jim I, for the most part, work from Tuesday morning til Wednesday night, and 5 or 6 hours on Friday. The first two days I get paid for about 24 hours. He doesn't pay me to sleep even though we stay in Brooklyn, but it's not that big a deal because for the most part the hours I get paid for are sitting around reading a book or hanging out with him or the people who work in the shop. So I get about 60-70 hours a week, and I'm working 7 days a week now. That's going to translate into a lot of money, and I just have to see how long I can keep it up. There are a couple of days where I don't have to get up super early, so I should be able to catch up on sleep if I miss out because of the long days.

I don't know how long it's going to be before I can get a place of my own. I'm going to start looking at the end of this month, beginning of next, when it'll be a more realistic possibility. I'm floundering at home, and my anxiety is tough to deal with. I feel like someone is always looking over my shoulder and that I'm never doing enough or making enough progress. I've faltered in new routines several times, and part of that is just living with other people and feeling like if I don't spend time with them that I'm not doing the right thing. I really need my own place. I wind up not spending time with anyone but not working on my art or exercising, then when I'm motivated, the guilt of that unspent time keeps me from those things.

I'm trying to figure out with my psychologist how to tackle this problem, which has been an issue of mine for as long as I can remember. It was more easily dealt with in college because I had deadlines, and if I could somehow make them for myself then I'd be able to force myself to work a lot more. I think the quote I put at the top is a good starting point. I've been told for the longest time about my potential, and I avoid having to approach the subject of exhibiting my work by not having enough done. The reason I subconsciously sabotage myself and avoid these things is that I cherish the fact that I've never been put down, never had a reality check about my work. I don't think that much of it in my own mind. In reality I'm very humble about my abilities in any subject, and it's hard for me to compare myself to others without feeling insecure. I can be a great artist in my own mind the way things are, but the idea of trying to do it in practice is scary. What if I fail? What if no one likes what I'm doing or thinks it's any good?

I have to find an answer for this problem sooner rather than later. I'm afraid of having an empty life.

Still working on the move. I've worked about 14 days straight at this point. Since I paid off some of my credit cards I'm going to purchase some stock with Besim and have him pay me back within 30 days so we don't get charged interest. It's only a few thousand dollars, but it'll be easy to recoup with the season coming on now. Hopefully if we do that once or twice we can get stock up to a good enough level that he'll be selling enough to raise his purchasing power. The better the store does the better it is for me, because I'll get more hours and I might one day actually get a raise. The more stock he has going into next winter the better off he'll be as well. That's usually the time of year when it's hardest to get things on the shelf.

The new location is amazing. It's got great energy, and the way we arranged things looks really good. People are going to really enjoy coming here, and that'll mean more business. All in all things are looking up. Between my two jobs I'm going to have more work than I can handle this summer. We've been working so late here that I haven't had a chance to do much drawing, just a couple of hours here and there. The moving part is basically done, now it's just unpacking and rearranging things. Once that's more or less done and we get back to normal hours I'll have more time to do artwork.

I'm really enjoying myself. Lots of people I haven't seen in awhile are coming in and chatting. It's been a lot of hard work, but I take pleasure in seeing things come together and knowing I had a huge part in making it happen.

I've been helping Besim move into his new space this past week, working 9AM to midnight all weekend, and we're still not finished. There's a lot to do, but this space is so much nicer than the last one that I'm really excited about it. Maybe I'll get some pictures and document the process of becoming so that I have a record of it.

I just bought a few pieces from Gilt Groupe and ordered a custom made shirt and a new tie from Indochino. I haven't gotten around to doing the suit yet. I want to get a tailor to measure me and compare my own measurements with those so that I have less chance of having to do a bunch of alterations.

I haven't started the dating site thing yet. I just don't really feel like dealing with all of that right now. Unless I could find someone where it was actually equal give and take I just don't have the patience to deal with someone who's going to expect me to wait on them hand and foot and be at their beck and call 24/7. I'm enjoying having my own life and not having to cater to anyone else. I'm frankly sick and tired of people my age, and I don't regret leaving most of the people that are out of my life now behind. I can't say that I miss anyone who could, with a straight face, tell me to grow up while they have no job and have leeched off of their parents ever since leaving college. I needed to mature a bit, sure. But I don't need people in my life who are so obsessed by their own petty narcissistic delusions of grandeur that they throw away years of friendship.

Question your assumptions.

As of 4/12/11 my Chase credit card will be at $83.00. By the end of next week, it will be zero. Anyone who's known me for any length of time will realize how huge an accomplishment that is for me. I still have two cards to take care of, but this is a gigantic step in the right direction. I probably won't be completely out of debt until the end of the summer. It depends on when I get my own place. If I can't sign a lease until Sept. then it should all be gone sometime in July. I should be down to one card and starting on that balance by the end of May. It's going to be weird not to have debt. The next goal will be to actually SAVE money. A piece of completely alien terminology, thus far appearing nowhere in the Eric Lexicon.

The more I see from an objective standpoint the more I wonder why I wasted my time for so long.

Rangers are still alive! Should be a sick game tomorrow night.

Hitting the treadmill after work, then some drawing. I'll put up progress pics tonight. I can almost see my abs, now I have to start working on them to get some definition so there's something to see. I must be getting down around 7 or 8 percent body fat. I think under 7 you can see your abs, but I forget what the exact percentage is.

I've been getting back into No Reservations lately. It's such an amazing show, I could go on and on about what a genius Bourdain is. It's probably my favorite television show of all time. An Idiot Abroad is a close second.

Jim is almost done with the outside work he was having done on his house this past month. Once that's done I'll start the new project there. In addition to the painting I'll be doing outside as extra work, he's going to start transferring his personal finances from the city to out here. Right now his CFO handles all of them, but he said there's enough that it'll create a lot of work for me. I'll basically be like his personal finance manager, and start to learn a lot more about the business and his personal stuff. We're going to be doing a lot more work out at the house, setting up an office and doing a lot of filing. We may not go into the city as often, but he's offered to let me stay at his house whenever I want if we're working late or something and I don't want to drive back. He just finished his basement and he's putting in another spare bedroom next to the apartment he made for his caretaker.

The weather has been getting nicer, except for Friday. Today is beautiful, and I can feel spring in the air. It should be a very good summer for me.

I'll do some more pics of my drawing tomorrow. I'm taking it easy tonight after a pretty long week. I have my first and only game of the Rangers regular season on Monday night, which I'm obviously very excited about. I have to go into Brooklyn early Tuesday and stay over into Wednesday, so that's less exciting, but as long as I don't get back too late Monday it shouldn't be that bad. In about the next two to three weeks I'll have my Chase credit card paid off, and I'm getting my tax refund direct deposited. I'll probably have to wait for the state refund, but I've been able to do a lot in a short amount of time. The refund is helping things go faster, but I've been pretty diligent as well. I'll start saving in May for a security deposit on a place, and start tentatively looking to get an idea of what I'll have to pony up. I'm looking to move somewhere around Sag Harbor, maybe in North Sea or somewhere around there. I want to get out of Hampton Bays, and Sag Harbor is a beautiful area. They are supposed to have great night life there, and the town is much busier even than Southampton, so it should be a fun place to live.

I just don't have a lot of time on my hands right now, so there isn't much going on aside from my drawing. I'm keeping a close eye on the playoff push and catching as many Rangers games as I can. We play the Flyers tomorrow, which should be a slug fest, and then the Bruins on Monday. We only have two games left after that, so the next two games will be a big indicator of whether or not we're going to make it in. We were muscling our way in for a couple of weeks, but we've dropped the last couple of games, and our position is a little precarious right now. If we don't win tomorrow I think we'll have to win the last three games in order to make it in. I'm really nervous, but I think if we do get in that we have a good chance of making it to the second round. Beyond that I'm not so sure. It all depends on how well the team buys into Torts' system and gives their all every night. We can be a little streaky at times and that doesn't bode well for us in the playoffs. If Lundqvist is strong, though, we always have a chance to win.

I finally got past the middle of the page on this stage of my drawing, and I flipped it over to start on the other side. Instead of going from the bottom up I decided to do it from the middle and work my way down. I spent two days straight helping Jim put in some underground wires and pipe for his gate/security system. He wasn't going to go into the office, so he offered me as much work as I could handle. I put in 11 hours digging the first day, and about 8 the second. We were pretty much finished by the end of the day Tuesday, so I didn't go over there yesterday. I was completely shot anyway, although surprisingly I'm really not that sore today. I guess working out has paid off. I thought I was going to be in tremendous pain, because at the end of the day Tuesday I could barely hold a shovel anymore, my wrists and hands and forearms were so sore.

I should be getting my tax return soon. I'm excited about that, because I'll be able to take another huge bite out of my debt in one shot. The next few weeks I'll be making quite a lot, because I've been working extra hours for Besim lately. There's really not much to talk about since I've been so busy. I've thought more about it, and I do want to be careful what kind of outside influences I allow into my life, but I'm starting to think that it might not be a bad idea to join a dating site. I think that pretty soon I'll be as ready as I'm going to be to at least start talking to new people and maybe go on a few dates. I'm not looking for anything but a serious long term relationship, and I have no interest in flings or random sex. I just have to be careful that I don't get sucked in too quickly. Any relationship that I get into is going to go very slowly, so that I can make sure I'm dating someone that I actually want to be with, and not just settling. It's obvious to me that my feelings aren't going to go away, and it's just something I have to bury. Just move on and lock that hurt away. It was a waste of time and energy to keep trying to fix things.

I still have to find a day to go talk to my GP about medication. I know I'm putting it off because I'm nervous about it, partly because I'm afraid it won't make a difference. It may take a couple of weeks for me to get around to doing it, but I'm definitely going to give it a try. I've made that a firm decision. Nothing else new to talk about, just work work work.

And so we progress...

The camera lens creates the distortion on the right side of the page making the lines at the top appear to slant, but they don't in reality. This area of the drawing is taking a lot more time than the rest because it's so far up the page. It's hard on my back to work on this section, but I have another half inch on the right section at the top and then I can flip it around and go the other way. I have three new sketches for drawings, just very rough ones, but there are some intriguing possibilities.

Pretty much sums it up. Some people would do well to learn what some of these things really mean instead of just succumbing to confirmation bias.

Lol.

I've been talking with my psychologist and thinking myself about my interest in physics and astronomy, and it's strange, but I feel more free now than I have in a long time to do what I want. The more I think about going back to school to get another degree, the more the idea appeals to me. Even if I wind up selling drawings and being an artist, to me no education is wasted. Besides, I've always been so interested in the inner workings of the universe and I can never get enough information about it. It would be daunting to have to go through calculus and basic math again, and I'm sure there would be a lot of chemistry and calculations that I'd have to learn, but I want to explore the idea anyway. My therapist suggested I go to Brookhaven National Lab and talk to the scientists there. Apparently they have what is essentially an open house at the collider they built there, and it's free. I could at least find out what I'd be getting into, and if that's not enough of an explanation there's nothing that says I can't send an email to someone who works at an observatory or at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I was watching a show called "The Planets" the other day, and the episode was all about the Mars missions and Voyager and Galileo, and there was a scene with a room of scientists, right at the moment where they recieved confirmation that their first probe had successfully landed on Mars, and they all cheered. I wished with every fiber of my being that I could have been part of that, to be in that room and share in that excitement. It sounds a little far fetched even to me, but I think that I put myself down unnecessarily in college by thinking I wasn't smart enough to be a scientist, or that I wouldn't like doing the math and that would ruin it for me. I think I'd even enjoy something like being a paleontologist. Next to the universe outside of Earth's atmosphere, the biology of living things that existed millions of years ago is the most exciting thing I can think of. I can literally eat up any and all information on dinosaurs, and the history of the Earth from the first life forms is just fascinating. It's not something I could do right now, but I want to save these thoughts for the somewhat near future, when it might be possible to actually do these things.

I also got on the subject of skydiving and flying today with someone, and it made me realize that I really want to paraglide or skydive or something. Even if it was just once and I didn't want to do it again, I think that's something I'd find really exciting. I don't know why, up to this point, I never thought more about things like this, but I'm realizing I can really do whatever I want. Once I get out of debt the world will be open. I heard a physicist say the other day that what he does is a creative process, and that's when it really hit me that I could do this. I could make that dream happen and actually be good at it. A lot of discovery is just figuring out how to test different ideas, and I've always been good at visual spacial problem solving. I may never be a candidate for MIT, but I could figure out a way to test a theory that revolutionizes our understanding of quantum physics, or the universe at large. Who knows? It's at least worth thinking about and doing a bit of research.

In other news, I did get my brother's old guitar working, and it sounds perfect. I haven't had a chance to play much, but I went through a couple of songs that I know. I'm pretty rusty, but it felt great to make music again.

I have a long day helping Jim put in a new service at his house tomorrow. He offered me extra work helping the electricians and the low voltage guys dig and pull wire, and since I've done that kind of thing before I took him up on it. It's going to be a tough day, but it'll allow me to get some exercise and make money at the same time. Tuesday will probably be a lighter day, and we might go into the city briefly on Wednesday. I have to work all day Thursday for Besim, so I have to skip my usual appointment. He had to backtrack out west because of snow on the roads, so I may wind up working Friday for him as well. Yay.

I've gotten halfway up the page on this phase of the drawing I'm working on. I'm going to keep going up a little past that and then flip it over and start the other side. This side had a lot more on it already and more complicated patterning, but once I get what's already laid out filled in more I'm going to try to view the piece on the wall if I can, so that I can figure out what needs to be added to aid the composition. I've already tacked on some small areas of shading in places. I'm taking much more time and care with this versus the one I did in college that was similar. This one promises to be far more nuanced and interesting, and I think if I do a series like I plan to that it will be very successful. There was another drawing I did all in curved lines that almost swirled under your eye, and I want to take the most well done areas of that and sketch them out into my pad and try to translate them into a drawing with only the swirls, subtracting the rope ball that was present in the first one. That was there because it was part of an assignment, but there's something in the way it almost moves of its own volition that makes me really want to experiment more with that technique.

I'm working all this week, but I've been putting in a couple of hours when I get home each night. It doesn't leave time for anything else, really, but that's okay. I feel like I'm really getting something accomplished, and it's fun to see the drawing take shape the more work I put in. I ordered a few different types of pen from Amazon, which will arrive in about two days. I discovered there are all different point thicknesses, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with them to see what kind of different effects I can achieve with each thickness.

I'm getting way more than I thought I would on my tax return this year, which is exciting. It will all go towards debt, but by the end of next month I should have only one card left, and at that point I'm going to start saving up for a security deposit and begin my search for a new place. I'm being careful with my money and it's been paying off. Even when I don't make that much when Besim is slow or I miss a day with Jim for whatever reason I'm still making progress. I'm hoping for a new car by the end of the summer, but we'll see. I don't want to count my chickens yet.

I haven't gotten to exercise the past several days because I've gotten home late from work, and I just don't have the motivation to get up early to do it yet. All in all, though, I feel pretty good about myself lately.

There's a corner being turned, here. I'm going to take the opportunity to try medication and see how it works. As I've said, I made a lot of progress just by changing my routine and my habits, but there's something still out of reach. I feel like a better person than I was, more energetic, happier, more relaxed. I know my actions make it seem like I was really crazy, and not just badly affected by depression. Without a job, feeling like I had no emotional support, things got pretty bad. They had never been like that before, and my psychologist is positive that it was just the set of circumstances I was in. I knew that at the time, but I was the only person who understood that. No matter how much I protested that it was situational and that I needed time apparently it just wasn't getting through. It became easier to escape than to face reality, and I wasn't being honest with myself or anyone else for a long time. I'm not a victim, I know that. I have things that belong to me, that I have to deal with that are nobody else's problem. I was stuck in a rut for a long time, and being unhappy made me take the easy way out. It took enormous pressure to move me from where I was, to get to where I am. I know that I'm not completely cured. Depression is not something you cure, per se, but it's also not something that has to impact your life in any significant way if it's treated. I know that I still have to reach the goals that I've set for myself in order for all of this to mean something.

But, I feel good about myself and what I'm doing. I pay attention to little things and watch how different things affect me and how I react to situations so I can figure out the best way forward. There is no doubt in my mind about what I can achieve if I continue to push myself. I want to prove that nagging voice that was always in the back of my head wrong. The one that said you've been here before, or somewhere similar, and you didn't pull yourself out. I didn't have help, then, and I couldn't see the way forward. I couldn't see a future where I was happy so that I could aim for it. I didn't know what direction to go in, and most of the wasted time was spent figuring out if I really wanted to be an artist, if I really belonged where I was, if I should finally just get a job, any job, and stop being picky, what kind of job I'd like if I had a choice... I had no answer for any of those questions, and I was paralyzed by anxiety.

That's in the past, and it feels amazing to have some solid answers for myself, regardless of whether they change over time, I finally understand what it means to really know what you have to do. I don't know how I know, I just do. I have to focus my energy on things that will make me feel better about myself, and make them part of my routine. It takes time to let go, and I haven't been letting myself do that. I don't know how, to be honest. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do and it's the only problem I don't have a solution for right now. The only thing I can think of is to keep myself busy and put time and effort into positive growth so that I'm in a better place tomorrow than I was today. It's a process, and it's not going to happen overnight. The changes in my mindset are tangible only to me, because no one wants to hear about them, but they're still real. Only I know what I really think and feel now, and how I was then. These feelings of knowing what I need and what I want are alien. But the ones that relate to what's important to me and how I conduct my life are familiar. To this day I don't know how I managed to let myself go for so long. I just didn't care about myself, and in doing so I went down a self destructive path that pulled others down with me. If there's one thing I regret right now, because of where I wound up, it's not making sure that I took care of my needs and preparing myself for the future. Being alone is not as oppressive as it once was, because it gives me the opportunity to start from square one. It's the most painful way to become who you want to be, but it's the most pure and the most character building experience I'll ever face. I can point to things that went wrong, and the way that other people affected me, and I have every right to be frustrated about the fact that people I thought would be there for me weren't. But I have to be responsible for my own feelings, and I can't let that consume me, just like they should be responsible for their feelings and realize that they can choose to feel this way, or they can realize it's not the way things have to be. Maybe that will come with time. I don't have a leg to stand on or any reason to feel morally superior, and I don't. But regardless of what I did, it doesn't provide a justification for the hurt they caused me that made some of my problems worse. I believe in love and forgiveness being more powerful than hate and anger. I think that holding a grudge and punishing people is not the way to deal with being hurt. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

Some photographs from the Prospect Park Zoo. I wish there was a bunch of bananas in the last picture to make the left hand side more interesting. I'll have a few more pictures from the park itself at some point, but there wasn't much light that day, so therefore not many pics are that exciting. It was a good exercise, and it was good to work on my compositional skills, but not a whole lot came out of it that's worthy of going in my portfolio. I do really like the last photo here, however.


I'll end with a story:

Picture the coast of Montauk, a harbor with piers 50 feet high. Small ladders descend from these platforms down to 5 large sailing ships achored there. Anthony Bourdain is accompanying me on a trip around the world in a sailboat, but I have to find the right ship. It's a dark night, the landscape devoid of life, the wind whipping around me as I climb down thin ladders to the bucking and rolling ships at the bottom. I almost fall several times trying to get back to the ladder as I find no one aboard. I can't find the right ship, no one seems to be around. Finally, all of a sudden I'm in a ship, as if my subconcious got fed up with me risking my life and teleported my corporeal body. Anthony enters the hold. There are a few talking terriers walking around, and all of a sudden a rabbit with a beak. Not a large parrot beak, but a small one, like on a baby chick. I say that I always wanted a rabbit, and nuzzle it. It talks to me. Anthony makes a statement, that whatever drugs are aboard, they should be brought out immediately and that everyone must share to keep each person high for as long as possible during the voyage. The chick-a-bunny produces a large bag of weed, and everyone (everyone being me, Tony and several talking cute mutant animals) makes celebratory noises. Bourdain pours himself a large drink, and gets me a Sam Adams. The bunny mutant has now turned into a giant baby chick, and passes me an electronic device, asking me if I can tweet for him. I've never used twitter in my life. But this is like a notepad program in a small hand held device, similar to the electronic pets that were in vogue about 15 years ago. I type "tweet, tweet, tweet," and a small bird flies across the screen and says "tweeeeeet." I begin to get drunk, and the dream ends.

That is all.

Just wanted to post my continuing progress on Dave's wedding present:

I'm getting really into the piece I'm working on for Dave. It's exciting, so it's going to be hard when I have to give it away, but as soon as it's done I can start on a new one. I plan on doing a series of the same type of drawing. I posted some shots below showing that it's basically lines up and down and across the page. I start with an even layer and then accentuate the places where the ink built up more or where overlapping lines created darker regions and bring them out. Then I start to look at the composition of the piece and construct it from there. I have some variations that I'd like to try out, with some hard edged shapes along with the gentle blending that I normally do. I have several ideas to try out as far as the "forms" go that are in my other drawings. I've got enough sketches to keep me busy for quite awhile. It will be harder to work this summer, but I've gotten into a good rhythm and I think about new pieces or what I want to do next at work so that I'm psyched up to do it when I get home. I think a lot about how nice it would be to make a living doing this and be able to just create things all the time. That's what keeps me working hard, the dream that I could do this all day every day.

I found my brother's old guitar downstairs, and I've been nursing it back to health. It suffered several cracks in the top, which I clamped and repaired with small slivers of wood on the inside to strengthen the top in those areas. It shouldn't affect the playing at all, but I was afraid of them getting worse. He disobeyed the cardinal rule of storing guitars for long periods of time and neglected to loosen the strings before putting it away. It's a shame, because it's a really nice acoustic. Tomorrow I'll fully tighten the new strings and we'll see how it sounds.

I got back on the topic of medication with my therapist today, and he recommended generic Selexa. I'm going to see my GP at some point in the next few weeks and ask him to write the prescription, then we'll see how well it works. I'm not looking forward to it, really, but I am hopeful that it will help. I think I've done almost as much as I can on my own, and I just need something to make things easier. I'm not content to stay where I am.

I watched some of the songs from Les Miserables on PBS last night and it made me remember how much I used to enjoy musicals. I hope it comes back to Broadway sometime soon, because I'd love to go. In related news, Trey Parker and Matt Stone just finished writing a new musical called The Book of Mormon, which is supposed to be phenomenal. I love everything else they've ever done, so I'm going to have to go see it when I can get tickets.

I'm going to a Rangers game in a week or two. I can't wait! Hopefully by the time I go we haven't been knocked out of the playoff race. We're hovering just on the edge right now, still in 7th or 8th place, and we've been winning of late. I hope we can keep it up, though I'm not sure we'll go deep if we do make the playoffs. I'm so sick of Glen Sather and his complete failure at being a GM. Yes, he had success elsewhere, but in the last decade we've won two playoff series. Nothing else. Why keep a jackass who just wastes money on big name players who are past their prime? Jagr was probably the only good acquisition he's had so far with us. It remains to be seen whether Gaborik will perform up to what we expect. Last season he was great, but this year he's gone right back to being hurt all the time and only has something like 19 goals. He's invisible when he's actually playing, and at this point I wouldn't mind trading him. We have a good core of young players, but we need a real sniper. Somebody who you can rely on to score 30, 40 goals a season. Who knows where we'll find someone like that, but without that kind of player I don't see us winning a cup any time soon.

Everything else has been good, not much to talk about except that I'm excited about the warm weather and summer. I'll get to run outside and go to the beach, and there are a lot of fun things coming up. I'm thinking about taking some kind of martial arts class depending on how much they are, and I'm still trying to find a way into the art community here. I just have to keep on keepin' on.

The Godspeed show was amazing, as expected. There's an Explosions in the Sky show coming up on April 6th, but it's a Wednesday, and I can't go because I have to work late. There are decent seats still available and they're not that expensive. So I'm pretty upset considering Low and Eluvium are opening for them.

It was a really fun day all around. Spending the day with the Daves took me back about 6 years to my Junior and Senior years of college when we used to hang out all the time playing Smash Bros. Bernstein and I got together around 11 AM once I finally got through the morning traffic and arrived in Brooklyn. We had breakfast together at a weird little diner, which supposedly had the best food in Brooklyn. It didn't compare at all to Country Corner, and, put it this way: if that's the best food in Brooklyn then I don't want to live there.

Afterward we grabbed our cameras and walked to Prospect Park. Eventually we found our way to the Zoo, which was pretty tiny but had some interesting animals. Dave was like a kid in a candy store. The highlight of his day was watching otter sex for half an hour. I hadn't been to a zoo in ages. It was fun walking around and taking pictures. I got a few good shots, and we walked around Prospect Park afterward as well, so I'll have some things to put up in the next couple of days. We were out walking for about 5 hours, and my legs are still sore today even though I've been exercising.

We met up with Berg around 6 and had dinner in Union Square, which was actually really good. We made our way closer to the venue and stopped at a bar, then got a taxi to take us to the show. Bernstein and I were both pretty beat, so the three of us found a couch on the third floor with flatscreens showing the stage and chilled out there for most of the show. It's orchestral type music, so actually seeing the stage isn't that important. We got a taxi back to Berg's apartment after the show and went to a bar around the corner. I had about half a beer and suddenly started to get really tired, so I had to leave them there and find my car to go home. I didn't get home until almost 3 AM, so it's a good thing I left when I did. All in all it was an awesome day. I'm hoping that Berg will be up for hanging out more often. We always say we should get together more, but then neither one of us is that good at keeping in touch.

Pretty soon I'm not going to have any time to do anything social. It looks like I'm going to keep my job at Besim's. Somehow he pulled it out of the fire and is planning to move down the street in the next few weeks. Don't ask me how, but he held off the tax department and I'm even getting a few extra hours. Once April comes around I'll be working almost 70 hours a week. I really need to save some money and get my own place, so I don't mind working hard.

Tomorrow my psychologist and I are going to start talking about medication for my anxiety. I hate my social anxiety so much. It's cost me not only love, but opportunities, and my general anxiety has impeded my progress a lot. I never realized how much it affected me until recently. It's hard for me to get to sleep at night because I lay awake thinking, and tensing my muscles. It's completely involuntary. I can't even imagine a life without anxiety, or even with decreased anxiety where I feel normal. I've been living with it all these years, and I've even been called selfish because my anxiety prevented me from going out or spending time with people. I feel like a leper. Nobody understands how hard it is, because if you don't have it then it doesn't make sense to you. There's no concept of the effort it takes to hang out with strangers, or even people you just don't know that well. Sometimes even people you DO know very well. People completely misjudge you, call you moody or elitist, aloof or self centered... there's a difference between those things and being an introvert. You can't do something wrong if you don't know it's wrong, if there's no intent to cause harm or frustration in others. I've been made to feel like these things are my fault, somehow under my control. It's only recently that I realized that I have no reason to bow to those opinions, and that the way people have treated me as a result of these issues is what's really wrong with this picture. I take responsibility for my actions, but not for things I can't control, and I refuse to take responsibility for something when your being hurt by it is only a result of you not trying to understand it. The wrong things I've done are few compared with things that have been taken as such by people with no understanding and no capacity for empathy. I hate to keep rehashing this stuff, but I wish I could grab people and shake them or make them see a psychologist themselves so they could have this explained to them. When I do it I just sound like I'm making an excuse to them, or not taking responsibility for my actions. If I didn't have social anxiety and I didn't want to hang out with your friends, or go out to a bar, then go ahead and call me selfish. But if I say no because the thought of it makes me want to crawl out of my own skin, or hide somewhere by myself, then you have to understand that it takes an effort of will to do these things.

My psychologist and I are going to talk about referring me for medication. I've been resistant to taking that step so far, firstly because I wasn't sure if I needed anything more than the supplements and some exercise. That's probably true for my depression, but it's certainly not in the case of my anxiety. I was worried about taking something because of my tendency to abuse substances in the past. However, my psychologist and I both agree that if I have something that helps with my anxiety/depression that I won't feel the need for drugs. I was essentially self medicating, taking things because they helped me get through the day, accomplish things, etc. But it got out of hand, and what I was taking was too strong and not really what I needed. Sometimes it was the complete opposite of what I needed. So I'll have to start talking to my boss about health insurance to get that covered, although if it's not expensive I might be able to handle it myself. I should have health insurance anyway, and I'd like to get dental as well. I'm trying to take care of myself, and I'm starting to think that medication might be what I need to get to the next level of function in my life.

I'm still consistently experiencing some small setbacks, although overall I feel I'm getting better. It's frustrating when your body and your brain conspire to keep you immobile, and all you want to do is be free. Sometimes, when it was really bad, I felt like I was stuck in a swimming pool with 6 foot high sides and no ladder. It took so much effort to get anything done. Some days I still feel like that, and it would be okay to take a day off here and there like a normal person, but I beat myself up for it. That makes it even harder to get anything done, because the next day I start criticizing myself for not getting enough done and taking the day off. Then I wind up talking myself into doing nothing because I'm worthless anyway and none of it will matter. It was a vicious circle that I had to break to start setting goals and getting things squared away in my life so that I can be monetarily and psychologically free. I long for that feeling, and everything that I do is aimed at a feeling of accomplishment. The problem is that accomplishment is hard for me to feel good about when it's not something big. I think about all the other things that I need to do and it makes what I have done feel like nothing. Like the finish line keeps moving away from me even when I'm running full speed. I think that I should at least try medication. I know now, from having a lot of days where I don't feel like this that I could feel better than I do.

What I've done has been through willpower and hard work, as well as a little bit of help from the supplements, but they're really not the final answer. They helped me get this far, and now it's time to re-evaluate and figure out where I am and how to make things a little bit easier so that I can realize my potential. It's there, seething under the surface, creativity and music and ideas and goals and wants and flights of fancy that I wish I could undertake. But there's something still holding me back from moving past the best that I've been so far in my life. I don't want that to be where I stay. It's not the place I really want to be, I just got used to it and stopped thinking that I was the type of person who had ambition. I do, I just worry too much, and criticize myself for not being smart enough, or hard working enough, or talented enough, whatever it might be. That's why it's so hard to start a project and finish it if its going to take longer than a week. My drawings are something I'm passionate about, but I'm crippled by anxiety and it feels like I can't finish them no matter how hard I try. I put them down as not good enough, and ask myself why I should bother. I work on them anyway, but I could put in more time if I let myself see how well spent that time is. Right now I can't see enough progress on a day to day basis to put in the long hours that I need to. I'm proud of myself for doing as much as I have, but I can do better. That applies to a lot of other areas of my life, so it's not just one thing that's affected.

There's still something that needs analyzing and fixing, but I'm getting closer to figuring things out. Therapy has helped a lot. I've been able to define for the first time since I can remember who I am and what I want out of life, who I'd like to be and the things that are important to me. There are people that I had to leave behind that I miss, but some of them were not good influences on me, and some of them enabled my self destruction and made it hard to feel good about myself. As much as I wish I could have those people in my life, I don't even want them there right now, because I'm doing well by myself. I've been hesitant to meet a lot of new people and make new friends because it's very easy for me to disregard my own needs and responsibilities when other people are around. People that I admire or respect have a lot of influence on me, whether they know it or not, and my desire to please people makes me get in my own way a lot of the time. This is where I need to be in order to be a whole person. It's not what I necessarily want or desire at the moment, but it's becoming more and more clear that leaving certain things behind was for the best. Not that it should have turned out this way, but with the state I was in, this is what had to happen. I've been able to forgive myself for the things I've done, and I take responsibility for what I did wrong. It's frustrating that other people can't see what they did wrong, but even if they did it probably wouldn't change anything for me at this point. I want to keep pushing ahead, and when I'm ready I'll come out of my shell. I have to build a solid foundation for myself, then I can incorporate more people and outside influences into my life. Right now I'm still not well equipped to handle all of them. Simplicity is key until I feel more secure.

Pretty profound coming from someone on the internet. Also here's a thread on Reddit, an "ask me anything" by a person who's dying of cancer and has 51 hours left to live before they go in for doctor assisted suicide. Not a cheerful subject but very moving.

 I was shooting a lot with a diffusion filter in San Fran, and a lot of the forest photographs didn't come out the way I thought they would. I have a harbor shot that I need to stitch together, but these were the only two shots I thought it was worth spending time on aside from the two I posted earlier.

Here are the first couple of images I've worked on so far. I'm getting to the others right now. I have a bad habit of procrastinating on my artwork, but it's so satisfying to see the finished product. Even if I never make money doing art, I will always do it for myself. I have to throw myself into this drawing that I'm doing for Dave. It's really important that I get it done before a year has passed, and even though there's plenty of time, I don't want to keep pushing the date back. It will make Dave really happy if I get it done and give it to him before July. I owe that to him for the way he has stuck by me during the last year.

Depression is like being underwater. Like you're swimming in molasses. Trying to move forward, every step takes effort, and everyone else seems like to be walking on air. It's not always easy to be so upbeat in this blog, but I do it because I need to stay positive. I know I'm in a better place than I was 6 months ago. The future still seems a long way off, even as I can see it coming over the horizon. My biggest goals feel no closer, even though they are. That's what's so difficult about being depressed. It's hard to think it's worth the effort to do things, because you can't see how it will benefit you in the long term. Sometimes it's easy, and I feel great. Sometimes I feel like I accomplished nothing, even if I worked hard all day. It's a slow process, but I have to keep a positive outlook in order to keep moving forward.

I need a little bit more time to cement my new habits, and then I'll be ready. Sometime in the near future I'll have passed a big milestone and be able to say that I did something I set out to do months ago. I'll see the result of hard work, and how it paid off, and that will help motivate me towards other things. For now I have to keep doing the day to day stuff, reminding myself that I have to do it even if I don't feel up to it. It's really hard sometimes, but it's gotten easier and easier the longer I keep it up. I may never be a person who's always happy, but I refuse to ever again be a person who's never happy.

I know, I haven't gotten pictures up that I said I would. I'm working on it. I will hopefully have time tonight. I'm done with smoking. Done done done. Nada mas. This is important, and I have to exercise restraint. It shouldn't be that hard, it's more psychological than anything else. After almost 10 years it's hard to break a habit like that. But I'm starting to remember how great I used to feel when I would exercise regularly when I was younger, and I want that feeling back.

I'm trying really hard to control my spending. I've made progress, but it's one of my worst bad habits. I have to figure out a better way to budget and a way to find cheaper alternatives or something. I know I'll be making a lot more money soon, but I want to stick to the same budget once I start so that the extra money all goes toward debt/savings. I've always been terrible with money, but I'm concerned about my future and I have to get it together once and for all. It's the most important thing that I need to accomplish. I have to just keep telling myself "don't spend, don't spend, don't spend. You don't really need that. You don't need that either." I'm a lot better than I used to be, but I still struggle sometimes, especially when my schedule slows down unexpectedly and I don't have as much coming in as I planned for. That doesn't happen often, but it can throw a whole month out of whack, and if it happens twice in two months or something it takes awhile to get back on the right path. I can save a lot of money by not smoking, and I'm trying to cut out things like Red Bull and drinking the free coffee at work instead. Things like that will be a big help, but I still need to figure out a solid budget. I have a rough estimate in my head for things, but that's not good enough. I'm asking my therapist for help with all of this stuff. He should be able to help me figure out how to psych myself into doing things right when it comes to my finances. It's not rocket science, I just need some help with motivation and strategies to help keep myself on the right track.

Loooong day today. Update photos of the piece I'm working on and sketches, as well as San Fran photos will be uploaded tonight. I had no time for exercise today. Well, that's not really true. I didn't want to get up at 7 AM so I could exercise. I'm still sore anyway, and I get off work at 4 tomorrow, so I can combine cardio and free weights, which is better in the long run. I have one cigarette left in my pack. Contemplating using it as motivation and leaving it there.

Going bowling again Saturday. Perhaps Monday I'll finally go get the ball I've been promised. Now that I've been throwing better, with my new technique I'm excited to see how I'll fare my third time out. Will it be a case of beginner's luck or am I on to a sure thing?

Apparently Besim can't move his shop to the highway next to Goldberg's. There's a town ordinance against it, which really sucks. We were going to do traffic studies and find out how many people and what socioeconomic class most frequents that location so he could make an informed decision. All those plans are out the window now, but he still has two months to find a new space before his current lease runs out. The last thing he wants to do is stay put, so the search will begin in earnest now. I only made up a few of the hours I missed this week, but I got a full tank of gas, and $40 bucks worth of fuel is nothing to sneeze at in addition to free lunch (there is such a thing) and my regular pay.

I have to really get going on my drawing, because I still owe Dave a wedding present. I feel bad about it, but I've had a lot happen in my life in the last year, so it's understandable that I'd be a little behind. Etiquette dictates that I have a year after the wedding anyway, but I would have liked to have been done with it awhile ago, since I'm worried about my portfolio right now. Speaking of Dave, when we have our concert in a few weeks we also get to spend the day together. We're going to use it to photograph the city. Dave has gotten more and more into photography over the last year and it's nice to have someone to go out shooting with. He's got a surprisingly good eye, for someone whose interests aren't usually creative in nature. I'm consistently amazed by the quality of the work he produces. He's more into bird photography and close up things than I am, but since I'm into landscapes and nature it's easy to find enough for the both of us when we go out together. I'd like to take a trip to Boston soon to see him, but he's been slow with getting me his schedule so we can figure something out. I know he's got a trip planned to the Southwest and that's taking up most of his time, but I haven't seen him in months. We had a great time last I saw him photographing Millennium Park. I'd like to go back in the springtime and shoot it again.

I didn't get to work on those pictures from San Fran yesterday, and I probably won't get around to them tonight either, because of the Rangers game. Not that I should have wasted my time since we lost 3-1. I have to get up early tomorrow to go to Brooklyn, and I'll probably spend the rest of the night drawing.

I started The Fatal Shore today, a book I read a few years ago about Australia's founding. It was all I had to hand on my way to work today, and it's worth reading again. I've been doing two books at once so I'll probably start the other book I was talking about tomorrow night. I don't get much time to read these days in any case, but I usually have one book for work and one for home, because some are easier to read in small pieces and others need more concentration.

I should also put up some pictures of my sketches for record keeping and general why-the-hell-not-ness.

I've been having a few cigarettes a day lately, but I really need to quit. It's really counter productive when you're starting to jog regularly. I haven't smoked pot in awhile, not sure how long, but it's lost most of its appeal. I had a spring mix salad and a fruit salad today, as well as a banana and a smoothie. I'm trying to find a way to have a healthy diet that doesn't take a lot of work, but it's not easy. Either it costs too much or it takes too much time to buy and prepare. It's kind of a catch-22, and unhealthy food can be too tempting sometimes. I just keep telling myself that I can only have one cookie, only have one bag of chips today, no beer, just eat the damn banana. And then I go "mmmm banana," and remember that I like healthy food.

I have to skip a week of therapy because my shrink was away today. I'm not thrilled about that, but I've been doing okay anyway. There aren't a whole lot of pressing issues that I have to deal with ATM. It's more general stuff that we've been getting into, and they can wait a week I guess. Today was kind of a blah day.

First of all:

My back started to hurt as I moved further up the page, so I had to curtail my drawing efforts for today. I've been going back in half hour increments because I can't do much more than that before I need to take a break. If only I could suspend myself over the paper a la Maude Lebowski, though with less velocity it would solve a number of technical problems.

Before and after:

I started moving up the right side of the page as well, to give my back a bit of a break. It's hard to see fine detail with the camera, but I did a lot of blending in the bottom/middle of the page as well. I started around 3 PM today. One of these days I have to get a stopwatch and time myself. I think that rather than naming my pieces formally I will time how long each one takes and name them that way. For example, "3:23:48.22" 3 days, 23 hours, 48 minutes, 22 seconds.

The process is therapeutic and the conceptual side of each piece is mostly expelling neuroses and the necessity of drawing. I think that all artists, musical or otherwise fall somewhere on the savant scale, where their talent needs to be flushed out of their system through the act of drawing or playing an instrument... whatever it might be. The savant feels a compulsion, and I think that every artist or musician feels this need to a greater or lesser degree determined by how alike their neural network is to that of a savant. It's not a totally baseless theory. For me it's the way I feel serenity after working for several hours, and how unhappy I am when I haven't been working for any period of time. For a savant this feeling is unbearable, and they have to exercise their talent no matter what. For me it's just a mild discomfort, and I'm obviously not nearly as gifted as any of those individuals. This conceptual labeling of my work is something that's evolved over the course of the last 7 years, since I first picked up a pen and drew cross hatched lines, and there was always a sense that something inside of me was getting out through the pen. It's been a steady uncovering of meaning and refining of technique that has clarified what I'm doing and why, rather than taking a concept and trying to create an expression of its essence.


I did 2+ miles on the treadmill today, alternating walking and running. I'm definitely out of shape, but I can feel the stamina that I used to have before I started smoking. It's clear that my greatest struggle will be with lung capacity. If I could get more oxygen I could have run a lot longer, like I used to. In high school I ran 6 and a half minute miles. I guess that's stuck with me, although I've lost some muscle mass, because I haven't felt nearly as sore as I thought I would the day after.

I'm going to work on pics from San Francisco today at some point since I don't have work yet again. I felt better this morning than I did last night about my free time, because I really have a lot to do. Off to get lunch, aka a bacon egg and cheese. Om nom nom nom.

The first pic was a few hours after I'd started working. The lower left hand corner is where my focus is presently.

This is at the end of the night. Just finished. I know it doesn't look like much, but that's at least 6 hours of slow layering. I use a straight edge across the page and work long strips about 2 inches at a time, and then I have to go back and blend them together. Otherwise the lines start to go all over the place. It's funny how little things become big problems, like how the motion of your arm is naturally an arc. I've had to train mine to go in a straight line, and it's very difficult sometimes. After awhile you get in the zone, and the movement is like second nature. It's almost like playing an instrument. The muscle memory in my arm remembers how to make the pen go straight, and I just focus on that movement. Over...and over.... and over.

This is the one I've been working on most the past few months. It's a couple of hours a day for the most part, but every little nook and cranny has to be handled individually. No long strokes like in the drawing above. That's partly why I started the other one. This one is taking so long that I had to get working on a different drawing so I could finish one soon. This might be a drawing that I work on for a year or more. The work is so intricate and finely detailed. The picture doesn't come close to doing it justice. Even the spaces that look black have a lot of fine detail in them.


I was thinking, as I stood on a chair above my work table, about where that table came from. And then I thought about this blog, and another blog that I named. It's funny how people touch your life in ways that you might not think about as much later on. My drafting table is a big reminder of another person, but it's only once in awhile that it really strikes me how I wouldn't be doing this stuff right now if not for them. Who knows when I would have actually bought a drafting table myself. The fact that I named that person's blog--maybe they don't remember that as vividly. But it's still there, and it always will be. It's the little things that make me happy.

No work today or tomorrow, apparently. Kind of frustrated, because I had some monetary goals that were relying on this week's pay. What can you do. I did spend all day today drawing, and I'll be doing the same tomorrow. Started with free weights today as well. Back to cardio tomorrow morning. I just went out briefly to go to the store. Now I'm at a loss for what to do. I guess I'll go draw some more, or pick up a book. I just don't really feel like much because I'm disappointed about work. I understand Jim needing to take a few days to rest his leg so that it doesn't become more of a problem, and I'll make up some of the time on Friday going into Brooklyn to pick up money from the shop for him, I was just starting to make some more money each week and it sucks to have this much downtime. I was actually enjoying only having one day a week off, because I really felt like I was being productive. Still, it's not as though I don't have things to do here, but I'm not used to having to fill 3 whole days. I should be excited, right? I get to be lazy if I want to be, but as strange as it sounds that's not very appealing.

Either no work today or working later... Jim's had a problem with his foot lately, he had surgery about a month ago to biopsy a nerve in his ankle, and he's had problems with his leg swelling up. He also had a huge blister on his foot that he couldn't feel because of the numbness caused by neuropathy that broke open last week. I imagine he's having problems getting around, so we'll probably go in early tomorrow morning instead. In the meantime I've been doing some research for him on donating old gym equipment and working on finding a suitable shredder/wood chipper to clear the brush out of his back yard. He also wants to mount some of his gun collection, and I'm having a hell of a time finding two gun racks that look nice enough to put in his house.

I just got back from getting brunch, so I'll work on that stuff and try calling him again, then get to work on my drawings. It'll be nice to have two days off in a row to get some things done. Lately I've been working 6 or 7 days a week, and going into Brooklyn Tuesday mornings, staying overnight and leaving late Wednesday evening. It's a hectic schedule, but half the time it doesn't even feel like work. The only difficult part is helping out downstairs in the lobby. His daughter has cerebral palsey and I've been assisting with the phones and greeting customers, directing calls and managing estimate appointments. I have to learn as I go because everyone is too busy with the new Progressive program to help teach me, so it's a bit nerve racking when something comes up that I can't deal with.

Besim is looking to move his business across town, and I went to take a look at the space this morning on my way to get breakfast. It's right next to Goldberg's bagels and the BCB. Not a bad location, but I worry about the type of clientele he'll be getting. If he could make the inside of the store look high end enough it might attract the customers that he's used to getting. If not, I think he'd be better off liquidating his inventory of expensive merchandise and expanding stock on items that have lower price points, otherwise it will be hard to move certain things. I hope everything works out for him. I've stayed on this long because I feel that I owe it to him. I know every item he sells inside and out, sometimes even better than he does, and I'm familiar with his customers and have the people skills to move product. I'd feel like a heel if I left him before he could find a suitable replacement. I want to try to stay on through the summer for the extra money and to train his next employee. Jim has offered to help me pick up the slack by sending me into Brooklyn on days when I'd normally work at the store, but I haven't taken him up on it because I feel this sense of obligation. Besim has helped me out and been there for me when I needed him, so I have to do the same for him.

I want to start photo-documenting progress on my pieces, so maybe I'll start that tonight. I'd like to have a record of how far I've come so that I can measure my progress. Sometimes it's hard to see where all of my efforts are leading, and that would help press home the point that every minute spent drawing is another step in the right direction.

It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

Mile and a half on the treadmill today, Citarella meatloaf, mozz balls, bell peppers, hummus and a potato pancake for lunch. Also some baby carrots, which really should be called ICU carrots, because they were clearly born premature. Seriously, I've never seen such tiny baby carrots. They look like little orange baby fingers, actually. Yesterday I had salmon florentine (spinach and diced tomato) with green beans, and I've been taking down bananas like one of my simian ancestors. Trying to load up on potassium with those and coconut water so that workouts don't hurt so much the day after. I slept like a baby last night even without melatonin, but I stayed in bed a lot later than I wanted to this morning. Even a couple of beers made me sluggish today, but I still forced myself to exercise. I have to find a way to get more protein. I haven't been this skinny since I was in high school. 148 lbs is really low for me, and I want to bulk up to at least 160 by working out. Otherwise I'll just lose the rest of my body fat and none of my clothes will fit.

Thought I was going out again tonight, but I have to get up too early tomorrow, so I'll just stay in and draw or read a book. Maybe I'll pick up my Mark Twain autobiography again and read some more of that. It's not something I could stick with for any stretch of time because it's over 1500 pages. All it really consists of are the ramblings of an old man, albeit interesting ramblings, and it's pretty disjointed. One chapter will be childhood stuff, the next will be something from later in life. It jumps around so much that you really just pick it up and read a few chapters, then put it down for awhile and read something else. I have a few books on my list right now, and I think I'm finally going to start Gang Leader for a Day, a book that I picked up a long time ago and never read. It looks like it will be fascinating.

I went to World Pie in East Hampton tonight for a few drinks with a friend. Got to see the end of the Knicks game. They just acquired Carmelo Anthony and they actually BEAT the Miami Heat! Shocking. I'm not at all a basketball fan, but it was fun to see the ending, because the whole game was a battle between the teams separated by 1 or 2 points. I might see the friend I went with again tomorrow. It's my day off, but we might meet up around 8 or 9, because every other night of the week I get home kind of late or have to get up super early in the AM. Monday is really my only day off at the moment, and since after April 1st I'll probably be working 7 days a week I might as well enjoy the time I have to stay out "late" (11PM lol).

It was a fun night out tonight. World Pie does flat bread pizza, kind of like a place I used to get delivery from in MA. It wasn't quite as good at World Pie, but decent nonetheless. The place had the coolest ceiling fans I've ever seen, and I don't meant "cool" as in... well, "cool." They had a whole pulley arrangement that drove about 5 to 7 different fans, all connected to the same mechanism, and the one belt turned all of the fans. Never seen anything like it before. It was a very old school place, and I'd definitely go back to try out some of their other food.

As promised, here is a picture of the cuff links and tie tacks. They're not anything special, I suppose, but just the fact that Jim gave them to me meant more than he'll ever know. They aren't the most stylish as far as today's fashion goes, I don't think, but the tie tack in the middle with the tiger's eye is really nice, and I do like the set on the right quite a bit.

Starting April 1st I begin a new project, with the option to work for Jim 5 days a week, 10+ hours a day. In addition I'll keep my job with Besim, and between the two I'll be taking home around $4000 a month. It's so exciting, and it's really only the beginning of what should be a lucrative career with him. My goal is still to make a living from my artwork, and I'm spending most of my free time working on my drawings. Jim knows a high profile individual involved in all art related events and spaces on the east end of Long Island. He's offered to introduce me once I get my feet fully under me and my portfolio is where I need it to be.

Last night I drove Jim up the island for dinner, and he gave me a little present. 3 tie tacks and two sets of cuff links that belonged to his father. It really meant a lot to me, and it's great because I always wanted to wear French cuff shirts, but I never had any cuff links. He's such a generous guy, and I really feel like he's taken me under his wing. I feel like I've landed on my feet, as the saying goes, and things keep getting better. Over the summer I will get to spend a lot of time with Jim at his house, hanging out and working, which means smoking cigars, use of the pool, going to the beach and other things. He doesn't really like people, but we get along perfectly despite the fact that we couldn't be more different. I think it has something to do with our attitude towards other people and how we think about and treat friendship. He knows that I always try to do the best that I can and that I go above and beyond the call of duty to make him happy, and he responds in turn. He knows that I would do anything for him, and he treats me the same way. Sometimes fate conspires to put two people together who need each other. I needed a job and a career, and having a mentor is a huge bonus. He suffers from peripheral neuropathy and has trouble getting around. He says that if he didn't have me he'd never leave the house, wouldn't be as involved in his business (his son runs it for the most part) and would never go out and do anything. It's obvious to me how much he appreciates having me around and the things that I do for him, and it makes me feel great to know that I'm helping someone who sees how much effort I put into my job and that I really do care about him. He knows that I'm not just getting through the hours to get a paycheck, and that makes me want to do more than what he expects as much as possible.

I'll post pictures of the cuff links, just for fun, later tonight. I'm going out after work, somewhere in East Hampton, probably to have a few drinks. It's been difficult to get up early enough to exercise, but I'm trying. Jim had surgery a month ago and is just getting over it, but he usually goes to the gym every day. Last night he said that if he can get back to going all the time he'd buy me a membership so that we could go together. That would be the ultimate motivation.

I usually work a half day on Fridays, so I will hit the treadmill for the first time in a long time after work. There are a lot of things that I want to do, things that I haven't done probably since high school. I was a regular jogger up until the end of my Freshman year of college, and I'd at least like to be able to take my bike around town once I get my legs under me. I've been toying with the idea of joining an adult softball team for awhile, and that might happen this summer if I don't convince myself to get into roller hockey instead. I want to do one of these things, but since I already know how to play softball I'll probably forgo learning hockey til I'm in much better shape.

I went bowling twice last weekend, and started throwing a hook. I have to go and pick out my new ball and get it drilled. It's been on my list for months now but the place I have to pick it up from is way up the island. I bowled a 184 the first day throwing a hook, and 199 two days later. Something tells me I should probably be in a league. One of my meetup groups has some game nights coming up, and another does bowling trips pretty often. It's not exactly painting the town, but at least it's something to do until I meet more people. One of the hardest things about living out here is meeting anyone my age that I have something in common with. You would not believe how few people even live here in the winter, and the summer crowd is just not me. I have to do everything by the cycle of the seasons. There is practically nothing available to rent in the middle of winter, for example, and you have to pick either the spring or fall to find anything decent.

My Godspeed concert is coming up in about two weeks, so I get to see the Daves and hang out in the city, not to mention seeing a band that has been broken up for like the past decade. I still haven't had a chance to listen to the new Radiohead album, mostly because I can't seem to find five minutes to sit down and relax.

I started cleaning out my car a few days ago. I really want to get a new one, because it's getting to the point where I don't necessarily trust it to make long trips anymore. The summer is the slow part of one job's schedule and the busiest of the others, but I hope that I can get away and do some kind of trip like the one I just took to Frisco. New scenery always inspires new artistic ideas in me, and the southwest is a place I could visit a hundred times and still not have seen everything I want to.

Part of the reason this blog gets very little attention is that I have a notebook I use. I did a little project and created a pocket in the back of a nice spiral notebook to hold small sheets of drawing paper, and I pasted in a lot of sketches, both older and more recent, so that I have a kind of art/life journal all in one. I've done a lot of sketching, which always fills me with new ideas, and it's great for when I can't carry my larger Moleskine book around. That's my favorite thing to draw in, but being that it's 18x24 it's not really practical to take everywhere.

I'm getting more involved in the office side of Jim's shop, and starting to learn about his business aside from just him personally (which is a task in itself with his OCD). If I were to describe our relationship here nobody would believe it, so I won't even try. Suffice to say it's like having a best friend and a boss all in one. I've got to say that I've never been happier living on Long Island or less worried about my financial future. The only problem is, as I said, finding people my age that I can relate to. I'm sure it will come in time, as I get more involved in the art community here.

Fridays are always a bit up in the air in terms of scheduling, but I figure to get an early start and maybe get some exercise in before work even starts. I'm not a morning person, usually, but that's when I have most of my energy as long as I've gotten a good night's sleep. I am sleeping better and better, partly because of melatonin. The 5-HTP I take is essentially an SSRI according to my therapist. Depression and anxiety are linked, and I feel more calm and in control lately. I've taken them for 9 months now, but even so I notice more improvement as time goes by. I feel more comfortable with myself and my life, and the direction I'm headed in. That's not to say there are no bad days, but I convinced myself there were a lot of things I didn't like to do, and it's only recently that I've started to realize how many things I used to enjoy doing with my free time that I just stopped having the energy or motivation for. That's why I'm so looking forward to the summer. Jim and I have big plans, and I'm setting a lot of personal milestones and making bigger ones that I expect to reach over the next several months.

Back from my trip to San Francisco, walked all over the city and environs. Hiked Muir Woods and took plenty of photographs. Haight-Ashbury was a necesary destination, got offered some bud, but declined. We ate in a nice little restaurant serving only organic food and sat in the back patio section under palm trees, sipping Sierra Nevada and talking about family. Golden Gate park was slightly disappointing. They had a beautiful flower conservatory, but the whole park is criss-crossed by streets and sidewalks, and it's impossible to find an isolated spot. Even photography was stifled by the pavement and concrete, and the foot traffic was ridiculous, even for a 60 degree day. I can only imagine what it must be like in the summer, especially wight Haight street so close. We planned to take a night tour of Alcatraz, but that plan was scrapped since I only had 5 days in the area. I stopped into a Goodwill on Haight street and picked up a couple of really nice button down shirts, Banana Republic and Claiborne for less than 20 dollars total. On Sunday night we had dinner at the Buena Vista Cafe, the (in)famous saloon whose noteriety derives from the invention of the Irish Coffee. I didn't partake of their claim to fame, but had a Marzen instead, made by a brewery I wasn't familiar with and now whose name I don't recall. San Francisco is home to Anchor Brewery, and although we couldn't take a tour of the facility due to the long waiting list I had plenty of their Steam beer on draught. Across the street from the Buena Vista is Tiernan's Irish Pub, where we had lunch earlier in the day. I had something I've never tried before, namely garlic tossed french fries. Don't ask me why I'd never had this before, but it was food fit for a god, and I smelled like garlic for about 24 hours afterward. Overall a great trip, sore legs from climbing all of the hills, and a renewed vigor and determination resulting from the relaxation and inspirational scenery.

Cigarettes are well and truly history. I'm under 150 pounds still, and just started exercising again. By the summer I want to be able to go to the beach and look good, and there are several hiking/camping trips I'd like to do. Joined a site called meetup.com, which has groups for people with similar interests. I haven't been to an event yet, and some of the groups appear defunct, but there are a few things coming up I plan to attend.

I've set myself a budget, and my parents are more than half paid off, as well as one of my credit cards. I'm going to take out a loan to consolidate my debt, cosigned so that I can get a better interest rate, and by the beginning of summer I should have everything paid off and be living in my own place. My ultimate goal faded into the distance for a time, but I can't stop striving. Setbacks can only last so long, and I've been getting serious the past few months. One final push will put me where I want to be. Originally I wanted this to catalog my journey out of debt, but since I'm pretty far along already there doesn't seem much point. Plus, with two jobs and the number of hours I'm working it's hard to find the time.

I'm ready, willing and able. No excuses, no procrastination, no wallowing. I can see the top of the mountain, and it looks good.

Record keeping has been moved to paper and pen, but I guess I should keep this for those inconvenient times when implements are unavailable.

A life cut down to basics, stripped of all artifice and devoid of accessories. Chop wood and carry water. Meditate, observe, move forward.

Monetary struggles have eased, as soon as the summer rental season hits I'll be on my own again. Striking out into this brave new world, lighter on my feet than I have been since high school. Less than 150 lbs. Astonishing. Keep pushing the diet towards the healthy end of the scale more and more... plans for the future are artistic and social. Attended a party last week and made friends with ease, a side effect of my new work environment as well as attitude. I've come to the conclusion that as much as I generally shy away from them, it turns out that I'm really pretty good with people, which suggests I should spend more time with them. Leaving for San Fransisco tomorrow to see the hulking evil bones of Alcatraz and the deleriously semi-conscious ruins of the Love Generation. Hippie Hill and Haight Ashbury.

All news is new.

Working 60 hour weeks is not conducive to journal keeping, but I achieved my goals and now in the new year it's time to aspire to loftier things.

For the record, I actually saved $1500. Quitting smoking will have to stand the test of time, but it's been a couple of days now and I feel okay so far.