Because I Haven't Had Enough of Them

Today in my silk screen class I learned a lot about what not to do.

I should have printed my images out darker on my transparency. I should have held the squeegee at a different angle. I should have coated my screen thinner. I should have done X, Y, and Z differently. I have to re-shoot my screen, which only means a lot of tedious washing out and reprinting images and putting them on the screen again.

None of it is dire. These were good lessons to learn. And it's not like I took the most perfect piece of paper made out of gold leaf by my great-grandmother and ruined it forever and ever. This can all be redone. And I will re-do it all next week. But still.

And then I was talking to a friend who asked how art class was today, and I said it was just like my dating life - full of good lessons. Clearly, for years now, I've been all about learning what not to do. What I don't want. Who I don't want. How I don't want things to be. How I don't want to behave. How I don't want things to turn out.

Today, I said, today I am tired. Today, I am wrapping myself up in the cumbersome but familiar quilt of an existential crisis. I have the absolute certainty that I will die alone. And I won't even be surrounded by my own artwork, because none of it turned out right.

And I'm allergic to cats. I won't even be the spinster cat lady for years leading up to it. I'm going to be alone alone alone. Today, I cannot imagine my life turning out in any other way and am feeling very sorry for myself. I hate days like today.

Lately, things have been mostly good. Not all highs and lows, mostly just even-keeled good. But today, despite the delicious sunshine, today is a bad art and I'm going to die alone day.

I got an email from a blogger named Shannon a week or so ago. A very, very nice one, telling me she likes my blog, likes how I write, and likes my attitude. She mentioned the fact that I don't wallow. And I was so flattered by her kind note. And thrilled to be seen as a positive-attituder rather than a wallower. (And yes, I know attituder is not a real word. But I have no compunctions about using it anyway.)

Today, however, today is a wallow day. The kind of day that gin and M&Ms and peanut butter and, oh, I don't know, maybe even a little crack sprinkled on ice cream were made for. Or whatever you might suggest as wallowing food or activities.

I'm realizing as I write this that as often happens, writing it is making me feel better. This might be partly because I'm feeling so sorry for myself that I'm crying big, fat, salty tears. Which are falling onto the keyboard. Which will probably then short out and since I live alone without cats to dial the 911, that will be that. Drama queen much today? Wallow wallow wallow.

The thing is, what I am actually going to do is go for a run. I'm not really going to inject gin and M&Ms, even though I do have the kind of pale skin and prominent veins that blood takers rhapsodize over. Because if I do, then I'll have that I'm a big fat cow worry on top of everything else.

Some days with art nothing technically goes right and you just start over and it never makes me cry. It is also more than just PMS, although holy crap is that not helping one bit. But all of these things together, they just suck ass. I know from experience I can't cry while running, but I don't know if I can wallow and run at the same time. I'll find out shortly, I guess.