I am having another of those passing feelings.  The kind that you don’t want to let get away and wished would stick around for awhile.  The kind that makes you tell yourself that you need to stick to your guns and live with conviction. 

I talked to an older gentleman at work today while I was on my lunch.  He came to visit me at work and lend me a couple books that he liked and I’d seen in his possession.  One was Origin of the Species, by Darwin, and the other is The Reluctant Mr. Darwin by the author David Quammen. 

The man who lent them to me is an older gentleman as I’ve already mentioned.  About 73, but all I know is he graduated (high school?) in 1957.  He doesn’t have anyone.  His family has all past and he never married, no kids.  Someone lives with him and takes care of him, but he doesn’t seem to think too much of her it seems.  He seems okay.  He has trouble speaking and rolls around in his wheelchair.  He says whatever ails him will be gone soon and he’ll be able to walk again, but his speech problem will stay.  He tells me his brain still works normal, but he has trouble spitting things out.  I tell him we all have the same problem, Milton just on a greater scale. 

I think he takes well to me because I’m respectful of him.  Maybe because I’m attentive and remember his name.  He usually comes in for a sandwich and the first time I’d met him he was a bit abrasive but I responded with a bit of a smart ass reply.  I don’t remember what I said but I remember it made him laugh.  Since then, he usually waits for me to help him if he sees that I’m working.  He used to get the same kind of sandwich all the time.  Soft bread with swiss and salami.  No veggies.  He’s been getting tomatoes lately though. He asked me what I studied.  He told me he studied Biological Science and Geography.  His father was in the navy.  He likes doing outdoorsy things.  He rolls into my work and yesterday when it was windy we laugh because his hair is disheveled.

I don’t know why I’m recording all this.  I think it upsets me to think he has no family.  It scares me.  It makes me worry about my parents.  It makes me worry about my own future.  I worry about not having anyone.  I surround myself with my friends though.  I love my friends and I hate that my financial situation keeps me away from them.  I think about relationships.  My future wife.  Kids.  Companionship.  It makes me think of Liz and how wonderful she is.

I wonder what Milton dreams about.  If he looks to the future and has grand plans and ideas and desires and goals.  I wonder if he can look back and be happy with the life that he’s lived so far.  I wonder where I’ll be when or if I reach his age.  His birthday is November 25th, four days after mine.  I’m planning to maybe draw him a little picture of Darwin.

I need to do more for so many reasons.  I cannot accept that a normal 9-5 is enough.  I need to push myself harder.  Challenge myself more often.  Put myself into situations that might be difficult or frightening yet beneficial.  I need to be more professional about myself and what I do.  I need to be more confident, more proud without being cocky or arrogant.  I need to do this for myself.  I might say do it for my family or my girlfriend which is easy to say… but really I need to do it for myself.  And if I do it for myself, and better myself, my family and my girlfriend will hopefully see that change and it will please them, which in turn would please me….

Greyhound to sf, bart into the airport, a plane into the arms of my girl. Im not going to London. Im going to see Liz.

I’m done with the hanging segment of my show on Friday.  Pieces are all at the gallery, hung or waiting.  So Tino, Orlando and I set off to Pangaea, a place down on Franklin and…. something, a bit off Broadway, by Gunthers and the Tangent.  Open mic night which I was hesitant about.  I don’t know.  I imagined kids reading poems about their souls and likening it to butterflies… I told Tino that if I did hear the word butterfly I was out!  It was okay though.  I don’t know.  A bunch of people trying  hard to be different maybe?  The younger ones anyways, trying to be cool or counter culture or just hip?  What is it?  I told the guys it seemed like a place white people went to seem more ethnic (hip I think would be the more appropriate word in retrospect), open to diversity.  You know? 

There was one old guy though I did like.  He sang a song.  I forget the words exactly but it was like…. Even if I live a lifetime of regret, even if I give more than I get, nevertheless, I love you.  Something like that.  Fantastic.  It made me think of love and what we’re willing to do in the name of it and the person we say we are in love with.  It made me wonder where this old guy was coming from, singing about love in front of a bunch of strangers.  Perhaps they were just words to him, nothing that held any weight.  But I like the idea that he was some old guy who lived a full life and missed this woman he fell in love with.  Because he was old, perhaps she had passed away and this was him coping with that loss… What are we without love?  What are we without eachother? 

At work, I met a guy we call Sushi.  He’s the guy that makes all the sushi for the day. He barely speaks English and always sings when he comes in.  I fucking love this guy.  I talked to him a bit while we were both doing dishes and he tells me he was a rebel in his country.  He fought back against the government because he wanted democracy.  It’s amazing, the lives people have.  The things people go through and experience.  You’d never know it by looking at the person making your meal that they fought a war, lost a loved one, had the strength to live on.  There is much beauty to be found in each other.  Stories that remain untold until someone cares enough to ask.  We all just need to ask more, you know?  Otherwise, what’s going to happen when it’s our stories? 

No, not like that.  I’m stressed.  I’m frustrated.  I’m pissed, depressed, upset, discouraged and so on.  What’s a guy to do?  After tens years of school and no school, I graduated from CSUS with a BA in Art Studio.  Against the wishes of my parents who knew this wasn’t a money making field, I went ahead and followed my desires to take this route.  I knew when I went for that BA it was nothing more than practice and maybe meeting some other artists.  I felt that was the biggest thing in art.  Who you know. 

Now here I am in Sacramento, struggling to feed myself.  I’ve lost some weight since I moved out of my mom’s but I felt the need to move out.  Time to learn a thing or two about independent living you know?  But fuck me it’s hard when you’re not making much money.  I’ve got just enough for rent and my school bills.  Enough for my utilities and a little towards my credit card.  I Know it doesn’t happen in a day, just let me vent a bit please.

So now I’ve got this art show on Friday and I’m freaking out about my art because I find it boring.  I’m tired of looking at the things I create.  It’s not often I’m excited by what I create anymore.  I look at it and think, maybe it’s nice and pretty, but it sure isn’t compelling.  I want compelling.  I want moving.  I want something you can come back to and look at and have to sit down and take in.  Not just something you casually look over.  I want to do something that touches a person.  I’ve done a bit of work that brought people to tears in a good way.  People I care about too. 

It’s nice to do something like that.  I feel validated in what I’m doing.  I’m afraid I need that validation too.  I’m afraid to just die and all my art get thrown out.  Maybe I’m afraid of being forgotten, afraid of not making some kind of impact.  My art is just a piece of this greater fear I think.  The fear that my art won’t mean anything in my lifetime and even after I’ve died.  But fuck this cynicism.  I HAVE moved a few and I should be happy for that.  Yet I want more.  I want it to last forever perhaps.  Not just some passing feeling that comes and goes and after a year or two, what used to be a person moved becomes a small talk acquaintance.  I’m asking too much though aren’t I?  We all grow and change, myself included. 

I know I want to do more with my art.  Push myself harder and try different things, learn different things.  I’ll start small since I can’t afford to go big quite yet.  But in the back of my mind things will be moving… just give me some time.

thesquirrelandthebird asked: How do you feel about sleeping under the stars in Joshua Tree National park?

Depends on the circumstances.  At first I thought, “That’s a long trip!” Then I thought that if it’s a long trip with my girlfriend, Liz, it wouldn’t be long at all.  Then I thought it might be horribly hot, but if it’s with you, I’m sure that would be fine also.  I think sleeping under the stars at Joshua Tree National Park sounds fun.  Makes me think of U2 also. 

tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?

My earliest memory takes place in Georgia.  I was living there sometime before Colorado, where I lived for 1st grade and a couple years of pre-schooling that I can remember.  I’m guessing I lived in Colorado from age 4-6 or so.  So that means I was under four years of age with those memories of Georgia…

I remember Rocky our dog.  Vaguely.  I remember an old school and walking in the grass towards it, trees and a tire hanging from a branch.  I remember a hallway in that school, low lit, perhaps it was after school hours, my brothers maybe?  Possibly a dream as suppose to a memory?  A memory of a dream anyways.  There is a difference, but at that young an age, what’s the difference really?  I remember hanging around my brother and his friend.  Not sure what we did, but James having to watch me.  I remember neighbors and a clothes line, family friends hanging clothes to dry.  They had a dog too I think. 

It’s all so vague…