Depression of an artist.

Things can get very bleak, very fast in this world. It's a very lonely career with a lot of opposition, not a lot of love, no co-workers, and a very negative context surrounding your life choice.

Depression is actually very common among artists of all sorts. Some of my artist contacts tell me it helps them do better art, so they just kinda go with it. Others can't and fold under the pressure.

I've found myself walking that very fine line for over a year, now. Since last April. This is my story of the artist's depression battle.

Around that time, I realized the people I had surrounded myself with were awful people, save one or two of them. I was spending time with nasty, ill-tempered humans simply because they accepted me, and so I accepted them without realizing how immature and hurtful to others they were. When I finally did clue in, I panicked and began to recess into myself, and rely heavily on the one person I KNEW was a good person in my life because he was literally the opposite of everyone else.

When they saw that I no longer seemed to find their nasty antics amusing (Stopped going to the parties they organized simply for the sake of bashing our friend's girlfriend... specifically) and would become quiet in their rant-sessions, they knew something was up, and slowly began to see me as a threat to their heavenly retreat of hate.

So I entered May and June slowly growing apart from everyone in my life, having a financial crisis and watching helplessly as my University royally screwed me over financially because of a clerical error, thus denying my right to a diploma for six months after. Around this same time, my mother lashed out again and things continued to go downhill in the form of a slippery spiral of guilt on my part for being a terrible daughter. My work as an artist went through a rough spot, and a self-employed majority background and a music diploma that didn't exist yet weren't helping me to find a for-now job that would keep me a float. My desperation and guilt left me feeling like a failure of a human being and, after three weeks of eating nothing but plain white rice and peanut butter out of the jar, I decided I needed to do SOMETHING to make up for my shortcomings.

So, for that reason, in June, I packed my bags and headed down to Florida to spend a couple of weeks with that family.

It was the worst decision I could have made.

After being verbally abused and watching my parents beat the crap out of each other, after days of acting more like a parent to my sister and brother than their parents were, I finally had a mental meltdown and spent the majority of a day curled up in a ball, on the floor, shaking and crying and screaming whenever someone tried to talk to me, because I was terrified of how utterly trapped and isolated I had managed to make myself. Eventually they locked their pets in the room with me because they figured, hey, if they can't deal with their psychologically screwed up daughter, the family cat and runt-dog could.

Unfortunately for my ego, they were right, and I was able to calm down thanks to the animals.

My mother, as she often does, suddenly decided she was going to try to deal with my craziness (and I say that with a serious meaning) in a human way and take me away to Mexico (where they had bought a vacation house...) to spend some time in the sun, on a beach, potentially with horses.

Except where she really took me was to their property in the middle of batshit-crazyland, where everyone knew everyone and was trying to get them arrested by corrupt police and have their property seized, as if it was a sport. When we arrived there it was quiet for a few days, and then all hell broke loose when some crazy ass people showed up at our door demanding that we hand over the keys to our vehicle which they claimed was theirs. My mom then decided this would be the best time to pretend not to be around and leave her suffering daughter to deal with scary crazy people in the middle of a foreign country.

When I proved to be doing surprisingly well at that, she decided to give me more of a challenge by busting out of the house and screaming like a madwoman and making the situation so much worse and a million times harder for me to handle. So when that all came to a very angry, tense end, I had another (different) meltdown in which I once more shut down outwardly and couldn't do anything but stare at the wall and tremble in panic.

Oh, then there was a hurricane coming. So I panicked even more. I didn't sleep that night, just stared at the wall and out the window, wondering if I would die from a heart attack or a gunshot first.

When morning came around, my mother asked me what the best course of action would be, and I couldn't respond, so she booked an emergency flight back. We flew to Florida first thing we could and I got a straight connecting flight home from there, and haven't been back since.

When I got home, the trip had only made me worse and I wasn't any better on the financial front. So I had to somehow find a job and deal with being in a constant state of terror due to a serious case of "being broked" as my one friend put it.

So naturally I decided the best job would be sales, because when you're too terrified to talk to your normal friends you must be great at talking to strangers, right? Well, I was actually pretty good at it, but as I mentioned before I hated my life the whole time, and felt awful for what I was doing and had many emotional breakdowns over the course of the next month.

However, my friends had decided on going to a concert in Los Angeles featuring my favorite band of all time, and so they invited me to join them. As I was working, I had the money to do so and gladly accepted.

I had already decided to quit my job when I had my accident. In fact, I was considering doing it that very day when I was on my way to the job. On my way there, as I was biking along, I got very violently blindsided by a car who hadn't looked before turning right at top-speed. I slammed into the car and my shoulder bag hooked on the rear view mirror, yanking me violently before the bag's strap broke, thank God. My left hip and shoulder were knocked out of alignment, my left knee and right shoulder were dislocated, and I had three pulled and two torn muscles in my left arm. The doctors set me right but couldn't give me medication for the impending PTSD, because of prescription meds for tendinitis and insomnia that I was already on.

So they released me ONLY on the grounds that I had someone home to talk me down. I called my roommate to tell her about the accident, and she said she would be home, so I allowed myself to leave the hospital.

No one was there when I got home.

I called my RM again, only to have her tell me she had gone to a mutual friend's house but would be back later. Later came by and found me in a similar situation of being curled up on the couch, unable to move because I was shaking so hard, struggling not to puke every where from panicking, and crying uncontrollably for hours on end. RM wouldn't answer her phone so I sent her a text asking when she'd be home and she said "not tonight." So I spent the rest of the night in terrible pain and panic and shock, and when morning came still no one was there. No one would answer their phone and my one reliable friend worked in roofing, so I couldn't call him or I was sure he'd fall to his death answering my phone call.

Evening came around, and I had only been able to move to get some water, some pain medication, and to go to the bathroom before I resumed the position either on the floor of our kitchen or on the couch in the living room. I don't think I've ever cried that hard in my life. It was a bit pathetic, picture-wise, but nonetheless a very grim scene.

When RM finally came home, she informed me her and some of my closest friends had gone on a day-long road trip that they didn't want to tell me about because they were afraid I'd try to tag along. Then she asked how I was after my accident. It broke my heart, a bit, even though I had been drifting away from those people, I still was rather attached to them and the thought of them thinking of me in that manner was sickening. I told her I had spent the day curled up on the couch and crying from PTSD and was in horrible pain and told her to help me get to my room, because getting into bed was impossible because I couldn't pick myself up properly. She did that much and I regressed into silence.

Within a day, my job was demanding that I come back to work, so I quit.

Eventually, I got better, and I went to Los Angeles which was great for the concert and time spent with 2 of the 6 people (the 2 are now in my group of best friends), but two people in particular seemed to blame everything wrong that happened on me, and one seemed to think he had to do everything, despite the fact that I found us STUPID cheap flights, FREE lodging with free food/booze as an extension, and FREE ride to the concert. But sure. I had become an emotional punching bag for these two people, who were at the time in the group of nasty friends.

Upon coming back home, I went to hang out with that nasty group of people, where they proceeded to get super high and super drunk and go on a huge rant to me about how awful a person and shitty a friend I was and how they hated that I was so uptight and thought that I brought everyone down. After a couple of hours of abuse, I shakily left the house, apologizing for my shortcomings. I stood outside the house and called my one friend who had been there for me all along, and he came and picked me up. That was the last time I ever hung out with those people.

This time had brought us to the end of August. I had become severely emotionally invested in a guy, I had grown apart from the only friends I had known for two years, and was restricted to one friend who worked insane hours and thus wasn't always able to help. The guy, in true fashion to my luck, ignored my affections and started going out with another girl, and I think it broke the one last part of me I had left to be hopeful about.

I entered my last year of University a beat-up, ruined human being. And it wasn't going to get easier, either.

I got a few harassing phone calls from the crazy Mexicans, because like a genius my mother had written my number down somewhere and they got a hold of it. My school's finance stuff was still a mess, and they had screwed it up further, and I was living with a roommate who now hated me because she was obligated to due to my former group of friends which she was a part of. I was falling behind in classes due to stress, and my student loans weren't coming in on time, so I was always mere hours away from being kicked out of school.

Eventually, with school blocking out all of my personal life, I was able to get a hold of myself temporarily in order to sort out the finances and get my butt in gear and pull my class marks up, eventually getting a 4.0 GPA that semester despite the hardships. I found not-nasty people to be friends with, and they slowly helped bring me out of my hole.

Medical problems kept getting in the way, though. I was in constant physio therapy along with chrio, massage, and acupuncture from my accident's injuries. Doctors kept telling me to hold off on drum school for a year to get better, but it was the only thing keeping me from spiraling back down, so I kept going.

All this combined with THREE debilitating sickness sweeps in six months, and I hadn't really made any progress with my life.

Eventually, one by one, I found out that some of the people that had been in my life for a while were actually amazing people who were willing to help me get better, and they have been helping me a bunch. There have been a MILLION setbacks, and I'm still very very deep in the woods. However, I am getting a lot better. I haven't had a psychological breakdown in a long while (knock on wood), but I'm still suffering from severe anxiety and panic attacks. I've had them since I went through the abuse when I was 12/13, but they've been much worse this year.

I panic talking to new people, I panic when I have to confront someone, and I panic if I think I've done something wrong. I panic when I feel the slightest twinge in my skeleton. I'm almost constantly suffering from acute anxiety, broken only when I'm surrounded by the amazing people I have found.

And when I do art.

So, that's why I'm currently your resident brooding artist. I have a lot to brood about.

Sleep deprivation

I'm so sleep-deprived that I typed "sleep depression" into the title and stared at it for a full minute trying to figure out what was wrong with it.

Why?

Yesterday I was already sleep-deprived (hence the slightly bitchy post), but THEN I had a day filled with frustration and a slight battle with even more procrastination, but got a lot done and was able to deal with stupid-schedule customer civilly, which is a feat (or so I am quickly discovering).

I woke up yesterday after going to bed at my usual obscene hour. I checked the time and I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep, and as it is usual for me to do that, I carelessly began to fall back asleep before being caught in the grips of a panic attack. Something was wrong. I groggily sat up and fumbled with my laptop to turn it on and check my digital calendar, and sure enough, I had a rehearsal in an hour.

I dragged myself out of bed, threw some half-decent clothes on (tank top and tattered jeans... how rockstar of me...), grabbed my drum sticks and boogied on over to the bus stop just in time to catch the one bus that would take me immediately to my rehearsal. By the time my rehearsal was over, I had to get to work on my day and had no time to catch up missed sleep. I had a bit of a go with the customer and after a million drafts of concepts that she just wasn't happy with, I finally was able to come up with something that got a good response, and I decided to call it a day. At 1am.

Well the show that I was playing that I had a rehearsal for yesterday was at 8am this morning (WHO WANTS LIVE MUSIC AT 8AM?! Crazy people, that's who...) so I had to get up at 5 so I could be all fancy-looking and out of the house at 6:30 so I could get to the venue at 7 for set up and sound check.

Noon rolls around, and I have to have a phone call with one of my regular customers, meet a guy who just bought my surround sound stereo system, and sort out my bills and stuff which the post office royally screwed over. Then I had to practice for my audition a bit, but quickly crapped out because I'm so sleep deprived, and here I am. I'm highly considering marching off to the nearest coffee shop and buying a huge bucket of coffee. That's right, a BUCKET. Because I need to have a rehearsal with the bass player that I'm auditioning with tomorrow, just to be sure we're tight and can impress the super band.

And then I have to have SOMETHING to show my customer AND my publishers. I seriously can't wait for this weekend. I'm skipping town to go into a remote part of the country with no one around so I can relax and reset my brain, because it is in serious danger of exploding. Violently. I'm SO TIRED.

I don't get enough sleep as is except for weekends, so less than usual just kills me.

Also, I'm considering starting to throw up cartoons or something drawing/picture related to potentially gain readers other than the internet air.

I'm never going to have a "real job," get over it world.

Here's why.

I've despised every single real job I've ever had. And when I tell this to people, they tell me, "oh, no, everyone feels that way but you just have to tough it out for a while. Just think, if you tough it out, you'll have a steady income and stability in your life!"

No. I mean, I DESPISE the "real jobs" people my age work. I mean, I worked in sales last year for an energy supplier, and even went through a course to get my contracting license because it was good money and I thought it would be nice to have stability. I broke down crying halfway through my day on a daily basis because I hated myself so much for what I was doing and how I was wasting my life at this dead-end occupation, so I quit after two months. I had become crazy depressed and couldn't deal any more. And this is what has happened with every single job I've had.

So I'm the person who draws for a living and then gets side money from selling prose and doing music. Which, actually, ARE all "real jobs," but the majority of people will NEVER see it that way.

I work longer hours than a huge majority of the people in this country. I usually work on art for a MINIMUM of 6-8 hours a day, sometimes 10. I usually practice my instrument for 3 hours a day, along with rehearsals and shows that pop up all over the place, and I also write well into the night. I get around 5 hours of sleep on a regular basis because I work so much. Even when I'm hanging out with friends I have my notebook on my lap and I slowly chip away at filling it my novels' details. In my spare time I go to the gym and work on being a healthy human being because, let's face it, 90% of my work is sitting on my big butt and hardly moving at all. The other 10% is drumming, so it's physical but doesn't count as regular exercise.

I have a better work ethic than most people my age, yet when I tell adults of my occupation, they're all disappointed and act like me not having a "real job" is a lazy problem. Hah.

Just think about it. Without people like me, there would be nothing to decorate stuff with so everything would be boring and depressing (look up studies of effect of fine art on depression), those books that everyone loves reading wouldn't exist (say good bye to George Orwell, J.R. Tolkien, the Bronte sisters...), and the music that people SURROUND their daily lives with (vehicles, concerts, grocery stores, iPods, parties) would also be gone. Your world would be silent, depressing, and stupid, because literary arts make you smarter.

So don't knock the artists!!

The worst is when people I've known for a while (old friends, friends' family, my family, former teachers, etc) ask me what I'm doing with my life. I usually start with music because even though I'm less successful at it, it sounds the most impressive.

"Oh, I went to ________ University for three years and got two music diplomas. Now I'm a professional musician, I fill in for some jazz gigs, show around town in weddings and parties with my country band, teach drum lessons and all that stuff." Then I have to move on and act like my real job is a super cool side thing. "And then in other parts of my day, I'm working as a professional artist. I do a lot of personal AND corporate stuff and my art is selling all over North America. I also get some publishing deals for writing. It's cool stuff, pays my bills and keeps me busy."

This is exactly how I have to say it, otherwise people are like "WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE YOU IDIOT?!" Except they say it like "Oh... that's... very interesting. You don't hear that very often."

I used to say it like this, which is more what I'm doing for real.

"I work out of my home as a fine artist. People call me up and ask for portraits of their family or pets, or sometimes some paintings for an office and all that, that's my main job. Then I work as a freelance musician. I play the odd jazz gig around town, and then my band has been playing a couple of weddings this year. I teach some drum lessons, too, but those are few and far between. Oh! I'm also working on a novel and I have a couple publishers interested in it, it's a great opportunity."

That's the truth of it. Every time I give the first explanation, I feel dirty on the inside because it's very deceiving, but it's the only time I don't get looked down upon. Some people, when I tell the straight up truth, say "so what are you looking to do in the future? As a career?"

And I'm like "... this?"

And they get all flustered and embarrassed because they know that I know that they don't really think it's a real career. Then they try to cover it up with "... so you're living the dream, huh?"

And I'm like, no, I'll be living the dream when I'm famous. Except I don't say that because then they'll really hate me.

But I'm about to join a semi-famous band so that goal may be coming a bit quicker than I thought it would. You think I'm joking, but I'm serious. Auditioning for a big-time country band, complete with thousands of people per audience and international tours. So if you hear about this super cool new chick drummer coming up with this sweet new country band, my cover may be blown on this blog. Then you'll all find out that sometimes I lie about names and certain objects to throw my thousands of readers off of my real life tracks, and then my life will REALLY be ruined...

I won a small part of this night/morning back...

I bravely battled with water in the sink that refused to warm up and actually won. I feel like this somehow justifies my pathetic attempt to take on cool air this morning.

Also I'm watching an episode of the Colbert Report while writing in my ideas notebook, so something is also redeemed in the writing front.

However, I have the hiccups. Worst night ever.

I didn't do jack today and I don't even feel bad.

It's kind of a lie. I mean, in comparison to the real world things that I listed in my last post, I did nothing today.

This morning started bravely enough.

I desperately clawed my way out of bed this morning, for the first time in this house having to convince myself to venture into the cold of my room from the warm awesomeness of my comfy blanket. Usually my bedroom is sweltering and I have a fan blowing directly onto my bed 24/7 along with my window and door wide open to allow for circulation, but steady rain cooled everything down and sleepy-me was just way too unmotivated to reach up and turn the crank that closes my window, even though the window is above my bed by about one and a half feet... long story short my room was stupid cold this morning and I always have to give myself a pep talk before I do battle with the ruthless fiend.

In the end, the cold won and I raced from my room in a hurry, stumbling down the short hallway in my boxer shorts and tank top (or as Old Navy calls it, "cami") to dive headfirst (over-dramatization) into the warm welcoming box of a shower. And my motivation just pretty much spiraled down from there.

I spent the first 5 minutes wasting water by lying on my back and staring at the ceiling, just kinda feeling guilty that some people have to dig impossibly deep wells for just a sip of the precious liquid that I was letting continually drain for no reason. Also contemplating the meaning of life. After a long haul, I finally managed to at least sit up and complete the shower process, and then reluctantly get dressed and put my "I'm a real adult" face on before going downstairs to make food and figure out what to do with myself.

This started badly.

I hate fish. And I hate eggs. I also hate milk, but that's besides the point here. I hate fish and eggs, but unfortunately I'm also a bit of a health nut and both of these things are packed full of essential... stuff... so I put on a brave face and eat them. Well, this morning I was dead tired and starving and unmotivated and still recovering from getting my butt kicked by a semi-cool room, so I figured the more protein to kick off the day, the better. I ALWAYS start my day off with an egg. Usually disguised under spices and a slice of toast. Last night, I had cooked myself some fish and hadn't eaten all of it. So I thought, hey, add some meat to this party. Worst idea. I don't even know why I thought this would be even close to an okay thing. So I had an egg and a slice of fish on a multigrain toast and it made me feel wrong, like health had somehow molested my well-being for the day.

Confused and a bit agitated, I sat down to try and make some headway on my novel while the rest of the house's occupants were sleeping (University students + evening jobs = sleep until forever...), but instead I ended up in an all-too-familiar position; lying flat on my back and throwing a balloon filled with sand (aka "My Ball") repetitively at the ceiling.

Finally the rest of the residents trickled out of their respected bedrooms. One left for work, one left for a music clinic, and the other just sat there staring at me over a bowl of slowly-mushifying cerial as he tried to force himself into a semi-conscious state.

A bit annoyed with my inability to create anything intelligent enough for literary masterpieces, I picked myself up, grabbed my computer and headed for the house's practice room, where my drumset lives. I spent, oh... maybe an hour in there, learning a couple songs for a band I'm auditioning for in a few days. Now, an hour sounds productive, but my regular practice times last 4, sometimes 5 hours in a row. This is because I went to superhardcore music school, and it's become ingrained in my psyche. So, I became irritable and depressed at my failure at focusing for a normal amount of time, and I had hardly made enough progress on the songs, but I was beat (haha) and didn't want to drum anymore, so I left.

And my first thought was, hey, while I'm being unproductive, I should probably go for a run.

But even then, it took me talking myself out of talking myself out of a run, and half an hour of looking at fitness inspiration on Google before I managed to drag my pathetic butt out the door. The gym is a half-hour bike away, which is nothing for someone who bikes EVERYWHERE in a major city. I got there and started a treadmill run because it's rainy and miserable out, but about "3 miles" into the run I wasn't feeling so good. I blame the fish. A little put-off, I ended my run 2 miles early and commenced other workout. I also ended that a bit early because I was starting to feel dizzy and I still had the half-hour bike home in the rain to worry about.

So I changed and went home. Got yelled at by some crazy lady in a car which caused me to have a slight anxiety attack, even though I was doing nothing wrong.

Got home and immediately started dicking around on the internet. At first I was all "I'm going to read this one page of blog, and then I'll be off to real work!" And hours went by. Then I fell asleep on the kitchen table and drooled everywhere, and my computer ran out of batteries and I woke up to its pathetic "help me, I'm dying!" sounds.

So I made a pot of coffee, even though it was evening time, plugged in my sputtering-to-battery-death laptop, and bravely sat down with my "super ideas for novel" notebook to get some work done.

Nope, more funny blog reading.

And then "just one episode of Tosh. 0."

And then dinner/lunch. Which was NOT fish. Eugh.

And I still hadn't written a WORD for this stupid thing.

So I dragged myself up to my room where I commenced reading some drafts I have written and telling myself that it counted as work even though it didn't.

And here I am. And it's 12:30 in the morning, I'm dead tired and I haven't done anything.

To recap.

1) Bravely battle with less-than-desirable temperature. Lose.
2) Waste water
3) Worst breakfast ever
4) Fail at writing
5) Fail at practicing drums
6) Fail at workout but still workout so it's still a bit okay.
7) Have anxiety attack over crazy lady who wants to run over a bicyclist.
8) Procrastinate
9) Fail at writing take 2
10) Procrastinate
11) Better food than breakfast
12) Fail at writing forever but convince self reading own writing is okay too
13) give up and blog instead.

I'm a real grownup.

Crazy weeks ahead.

 So this week has lasted for two days and it's already been insane.

Yesterday I woke up at some obscene hour in the morning to make it to an early-morning church rehearsal before sitting zombie-eyed through the service only to play the music set at the end and nearly pass out in my roommate's car on the way home. I may or may not have drooled all over his car. 



At some point in the ride, he decided for us that we would head to his parent's place for lunch, and as his parents are as unreadable as he is, I felt that my half-dead state could not handle it very well and melted into a silent anxiety attack that lasted through the whole meal. Though his parents seem to like me an unsettling amount, so I think they overlooked it. His father certainly sympathizes with my pathetic shortcomings in social adequacy.

After the nerve-wracking meal I headed home to begin work on an audition video for a professional country-blues band I would like to join. I got about three songs into making the video and gave up for the day (I have a few more days to finish it) and worked on instead practicing a bit to keep up, so I don't faceplant in any of my upcoming performances.

My practice was violently interrupted by my group's bass player who had finally hunted down the stupid studio guy who had magicked off with our band's demo tracks, which he had secured and gave to me. But now my band wants these tracks mixed and as I am the only one with any music-technology background and professional programs, I'm stuck with the job.

After slaving at that for a few hours with my bandmates pestering me about the completedness of the tracks, I retreated to lock myself in my room to deal with other things. My website for my art business is being closed down due to the hosting company's closure, so I've been frantically re-coding another website to finish this week before my original one is destroyed with fire.

After that I worked on an art piece for a while, wrote a few hundred words to satisfy my almost-hired publisher, worked a bit on a sponsorship proposal and swiftly headed for bed.

This morning has been no better. Still working on mixing those tracks and the sponsorship proposal. In a couple of hours, I need to make my way down to a coffee shop an hour's bike ride away to meet up with a band's manager who is hiring me into a well-established, gigging country group, and after that meeting I am briefly meeting with another band's manager who has already hired me into a latin jazz group. Then I am meeting with my corporate customer who is paying me my deposit before running into another part of town by my old university to sort out some rent solutions with a cash store and mail some money orders to my landlords. That will take me well into the late evening where I will commence with some concept sketches and write a few hundred more words in my novels.

The rest of the week isn't looking any better. I have to complete a huge oil painting for this corporate lady in a week, along with a few other concept sketches for her. I also have to finish mixing these tracks, put together a media package, go to about six rehearsals for bands/upcoming shows, finish coding my website, play three gigs, and handle all my bills for this month. If I have time, I also have to send out my media package, work on promotions for my art, start throwing together rough transcripts for my publisher, and actually find time to go out and buy new art stuff because my supplies are dying.

Not to mention that besides all of this, I am still training for a 10k run and making art lesson plans for children. 

That's a lot to do in a week...

When the schedules of others ruin you.

So here I've managed to score myself a big art deal, and I am eagerly awaiting the awesome moment when the manager gives me my first paycheck. But she was supposed to pay me last Thursday, and it is now Monday and she keeps blowing me off. Also, I've been getting e-mails from her asking me where her concept sketches are.

Oh, come on. I don't get paid, I don't work for you. Simple as that.When I get my money, you'll get your concepts.

I'm supposed to meet her in the next 5 hours... so that's hopeful, then I can actually go and purchase her supplies and get started. Stupid freaking thing is that I'm relying on this stupid deposit to pay my bills which are due by the end of this week. Rent has to be mailed all the way down to a city 6 hours away from me in the next couple of days, so I have to meet with her, run to a money store, buy a money order, and pray that there is, by SOME miracle, a freaking post office open past 8 o'clock at night.

If I can meet her on time, motor down to the one cash store in town I have an account at (in the sketchy area of town, so they don't rely on my non-existed employer for an account...), where I get my money order (assuming it doesn't take long) and book it two blocks down to the sketchy corner pharmacy post office, I can get everything in on time because I found an office open right until 8 o'clock.

Freakin' Feline Fooding Fund

Okay, so that's not what this post is about, but it IS what I said in a rant to my cat, so I had to put it somewhere.

So things have been a bit crazy here keeping up with life. Been training for my race, making money, traveling, working trying to figure out children things for my teaching gig, fixing things, writing, having a semi-social life, so it's been good!

Tomorrow I have a mystery job. My musician friend told me to come in business attire at some place at some time and I would make extra money. I don't care too much what it is, money. Which is pathetic, but come on, I'm an artist.

Getting a bit screwed over, though, on the artist front. Corporate lady is trying to call all sorts of monetary shots and I have to keep reminding her that, hey, we agreed on all these pricings already.

So she's striking back by making it all happen on HER own schedule, which is ridiculous.

Also, I've gotten three calls to be in professional, hired bands. So that will start making money along with my current band which is also hired out often.

Also have a bit of interest in my novel from a publisher who wants to potentially sponsor part of the novel, which is a bit new. I've sold writings before, but none this extensive. Just having trouble explaining to him that if he sponsors one of my novels he has to sponsor the other because they're happening at the same time which is apparently a hard concept to grasp, but whatever.

Point is, between practicing for band auditions, working my ass off for corporate amounts of art, writing like mad to get a decent chunk of manuscript ready, transcribing music in hopes of making money as an arranger, working odd jobs, coming up with lesson plans, fixing the stuff that's breaking in the house, and biking all over a huge city because I don't have a car but I need art supply estimates... I think I'm ready for a vacation.

Or maybe it's sickness.

Every once in a while I work myself into being sick, just from over-exertion and lack of sleep. And apparently what I thought was mental fatigue was in fact real fatigue and me half-dying. Basically my body goes into a "f**k you, you aren't going to do anything today" state, and I become practically immobilized due to pain and exhaustion and can't even eat anything without rejecting it. So I end up sleeping ridiculous hours.

I was joking when I said I wasn't going to leave my bed today, but apparently karma was like "eff you, stay here if that's what you really want."

Artists are hermits.

And as such we have serious exhaustion problems when dealing with extended social situations.

I'm just mentally fried, here. What you can't see from your screen is that I initially typed "friend" instead of "fried." Oh, and I did it again. Just proves my point.

At any rate. I've spent the past three days in business meetings with a new big-name client, visiting friends who all decided the time to get back in touch with me was this weekend, meeting up with a lady who wants to hire me to do a week-long art camp with a bunch of 5-10-year-olds, along with a bunch of field trip supervision stuff. Which would all be good and well, but there's this thing where I'm slightly terrified of screwing someone's kid up. Also, I have no idea what I would teach art-wise to small children other than how to potentially start to see simple shapes in every day life.

But apparently some of them are forced into this thing by their parents, and have no real interest in art. So I'm also supposed to teach reluctant kids. Great!

Also I've been out to see like five bands in the past week consisting of my old schoolmates. I'm all socialized out, I want my little isolation back. Which sounds... odd, I will admit, but seriously I'm so tired from constant social stimulus, which makes my already active brain-wheels turn even faster, as I explained before, from thinking about which direction the conversation is moving. All I want to do now is lie in bed. Forever. All day. Or something of the sort.

I just can't get over how mentally exhausting that was.

Adventures with Anxiety

Titles has a nice ring to it, eh? Welcome to my world, represented by stick men.

So when I moved into this house, all the other people had already been living here for 6 months to a year, so it was difficult to insert myself into their every day life because I just have panic attacks over anything and everything having to do with social situations.

So, this is my story. I lived like this for about a month before finally settling in, and while it is a bit sad on one hand, on the other you have to admit it's quite humorous.

Also, you'd think an artist could draw straight lines better, eh?






So fun facts of the day that this comic will teach you. I do have a camo blanket. My fridge currently only contains jam, apples, and a bag of bread. Okay, and some milk. We as roommates do, in fact, cover the spectrum of hair colors from black to blonde.

Also I'm slightly mortified that I drew myself in the shower, even if I am only a stick figure.

Things turning out a bit better than expected.

So I went ahead and had a meeting with the business owner despite my incomplete collection and just brought low-quality prints with me instead of the missing ones (just paper print-offs of stuff off my website) and showed them to her, and she agreed to buy them and just wait. Apparently doesn't need everything until two months from now, so almost enough time for me to go down there and drag my artwork back myself. It will be fine.

Also commissioned me for a lot of work, so I'm pretty set for now. Once more, able to scrape a living at the last minute!

Just when you think you can make it as an artist...

I do pretty well most of the time. Well, of course, I would like to do better, but all in good time. Get some momentum built up, you know?

So right now, I am standing on the very edge of my second ever BIG corporate project. We're talking every artist's dream job (not permanent job, just... freelance in-passing job). We're talking thousands of dollars. I got one of these oh, maybe 6 or 7 months ago that shelled out a few K, but of course that's long gone and I've been living off of normal commissions.

Now I'm on the brink of another one, and all they want to see are... my originals. Alright, good. But then, they also want certain originals to buy. And they're off in Florida because my mother thought she could market them better than me. Well, I've been continually bothering her to get them back for a YEAR now, and she hasn't done a thing.

And this buyer wants $1300 dollars worth of my drawings. They just want to look over them and make sure they all match in person the way they do on the web. Well of course they do, they match better, so the sale is pretty much for sure and let's face it, for someone living hand-to-mouth, $1300 is an unspeakable amount of good money. Plus they want personal commissions done. A lot of them. Lots and lots of funds for the artist.

If the artist's mother wouldn't be reaching into the artist's twenties and still throttling the life out of the artist.

And here I will now look up to the heavens and beg for some slack.

This brain is a bit different

I think you'll find that a lot of full-time, life artists are the oddest group of people you will ever find. You'll find the odd one that's "normal" (and by that I mean pretty much socially acceptable/good family connections/healthy friendships/steady work) but for the most part I think we're a bit crazy.

As a full-time freelancer, I have the unique privilege of having a lot of thinking time. A lot of thinking time. And as an artist, I fully utilize it. Yesterday I went to a park and sat there with a book of blank paper and a pen and was doing some reflection and brainstorming for my pieces. And then I started observing people, casually, in my few breaks from thinking hard.

I've come to realize that there's a wall between me and normal interaction. When I talk to people, I tend to stare them down intently. Partly because I'm deaf in one ear, and thus rely on facial expressions and lips, and partly because I string everything a person says together into a very in-depth chronological story. I listen to everything someone says to me, and usually end up analyzing it way beyond what it was meant to be. As an active listener, I learn more about speech patterns and the way people's mind works.

This also convinces people that I am a very attentive friend and a good listener.

Yes and no. Mostly what I'm doing is learning. I'm analyzing and piecing things together. I'm also determining whether or not the conversation can at any moment go hostile so I can book it out of there at a million miles a second. I'm a good listener in that I do listen to every single word said, but not in that I'm listening and sympathizing.

People find out quickly that I have a hard time not crossing the line of being supportive/helping to find solutions and right out contradicting their actions. It's not because I mean them harm, it's because I'm very analytical... also I have no freaking clue where that line is. I've tried to find it multiple times, it's hiding from me.

Now, also, I find I get bored with conversation very quickly. 99% of people are passive listeners. Which is probably a good thing. They listen and wait patiently for the story to unfold and take time afterward to think.

Active listeners are having their brain wheels turning faster than the speaker can talk. When someone tells me a story, I've figured out a couple possible directions it goes in and by the time they've said what they were going to say, I've known the ending for ages. And then I get bored and anxious and a little bit annoyed as the story drags on.

Makes me a bit of a bad friend, I reckon.

I also hate when people take 10 minutes to explain every little obvious thing in their brain when their feelings could be expressed in 30 seconds. Makes me very antsy, which people pick up on.

Like I said, there's a bit of a wall there.

So yesterday when I was observing people walking around and talking, I thought about the differences in how they were acting and how I was acting and have come to the conclusion that because language has been severely damaged in my life (my "silent years," being abused into non-communication) and has thus come out as a means of making a living (writing), I made my brain into what it is. And I wouldn't change it.

It gives me better insight, and I think I learn more in silent staring than people do in elaborate discussion. So that's that. 

First I panicked, then...

So yesterday as I was going to bed I realized I hadn't posted in the blog. And I freaked out for whatever reason thinking that I'd let everything down because I had missed a day. Then I realized no one reads this freaking thing so why am I panicking?! It's just an outlet for my brain... it's for myself. And wanderers of the interwebs.

That's what I get for having obsessive tendencies.

Band practice happens in a bit here. Then I don't know what else is going to happen with my day. Just started a big art sale for the week, hoping to get flooded with commissions to make up for my awful financial streak. Plus there's about 8 million things I want to pay for here.

Started watching Doctor Who. That's an interesting thing to watch. Problem is, I've been watching Doctor Who, Sherlock (the new series), Game of Thrones, sometimes Fawlty Towers... the little voice in my head  (the one that deems things stupid or not) has become English. Not okay.

A social day for the artist.

Yeah. See, I don't do a lot of social stuff, mostly because I work behind locked doors all the time. And you wonder why my posts start to get a bit moody.

My activities, mainly, consist of locking myself away and writing, sitting in the kitchen for a meal and writing, sitting at a table in the basement and drawing (demanding that no one disturbs), locking myself in the basement and practicing drums, one-on-one student teaching, running for hours on end when I can, lying down and throwing a ball at the ceiling, and training for martial arts with my one martial arts student, that I only have because he asked me to teach him and who am I to turn down money.

It isn't that I don't enjoy being social, I just have stuff to get done. When I was in music school, I was either working on my computer (with headphones on) to study the music I was working on, or I was in a little practice room playing drums. In between then I would hang out with my classmates as we drank untold amounts of coffee and acted like 5-year-olds just because we were so deliriously tired.

But today is a rare day when I end up filling my day with things that involve other people. The odd day I socialize in the evenings, but today is great.

I'm going off to the gym with a couple of friends and I'm going to treadmill train with company. I hear talking and running is good for your lungs. Then I'm going to spend some time with an old classmate of mine that I haven't seen in nearly 6 months. Then, with a group of friends, off to watch a band consisting of my former classmates, just for a fun evening.

Should be good. Might break me out of the antisocial shell I've made over this past week.

Have you SEEN this?!

I think I'm going to race in this. Make a road trip of it. How much FUN would this be? And it's only a 5k! And the one I'm thinking of doing is in Texas, so it's plenty long to obstacle course train. Especially seeing as I'll be running a race half that distance in August.