Because I am a Queen.

I decided to write again now that it is tomorrow in actuality, and this way no one can reference hot knifing as the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of my post. And yes Mum, if you want to know what hot knifing is I will explain it. I am spooning beef stew into my mouth, chasing the mess of potatoes and peas and carrots with luke warm chai tea black as night as I type lazily with eight fingers. I showered for the first time in days this evening. Gross, across the board. I could not be any less desirable or any more undesirable at this very moment. Rags and I just snapped our phones shut after a long haul of a conversation spent multitasking and network bashing. I could hear her puttering around her art room as we chatted amicably about nothing and everything under the sun and hauling shit from closet to drawer to garbage bag back to closet to drawer and back again. Piling, is what she called it. Before we spoke and before I could hear her soft folding in the receiver and Scott laughing in the background over various You Tube animal videos, I took said glorious shower by candlelight and cooked myself a mean stew. No wine in the house (even though stewing beef would be a delicious pairing with red red rouge) as I am trying desperately to cut back where I can. And yet. What I wouldn't give for a giant skinny stemmed glass of Malbec poured from a bottle with a snobbish label. I judge books by their covers. There is nothing much to report or write these days. The last time I cried was on Wednesday. Once at the dinner table and once on the drive home from the country and both instances were spurred by hyper anxiety concerning the coming weeks. Change is so so so in the air and while it is intoxicatingly exciting, it is terrifying me to the point of pockets of paralysis in my day to day goings on. I will be working happily and then BAM I am keeled over weeping softly or laughing hysterically or furrowing my brow to the point of no return. Every day that I step nearer to organizing day, packing day, moving day and then train day, I force myself to put down my phone and take moments of quiet to myself in my home that will soon belong to someone else. Put down that phone, do not call up 400 of your not-so-sincere Facebook friends to come and bring shitty wine and even shittier conversation just for the sake of a party. I will have a going away party eventually, but the people that give a care will be there and all the million aquaintences will carry on with their hip lives and not notice my departure. And this is a good thing. Sometimes I just need to say it aloud.

Last night I holed up in a quiet nook all alone in the basement of the studio I have so easily fallen in love with on Martha Street alongside the Best of Billie Holiday. Michelle and I started early but things went exceptionally well for her and she was out of there long before I had even begun to tape and retape (and RETAPE) my bonkers screen. Left to my own devices, I turned the music up louder and battled it out with an unlucky batch of yellow and an even unluckier flooding technique. It took about eight hundred tries before I finally found my groove and I could really crank out prints, but as luck would have it the black ink was on my side and I managed well over 150 pulls and finished my art swap project before the clock struck midnight. Jeanette has been encouraging us to partake in every art swap, fundraiser and show available to us as students since hopping this mentorship train all those months ago. This mentorship has become such an integral part of my weekly routine, the thought of my life without Monday and Thursday nights (and sometimes Saturday mornings) set aside specifically for it is devastating. Drawing has weaseled its way back into my day to day life again! Anyway, in order to participate in this month's art swap with some design school in Portland, a series of fifteen signed and numbered 5x7 original prints were due last night. I squeaked by, but just barely. Jeanette is sending them off tomorrow and in a few weeks time I will receive a bundle of fifteen random prints back. What a brilliant concept.

After Martha, I swung by the Lo pub to throw back a nightcap with my good man Alfie. I drew absently as he partook in a wild chess game with some dude with a penchant for orange liqueur. Gross. As it was a Thursday, the place filled up eventually with some good people and I left exhausted and minus a few fresh prints. It is so lovely doling out fresh artwork to people who actually get it, or like it, or care.

All I know is that I miss my other half who is lapping up the Argentinean sun in a last ditch effort to come home the most befreckled, bedazzled and begolden goddess in the northern hemisphere. She wears it well. Babs, come home soon. AND NOW OFF TO bed Fred, for tomorrow is another full day of printing god knows what. I will know when I get there I hope.

Best,
Queen.