Red

Pardon my absence, but I did not have internet for two weeks.  I was only supposed to go a few days without it, but there was a mishap with the UPS delivery, and then when I did get the necessary junk, it didn't even work so I had to wait for an AT&T dude to come fix it today.  Le sigh.  

The last few weeks have been a blur of late nights with my former college roommate, Lizzy (fried chicken and donuts while watching Sherlock Holmes 2; drinks at Gaam; bumming around Ikea trying to pronounce Swedish furniture and cookies), solitary evenings with a single beer and leftovers from lunch, and then, those nights where I wanted to crawl out of my skin out of boredom.  In those cases, I grabbed my iPod, pulled on my Dr. Marten's, and just started walking.  One night, I walked three miles up and down Wilshire and 6th Street, no destination in mind, playing the same Metric song over and over before I reluctantly allow it to roll into the next song.  I smoked too much.  I lingered outside restaurants and read the menus before guiltily walking away when I realized someone inside was just waiting for me to come in.  

For two nights, I worked on a drawing using my tablet and the Artrage program.  I had bought a beautiful book on Art Nouveau jewelry at a flea market last winter and used it as inspiration.  I used to really dislike Art Nouveau since it just seemed cheesy, but in the last year, I started to really appreciate it.  It didn't try to be anything "cool"--it was shamelessly dreamy, feminine, and mythic.  It was all women with windswept hair, butterflies with jeweled wings, goddesses with crowns of stars.  Natural and whimsical, asymmetrical and unapologetic.  

It was hard to start a new project again and several times, I just wondered if I was being punished for my lack of interest in art in the last handful of years--like everything I had studied and felt "passionate" about until I was twenty-three had deserted me.  But it wasn't a punishment--it was a reminder.  You want to be good at something?  Fucking do it, then.  I had forgotten how pleasurable it is to create something that is so visual, so immediate in its progress.  With work, it's so hard to be judged, and it's not about talent, it's about the left brain.  

Dean comes back tomorrow, though.  Single life just doesn't suit me well.  But then again, this hasn't really been a "single" life--I've been alone but still in a relationship.  I've started my "new life", but not really.  Part of me kept holding back, giving only 50% because it just felt wrong to go about doing all these things as if I were on my own.  

But overall, even though this last month and a half have sucked, I'm still surviving.  The chorus of  "Dreams So Real" by Metric has become my mantra--"I'll shut up and carry on; a scream becomes a yawn."  Fitting words.  I can bitch and moan, but at the end of the day, none of it seems to matter.  Keep your head up, stay alert at work, don't get run over by a bus on your way home (the buses here are CRAZY, by the way--nearly got sandwiched TWICE driving home today), feed the cat, make the coffee, take out the trash, try to eat something.  Probably the most difficult thing about living by myself in a new place is that I don't have very much food and I can't justify buying a lot.  At least three times in the last month, I've just had some crackers or yogurt for dinner.  It's been the "accidental "single" girl diet" AKA "too lazy to cook, too cheap to buy food diet", which has resulted in me going down a pants size.  It sounds stupid, but I'm kind of pissed off about that.  I have furniture to buy--the last thing I want to do is spend money on more jeans.  All of my expensive designer pairs--7s, Joe's, Paper Denim Cloth, Alice + Oliva--are too big at this point, so I can't even wear damn jeans to work.  

Sigh.  Okay, I should try to get some sleep.  I'm just really, really excited about Dean coming to LA tomorrow...I just want to speed up time.  He will land in 24 hours, but I shouldn't expect him until 11 PM just to be safe.  

Have a great night, whoever is out there.