10/52 - Two Monsters

"You’ll be fine. You’re 25. Feeling unsure and lost is part of your path. Don’t avoid it. See what those feelings are showing you and use it. Take a breath. You’ll be okay. Even if you don’t feel okay all the time." - Louis C.K. 

Dear Internauts,

I think I may have slept through this entire past week. Honestly, I can remember seventy or eighty separate plots from different nightmares, but then again maybe at least a quarter of those were real things that actually happened. I was either so unable to sleep that I just floated exhausted from one failed attempt to the next or I woke up, looked at my phone, and suddenly it was two days later.

Thus the lateness with this posting. Don't think for a second I'd skip a week, but there is precedence for being late. There's always precedence for being late.

So let's see. What happened this past week?

According to the second or third hand bits of culture I somehow absorbed peripherally: 

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the best video game ever.

Nicki Minaj got dissed and responded with mediocrity.

Thousands of people were forced to leave their homes in Mosul, Iraq.

The GOP's new health act will save billionaires lots of money and make everyone else poorer and deader.

Wikileaks dropped a truckload of new info from the CIA and nobody much cared.

International Women's Day led to even more people arguing about whether the working class have any right to exist in a state besides service robots, much less be visible, heard, or be recognized for their thankless contribution to the continued survival of our species. After all, if there's anyone whom those with lots of power hate more than an organized proletariat, it's women. On a more positive note, though, the day once again showed that women can be the best when it comes to organizing the proletariat. I recall seeing #daywithoutwomen but thankfully that was more symbolic than it could have been and society as a whole did not come to an immediate and apocalyptic crashing halt. 

Tonight, I'm gonna try once more to find an open mic in the area. I'd like to find one I can see myself going to more than once. Truth is, the hardest part of doing anything these days is getting out of bed. Thus why I can continue to write and draw, but going to the gym and playing out are both extra tough. I need to start seeing a therapist again, says the part of my brain that uses "need" like the bristles on a toothbrush.

I've yet to land a job that lasts more than a few days. Thankfully that's because it's temp work and not me being fired. Still, it's led me back into an all too familiar cycle of job applications. They blur together. My confidence wanes every time I have to fill in yet another box with information I already have on the resume I'd just uploaded.

I'm of the strong opinion that the phrase "beggars can't be choosers" works best as a sad observation and absolutely worst as a way for those with careers they love to admonish the unemployed. Yeah, there are more jobs now than when I was twenty-one, but filling out an application or going for an interview isn't the same as getting a job. Further, when I tell you that there are certain jobs I can't do, not simply because I'm less than qualified for pretty much everything but because of mental health problems, that's a real thing. Apparently, some folks think PTSD is just a fancy excuse for not picking certain career paths because they don't quite tickle my fancy. Triggers are real, after all, but no, let's pretend I won't work hotels because I'm too picky, lazy, and entitled.

I do remember one thing I read this past week, wherein a professional author dissed blogging as it tends to be a great excuse for not getting any novel writing done. Okay, so they were completely right. Still, for me, at the moment, I think it helps. When it comes to my "job", I actually do work pretty hard. Yeah, sometimes I suck at being on schedule, but the amount of song and novel writing I do get done, along with the drawing and arranging and practicing and playing and all that, well there are two careers right there: Singer-Songwriter and Graphic Novelists. Neither makes me much in the way of money, but then folks have been telling me that my whole life. (Honestly, growing up among the faithful in the church taught me that having faith always comes second to having "a back up plan" or being "practical".)

Waiting till I have a job that's steady enough or a place of my own that's just right or feel truly settled in within a community until I get going on my creative endeavors is all a great way to never get going at all. I did that. I got there down in Nashville, with the house and the job and the friends and connections. Real talk--Was I that much more productive than when I was living in my car? No. The opposite actually. While my more steady, secure life took some sweat from my neck, it also took so much energy that getting out there and making art became so much harder. Yeah, it feels nice writing a song in my own bedroom instead of on the curb by the parking lot, the desperation had disappeared from my life. Instead, all I had was misery. Then trauma came along, and before I knew it, steady was no longer so steady.

In the words of Dan Avidan of the comedy-music duo Ninja Sex Party, "You just have to be at peace with who you are and what you really want to be. Like, a lot of people will say like 'I'm an aspiring artist' or 'I'm an aspiring writer.' No, you're a writer. You're an artist. If you're doing that shit every day, that's what you are...just own it."

Anyway, here are two monster sketches I did this morning—

Thanks for reading,
Odist