business cards

I’ve been writing every morning, three pages. I’m doing The Artist’s Way. It’s been life-changing. I hit a low, a really low one, at the beginning of it. Because I spend so much time in my life quieting the qualms of my subconscious self, and when you are forced to use your hand to write three pages of anything every morning, sometimes at 5:00 so you can get to work by 8:00, you are also forced to confront the things you haven’t been wanting to face for a long time.

So I faced them, made a big ugly list of them, confided them to Alex, even the ones regarding my doubts about he and I’s relationship, and now we can see them and do things about them and check them off of the big ugly list and it’s been this enormous and fantastic lifting of weight off of my anxiously circling mind.

Since I started The Artist’s Way I have:

Bought myself a mechanical typewriter.
Written and sent several letters.
Come up with about four ways to make money that would help me feel artistically and humanityishly fulfilled.
Started toward those ways.
Learned that Bitch Magazine is published, literally, a twelve minute walk from my house!
Designed and submitted for printing really, really beautiful business cards that I am proud of and excited to distribute.
Created myself some beautiful space in our apartment that is all mine and reflects my insides and inspires me and makes me happy.
Started a draft of an essay with the intention of trying to get it published.
Jotted ideas for two other essays with same intentions.
Stopped using my computer as a vehicle to mindlessness.
Started consciously deciding whether or not I want to smoke weed every time Alex offers it. Usually the answer is no. Occasionally it is yes. Last time it was yes, instead of spending my high time staring at my computer screen I designed my business cards.
Made plans to submit proposals for two classes I want to teach at the Portland library.

Other things, other things. All positive and contributing to my feelings of contentment despite being poor as fuck, having a minimum wage job with the shittiest tips ever in the whole world (seriously, I am excited if I made more than $5 in a shift at the chocolate shop, and one day last week I made 38 cents! WTF people!? Tip your barista!)

Tonight Alex and I are meeting a Japanese girl he met at work who has been having a hard time making friends. All I wanted in Japan was for some Japanese person to want to hang out with me outside of a work or some kind of club or english-language obligation, so I hope we can help her feel a little more comfortable and happy here in Portland than anyone ever made me feel in Japan. Bitter? I don’t know, a little, sometimes. It’s just the Japanese nature and I can’t really be angry about it.