Like A Boss

Sitting here at 1 in the morning watching television. I am still in shock I think. Today we made the oral agreement and arrangements. It’s pretty much a done deal. The Smoker and I are renting out a large space in an old factory behind an infamous college to use as our business and occasional living space. It will be one part office for my social media, web and promotions work, one part creative studio for me to make things, and one part retail gallery space. I’m very excited. 

Now I will say I am feeling 80% positive on this. This is huge! My hope is that this will be the thing that puts me over the top. Together the Smoker and I are doing ok money wise. I mean we aren’t living the good life! We’re still pretty broke. However, we aren’t suffering the way we used to. We go out to eat now and then and things are getting paid. My hope is that having a real location will bring me more business. I have asked The Ex and Shy to work for me on occasion in trade. They’re both on board! I’m also asking a friend of mine from high school to occasionally fill in when they are working their real jobs.

I’m in shock. I can’t believe this is really happening. I’m going to sort of have a staff, kind of. And a place of business. And I’ll be able to afford it! What?!? That’s the crazy part in all of this. I worked out a great deal with the landlord. He’s really excited to see what I bring to the place. I’ll be paying around $600 and my upstairs neighbor, a client/boss of mine, is going to split the internet and cable bill with me so she can use my wifi when she’s there. That already reduces my current costs by about $300 + a month. Shy keeps saying I can’t lose on this. We’ll see.

The downside of the situation, the neighborhood is more downtown then uptown. I don’t think there will be a whole lot of parking (all though I have yet to see it without tons of snow piles, so maybe not.) And I need to build into it quite a bit, which might be pricey. But the upside on on that is my Dad is a contractor, I know a back up contractor that will work on the cheap with flexible payments and The Ex works at Home Depot complete with discount!

Maybe for once in my life, the universe has my back on this. There is a million reasons why this shouldn’t work out for me. I’m going to keep focused on the handful of reasons why it will…. 

g l y c e r i n e

1995 just came back to me. Senses, taste and smell. 1995 again. I was 15 going on 16. I fell in love for the first time with a blonde haired blue eyed boy named Pat. He had a short haired Kurt Cobain look. He went to private school. He was moody and depressed, he played a white Fender guitar and painted melancholy pictures in his room. He made me laugh and cry alternately on a regular basis. I was hopelessly in love with him. Teenage love can never be replicated.

The song Glycerine by Bush popped on randomly on my cable radio station for alternative. Maybe it’s because I happen to be wearing vintage flannel. But everything just came flooding back to me. 

Pat making me mix tapes. Deep kisses that tasted like old gum. His scruffy face because I once said I thought the rugged look was sexy. Making out to Nirvana. Fighting over what was better, the Seattle boy bands or Riot Grrl bands. 

Deeper than that… Pat was my first boyfriend, make out, sexual activity everything except actual penetration. We were so desperate to see each other more then the once or twice a month his parents allowed for us to. He eventually started taking his father’s Jeep and breaking into my house to be with me at night. I thought it was terribly romantic. We would stay up late and talk about getting married. We’d sneak off to McDonalds. It eventually lead us to more and more activity late at night to try and be together, that inevitably – got us caught. First a cop pulled us over. Then a cop on the way home. Then cops at my house. More waiting at his. My grandparents forced me to break up with him and I was thrown out of the house a few days later. After I tried to steal there car, crashed it and ran to his house to hide until morning. Something soon came that I deeply regretted for years to come, ratting out Pat and breaking up with him. My grandparents drew the line in the sand. I couldn’t be with him and a part of the family. 

This song brought all of that back. Another could’ve been. Only in the Reader would I duplicate that feeling. It’s funny to think back on. The girl he went with after me ended up being his longtime girlfriend he married. I use to think about how awful I was for doing that, that could have been me.

But at the same time, I believe things happen for a reason. I am waxing poetic on this perhaps because my soon to be 15 year old sister thinks she is in love. She and her boyfriend have been together for 3 years. They are starting to explore things and it worries me. I want her to come to me with this stuff. At the same time it is FUCKING TERRIFYING. Her growing up is unavoidable. My fear comes from her having a similar stigma. If my dad finds out, he may force them to split up or stop seeing each other. Sooner or later, she’ll get caught doing something sexual and it won’t be pretty. At this point, my parents think she’s not doing any of that. I unfortunately know the truth of the matter. I hope history doesn’t ironically repeat itself.

Glycerine.

Calling All Angels

As the case may be, another boss / client of mine has nicknamed me ‘Angel’. One of the designers on a project of ours has also taken to calling me that. My boss / client always suggest to me that I should embrace this persona more. I tend to use wings a lot in my work. Something that comes out of me constantly since the Cancer 3 years ago. I always kind of fought it. You know me and my God shit. The ultimate love / hate relationship in my life.

This same boss / client, we’ll call her Madame Painterly, always refers to the work she thinks is important as my “angel duties.” She is also the one trying to help me get this studio space. The landlord loves my winged work as well, she talked me up quite a bit. He thinks they could use angel wings in the building.

Shy was here today. He’s been assisting me with my easier business stuff. Like today he was stamping tags for me onto scrapbook paper. I have known Shy for about a decade. We use to work together. At some point he got fired from that job and never fully recovered from that. His anxiety has been slowly getting worse over the years. I think one of the reasons why we’re still friends is because I understand his level of fear and anxiety.  He has hit a point in his life where things have to get better for him. He has succumb to starting therapy this past week. He also just started a new job at a thrift store last week. I also try and give him little bit of work when I can afford to pay him. Today he was here and talking about a sick relative he was very close to. He started to cry and just crumbled. I’ve never ever seen him like this. I literally tripped over my tray table and knocked the stamping stuff to the floor. I was so shocked I knocked over everything trying to get to him fast enough to hug him. He was just so broken.

Shy poured his heart out. He didn’t know what to do. He was afraid his relative would pass soon. His Mom showed up at his new job today at the thrift store and told him this relative had taken a turn for the worst. He was really scared. He talked more then I’d ever seen and just let it all out. When he was done The Smoker and The Ex were there. They were meeting us for dinner. We all went out. I pulled The Smoker aside and told him what had happened. That I felt like this was going to happen now.

We came back from dinner and just as we were finishing up Shy checked his phone and saw his mother had called. It happened. Poor Shy went into a nervous frenzy followed by more tears and just shock. I sat with him and cried with him. I got him water. I tried to feed him. I knew we just ate. The emotional eater in me was just like – oh right, food, he needs food. No food. He kept saying I don’t know what to do. The Smoker and The Ex went outside for a while. I guess they were shocked too. They hadn’t been there for the first part of this. They took a moment to deal before coming back in. The Ex had just lost is grandfather last month, so he was relating on a different level.

This is Shy’s first death. I had experienced my own first, last year with Pop, my step grandfather passing away. I took care of my sister during that time. The second she left my house I couldn’t dig myself out of that weird somber feeling where nothing feels right. Like living in a colorized film. You can cover it in color – but it’s still just black and white with shit all over it. I drank for 2 months straight and cried. The guilt of why didn’t I do more with them, the realization of they will never be there again, the frightening feeling of facing mortality and knowing one day you will die. Poor Shy.

This feels like my angel duties this week. I told him I’d leave my phone on for the next few days. As someone who’s sense of fear is already pretty heightened, I can’t imagine how much scarier this experience must be for him.

Every time I hear that someone has succumb to Cancer, I always have this heart sinking reaction. How? How is it that I am still here in this world and another soul is gone. Why did I live and they die?

When I was in the hospital getting treated, I use to see things. Things I could never explain. In my room, in the hallways. All around my floor for gynological Cancer. It always looked like children bathed in bright light. It use to make me cry.  When I tell people this story, I chalk it up to the different meds I was on at the time. I still think about it…

The Underwear Situation

So I did the show. And it was….okay. I sold a few things. Made $110 on my stuff. Plus I got paid for also working my bosses table. So really I made like $200 for the day. Not bad, not great, but better then it’s been! Clearly the problem is that I am not picking well enough attended events, or events that are too small and rinky dink. For an average size crowd, I had a good amount of customers and well wishers. I didn’t come home and cry. A positive for sure.

The place that my boss / client (I never know how to label this. I work for her, but I invoice her as an independent contractor through my business, so… boss / client.) anyways, the place her shop is located in has weird heat issues. Heat goes down the hallway of the mini mall, but not into any of the shops. So dressing extra warm is a key component to lasting an 8 hour day. I wore leggings with a warm knitted skirt, blouse and blazer with these cute little matching ankle boots. But I also wanted to be sure I was comfortable all day, so I wore my most comfortable underwear. Bright pink vintage style full brief boy shorts with lace trim. Granny panties that your booty can comfortably hang out of and still look cute.

I spent a lot of the day moving around and helping people between mine and my boss / client’s purchases. It was physical activity. And within the first 20 minutes, my comfy undies had slid down past my hips, over my butt and were just hanging all loose at the height of my crotch. ALL DAY this kept happening. I fixed it in the ladies room, didn’t even get half way down the hall before they would drop again! Just this crazy weird loose wad hanging there. I thought about just taking them off in the ladies room and throwing them in the trash. I had leggings and a skirt on, so totally covered. But there was an open trash can. And I could just imagine someone Instagraming my fucking Granny  panty butt undies. 

I must have lost some weight since I started juicing. Lol, this was some awkward shit.

The Smoker and I took a fun photo together today. Standing in a kiddy pool getting confetti thrown at us while holding a Kisses 25 cents sign. Can’t wait to see that! 

Today was a good day I suppose. I didn’t cry or freak out. I didn’t get high all day and eat my feelings. I made some extra money. People I respect and am inspired by told me my work was awesome, beautiful, unique. Life didn’t feel like a birthday candle I want to blow out. 

Tomorrow will hold an interesting fate. I may be giving a young impulsive bride my wedding dress I didn’t use when i was engaged to the Ex. I like that if she takes it, it will feel like closure on that chapter. Carrying it around with me for seven years after our engagement has been something that always bothered me. I saw an add on Freecycle this morning for a girl who is doing a city hall Valentine’s Day wedding and has no extra money for wedding items. I like that this might help her reach that goal.That that is something i can give to both of us.

I’ll also be looking at a possible new apartment. A new place that could have huge opportunity behind it. It’s an old factory turned artist loft. 2000 square feet, true open floor plan. You can build into it and do whatever you want. There is enough space where I could live there comfortably and have plenty of room for my business and to hold gallery shows. Another boss / client of mine lives there. Her hope is that I will move into the floor below her and we can plan events together. It makes me hopeful. OH! And the rent is $200 less then I pay now for my 450 square foot apartment with shitty neighbors. The Smoker is ready for this too. He said he’d happily move back in. There would be enough space for him to fulfill his dream as well! A room dedicated to all video game systems ever made. Fingers crossed this place doesn’t suck!

 

MELTDOWN

Show this Saturday where I will be bringing my business. And I am freaking the fuck out! My table display isn’t up to par. It’s always bad and embarassing. And now, now all these awesome vendors and press will be there. It’s getting bigger and bigger. I am so afraid. FUCK.

The real issue at hand. My inventory is depleted. Th show is this Saturday. And I have a ton of work to do on top of prepping for the show. I am in meltdown mode and am feeling very insecure and no where near good enough for this. I know this is another event where I am going to walk away feeling like nothing. Everyone around me will make a bunch of money and do great while I sit there and paste a smile on my face, trying not to feel desperate and sad. Watching everyone succeed while I wait to go home and cry. Because that is what happened at EVERY fucking show last year.

I took a job refurbishing a web site for a doctor’s office. I don’t do coding. But the site is all coding. Another reason for my freak out. I can’t afford to turn the job away, and I don’t know if I can finish it by the weekend.

I don’t know.  I really want the Smoker here with me. It snowed real bad and he says the roads are too icey for him to come. I’ve been outside and here, in my neighborhood – they’re clear. He’s a fucking let down per usual.

*Panic.*

Being an artist is not glamorous or fun. It’s stress, anxiety, fear and no money.

The Root

TEN whole fucking posts for January. Wow! Well somebody pat me on the back. That’s probably never going to happen again.

We’re into February. I am struggling with my demons and winning for the most part. Still have a backslide here and there with food or weed mostly. But other then that, it’s all been positive.

This is the part I have to continue to maintain. It is very easy for me to be overwhelmed by too much happening at once, and then slip into my world of fear. My biggest demon of all. The thing I have the toughest time admitting to let along dealing with. My level of depression and agoraphobia. I have been working on myself, this blog being a big part of that, in hopes of getting to the root of why I am like this and find ways to stay strong and fight it.

It kills me how much of my life is lived in secret. I WANT to be the type of person that says This is who I am, I stand by it. If you don’t like it too fucking bad! But I am not. I act like I am that person a whole lot. But I am a little fraidy cat when push comes to shove. I don’t talk about my depression openly at all anymore, or my weed use. Partially because of the fear of losing work from it. My Dad doesn’t know really know about either. He and his wife can be incredibly judgmental and I just can’t handle the majority of their expectations. My father is the reason for a lot of the anxiety I carry. And a lot of my life fears. So I just steer clear of the things I feel they don’t need to know. For my new readers, my father is a tough subject for me. Our relationship is at it’s best now in it’s current state. But most of my life our history has been not so good. A quick refresher course for old readers, and fill in for new readers. Here we go.

My parents were teenagers (Mom 17, Dad 16) when they had me and were divorced within 9 months of my being born. I did not “meet” my father until I was about 15 going on 16. The details of why he wasn’t in my life are still largely debated. The latest incarnation of the tale – he had a fight with my Grandmother that prompted her to move us away from him. We tried to build a relationship for years. I spent as much time as I could with him, but a lot of weird stuff went on. Like the time he was “attacked” at Home Depot and never showed to pick me up. I did not find out until years later that my Dad was still fighting a heroin addiction. He wasn’t clean until I was about 20 or so. When he became clean, we stopped talking for about 8 years. I had gotten sick and after a lot of doctor visits he thought I was telling him I had an STD. He told everyone on that side of the family. I was horrified and embarrassed. Really it was PCOS or poly cystic ovarian syndrome. This would later be a a big cause for my battle with cancer. When I got sick, my father and step mom took me in during my treatment. My Dad lost his job and they began to resent me and treat me like shit, looking at me as an expense (even though I paid for everything myself, and then the state took over.) This built up and combusted into a huge fight the day after my last chemo treatment where he said a string of awful things to me. I was thrown out that night onto the street with a bag and no where to go. My Mom had to come find me in the middle of the night. As fate would have it I found an apartment and job two days later. I had put the application in for both the day before our fight. This is something I never entirely forgave him for. But for the sake of my sisters, I moved on.

I don’t know even where to begin with my Daddy Issues. I love him. He is my favorite person. I hate him. He is a selfish bastard. I am too much like him. I am nothing like him. The older I get the more I seem to follow in his footsteps. Then I realize and recoil. Forgiveness is a powerful thing. I have forgiven so much. But the hurt, it’s still there. Reminding me not to trust him. Reminding me not to trust men.

When I was a kid and I would ask my Mom who my Dad was, she would say You don’t have a father. Then follow it up with, Men only want one thing from you. Don’t give it to them and don’t trust them. Now how do I reverse those years of mistrust, anger and learned hatred in me? I think these are the roots to my issues to commitment in anything.