The Enchanter's Theorem

So. Some conversations you can't help but overhear. Especially when people insist on having them right by your desk.

Sigh.

WTF? You say you want stability, but when an applicant shows up and says they're looking for long term, you freak out and insist you can't promise that because the economy is shit? If she'd said she was a wait and see and go with the flow type, you'd say she was a damn job hopper with no commitment!

The fuck?

I really hate that shit. Frikken' weathervane, because flat out, some people just never want to like anything. Ever.

Meh.

* * *

So.

Antibiotics are working very well, and sinuses are finally draining in a productive, if gross, way.

I am, unfortunately and however, feeling somewhat lost.

I was on the freeway driving home last night, feeling like a faceless extra in a Michael Mann or David Mamet film. River of cars ahead of me, nothing but red taillights in the failing orange sunset light, palm trees like some sterile version of the postcards tourists send from this town, black against the sky. And for a moment, I wondered how the hell I got there. Working downtown. Working the dayjob. Financial nutjob bullshit going on. Tired and unhappy.

I know and I don't.

I never set out to become a career exec admin. It's rather freakish to me that I am as damn good at it as I am. There are aspects of it that I enjoy, but there's the rest that makes me want to murder.

This isn't the life I planned or imagined when I was younger. This was always something I was going to do while making my art my full time job. And fuck, in the meantime has turned into 21, going on 22 years.

Ick.

This is not optimal.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. As I said, I'm feeling lost. It's not like I don't do work towards my art. I submit to shows. I write. I paint. I send the work out. I don't sit on it in a drawer and wonder why I haven't been discovered. Sometimes I feel like the proverbial bad penny who has the worst luck, except that I've had some phenomenal luck and the pictures to prove it. Standing in Piccadilly Square. Sitting in Les Tuillieries. Bad art in Stuttgart. Fashion and espresso in Milano. Topless on a beach in Nice. Black sand in Maui. Photographing statues of Godzilla in Tokyo. And of course and most recent, freezing my ass off in Florence in the name of art and networking.

It hasn't been a bad life by a long chalk. In fact, it's been damn amazing.

But moments like last night seem to bury the memories.

Thank the gods that I'm a photographer. An artist, period. I have pictures and words to save me at times like these. And friends. Very, very good friends.

But shit, I like watching the occasional Mamet/Mann film. I sure as shit don't like feeling like I'm living in one.