Things are going, you know… Life. Always flippin’ busy and I don’t say that to be a dick or dismissive, it’s just when I get caught up on one thing, more stuff comes and piles on top of the pile that was just about getting smaller – or the pile was a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be.

Like Today’s Quandary. for instance. Part of me thought I could just make the art in those the minute I got all the books in hand. Not possible, as I found that it’s taking me about a half day to do one drawing. I’m slow anyway – in more ways than one – but that’s the way it’s going, so no biggie, I decided it was better for me to do them as they were ordered for the most part anywho. I rather liked customizing them. Still, there are still at least 10 or more I have to send out to galleries and my book dealer that must be made, so I need to get those done. I want to get those done so I can get back onto the drawings for Monographie. <–That’s what I’m going to be calling Carol Es une Monographie de Lignes from now on.

Then, I guess because it’s October, I am applying for three different grants and helping to put one group exhibition proposal together. All four of those tasks take up an immense amount of time because of the intent/proposal parts. You have to word them just right. You’re always second guessing them because you are trying to angle them from the panel members’ perspective and what you think they want to hear. Then you wind up scraping all that and going back to not caring at all what the panel might think and re-writing it all from scratch in your own voice – which will probably also be a losing battle because then it won’t be “professional” enough, so either way you go you’re just screwed. Yet, for some reason, you try to do this every year anyway, and for what?

I don’t know either.

Not to mention all the formatting. Each grant wants you to write your letter of intent in so many characters or less, or so many words or less, or even your resume – which is near impossible, especially if you also have to show at least a 10 year history of professional exhibitions. Some grants want eight copies of everything, or eight copies of your resume, but not your letters of reference, but three copies of your signed insurance forms, and two copies of your application, etc, etc. It’s confusing for the ones that want hard copies, and yes I’m talking about the C.O.L.A. Mailing that grant application out is like putting a 20-pound trout in a giant envelope through the postal system. Those guys need to go electronic already!

So, I’m in grant writing hell right now.

But truthfully it takes the sting out of losing yet another close friend recently. Or rather, it’s been distracting me.

I can beat myself up about this seeming to be a habit, but I have learned from others that good friends, and very especially old friends, do come and go. You grow apart, or things change, or maybe you bring up an old wound you’d like to fix and it’s just too much water under the bridge. It’s the lesson I never seem to learn, or the lesson that keeps on giving: I just can’t have expectations of others or else I’m going to set myself up for disappointments.

Bottom line, I love this person and respect her. I always will. I just can’t make her be the way I want her to be, and that’s okay. She’s the best person she is the way she is, as am I. Maybe one day we can work it out. Or not. I really don’t know. I couldn’t keep going the way it was going. It was killing me. But finally bringing my pain to the surface didn’t go well. What can you do? I’ve thought of several options to make peace and they all seemed dishonest, so here I sit, frozen and sad. Mourning. I just sucks.

First A, then T, now J and none of them are even remotely comparable. Wait, I take that back. They all have something very much in common.

Anyway, I’m hoping to get through this week with a lot of catching up of drawings. I’ll try to start scanning them. I haven’t been doing that. I did scan one:

By the way, the TQ edition is more than half gone now, so if you are waiting, please stop waiting. It’s not a great idea.

Bye for now.