Since I haven’t been so sick over the last week or more, you’d think I’d be back to making art. But I haven’t made anything. Not yet. And I feel like I’m losing time.

I was working (on and off) on a new logo for the NADC (National Arts and Disability Center), now rebranded as the CADRC (California Arts and Disability Resource Center). That’s more of a mouthful, but I was glad to take the job since I designed the old NADC logo many years ago, and they seemed to love it.

On my way through making this final, finished logo, I realized that I need to take some kind of class to learn how to use Illustrator. I pride myself on using Photoshop pretty well. I’ve been using it for decades and know a lot about the layers of that onion. Illustrator, however, is an animal I never knew how to use because 1. I’ve never been able to afford it, and 2. I never really needed to learn it anyway.

But downloading a 7-day trial this week, I realized how much it can do. My trial is almost up now, so I don’t really know how I can make the time to take a class without having Illustrator installed on my computer. My only solution is to do it before this coming Tuesday. That’s going to be a trick. Not only that, when the trial runs out, what use is a class if I don’t have it anymore, time or no time?

I don’t pay for Photoshop. It’s an older version, and I mean OLD. It was pirated from days of yore. But it does all the same stuff as a new version. It just looks different from a different time on the physical continuum of the universe, from back when desktops were invented.

Aside from computer programs and making logos, I know I have to get back to painting. For a while, I was keen on doing a bunch of abstracts, but I think I will get right back into the family photos series, Discarded Snapshots, as I’ve been calling it.

I have now dates for my next solo show at Craig Krull Gallery, which will be in May of 2026. That gives me a whole year of time to paint as many as possible, but they each take a while to complete, like nearly a month. Because of that, I’m gonna also paint portraits of family members. That won’t take as much time. In fact, I want to use watercolor, gouache, and oil pastel on various papers to do most of those. The downside of that will be framing—framing I can’t really afford, so I’ll have to come up with some intelligent way of hanging them in the gallery. I have no idea what that will entail or how much money and time that will take.

I started this piece sometime last year, and it’s just been sitting around. It’s from a very old photo of my mom and her friends visiting Mexico in 1959:

It doesn’t have a title yet, but it’s 16 x 20 inches on a low-profile canvas. I’m not even halfway done with it, but that’s what I’ll be going back to as soon as I have time. I said I would get “started” on it days ago, but I still haven’t been able to get to it. Instead, I’ve been busy with all kinds of other bullshit, and also having family issues, speaking of time…and loss.

I’m not sure I’ve even mentioned it, but my brother, with whom I’ve had a very complicated relationship, has stage four cancer and is not doing well. He was in remission when we reconnected after a two and a half year silence, one of many throughout our lives. Like I said, it’s a complex sibling relationship that’s been difficult to navigate, at least for me. Well, now he’s not in any remission anymore. What started out as prostate cancer has moved into his bones, but luckily, not into his organs. When cancer begins to affect one’s organs, it’s truly the end. He just had a PET scan, and that was ruled out at this time.

I have lost many people to cancer. Cancer is a cruel demon. It doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t care how old you are or how much you think you can “battle” it, your positive outlook, your attempt to live a more healthier life, eat better, exercise, take a trip down to Mexico to get some raved-about alternative care, or even joining a clinical trial at the Mayo Clinic. Cancer will kill you if it wants to. There is no rhyme or reason, and you can’t predict what it wants to do. It also doesn’t care how many others were lost before you.

The first love of my life got lymphoma at age twenty-two. He had a bout of remission for a year, then suddenly got a bad cough. He passed away a month later.

A great friend and Artist’s book mentor of mine, Judith Hoffberg, contracted leukemia when she was older in age (but that never matters!). Four months later, she was gone. This happened just after my father died, and when I was taking care of my mother, who was in the throes of dementia. Judith died a couple of months before my mom did.

My aunt (my mom’s only sibling) got breast cancer, had a double mastectomy, and then it metastasized into her brain, leaving her daughter’s (my cousin’s) two young autistic boys without anyone. My cousin had killed herself a few short months before all that, leaving my aunt to take care of those kids, one of them just six weeks old. They were immediately put into foster care, and it was hell trying to get them out through the courts. After my aunt died, it was my brother who stepped in and finally adopted the kids, and he already had two young daughters. Now those boys are my “nephews,” and they are both doing well, thank goodness.

But not so fast on the time they’ve had in a stable household. They are going to lose the person whom they’ve come to know as their father. I don’t know how much time my brother has. I’ve gone out to see him several times and plan to drive to him many more times to make up for the lost time we’ve had, but every day is stressful.

Cancer doesn’t even “run” in my family. Before my aunt and before my brother, there was no sign of it in any other family member or ancestor. It’s heart disease and dementia that run in my family, which is another kind of cancer, I guess.

I don’t really know how I came to talk about death and illness, but here I am. Another weird entry. I see my days are so easy compared to many. I may have had a horrible start to my life, I deal with lupus, mental illness, and other ailments, but it’s been a cakewalk to be honest, and I’m as grateful as I can put into any words. Now, if only the Trump administration doesn’t kill me and my partner off because we’re trans/queer, then this life would be all buttoned up, sans the other losses.