Since finishing the What Matters book, I feel a sense of calm peace in my soul. Over the last couple of days, I’ve been able to focus solely on my schoolwork, and I’m caught up for the time being. Yay! I’m hoping Hannah will have a little time to proof/edit the book this weekend.

However, I have so many other things going on. It’s only when I think about them all at once that I get dizzy. I’m basically involved in too many things. Maybe it’s not quite too many things. I really haven’t evaluated it. I haven’t kept track of what I’m doing, but I did set up Notion and created a very basic diary of what I do every day. I haven’t had the most time, memory, or bandwidth to remember what to stick in there. And it’s one of the simpler tasks in my daily routine. I guess I haven’t quite developed the habit of making time for the two minutes it requires each day. If I skip a day or two, I can’t go back and remember those days, which is really frustrating.

I mostly consult my To-do list and calendar each day to see what’s next, without confirming 100% whether I can manage it! This is because the things on my To-do list aren’t integrated into my schedule. I have a schedule on my calendar, but it doesn’t leave me time to fit in the projects on that list. ☹

Not only that, I have to fit in random doctor appointments, Zoom meetings that come up last minute, and any social activities (which, unfortunately, I try not to spend much time on). In all of this, there is very little time for art, if any. My great projects and ideas often go by the wayside, especially lately.

So now I have to make a determined effort to schedule in the art time, which is difficult. Before school, I really didn’t have to do that. I could go with the flow and do that stuff whenever I felt like it. In the last several months, especially since my solo show, I’ve been on a purposeful break. I’m refilling the well with a sprinkle of making decisions about what’s next.

The main problem is that I want to do too many things. I recently did a writing assignment for myself to establish and identify what it is I want to do. It’s a lot. In general, it’s painting, bookmaking, research, writing, and making new short films. A good portion of these have learning curves and require the little money I have.

I just purchased Adobe Creative Cloud (finally). I got an amazing first-year student discount, which was awesome and the reason I could even get it. I have been paying for Adobe Acrobat as a single program once a month, which just went up to $15. I’ve also been using a very, very old bootleg version of Photoshop for the last 20 years! Now I have them all, paid for the year, with no more monthly payments.

My next major endeavor is the What Remains project. It will eventually cost a pretty penny and will take months of work to make the art, but in the meantime, I have to learn Illustrator, Adobe Animate, and Premiere Pro. I tried a few Animate tutorials, but I got lost. I have to find a good YouTube class, which was how I learned InDesign a while back to make my THIS LAND catalog. I did that quickly within the 30 days I had the free trial. So, that needs to be put into the schedule first.

I still have my unfinished book edition. And that’s not even the “big” artist book project (Miami 1975), which has been sitting on my To-do list for well over a year and a half. I have that project sketched out, but not in detail. I need to make binding decisions about it first.

The Hurty Brain books are still waiting to be embellished, and I guess I got bored drawing the same things over and over, which is usually something I like doing!

Then, in a couple of weeks, I’m getting umbilical hernia surgery! NOT looking forward to that. I know I’ve been through various surgeries that have been way more intense, but I’m still scared—mostly because of the recovery time. I’m more nervous about that. I’ll be asleep for the surgery.

Until then (and afterward without a break), I have school lectures on Fridays, writer’s group on Sundays, therapy on Mondays, group therapy for ex-cult members every other Tuesday, neurocognitive rehab on Wednesdays, a pre-op doc appointment next Thursday with blood tests at the lab, and I have to write my new newsletter that day as well. Those take a long-ass time. Next Wednesday, I’m doing an interview with Artlifting, then a meeting with my artist accountability group, which normally meets every three weeks, but we’re cramming in a few more meetings before a guest curator comes in to give us some advice about our careers. I still don’t know what I’ll ask him. I’m not even counting the Queer Artists Collective I co-host once a month, other doctor appointments, and all this leading up to that workshop I’m supposed to do before the surgery! And I haven’t even started my ASL class yet, which has been squeezed into an 8-week session.

It might sound impossible, but I know I can fit in some time to make art; it just has to be carefully planned, which I’m not at all used to.

But I don’t have a choice in this case. New habits are very hard to form. I’m not perfect, and art has moved way down my priority list. I keep telling myself it’s temporary. I’ll keep telling myself that.