Yes, my cigarette. I’m a godamn artist. Not a soy popping premadonna.

Even the smoke that floats upward from my cigarette is healthier than the thoughts I’ve been having lately.

My experiences are creating a mentality I’m actually beginning to enjoy.

You might wonder what this mentality implies, and I might in fact inform you.

Or I could just end this right here and now.

Leave you wondering.

Leave you pondering.

I might even enjoy that in a perverse sort of way.

Might is a beautiful word.
It can imply the best, and the worst of things, all while leaving the statement, generally mysterious.

That sentence might be a comma splice.

If I were to be reincarnated into a word, I might be that word. But that might be giving too much information.

Nevertheless, my sweet petunia’s, I’m in an excellent mood today and will therefore give you the delicious privilege of peeking into my mind for a few precious minutes.
By excellent mood, I mean fucking ridiculous, and by few minutes, I mean many.

I light another cigarette.
Disgusting, I know. But I like the fact that I can do something at 1:09 a.m. and six hours later when you read this, still, provoke a feeling in you.
I’ll be off living my life, likely educating myself, all while you sit here and read this and feel:

A. disgusted by my cigarette habit.
B. enlightened by my ability to not give a fuck.
C. none of the above.
D. Both E & F.

Confusing?
Good.
Yet another feeling I have provoked in a matter of mere seconds.
What’s really going to burst your bubble later is the question of whether or not I really did smoke throughout this entire piece or if perhaps I just said that in order to divert your attention toward everything and nothing that I was saying.
Perhaps I might have done that.

You’re all a generation of endlessly curious little bastards.
It’s time we remedied that.

Back to the new mentality though.
I suppose the proper way to introduce a new mentality is to review the old one.
I used to dedicate myself fully to someone I was with.
And I don’t mean, making a few compromises here and there, I mean, fully.

As in, I would skip school, work, and my own life just so that they were happy.
Well guess what my sweet darlings, the moon no longer chases the sun in the sky.
It shines on its own.
In the dark unpredictable night.

Clarity, it seems, shines bright.
I am putting myself first.
I am who I am, if you like it, excellent.
If not, please, proceed your pompous superficial sheit elsewhere.

I will walk around with no makeup on. I will sit in basketball shorts and have my hair up in a messy bun.
If you do not think you could handle this, I’m almost inclined to feel bad for whoever you might actually choose as your significant other.

Because yes, I have finally become comfortable with who I am and no longer feel the need to fit into your itinerary.

This mentality continues to prosper, and the more I realize, the happier I am.
I might even begin to like this mentality.

Might.

I pour some Captain into a glass.

Cheers to being happily miserable.

I write to empty my soul, not my glass.

I played jazz on my drive home from work.

I’ve probably smiled 400 times today, and not once sincerely meant it.

I’ve wished hundreds of  “good evenings” and given “thank yous” to probably over thousands of customers, and yet all I want to do is be home reading my books on how I will treat those people when they are dead and gone.

Initial decay this, Cremation that.

I’m most happy where others are completely mortified and miserable.

“So you’re one of the special ones” they all declare.

Define special.

Are you special?

Is your 9-5 just enough to get you by? Are you true to yourself, or do you sit inside your cubicle wondering how it would have been if you had just had the courage to follow your true desires? Grab your receipt and go, perhaps tonight you’ll convince yourself once more that life’s worth while in the mind of the silenced dreamer.

I swipe a bottle of paint and grin at the next person as if they were the most beautiful being to walk the surface of this planet.

I see their soul light up and for a second, they have lived and felt worthy.

Its all about the feeling.

I sense it, I live it, I breath it.

What tickles my fancy is what is after that.

The loss of feeling, soul, and being.

The slow abandonment of  the machine.

Just as cells join together to run the machine, cells also diminish together to shut down the machine.

It’s the question that drives me.

I want to know what makes the buttons click and the clocks tick.

I want to play computer technician in anatomical form.

I want to fiddle with the cardiac motherboard, and pull the strings of the encephalitic processor.

I don’t want to read the manual, I want to be the manual.

By looking at lack of feeling, I can completely understand the abundance of feeling.

I was so excited I could barely contain myself.
Vivi and Jake came over, I finished my coffee and we were on our way!
Jake mistaked the Scottsdale Art Museum for the Phoenix Art Museum but we eventually got there.
Here are some of my favorite things I saw.
(the pictures are off the original site because we weren’t allowed to take pictures in most of the exhibits.)

“Upside Down, Inside Out” By Anish Kapoor 2003

This was in the Contemporary Arts section as we walked in. Of course this was my favorite section in the Museum considering my love for Modern & Abstract Arts.

“Mass Colder Darker Matter” by Cornelia Parker 1997

This was also an interesting piece in the Contemporary Arts section, it’s made out of pieces of burnt wood from a church that was struck by lightning. I found the concept and the story behind it really interesting.

“Gretchen” by Robert Lango 1985

The last piece in the Contemporary Arts that I found really intriguing was this one by Robert Lango . For some reason I really liked it and will probably use it as a source of inspiration for my next painting.

“You Who are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies” by Yayoi Kusama

After the Contemporary Arts we went to the Firefly Exhibit and Vivi had to hold my hand as I walked in because my glasses made it very difficult to see the limits of floor and walls. It is a room filled with led lights and mirrors all around, and of course the clumsy me I am, I ended up walking into a wall because I thought I saw Vivi coming towards me when actually I was walking towards her reflection. It was quite funny. I took off my glasses after and realized that the magnification of my glasses was making the room seem three times bigger than it actually was. That explained a lot.

“Pollice Verso” by Jean Leon Gerome 1872

We continued over to the European Arts and I really enjoyed that too. Sadly I couldn’t find many pictures of the paintings we saw because they are very rare and are not allowed to be photgraphed. There were several pieces from the 15th and 16th century that were truly impressive. The softness with which the artists painted back then is impossible to recreate. There were many mythological refference paintings and also 17th and 18th century style paintings that were so realistic it was intimidating.

We also saw this 9th Century Sitting Buddha Statue in the Asian Arts. The detail they used on many of the pottery pieces that were there was amazing, the sheer dedication they must have had to do all that just boggles ones mind.

There were many pieces I would have loved to put on here, especially the famous Ansel Adams photography exhibit we were lucky to see while we were there but unfortunately all I can suggest is a visit of your own, guys! It was lovely and a nice touch to my busy weekend.

After the museum Jake was a cutie and took us out to eat and we met up with a bunch of friends Vivi knew when she lived in Phoenix that she’s gotten in touch with again since she’s moving back soon. (which I must say I’m extra excited about since she won’t be nearly as far now) But overall it was a great Saturday.

 - Till next time, dearies.

No longer do humans express themselves.

Sexuality is repressed.
Love is avoided.
Art is mundane.

Women have become men, men have become women.
Personality is objective, marriage subjective.
Disagreement silenced, and agreement necessary.
Regrets abundant, risks scarce.
Music inspired, not created.
Objects improved, not invented.
Beauty materialized, materialization beautified.
Discipline undermined, excess intertwined.
Show me art.
Give me inspiration.

Sex.
Love.
Art.

Has the curtain fallen on us for the last time?
Technology conquering, nature diminishing.
Falacy promoted, substance shunned upon.
Reality distorted, fantasy denied.

The human condition, strangely reformed.
Where are the loud cries of rebels?
The souls against the current?
The passionate?
The enraged?
The godamned poets!?

Love.
Sex.
Art.

Art.
Love.
Sex.

All a bunch of hog wash I tell you.
Oh, I’ll tell you the problem, I’ll tell you the problem indeed.
Substance.
Substance, I tell you.
Sub-fucking-stance I tell you.

The sting from the bleach teases her dark hair into a dirty blonde.

It suits her intentions, her need to blend in for the moment, and the ultimate transition to new plans.

She remembers the days when her intentions were simple, wholesome, and perhaps normal.

A house, family, maybe even love, but that changed as time passed.

Time is plentiful, and the desire for adrenaline surpasses by far the entertainment that any human could ever provide willingly.

Legs stretched out in front of the window, she draws the city before her, but irony has it that the curtains are closed.

As in the atomic days, her drawings explode on paper without warning or notice.

Draw and exact copy, but make it the image from within.  

The eyes see no such creativity unless the mind pushes to the edge of limitation and scrutiny.

This confession, has meant nothing.