Angie's Boyfriend, and my narrow account

So after gathering that this was Angie’s new boyfriend (without trying to insinuate herein that Angie ‘goes through’ boyfriends) I figure I’d ask, and introduce myself maybe. So I asked him, turning to him, “Are you Angie’s boyfriend?” My manners were not in great health, but my wit was fine, and my manners never got me anywhere worth being anyways. He gave the right answer, hesitating briefly, then following through with an ‘if that’s what you like to call it, yes’. I said, “oh, good, sorry. I was trying to piece it all together here, as I heard that you weren’t a freshman, and your card doesn’t work to open the door, so you’re not a fine arts major. Anyway, hey, I’m Robert Kemeys.” and I reached out my hand for an introduction, and he reached his out and there was some guilt that seemed to be stuck to his hand, or something. There was a hesitation- maybe he’d masturbated. Maybe he’d eaten a bunch of cheetos. Maybe it was some alpha male, are we about to fight thing, I’m not sure, but when we clasped hands, it was all bone, and I wondered if I’d been off-putting. The handshake was vary much a formality, and once over, he and I tried to make do. He didn’t reply with his name, or with anything other than ‘hi’, so I had no idea what to call him, and he remained a symbol of an undergraduate place-holder boyfriend. This saddens me, but is not the worst. I disclosed to Angie that I think of him as a place-holder, before I’d met him, and now I’d met him, and we’re off to a questionable start. So I turn back to my table with my crafts on it, and begin to go back into studio mode, and try to tune out the conversation of my friends while I work, and he is watching me work bit. We’re all stuck in this space now where I don’t know his name, he’s got some other things on his mind, regarding the level of my friendship with Angie perhaps, or something like that, and I’m stuck working, which isn’t the worst thing, but it’s strange to be looked at while your’e doing it, without engagement, and he’s maintaining conversation with Angie, which as far as I can piece together, has to do with which airline he most frequently flies on when he travels to different music festivals. A good stopping point for me came sooner rather than later, and I left the two to have their time together as a couple, that they might get to the bottom of just which airline he has traveled by the most intercontinentally. 

I went to the gym and fake-rowed my brains out, then took a shower, really seeing the shower at some point, having a conscious experience, and off to bed, where I read my phone for an hour. I don’t get many calls, or texts, or emails. I think of this song, there’s a line which sings ‘the phone, it rings no more’. and it has to do I imagine with the songwriter’s life, and how as a lifelong performer, he no longer gets hit up for gigs, but this back-story makes it all the more valuable to my retro-fitting, because I’m in a most strange spot, a spot which I knew I’d be in (that I’d decided upon years back, in my bedroom in tallahassee, after I’d sold my bed and car. My phone, it rings no more, but it’s not because I’m old and all of the gigs are done, or that no-one is interested in me. It’s because I have an addiction, and because I don’t participate in group-think. I have alienated myself. I’ll fuck, but I’ll come on your belly, kind of thing. I’m a (self-aware) fuckboy. 

Any of my girl troubles stem from my self. Im a satyr, as one of my lovers put it. I thought she was a symbol for all evil. She, with a capital S. I thought that I’d be roped in to an eternity with her, and we’d participate in worldly gains, and reproduction, but alas at some point it was done, and we went our separate ways. I, turns out, chased some new tail out of town, and that pretty well sealed the deal. It’s funny, I don’t even think about my actions outside of an immediately justifiable context. Thus, spells are broken and morals reside in a flexible-if-not subjective space, as Kant and Neitszche would have liked it. So that makes me an untrustworthy person- the mark of Cain, as I recall what I read in Demian by Herman Hesse, which has to do with aligning to a most-high, most-ancient god (to be speculated by the reader as to whether it’s satan or not). It’s a great book, Demian. It’s like Faust, except the allegiance is ambiguous. So pan was a satyr- a man-beast, who would fornicate, and dance, and drink, and make music, and all around make things wonderful, pleasuring women and such- and that’s me. He would also run away into the dense foliage, to disappear indefinitely- and that’s me too.

Often I feel like a pariah. 

SO this morning, I woke from a dream pertaining to cooperation it seems somehow. (I didn’t wake up with visuals to recall, but a kind of feeling lingered of being a part of something, or having a place at least. This doesn’t have to go against my statement about being a pariah). Here’s some of what I’ve written already today, transposed from a sketchpad: 

There’s at least two ways I could write this. 

This morning was cool because I woke up naturally. At first, I didn’t do anything about it. What a gift! To wake up with the sun! This I believe is holiness! But I rolled over and succumbed to sleep until my alarm woke meep. What a strange night, I thought, and a strange yesterday. I met a boyfriend to a friend of mine- a dear friend. I’d told her my only hesitation as to leaving Ringing would be leaving her, and that was true. I didn’t get the boyfriend’s name. I introduced myself with a handshake, somewhat of an artificial gesture after his entering the room (where Angie and I were working on illustration projects, the sculpture lab, where Angie was clocked into, as an employee) and plopped down next to Angie and began chatting her up. …. blah blah

SO the two ways I could write this are as either a self-involved asshole who recognizes that others are in their own self-involved narratives, or as a self-involved asshole who has got the blinders on (willingly/knowingly or not), writing frantically as to validate his self-importance. 

I woke up this morning and after some time farting, and rolling around, and thinking of all the girls I’d loved before, I just kind of thought, ‘well, that’s one account of one life, in one perspective’, and that adds up to a very narrow picture indeed. So I recognize ( to my capability) that I’m just an asshole in a room thinking about the story that I’m in the middle of composing, about myself and how others are in relation to me, and I think at some point, of all the other assholes, in their rooms, farting and rolling around, (thanks Bukowski) and thinking about the world in relation to themselves, and that’s what got me out of bed this morning. There’s some thing I read yesterday too, that helped make this kind of a funny discovery, and that was some quote I read before I went to bed. It was something along the lines of: ‘The funny thing is, about this paradox, that only in acceptance of who I am, I am ready and able to change’. 

New Document

Eggs, Scrambled

I've had scrambled eggs for brains for the past week or so. It had to do with my ex-girlfreind contacting me. I love her very much. Emma.

She did a good job hitting me up. She was trying to help maybe, I'm not sure, by giving me advice as to what to invest in. She said I should buy a house, or that we should buy a house. I've already written about this so I won't go in too much.

I have been eating alone. I have been paintings alone, and reading alone, and I think other students have taken notice. At the dining hall, sometimes I am with a plate of food, and some writing materials, or a book, and I'll be approached, by another student, offering for me to join them (fingers pointing accross the dining hall to another table) 'over there'. I accept, and go have food with these friends. It's sweet, but not very relevant to the writing that I feel I need to get out, or the reading that I need to get done, to feel at ease, or prepared for things to come. So I go chat up these friends, and eat some food, then we all break off, and I go back to reading or writing.

The other night, (and I was burning through paper writing, documenting dreams, and thoughts and trying altogether to get to a resolve regarding my feelings for Emma, and regarding domesticating, and fantasizing, and going back and forth, and reading and reading into things very deeply, like under a spell. I was exhausting possibilities, and exhausting myself), I was sitting at a high-top table for dinner, with a sketchbook and mechanical pencil, writing and coming up for air every so-often, and a friend came up to me. This is a classmate first and foremost, we are friends too, but we don't often talk, we just work together in Illustration department as fellow students. So he comes up to me and starts small talk, which at this point, I've become a little used to- this patronizing, which comes from a sweet place, and I see him begin to tear up. He's nearly crying, like he's saying goodbye to his dog. I think the whole thing a little funny altogether, though there's a desperation to him, and the roles have kind of changed, where I thought I was the outsider figure, not understood, alone, or whatever, now he, took on the look of a lost child. So I ventured as far as to ask if he was alright, and he said, 'yeah', and it seemed like a great flood was forthcoming. Then a couple others came over, his friends, and engaged in some banter, and playful talk, and at some point he kind-of said, 'gotta go', and I said, 'sure thing, have a good night', and I didn't write much after that, I stared into space a bit, thinking if I'd seen an illusion, or what. How strange. So I packed up my things, took my plate to the dish pit, then back to the apartment, where, along the way, I developed intense emotions and a sense of a spinning world, like a ship in big waves, so cliché. I got a kind of tunnel vision, and there were tears on the way, and I invited them. I was flush, my thesis coming to a head. I felt a strong sense of a narrowing in my mind, the blood behind my eyes became a hot and glowing tunnel, where through like sitting at the throne of the mind of a chameleon, flashbulbs exposed snapshots of my deteriorating reality. I was giving up in a way, and it hurt. I was tormented by my ignorance- for what was all this fantasizing about in the first place? When I think of another, more domestic life, I think of a studio, a place where I spend most of my hours, and my wife, whom I am devoted to. I think of ourselves like knobby trees, whose knots and branches through time have grown in respectful relation to one another, that we not block light from one another, and that upon embracing, we feel an interlocking. I think of a carrot patch, as if that's all we need, carrots. I think of a front door, with a big painting on it- something graphic- recently thinking, it would be a three legged frog, borrowed from Korean images, depicting a symbol if prosperity, he which lives in the moon, and swallows it during the eclipse. I think of knees and hips and elbows, and how they grow and become old, and dying later on, but not yet. I really nursed the tears along, I knew I had a reserve of sad thoughts that could wet my cheeks, and I went into those a bit- these deal with the people I've let down. Those emotions seemed topical, though, in relation to the big feeling of general craziness, what to get so caught up in possible futures, as to load my present with make or break stakes, and high stakes, all imagined. I wanted to cry, and I did. I don't know how many of the tears were real and how many were a product of me wanting to cry, to find relief, so maybe all of them were real, but that's characteristic of me- watching myself experience, and questioning all the time as to it's validity, or legitimacy. Sometimes I think I do twice the thinking, and am getting twice the intellectualization, and am getting twice as smart. And sometimes I feel good about my self and my standings, or how I stand up and such, and other times, and what had me in a pseudo-genuine eddy of emotion, was the feeling of simultaneously feeling bad and also that I could not feel bad enough truly- in part because feeling bad is not a matter of trying, just like love is not a matter of trying. There is a lot of effort involved in a relationship, truly, but love is (hippie), all there is, and at the end of a storm comes light, though some trees might have been felled. Wow I'm full of 'em today.

So called Emma, as the tears were drying but I was still sensitive, but unshakeable, like after orgasm. I thought it would be a good time to call. Before I called I did that thing where I looked around the room and it all seemed very clear and raw and plastic. She answered, and I asked how she was, and I told her I'd been going crazy and that I just cried a bunch, and she asked me why and I said because I can't have nice things, and that was true. I'm all wrapped up in environmentalism- I spend a lot of time with it, eating less personally, using less, using things not directly sourced from nature (second-hand, however), and that's something I see more of but not enough of. And Emma said, 'but you don't want nice things', and I was stuck.

To do

To get me started I'll call this post 'to do' , as I could use some form of organizing this and my thoughts, and this blog seems like a good place to do that.

SO I'm taking Painting three, with Stephanie Henderson. She is cool. She's a bug time illustrator, as in, she has big things going on. She's strong. I've got to go to the Ringling museum tomorrow, in the morning would be a good time, or maybe in the afternoon, whichever. Maybe look at paintings in the morning, then go outside and paint in the afternoon, That could be good, because I'll probably (maybe) drink tonight, then wake Ideally at 9 or nine thirty, or ten, then either, dream, or meditate, or read, or write, hopefully not buy anything, and get a brunch at Hammond Commons (the dining hall). From there, maybe to Bayou 2 via an unlock from Security, to retrieve my French Easel, wherefrom, I will head straight to the Ringling Museum- might as well- with a fresh panel (in Backpack already) to make a pleinair study (or two). Photographs will need to be taken, consider a tiny color study, to prepare for abstraction et al.

It may behoove you to look up some methods on glazing. Once you've got an idea of what pigments old masters used, you could go back in to that (while thing, or) background of that Ermine DaVinci cover-painting. (what didi DaVinci use to glaze, and glaze, making flat shadows, and complex darks), then you're off. It is also important that you go fat when you do this (these) glazes, so that the painting won't fall off, or crack, or that it will dry, but not with an unsatisfactory finish- in time to apply a presentation-worthy varnish on it before it hangs tentatively on the display case for Mike Hodges' class portrait showcase. Photograph and email mike the finished (or in process if you want) painting, that he and I may zero-in on the show.

Another pertinent thing to do is to make the illustrator spot illustration for digital illustration class- this is not so far from exactly why you got into- really into- this (or at least, by one recollection)- that time you were living in a car and reading Snow Leopard and illustrating text passages. So, this Shakespeare prompt could be a dead end, might be, so it would be good to read each of the articles, rather than just the shakespeare, to check out if there's greener grass, or more fertile soil maybe.

Something of a big decision to be made is that one pertaining to moving to Philadelphia. This is the latest in the series of big ideas- well not the latest, second to latest. The latest one is buying a house, (or some complex) with Emma, fifty fifty, to be slumlords together, and attain cash flow. She's smart, and someone I would frankly marry. I like her as a friend, even though we are very different from one another. She's compassionate. So the house-thing is not so far-fetched- it's something that I've thought about for a handful of years now, and I wonder who I would be (in past, present, and future tense) if that be the decision I come/came/will come to. It's whatever. Emma said I'm so airy, and she's right I was ready to put out the cash for a house after like a text message. It's a wonder I get anything done at all, but here I am, with no life, and a drive for learning about art, and the world, and I also wax poetic, and want to be a farmer, or something useful, so I was happy to have Emma as someone who could tell me very flatly that I was airy, and that it works well for me. She has great perception.

So the second to latest thing, which is more probable, and in line with the line I've been making- less schizo- is going through with application for PAFA, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, in Philadelphia. It's the oldest school in the country etc., and it looks like their painting facutly is legit, and can teach about painting, and the recourses are good and the location is good, and the structure is different, and the housing is off- location, and the library seems good, and the school is built on top of a couple museums, and there's a first-edition cast collection below one of museums for students to draw, and at some point down there too they bring in a big horse, for the darwing class to draw from, and the meals (company-store dining) are not built in, but there's bagel shops all around, and the gym isn't built in, but there's a big city to walk, and gyms all around, and a Rodin Museum, and a old-rich collector's house full of paintings to see, and history, and intellectuals, and just at the end of the day, something new. Also per-semester it would be cheaper than where I go. I was just up there for a few days in the Winter Break, to talk about switching to their school, and it would be cool. I've already done something like this- it may even be me in the habit of uprooting, since my introduction of the concept from my family, growing up. Anyway, the decision os not-so-hard, to stay or to go, because I want to go- I think I would do great there, and benefit from actually learning how to paint, and to speak with smart people about what to paint about and what my paintings are about, and all that kind of stuff.

SO to get there, I have to arrange my files, to submit as portfolio, and to write my essay, explaining what I want to go there for, and email my teachers (after the weekend, and after talking with then, perhaps reading them my essay about what I want in an art school, or snippets, so the package becomes comprehensive) about writing for me a (two) letters of recommendation.

I should photograph (this weekend) then cut up that sculpture via a cut-off grinder.

I've got to do that new illustrator project, but not before class the next day, as the teacher hasn't formally assigned (posted) it.

It would be good to go onto the website for painting class, to study the new paintings (and horse paintings). Photograph and email DV copy to Stephanie, to ask about next steps, and photograph (bring from north studios) all of the studies done-thus-far in Bayou2. Store those things in there too- the North Studios is a little lame for painting.

Think about screen printing, ( I am ), and about what you want to do (design, in illustrator) regarding color, spot or shape, and subject matter. Consider that thing in the sketchbook. Scan that thing and Vectorize it- value, then color that thing.

Go in to Glass casting when the time comes- no rush- to seal-up that cracked mold, to prepare for the kiln.

Saturday after returning from the Museum painting, treat yourself to a night of figure drawing gestures at FEWS. Bring the money packet, and get it at the end of the night too.

Either keep going or crash, whichever.

Wake up Sunday thinking about Monday's print-making class in the morning, then Illustration final crit(s), then figure class (whereafter it may be good to talk with Carl about that letter of rec), wherealso charcoal and mix-media are the media. Be prepared for Monday by being prepared on Sunday.

Tuesday comes digital, where I should have the spot done, and where I should dive in to the portrait assignment. I't might be good to do a self-portrait. Then glass-casting. Maybe on this day, run the money up to finance for a FEWS deposit. Pratt or old Brit as options. Figure draw long pose in the evening.

Wednseday morning- painting class (what's going on ? Where are we going?) The canvasses (surfaces) have been gessoed, it would be good to have those paintings done (the little masters, the mid-size master) and the bay one- these she wants to see, and also she has yet to see any of my paintings this semester. There's a possibility that if I do not show her that I am working sometime soon, I may fail the midterm, and fail the course- show some work. It would also be a vary good idea to actually go to the museum tomorrow- it's the surest way that your museum-stunt (skipping that part of class, to work on that monotype book) go forgiven, or at least, explained. That's a wrong-to-be-righted with my painting teacher, for sure.

Same thing with the digital class- the wrong-to-right is turning in the spot that was due (whoops,) yesterday.

Feels good to write.

Wednesday evening, go to bring the thing  to FEWS< then to work at the North Studio.

I'm getting herpes in my nose again, this fuckin sucks.

That's most of it. Paint tomorrow, then draw, then paint, then the next day do all of the print-services stuff after an illustrator morning, then finish-up the work for the images, then photograph them.

Maybe look at internet sites, maybe dip into personal work, and maybe chip away at Pafa stuff.

Finish Noa Noa and give that to Angie.