February 20, 2010

Another day of endurable temperatures, another day at the studio, surprising myself with diligence and lack of ineptness. It’s lonely without J, but I can hear Heather trying to shush her barky dog, hear the glass blowing boys laughing their strong man’s laughter. Everything that happens in the street I can see from my window. I smell turpentine on myself. Encountered Drew in the stairway with a dramatic-looking friend visiting from San Francisco. Pete is a Japanese-American whose face is a fierce contrast of black and pale, and whose dark eyes seemed to be all pupil. He was too close to stare and determine whether that were actually true. Angelic and demonic would be equally apt descriptions. Pete and Drew were wanting to take pictures of “solitude,” which include a shot of a naked man at a party, wearing only the head of a dog mascot. I think I was meant to volunteer, but I did not. Big pile of dog shit on the floor as I exited, apparently just in time.

It would be interesting to figure out why some days are good for painting and other days are good for writing, and why some days are either good or not good for both. My deep conviction is that the impulse that leads to painting and to writing is one impulse, but if the source is one, the tone and environment are not. I would not have been able to put into words the source and meaning of what I was painting today. But I can always. . . put into words what I put into words.

Kyle phones that Jim Tucker suffered a brain aneurism and is in the ICU. There was a time when he and Jack and Steve and Randy were the steadiest components of my social life. We spent New Years and birthdays together. I was playfully in love with him for a while, and fought the urge to tamper with a committed relationship. I drove him home when he was incoherent with drink. Jim was weak and sweet. His was a life that was never allowed to flourish, but also, until now, never quite allowed to languish. Always missed him. Never sought him. Now that pattern is frozen in eternity.

He is being kept alive until his organs can be harvested for transplant. I suppose modern times soften the term “ghoul” a little.