Tomorrow marks five months clean. Everything’s going pretty well. I’m a little bummed that I haven’t been able to share decent photos my post-relapse paintings on here yet (there are five finished paintings so far, another that’s in progress, and a drawing that’s in progress as well). I should be able to get most of them photographed sometime this week, at which point I’ll start writing the ancillary statements for each so that I can give each one its own proper blog entry AND start offering prints for sale.

The big news lately (as those that follow me on Facebook already know) is that I got Wallis back down here and back off drugs. (Things took a (predictably) bad turn for her when we split up and she went back to Jacksonville). There’s no judgment in that statement by the way; if I had been in that situation, I very sincerely doubt that I’d have fared even the slightest bit better. Anyway, initially we (I, with the help of some friends) got her into inpatient rehab but – for reasons I’m not going to get into – that didn’t really pan out as well as we might’ve hoped. So she’s been back out now for a few days and I’m scrambling a little bit to figure out where to put her. Art sales have been going as well as could be expected considering I’m just now getting back to it after a two-year hiatus/relapse but the brief period that she was in rehab wasn’t exactly enough time for me to make enough money to find a place for her to live. (She’s, of course, going to be getting a job and paying her own way but someone has to cover her first month’s rent and who’s that gonna be if not me?) Toward that end, I swallowed ALL OF MY PRIDE and actually got a “real job” for the first time in ten thousand years. I’m not super happy about it; it feels a little bit like an acknowledgment of failure; like maybe I can’t support myself (and someone else) off art alone but history’s already proven that that’s not true and I’m confident that this isn’t the new “state of affairs” and that I’ll be able to return full-time to art in the relatively near future. It basically boils down to the question of what’s more important to me: my pride and my image or providing a safe place for the girl that I love to recover/heal/rebuild in the same way that I was so recently given the opportunity to do?

I guess that about covers it for now. Hit me up if you wanna buy some art. Apparently these “JOBS” have these things called “pay periods” where you don’t get your money until, like, two Fridays after you do the stuff that you do and I’d like to start renting a place before then. But – you know – whatever. It’s all gonna work out regardless. IT SORT OF ALWAYS DOES.