What? It’s a new year? Twice over now?
No. You can’t fool me with that talk. There’s nothing new about this year. It is decidedly a continuation of the last one- which was, in fact, a new year; though I won’t trouble you with an explanation of how time does not move the way you think it does.
And this post here, well, I guess it should finally go out. Ready or not. It’s been sitting in edit mode, being edited sporadically for many, many months.
Last summer it was strange to be a tourist in Boston as I had never been in my younger days; when I lived closer to the city and it would have made more sense. I learned about the Bunker Hill misnomer mixup (go look it up) and walked the Freedom Trail. I felt the contentment of the dead in the much visited cemeteries. I saw at least two anorexic women in a posh neighborhood.
But hey- why begin an actual written post after all these months of silence by jumping into random comments about Boston? Well? Why not?
I never wrote about my brief stay in Boston in 2015. Or my awkward time at my brother’s wedding- after I nearly killed myself (so to speak) in New York- Oh it was so strange and brief at time with my family in MA. And then there was my very first visit to Chicago and it’s northern suburbs…
I did get around a bit last year and had much to relate, but let this blog fall into silence. It was time for my silence. There was a point when I saw that my words and actions were having very little effect on anyone except to get myself overly excited and therefore lead straight to poorer health.
What I was doing, with all it’s positive intention, was having a negative impact. So I stopped. I threw down everything; walked away from a few things completely even. The struggle was not even making sense. Why was it even a struggle? Why did anything have to be a fight? I still don’t know. I’ve stopped asking that question at the moment.
My Human was hoping to start working on a mural in NYC this year (least year actually) that would have brought us some much needed income, but thanks to one man that $40 thousand job was scrapped in favor of a mirror instead of a mural. (That’s the wrong ‘m’ word, mister dude.) I had refused to get my hopes up about the job because I felt the negotiation process was not going smoothly. I was not utterly crushed when Human got the bad news. Yet, I can’t help having this mild bitterness toward a certain Tom C- However! May all (continued) blessing come upon his 5 star restaurants and TV appearances and his family. Because one must not speak ill of the dead- And how he must be dead indeed if he cannot comprehend the need to support the arts!
It’s now focus on a migration/immigration collaboration project of music, performance (butoh, if you must call it that), and drawing. I’ll probably write more about it, when I am more comfortable with what the thing wants to be- for my part of the collaboration, that is. We have a musical score though! And that is something!
In April, Human and I will be doing this Chicago residency thing at Mana Contemporary for a few months. The residency had been in the works since last year. The dates have been shuffled and reshuffled, but it looks like we are still on for that at least. And who knows what can happen in Chicago? Maybe I can even find some work there…