The big brush-off

I hope everyone's 2010 is off to a good start. Mine's been a bit rocky...

Based on my not blogging, or even tweeting much, recently, people have been asking if I'm all right (the answer's not really, no but thanks for the concern.) And some of those people haven't been my mother, which tells me I really must post something to prove I haven't died.

So: I haven't died. I just don't really want to blog right now, for a couple of reasons, one good, one not so good.

The reason I've decided is, on balance, a good thing is that I've started painting I've started painting again. Whether anyone else thinks that's a good thing remains to be seen, and I've got to admit, I'm of two minds on the whole thing myself. I've missed painting, more than I realized till I started doing it again. It's a completely different activity than writing, one that pushes my happy buttons a lot more frequently. It's also habit-forming; the more I do it, the more I want to do it, which means the less I do other things, like update my blog and, er, maintain contact with humans I don't personally live with. It hasn't completely derailed my professional writing activity yet, but if I'm not careful, I can see it becoming an actual threat to it. Which is, at least in part, why I stopped doing it in the first place.

Anyway, depending on where you're reading this, you should either be able to see a couple of the things I've done over the last little while. If you can't see them and the links aren't working, I'll post the urls at the bottom of the post in case you just can't live without seeing my artistic genius in flower.

The one above I'm pretty happy with. At least as happy as I'm going to be, considering the subject matter.

While the next one is very much a work in progress. I don't know that I'm going to be able to make it work to my own aesthetic satisfaction, but the great joy of painting is that I can expend a ridiculous amount of time before I realize that and decide to let it go.

The other reason I haven't been posting is because I don't have anything I really want to say publicly at the moment. I've generally used this thing to express what's on my mind, and what's on my mind is usually pretty silly and/or frivolous. Which is all well and good most of the time; I generally like silly and frivolous things. However, it has on occasion led me to employ hyperbole and exaggeration to certain aspects of my life, which is why if you go back far enough you can probably find a few thousand words from me lamenting the toe I stubbed this morning or lambasting some telemarketer for foolishly attempting to ply their trade on the Wrong Guy.

The posts I wrote in December were among the most honest things I've ever written, and I don't regret putting them in the public eye. But they were written in reaction to events that were happening around me at the time. Now I have to deal with the aftermath, and at the moment, I don't really want to do that publicly. I can't see the value in doing so, for me or those dozen or so people who read this stuff. I definitely don't want to diminish what I and my family are dealing with by treating it roughly the same way I'd treat the new dog doing his impression of the Dresden bombings in our living room.

There's only one thing worth blogging about right now, and it's the one thing I don't really want to talk about, so I'm not. And that's why things have been quiet here and will likely remain so for a while yet (though I will try and post art as it comes in. I've got three more pages of John Keane roughs for JESUS CHRIST, PI I expect to post in the next day or two. So that's something to look forward to.)

A

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