There and back again

I'm back. No time for a full post mortem unfortunately. It is a tale of two cities, one bleak and desolate, the other rosy and full of promise and joy. 

As much as I would love to stay permanently in the latter, it mostly eludes me at this time of my life and I more often find myself gasping for oxygen like a fish flopping around on the sidewalk.

Serious karmic payback for a misspent youth, I'll wager. 

I lost several thousand dollars doing San Mateo at a time when I need to nail every technique and stick the dismount at every show, having lost nine or ten annual shows in the last three years to general lack of interest. 

But that is impossible in this day and age, this particular show has effectively become a jewelry show and all the We'll be backs for artwork pooped out on me.

So I found myself waking up at three or four every morning, wondering about survival and the location of the nearest bridge, and there are plenty of suitable jumping off points in the Bay Area. 

But I can't do that, have to keep grinding, would love to breathe air again and not feel like I am drowning all the time. But it certainly beats the shit out of Kyiv, Gaza, Cleveland, Beirut and a host of other places I could be toiling. And it will all look great in the novel. 

I guess I can console myself in the thought that it was really rolling for the longest of times and that if I remember correctly I used to be somebody. Before I became the last great buggy whip salesman in America.

I don't like fetishizing my emotional pain on an open blog, for one thing certain people enjoy it too much. Not a healthy habit to get into. So I did the other thing and just cut off everybody and the world in general and waited for the wind to turn. 

Which it thankfully did very quickly, me buying a great collection of native american material the very next day after the show that I can make some real money on. 

Then after holing up for a day near an old apple grove in Sebastopol I made my way to Santa Barbara, where I also had a pretty darn good show as well and also bought more beautiful material.

So here I am, dead tired from over two weeks on the road and emotionally spent for the fickle swings of fate's fetid finger.

Yet thankful.

Mostly for my wife, who stands by me and believes in me through thick and thin. Poor girl. For my sister Barbara, Michael and Millard, who kept me solvent this year when I was completely tapped. For my friends and clients, my blast blogosphere, my coffee buddies, all the people who make life livable. Renee, Dave and Lena, who I talk to every day. For my late father, who I have been dreaming about a lot of late, including last night. Thank you to those of you who have written but I just could not respond. The last two weeks have been so trying.

Thank you. More later.

*

This Friday afternoon I am going to hole up in the Fallbrook Library from three to five in the presence of my photographs that are hanging. Anyone want to join me, I will stow away a bottle of Jamisons in the car.  But you have to be willing to take a swig from the bottle.

Not expecting company but we shall see. I will bring a book. And some matted bird prints in case anybody wants to buy one.