212th day sober. I was not able to sleep well last night at all, but I lay in bed from 6AM-2PM to at least simulate a reasonable(?) schedule.
I actually feel pretty normal now, except for my lower back, which all the time in bed didn't help.
Last night before bed I brushed and flossed and chewed Xylitol gum, my usual preparations for some trumpet practice, and I could barely play E in the staff. My lips had peeled, upper and lower, which probably didn't help but I can't blame it on just that.
I felt very frustrated and drew doodles all over 5 index cards. I have my expensive little sketch book but it's thick and "unfriendly" to just doodle in. If I'm going to put in regular time doing this, I need to come up with a regular system which can be as simple as cutting the pages out of the sketch book, drawing on each one and keeping them in a box, with perhaps a date on each one.
The thing is, I can be sick as a dog and I can still draw. Even if my drawing suffers, the ideas can still be put down. I grew up with this naive idea that to be a "real" artist you had to be able to draw things hyper-realistically at least if you needed to. And it's a nice skill to have, but I think it comes at the price of "tightening up" and it's a severe price to pay.
Saul Steinberg's drawings were very loose, I'm tempted to say too loose a lot of the time but that's what let the neat ideas and feelings come through.
Meanwhile, our bright shiny new Covid variant has us all looking forward(?) to a shut-down Christmas season.
I packed the 4 things that were "overdue" and left at 6 for the run to FedEx. On the way back I got a shwarma plate at Baba's and ate it outside, yeah it was $15 but it's a lot of tasty food and I had rice and a half pita left over. I saved those for the birds back here.
I did my usual route looking for shipping stuff and picked up a few boxes, and by the electrical lighting place there was this Asian homeless guy who's .... kinda crazy but somehow we've sort of made friends. I parked my bike by the dumpsters and took the bag with the package of rice and falafel off of the handlebar and put a knife/fork/spoon/napkin kit I had in there too and set it down near him. "Thanks," he said. "'Sorry I don't have more" I said and then contemplated what a hypocrite I am, turned around and dug the $5 I had left over from buying my dinner out of my wallet and took that over. I hadn't seen the guy for the longest time, and thought he's either been taken in by family or perhaps, sadly, died. But there he was, alive.
I stopped by Tom's to say hi but he was probably asleep or passed out drunk for some well-rationalized reason.
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