down that road

I finally did my laundry. I woke up at 7AM and headed downstairs (I can do my laundry in the basement of my apartment building). I put quarters in two machines and right after I hit the wash buttons I remembered that I was supposed to check if there was any hot water. Last night there was once again no hot water in my building. Before going to bed I decided that upon waking up, I would need to check the water before washing my clothes. Did I? No. Was the water once again frigid? Yes. Do my clothes seem cleaner? A little. Still smell a bit like oil though. I'll probably end up washing them again, which I don't really want to do. I'm afraid that one of these days the ass of the jeans will just wash away.

I've had two supposedly great movies at home for a while now: Nights of Cabiria and The Short Films of David Lynch. I've been avoiding them and instead have been focusing on Samurai 7, an anime series inspired by and roughly following Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai. I'm afraid that the other movies will actually be good. I'm afraid they'll make me think; I'm not ready to do that. If I start thinking about good art I'll start thinking about my art and about how it's nonexistent and then I'll just get sad. God forbid I should actually do something about it. So that's why I'm staying away from good things. I was talking to a coworker today about dance and was telling him that I had been disappointed with things I had seen lately and wanted to make my own. He looked at me for a moment and said, "Don't. That's a bad idea. Do not try to make your own work. It's so hard out there." That was certainly encouraging.

While sitting on the toilet a few days ago I had a profound moment. And after flushing I got down to some thinkin'. Really I do some of my best thinking while on the ol' American Standard, don't you? "You know, I can see me spending my life with some other career and just appreciating art made by others. I don't have to make my own." While this idea was comforting it also made me a bit sad. On one hand I felt like I'd traversed a hurdle with which I'd been struggling. It's okay that I'm not always making art; I can take breaks. On the other hand that particular idea involved taking a permanent break from creating, something I thought I would never ever consider. So in the end it felt less like a revelation and more like a resignation.

Maybe I'm just joining the American mass.

But isn't this picture awesome? Click on it for more, I recommend opening the flash version.