And… we’re back!
Today is my first day at my new job: figuring out how to create a thriving, fulfilling, sustainable, location-independent art practice/career. The time in the mountains was restorative AF.
Here’s a bit of a wrap-up. I’ll be posting some the drawings and paintings I made soon…
The Intended Tasks
I keep having to remind myself that given my mental and physical state on June 1, I actually made a lot of progress on business tasks. Much learning was absorbed, mostly by doing things inefficiently and ineffectively a bunch of times first. I visited art fairs, talked to artists, updated some Etsy, and worked on the website. And I made so many drawings!
Still battling for the supremacy of “done is better than perfect” in my mantra bag. So many of the art hustling entrepreneur tasks that need doing, lighting the fires under all the various projects, products, and roles are riddled with side quests and sand traps. At some point, things should roll a bit smoother, but my "Set It & Forget It” Era is waaaay down the road.
The rest of this week, I plan to be batch producing social posts & reels, scanning in sketchbooks and drawings.
Stom (n)o ach(e)
After literal years of a pretty constant GI problems, inconclusively diagnosed via many ‘oscopies and scans, mitigated with lousy results via drugs and diets, the stomach ache has mostly disappeared!
It seems as though I had taken to storing a giant amount of compounded frustration plus a big dollop of workplace issues in my dang-blasted abdomen! Sigh. I have been trying to eat “Low FODMAP” mostly, and that may also have had an effect.
It was three days into travel, as a dramatically striped rock-scape came into view that I realized: I actually felt ok. I feel pretty good in fact! For the first time in a long long while. Hot damn!
Latest Snooze
The sleep issues are not resolved but resolving. Trying to make peace between what I want/need to do and my circadian clock. My “sleep debt” was like 22 hours when I left at the beginning of June. Now it’s at 8, which is okay. For a week or so, I managed to get to 2 or 3; let me tell you, it was amazing. Not only was I not walking around clenching my stomach like my guts were gonna fall out, but I felt alert and fog-free! Making a point to spend multiple days tent camping was key for me to really get my snooze-bag on.
Latest Reads
The Retreat library list was full of cringe; luckily no one can see you check out a book online so I only had to manage my own snarky eye-rolling when downloading “How to Be Single and Happy” by Jennifer Taitz (actually really smart and actionably helpful) and “How to Be an Adult in Relationships” by David Richo (wise and balming).
I have more work to do in accord with both of books, some bits of that may make it to this space. Perhaps some of their wisdom has already: this writing is maybe more personal than usual (not sure I’ve written enough posts to have a usual) but I certainly do feel less hesitant to share.
Also read:
Isola (Allegra Goodman) - ★★★★★
Hope for Cynics (Jamil Zaki) - ★★ (I couldn’t stop myself from cynically talking back to the author’s heartfelt and generally fact-backed writing.)
Manhunt (Gretchen Felker-Martin) - ★★ (My meh is probably on me, I kept getting the characters mixed up; great concept though!)
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts (Gabor Maté) - ★★★★★
Severance (Ling Ma) - ★★★★
Blood in the Machine (Brian Merchant) - ★★★★★
Careless People (Sarah Wynn-Williams) - ★★★
The Girl With All the Gifts (M.R. Carey) - ★★★
Vagina Obscura(Rachel E. Gross) - ★★★★★
Mina’s Matchbox (Yoko Ogawa) - ★★★★★