I am baking in the sun on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland. I brought a notebook and pen with me to do laundry, hoping I could force myself
to write for a stretch of time with no distractions. It kind of worked. I wrote a few pages of blithering miasma.

I’ve been in a gap, no creative inspiration, because there’s nothin to process out, and apparently for me, processing is the fire starter for my work. Right now, it’s just humdrum getting through no fun things like having gaps in income and helping my husband file our divorce papers. Taking stuff out of storage to save a few bucks, not knowing what to do with paraphernalia like my wedding dress which is ensconced in a giant memento box, the jewel cases to all of my cds, and my first guitar, which is broken and living inside a hard case.

There is only so much that will fit into a little room. And there is only so much I can afford for expenditures. It’s a negative slope right now, nightmares about getting stiffed. Hitting a wall with where to pitch for freelance gigs. Hitting a wall for what to do with my writing or music.

I’m subletting a friends practice space for a month and a half, and will basically live there when not in my cheapie room, in order to make as much music as I can. The other day I took a nap on the dingy floor. “Ew,” said a friend, when I told her. “Who knows what goes on on those practice space floors.”

But I’m tired. So tired.

And I’m waiting. Waiting for something…

Trying to ascertain whether my life is an upward climb or a slow backslide. On any given day, it could be either or.

I have no expectations for my future, only wants. Any meaningful lyric I could write has already been written by Robert Smith. Hats off to him for succeeding in conveying everything I feel exactly, like a mouthpiece muse to my inner existential crisis.

I have friends recuperating from surgery, alcoholism, careers and relationships. Seems everything is in a state of slow, subtle flux.

The caverns inside that house my art are currently echo chambers. My brain does not know what to make of these black hole gaps. Hello? Hello in there?

It will come back. In survival mode we shut down. I saw a sign the other day that said Art = Life, but the Art was crossed out and underneath someone had written Food and Shelter = Art.