I don't do tension well. Let's be clear on that up front. Waiting for my SSI settlement so I can move and looking for a place to live with minimal (yet challenging) information as to what's wanted by my future roomie Ryan have me pacing the floor and walking down the street in the heat to work off tension.
Having five art projects to finish and a house to clean does not help. I started the art stuff to give me something other than the waiting to think about. Now I have a baby afghan, a crocheted beret, a walking stick and a wand all in some state of completion, and I have yet to start on a basket of amigurumi Cthulhus a friend wants for her craft booth. I'm also trying to make some money editing titles for Demand Studios, but I'm too fidgety to make the quota on that job as well. I should just admit I'm not cutting it on that side of the business and stick to writing articles. I'd make more writing overall, and I enjoy it more, so I'd do more.
Which leaves the art and housekeeping. Housekeeping is not all that bad if I get off my computer chair and do it, so then the art is the question. It is not, however, an option; it's a necessity for my own mental health. I need to make things, to express the ideas that don't come readily in words, or which might be shouted down if not graven in wood or steel or stone. I am, in some ways, creating my own monuments, artifacts of my own ideas that to my growing wonder resonate with others who at least see the skill if they do not understand the forms. This has become especially important to me recently, as I am generally soft-spoken and my associates are mind-numbingly loud most of the time. I am tired of the chronic shouting matches and I am getting quieter, rather than the reverse. Since I cannot be heard, my art must speak for me.
Meanwhile, the SSI wait is almost over. All the bits are finally in, and I'm just waiting for Sacramento County to take their share paid out for General Assistance while I look for an apartment for Ryan and me. He wants badly to live in Downtown, and I am looking there first. Rents are far less in Citrus Heights or Carmichael, but the feel of the place is important, and being close to transportation, art, film and all the rest is vital. I know he would be happier being ten minutes from his medical care instead of an hour and a half, and there are grocery stores and restaurants even closer than they are here in the relative suburbs, and, to broach the unthinkable, I would pay more to live alone than I would to make up the difference in cost, and I'd have to write or produce even more to make it up, so that said, I will keep looking for a low-cost place downtown.
Still, I'll be glad when the current projects are done and we can move.
