Today I blasted Jay Reatard as I sped through the redwoods, and reminisced about the ol' college days. I used to be grimy, punk, a smoker, fucking art school kid, you know? I realized that I'm still p. grimy but i'm not that punk anymore. I miss going to shows and drinking shitty beer and staying out late in dive bars. I miss that energy. Like that time I saw the Plain Dealers and the lead singer got hit in the head with a glass bottle and started bleeding all over the place. He ran his hands over his face, then started bumping, slamming his body into the people immediately surrounding him on the floor. He came at me, swiped his fresh blood across my chest, then fell into the crowd of dudes next to me.
Far from being upset, I cracked up laughing because it was awesome.
Leaving that show with beer and sweat and dirt and blood crusted onto my skin, I felt like my life had been lifted past the mundane, shitty existence I was leading. My stupid life of art school critiques and smoking too many cigarettes and worrying about BOYS. So many boys. I fell in love with everybody because everybody was so interesting. I wanted to forget myself in other people.
I can't even think about art school that much. I want to make a formal apology to anyone who had to sit through a critique of anything I made before my fourth year. It wasn't until then that I even figured out what kind of art I wanted to make. I wasted so much time just completing assignments that I never even tried to make something that I myself would like.
My BFA final result was a silent comic about Jewish mysticism. I take the books out of their protective pillowcase once or twice a year to gaze at the eight months of my life that went into making those books. They are still precious to me. As are my sketchbooks. Everything else, from three years of work, is pretty much garbage. Sucks, right?
Is my mid 20's crisis happening? (is that even a thing?) I spent a good 8 minutes today considering bleaching my hair blonde. Like, really. Eight minutes. Do I even care that much? I don't even know.
But as I sit here, fervently typing, fervently drinking wine, listening to Crass for the first time in months, I feel like it doesn't really matter what I do either way. And that is the moral of this story, I guess.
