Clever Title For A Blog Entry

Yes. Here it is today again. I am spending this weekend with my family. Yesterday we celebrated my niece's birthday and I gave her a painting that I've done in the last two weeks. It is so awesome to finally be doing the right thing.

Here's the painting and here's my cheeseburger:





In response to Bruce's comment the other day to my blog entry "180 x 24 Hours." Hi Bruce. I think I remember you. Maybe. Aren't you tall? That was quite a lifetime ago. I'm not sure which of my visits to jail you're referring to. Anyways. I ended up going to San Francisco and then Alaska myself in 1998. The beginning of this blog goes back to when I was in San Francisco. When I started this blog about a year and a half ago? I uploaded all the journal crap that I had and that stuff only goes back to 1998. Sadly I lost all of the writing that I'd done before that time. As Brent might remember, I had begun a long series of notebooks. Ah whatever. That's all gone. One of the small prices I had to pay for being an alcoholic fuckup.

Today however, I am still creative. Gratefully I have found that giving up my disease did not mean giving up who I am. YES!!!! In fact, it has meant that now I can finally be more of who I am. I am most certainly finding love now and deep human connections and my spirits couldn't be any "higher!"

Note to Brent: Sorry I haven't communicated with you. I haven't communicated much with anybody outside of my little recovery community but that is not a permanent thing. I have been focusing myself almost exclusively on coming back to life and it has been a full-time amazing and exciting adventure. I have noticed who visits this blog and who leaves comments and I am grateful that there are people out there who are curious and care. Actually, Brent, you have been in my thoughts quite a lot lately.

More later. Today I am beginning a new drawing of a praying mantis.

Pretty Flowers and Shit

Just this: Here's a flower I finished recently. Today I finished drawing a cheeseburger. I'm getting a big kick out of the fact that I can draw stuff. How cool is that?

Sober Artism

Okay. I guess I gotta give a little update. I've been sober nine months and five days now. It's the most incredible thing that's ever happened to me. I am infinitely grateful that I am an alcoholic because the hell that I went through and the experiences that I've had are giving me a balance and perspective and appreciation for how truly amazing this life can be. Because I am an alcoholic I got the wonderful gift of being able to work through AA's twelve steps and that is gradually bringing out the full depth of the talents and wisdom and love that God equipped me with when I started out in this world. Fuck yeah!

About a month ago I started painting and drawing again after a 15-20 year lapse. One of my paintings - "Surrender" was in an arts exhibit a few weeks ago and has already sold. I've been given two commissions to work on and was already paid pretty well for the preliminary sketch for one of those.

I am still unemployed, but I have been getting a lot of odd jobs helping people with their computers and that's keeping me floating.

Recently I read the first two volumes of "Conversations With God." Some pretty amazing stuff in there. One concept that has particularly helped my situation:

"The moment you say 'I want' something, the universe says, 'Indeed you do' and gives you that precise experience - the experience of 'wanting' it! Whatever you put after the word 'I' becomes your creative command."

So now instead of wanting a job and wanting rent money and wanting a healthy relationship, I put thoughts into my prayers like, "I am meeting the right people and doing the right things that are leading me into productive and profitable opportunities. Thank you, God."

Right now I'm reading "The Power of Now." Another freaked out book that works perfectly for my kind of spirituality.

Anyways, here's some of the new artwork.


This is what I look like today.


This is a little flower I drew in my notebook.


Surrender


This is my friend Victoria. She's a poet and a painter. She was key in helping me reawaken my artism. Thank you, Victoria.


This is a painting titled "One" that I made for Victoria.

This Golden Moment

Hello.

Quick note here. I've done two new paintings in the past few weeks. I'll try to get them up on here soon. I'm very proud of them and it's an incredible joy to know that after almost nine months of very real sobriety, the me that was always intended to be is finally coming into focus. Yeah, good times.

I just finished reading "Conversations With God, Vol. 1" by Neale Donald Walsch last night. Holy crap :) Yeah. That's my new favorite book for today.

Anyways, what really inspired me to put up a post today is that I notice Nicole's ex(?) boyfriend/fiance has been checking my blog with regularity. Either that or somebody in Perth, Australia really has a curiosity thing going. Let me save you some time guy ... I haven't seen her since the last night that I drank back in January and I haven't spoken a word with her in at least six months. Your efforts at stalking her are better spent elsewhere. I have no desire to communicate with her unless by some freak miracle she can get honest with herself and stop spreading her beauty-colored fear all over people's lives.

So anyways. I'll be getting my nine months AA chip next saturday (10/17) and I'm just continually amazed every single freaking moment and day how awesome this life is turning out. It only gets better. Even when it's pretty bad, it's so much better.