The Hungry Artist

Preorder my first book Giving Up the Ghost (and other Hauntings) at my store.

Illustrated Book

Here I subject dreams on the first year anniversary of my father’s death to the plot of narrative:

In my dreams, I walked down the street with a group of strangers, and we glimpse a tidal wave and scream. I pinch the waist of a woman and apologize. We brace ourselves to be swallowed up by crashing waves, but somehow the waves stop short and when we turn around I shout “Look at the beautiful stingrays and they fall from the sky raining down, not hitting any of us to our surprise. Then robot humans descend and step out of their costumes; again we scream with gratefulness–our saviors. A castle appears, opens its doors and we wonder, was this all a hoax to get us to enter this carnival of delights? Or had the tidal wave been real? We were just lucky to have survived and the men in costumes just so happened to arrive–serendipitously–so that the near tragedy of death by tidal wave could be transformed from to fancy simply by coinciding with the sudden appearance of a castle from the sky?

*

Music with hard drum beats and rapid rhythms plays while we hastily clean out Papa’s house now that the morgue has taken his body away.

Soft lilting melodies (like the Titanic theme) play when we are sorrowful, when we weep in our own way in solitude.

*

Mind summons intellect to project structure and story onto the chaos of dream and memory, unlike animals who live in the present and care nothing for past and future. We humans categorize and fit events into calendar time, but memory and dream do not play by the rules, so… today on the first calendar year anniversary of Papa’s dying, I do not grieve the way I expected to. I did yesterday unexpectedly on the drive to work remembering lucidly: the early morning hours when I and the hospice stranger look after my comatose father and waited for the oxygen machine to stop torturing with its oppressive rhythmic sound. And of course it did, upon Papa’s last breath. I wish for happier memories to rain down like the stingrays, jellyfish, and angel-like machines of my chaotic, splendid dream.

I have an appointment again with my allergist tomorrow. We’re going to try the skin allergy test again, if I can become asymptomatic; unfortunately, the 5-day break from my meds has caused another outbreak of rashes and hives–this time, swollen lips, hives on my arms, face, and legs, and a hot rash this morning on my neck. At my last appointment, the allergist diagnosed me with a hyperactive/misdirected immune system. But I also brought up how in my 20’s, I was diagnosed with borderline lupus. Could it be that those symptoms have returned? It seems so. Lupus is a difficult disease to diagnose because if the blood test for it (ANA) shows positive, this may not be enough to diagnose Lupus for certain. Apparently, if you show 4 out of 11 common symptoms for Lupus, then you probably have it. For my appointment tomorrow, I plan to bring it up to the doc again and ask for that test because I do have at least 4 of those common symptoms. The worst physical symptom is when practically my whole body becomes inflamed and itchy, and the only way to get immediate relief is to apply cortisone cream all over. Even then, it sometimes takes hours to cool. These symptoms in turn cause me to feel depressed and anxious, and thus a cycle develops. I also get moody and cranky, but try not to show that side of myself too much with my students.

Almost done with this art-book. Here is a page close to the end:

Run Date: Sunday 10/6

No Fitbit Data

• “I know about your fucking unalienable rights” woman on another leisurely walk with gramps.
• Old white dude with camouflage hat who wore a “Come and take it” t-shirt on a previous walk.
• Coincidence? I bet the beat-up car in the parking lot belongs to the free-thinking gal while the big-ass built-in-Texas truck belongs to the gun-loving Trump-supporting old dude with downcast eyes.
• Little old lady walking her deaf dog; when we met her last time, she looked amused upon our calling Mei-Mei a jerk.
• Two bikers in fancy biking gear.
• Two large dark-chocolate colored identical-looking dogs walking their owners.
• Male twins walking one big dog.
• Two late teens/early twenties-ish girls having their photos taken. One was dressed in a fancy formal maroon-colored dress while the other wore jeans and a white t-shirt. I heard the latter refer to her girlfriend as the one who “never likes the pictures we take.” Good for them being out in the open as a lesbian couple here in suburban conservative Texas.
• Two dead frogs flattened on the sidewalk. One was being eaten by a swarm of ants, probably the one we addressed last week as poor, poor, frog. I admire ants for their tenacity and simultaneously despise them for their ability to so completely consume and infest. Ants, like other creatures, act on pure instinct. Do we deceive ourselves into thinking we are free?

The past several weeks have been a mixture of positive and negative experiences for me: My first book (a collection of narratives) is forthcoming in a few months; I ran two 10K’s within two months–a first for me; I’ve developed chronic hives, which not only cause physical suffering, but anxiety, depression, and frustration from not knowing the root cause. I’ve been working on a new project called “Runner’s Log: Before Going Mad and Retiring as a Running Monk,” an illustrated creative nonfiction work-in-progress. One of the concerns that comes to the fore in this new project is this development of hive breakouts that seem to tear down all the positives that have been coming to me. I feel most alive when I run and draw and write, and depending on the results of the allergy test I’ll be taking in a couple of days, I may have to cut down on running. Then I worry that–with the history of cancer in my family–could these breakouts be a sign of something more serious than allergic reactions? If I stay on the meds the doctor put me on for allergies/hives, I also may not ever be able to drink again. Not that drinking is necessary for my happiness, but it is enjoyable to drink a glass of wine or Sake here and there. I’ve been feeling very tired as well, probably a side-effect of the powerful drugs I’ve been taking (I’m currently taking an oral steroid for this latest hive break-out, which spread to my neck, my face, my lips), which is making it difficult to do anything useful really, outside of teaching. So I binge-watch Netflix shows for a few hours not without feelings of guilt (I ought to be forcing myself to write or draw, shouldn’t I?) But it is what it is, I suppose, and all I can or should do is take it one moment at a time and let things take their course, wherever they may lead.

With the help of my good friend and Temple College colleague Brenda Nicholas, I got to perform an excerpt of my mini one-act play “Death–A Play” at our first Temple College open mic last night. The play ws published in the July/August 2018 issue of Eclectica Magazine. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize my camcorder ran out of juice so that our reading was cut off. But oh well, hopefully there’ll be an opportunity to perform the whole thing at some point…

Color Pencil & Ink