Paint Therapy.

So I woke up too early this morning, after dreaming of better circumstances, to find myself at home. And outside in the hall, the building manager and the painters he hired were yelling at the tops of their lungs as long-awaited renovations finally took place. (A word of introduction: building management has done almost nothing in the way of upkeep on the building for the last couple years - a long-standing resident manager left under mysterious circumstances, then we had temporary relief managers, then we had a guy in his early twenties who was apparently too preoccupied with looking like a gangsta to actually do his goddamn job. Elevators sat broken for months at a time, lights in the common areas were burned out, homeless people were constantly trying to infiltrate the building, mailboxes and entrance doors and even apartments were vandalized, etc. etc.)

Anyhow, three guys standing five or six feet apart while they all yell to one another simultaneously makes for a hell of a ruckus. Literally a rude awakening after only four hours of sleep.

(In case you're wondering, this is actually going somewhere.)

On top of all this, there have been many, many changes in my life in the past few months, nearly all for the better, but with their own accompanying stresses, of course. Insomnia has come back for several extended visits, the forces of evil seem to be conspiring, money issues continue to rear their ugly heads, people I need answers from are being flakes, and there are days when it's all I can do to just roll with the punches.

Which brings us to today. I was jittery, bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived, and generally feeling like my entire emotional spectrum had been abraded with coarse-grit sandpaper.

And I took a look at some of the new metalflake paintings I've got on the go, and decided they needed a quick application of glass bead gel. Opened the jar, got out a palette knife, and started spreading the gel. Half an hour went by, and I realized a huge chunk of the stress had just... lifted off.

Paint therapy. You heard it here first, kids. I recommend it for everyone, even if you aren't a painter. And did I mention I've got 19 new paintings in the works? That's a lotta therapy.

Seventeen.

Tuesday was an interesting day. Didn't get to sleep till about 3:00AM, and then abruptly woke up three hours later. And let me tell ya, I was WIDE AWAKE. Tried to get back to sleep for half an hour or so, but it just wasn't working. I felt like I'd been mainlining Full Throttle.

So I got up, checked my email and then had a look at the previous night's artwork. Immediately started touching up a few details on the various paintings. By 7:30 I'd worked on four paintings. And of course there were plenty more needing my attention; I've always got a few paintings on the go, but lately the numbers have ramped up considerably.

Kept chipping away at the artwork all day, other than for a couple hours when I took a break and went down to the beach.

At the end of a 19-hour day, I'd lavished my attention on 17 paintings. No errors or missteps, no regrets. The creativity and the paint flowed, despite how jittery I was from sleep deprivation. Not a day I'd necessarily want to repeat, but the results speak for themselves: