if you asked me 5 years ago what i would want to save from my house if it were on fire, i'd have probably told you: my computer, my journals (i have a lot of journals), and some photos. something in me has changed and i feel a disconnect from everything on the page. i occasionally like to go through some old journals maybe to pinpoint an event or remember a certain feeling. but if you asked me today what i'd save from my house if it were burning, i'd have one answer: my paintings.

why the discord? i'm not an entirely different person than who i was when i felt like the pen was an extension of my heart. in fact i'm kind of in the same place. in fact, i've recently worked on a painting titled "familiar, and yet not" that deals with being in same sort of place in your life. seasons change, but the architecture hasn't. you know?

maybe i feel so much more attached to my paintings because although i can claim ownership to them and the emotions that helped create them, the fact that they aren't tucked away on a bookshelf, the fact that i am sharing them with people- friends and strangers alike, makes everything that made them that much more real.

i just find it strange to imagine the cork-bound journal, the leaf journal, the rainbow journal, the spiral notebooks, all gone- and not really caring. yes, i would be upset- but if someone came in the night and slashed my paintings, i think i would cry much much more.

====
in other news, i saw the19thstory last night at a queer party at a bar. good times. dancing, drinking, lots of talk about ellen raskin and scrabble.