Tunnel Vision

Starting to wonder if my sister isn't reading this blog.  She reads the condition I'm in and makes sure to whisper at me that mom's cancer could...that if it suddenly speeds up I could have as little as two weeks.( and she wants me to believe it'll happen any minute now).  Gee, nice, It's hard enough as it is to push back being suicidal.  And she knows every time she does this shit I don't sleep for days or weeks.  What the fuck am I supposed to do to be "ready"?  Ready to do what? 

Had to interrupt me while drawing to tell me this.

It also fucks with my head on what to pursue artistically.  Stick with drawing and to hell with learning to sculpt or paint?  Work on things that I won't have to throw away at a moment's notice - if I choose to survive?  Some of this is to save  my goddamn sanity, so throw it away.  I'm a sentimental guy, things matter to me.  So throw them away.  Strip me down to a cell.  Take away anything that makes life worth living.

If I'm after accuracy in portraits then the best way to draw Dana is to do a very large drawing over a callage of Post-it notes on my wall,  and watch as each one falls away over time until there's nothing left at all.

No dreams that so much as hint at Dana, even by distorting them with improbable interpretation.  No proxies, nothng.  It's throwing stones into a pond and not even getting a ripple.  She just isn't there.
How can I address Dana's concerns when no one will tell me what they are? 

Day by day my life narrows with my options.

(film noir voiceover) "They tell ya there's a light at the end of the tunnel.  What they don't tell ya is that the light is a flyblown bare bulb in a flimsy cage, painted over birdshit white to hide the rust.  It's only there to mark the end of the tunnel, and once you've exited it's still pitch black but now there are no walls around you anymore to protect you from whatever's out there.  You'll be lucky if anything or anyone really is."  Yeah, OTT. (shrug)

I'm making a tool for sculpting hair/fur based on instructions from 'Creating Lifelike Figures in Polymer Clay' by Katherine Dewey.  Instead of a knitting needle segment for a handle I'm using a wooden dowel.  One end is a set of three sewing needles cemented side-by side.  The other end is a cone that will be ridged for making impressions.  It's a crude-looking construct but sturdy.  I think I'll need to make another with finer needles.  Both will be useful.  I'll post a shot after it's Sculpey'd & baked.  It's six inches long.  I've some sparkly Sculpey to encase it with, purple and white.