My inner rebel is holding my conscience hostage

If ever there was a day to write today is the day.  I'm pretty pissed off at the world.  I mean how fucked up is a world that doesn't appreciate artists?  Some would say not fucked up at all, artists are a waste of time money and skin.  To those people I say go live in pleasant-ville and die of television induced stupidity.  What do people really think of artists?  How many people even think of artists at all?  How many people buy "art" for their home that matches their decor and then never even look at that painting/sculpture again?  How many other people buy art because they are pretentious snobs and they just want to show off to the other pretentious snobs they hob-nob with? Okay some people appreciate art, if it looks realistic, if its something they can understand or immediately relate to.  Like pablum.  We do not live in a world where challenging yourself through visual media is a popular endeavor.  I hate this.  And today I feel as if I don't even belong in such a mundane, mediocre world. 

I'm not saying that there aren't people who live breathe and fuck for creativity and everything that passion gestates; but then again we live in a world where people are passionate about hamburgers and reality shows.  Not someones soul ripped out and splashed upon a page or a canvas or a brick wall.  We don't really give it much thought when someone eke's out their last breath with a chisel or a saw.  Because, well shhhh toddlers and tiara's is on, who has time to think about Carr or O'Keefe or Yuxweluptun or Poitras-Ash or Somerset?  And I'm okay with suffering, but why do artists have to suffer so fucking much?  Why do we have to cut off limbs and amputate our spirits to live in a world too busy trying to figure out which plastic celebrity is pregnant?  Why do we have to choose art over children and then live with monkeys? There are so many people who work at jobs they hate to live in a cookie cutter house, and if they do have spare time?  They dust all their "things"  the "things" they keep under lock and key as they succumb to the fear that someone is going to take that which has enslaved them.  And you know what?  If you are an artist you've heard this rant a million times before.  In a thousand differant voices.  Even if you aren't you've probably watched "Fight Club" at least once.  And for one glorious moment you maybe experienced some clarity, then you finished off your poisonous cola drink and forgot about it.  Its easier to stay asleep, believe me.  So why did I choose to wake up?  I have this inkling I was born with my eyes open and thats why I chose to enter the world ass first.  There's some Art for you.

it seemed like a good idea at the time.......

and its so hard to do/

and so easy to say/

but sometimes, sometimes/

you just have to walk away/

  Yes while surreptitiously checking him out I thought "he's trouble"  and I did know I should finish my beer and then go home, but I didn't.  Maybe it was the silver bracelets he wore, or his dark complexion with just a hint of acne scarring that I find so sexy, I knew he was a half-breed.  That healthy dollop of indigeny strikes a chord in my own dolloped soul.  It could have been the grace he emitted while just standing there.  I knew I should just quietly admire him and then run run run away.  Instead I turned to him, smiled a charming, mischevious smile and said;

"I have this theory about cougars, I think in the future they will be much better looking"( this was before cougar town the television show came out so hey maybe i'm a little psychic but anyway on to different delusions) He looked confused, but I confuse people all the time so I wasn't taken aback by this. He asked "what do you mean?" 

I said " Well around here you have to smoke outside the bar, maybe that fresh air will help a cougars complexion"

He laughed, later he told me " I don't know why you were talking about cougars that night, you're too young to be a cougar" he told me this because he's 14 years older than me.  A fact that caused my Mom to emphatically declare "EWWW"  when I told her.  This outburts irritated me.  It also confirmed my attraction to him, if my Mom was grossed out it had to be a good thing in the form of a bad thing.  Its just that I have a huge weakness for bad things when it comes to human entanglements.  I always have. 

Sometimes, something good comes out of getting into trouble.  Something miraculous.  In the case of my reverse cougar hook-up it was a relationship that begot a beautiful child.  But troubled relationships and baby daughters make for grown women looking for trouble, and its a cycle i'm loathe to see repeated by my miraculous offspring.  So I left all that badness behind. 

Ah badness, I'm not going to lie I miss it.  But only the good parts, the coffee made for me every morning. The kisses that were like quenching my thirst from the purest mountain stream.  The way it felt when we were entwined, like the best false-sense-of-security drug I've never tried.The make out sessions that made me feel like I was on a wonderful tropical holiday. So what made the rest of all that good loving taste like papaya's rotting in paradise?

Well there were all night waiting-for-him-to-get-out-of-the-bar sessions. The stupid jealousy on his part.  The stupid fight where a drunken him would destroy a toilet in a hotel room.  The inability to understand my affinity for creative uninhibitedness and my aversion to housekeeping and organization. And the overall oppressive, creativity stifling atmoshpere needed to continue being co-dependant.  The exhaustion on top of exhaustion I experienced while fighting to not let his demons destroy the joy I feel caring for his daughter.

So here I am in this particular corner of cyberspace tippity tapping on the keys. I know there are others out there like me.  Who love danger and gambling with their emotions even when they perceive the damage done.  I know there are people who've experienced a sea-change when they've become parents.  And I would like us to meet here.  I'll be back in many forms.  I will tell more of this story, and other stories.  I'll use different mediums.  I'll do this to reclaim who I am.  I'll do it for my daughter.  And I'll do it for you.