Coffee

Knickerbocker #3 for me (I also went Thursday night)...

Daya danced the role of Coffee and she was wonderful.

LaG Dance Observation 2

Zoom again.
I was supposed to have today off but have to work, it's a bit busy right now.

LaG Dance Observation 1

This week is LaGuardia Dance observation week, and I'm glad they are holding it on Zoom as well as in-person. Today was Ballet and Graham.

4 Paintings in 1 day!

Today I stayed in... it's raining and I just wanted to stay home...

I knocked out 4 little paintings!!

They are al 5x7 and they all took 1 hour.
I didn't time it intentionally, that's just how it worked out.

They are all scenes from The Long Dark.

Demi-Flower

 Today was a nice day.
I volunteered at LaGuardia and had a great time, better than last weekend.
Then I headed over to Manhattan Youth Ballet to see Daya on stage.
Tonight she was a demi-flower.
Net week I am going three more times.

Perils of Plein Air #863

This has been an extraordinarily weird week.
I got pulled into a tine warp or something, because all day yesterday i thought it was Wednesday, and only knew it was Thursday before I went to sleep.

I have not been out f my apartment much at all this week and time has blurred together.

Sometimes it occurs to me that I'm living a very strange life. It's very surreal. 

I have to be careful because I'm alone at home too much and it does affect a person's mentality in a really weird way. Maybe I shouldn't skip weeks of going into the office for a day or 2.

Next week is a week where everything is happening at the same time.

There is no balance in my life with this; it's either full on everything or nothing going on at all.

It's kind of like that regarding Daya, too.  All those years where I was running such long days, 7 days a week, no break, no rest, completely exhausted and overwhelmed, and now I basically can't do anything for her anymore, not even help her with food. (I'm just the bank.)

This goes for work too, although to be honest there are many times I wish I was busier with that as well.

But as long as I have projects and can account for my time it's ok.

I do have to wait on people though. So it can get slow.

I wish life was a little more balanced.  

This is an extremely bizarre phase in my life.

I'm dragging.

There are small daily things I should be doing but just... don't.

Like daily 15 minute meditation and even little daily paintings.

I have ideas and sort-of-starts for Topiary cats and I haven't done a series this year.

I also haven't been doing my workouts this week and last week.

And I don't know why except I can't seem to make myself move.

The days feel dense and heavy and life is a fog.

I hate how things are with me and Daya and I'm coming up to a MASSIVE life change and I just feel so internally exhausted. 

It isn't a rest or sleep thing, it's a Deep Life Exhaustion that has been going on for years. 

I am tired in my bones, in a place deeper than my bones.

I'm doing all the right things to manage but it's not getting any better.

(I said that to Robertson once years back when we were dating. 

He said his mom used to say the same thing and he didn't understand what it meant.)

************

Anyhow.

Since I knew in time that today is Friday, I did not forget to actually take my vacation day.

Tonight I have tickets to Chicago at LaGuardia to see the other cast, and I didn't want to be out too long.

So I packed up my gear and headed to Flushing Meadows, which is about a 25 minute walk.

I packed my gear and went over my checklist.

I did not forget my solvent jar today like I did last week for the Central Park Boathouse painting.

Solvent, tape, oily rag, panel, paint, brushes, check.

A voice in my head said "You are forgetting something."

I went over my gear again.

I had everything.

The voice in my head said again, "You are forgetting something."

I said back 'I don't think so."

When I was walking out the door the voice in my head said "You are forgetting something."

Hand warmers! I don't know if I'll need them but it's good to have them just in case.

I closed my apartment door.

The voice in my head said again, "You are forgetting something."

I said it was my hand warmers, I have everything.

The voice shut up.

***************

I got to the park.

Here is where I need to mention that a new big update just came out Monday for The Long Dark, and I have been playing a lot this week.

I have been playing too much because when I saw this stupid trashcan I immediately wondered if it was a fire barrel.

I did not check but probably only because there is no snow.

**************

I found a nice spot to paint.

The reed grasses looked cool and it's something I have never done before.

It's really important to find new problems to solve and new subject matter to resolve.

Plus the grasses look cool.

I started unpacking.

And discovered, to my horror...

I LEFT THE TRIPOD QUICK-RELEASE 

ON MY OTHER BOX 

AT HOME!!!!

I was so mad I texted Carey a bunch of messages in CAPITAL LETTERS.

I said to the voice in my head, "Why didn't you tell me WHAT was missing??"

The voice said, 'You didn't ask."

FUCK YOU VOICE IN MY HEAD.

I almost packed up.

But I didn't want to.

So I taped my gear together as best as possible.

It was extremely precarious and I could only balance things in one exact way but it worked.

8x10 oil, hour and a half.

This is the location picture but due to the harsh light angle and not being able to move the tripod AT ALL, it didn't come out well.

Two Torties

 I live how Furball and Isis snuggle. 

Instagram Scams & Painting, Sold

This past Saturday while I was volunteering I got a DM on Instagram.

It was the guy I put in the fountain in the Lincoln Center painting.

He's an actor/model and has over 11k followers.

So this DM was:

---from an established account I know personally to be a real person who I have met and we follow each other.....

---they said they were doing a giveaway, I asked questions about it (fine print, why, etc), they said send your paypal email... that is not (very) private info so I did....

---AND THEN.... they sent screenshots of a payment,  said they just sent a link, send them that link for verification... THAT'S NOT HOW PAYPAL WORKS and I know that....

---that link was a password recovery link sent *to my phone from the official instagram password recovery system*...

(this person does not have my phone number and it really came from the official Instagram system as it was the same text thread from previous password resets...online searches on this scam verify this as well.)

---They wanted me to share that link with them so they could take over my account. I did not, thankfully. And they PUSHED when I said no.

---I'm pretty good about spotting scams, I consider myself to be a very internet-savvy person, I even have to take yearly certification on this stuff at work, and that one *ALMOST* seriously got me, it got me enough to send my paypal email. It was scary.

---AND that person who was scamming me was almost 100% NOT the actual account owner. His account probably got taken over exactly how this person was trying to take my account over, and he has a ton of followers, 11k, very valuable to a scammer.

If you google Instagram scams (yes it also applies to Facebook, it's all the same Meta company) scammers are using bots to personally DM people with details of things only their friend would actually know, then they scam them.

--I get art scams on Instagram now and then, sometimes through email too but I know them immediately.  These DM scams are new on Instagram.  I read there has been a 50% increase in this stuff over the last year.

************

WHY DO THESE THINGS WORK (or almost work) FOR PEOPLE WHO KNOW BETTER?

I was talking to another parent at the time it was happening and showing it to her.

We both thought it was weird but curious.

My vulnerability on it was it came from a person I know to be a real person with a high-profile account who I truly do not think would be scamming people like this. And looking at his account I saw he hasn't posted since September, and he previously posted frequently.

Another parent almost fell for a similar thing and we were talking about WHY... why do people who KNOW BETTER and are reasonably intelligent even consider it?

The answer which applied to both of us was split attention span and stress.

It is scary to realize when we are multi-tasking, stressed, overwhelmed--- we are not thinking as clearly as we think we are. In her case, the scammer put her into a stressful mental state (about her son's phone being lost) and it took her a minute to figure it out and regain her senses.  And like me, she was in the middle of talking care of things and was stressed.

Be careful out there.

***********

In better news, I sold another painting, the one Sid and I did together of Gapstow Bridge.

This sale helps tremendously and while I have only loosely added numbers in my head, I have definitely covered all my art expenses for the year.  This year I have sold 5 paintings and 1 print.

The next painting I sell will buy a new pair of really good sub-zero boots.

And I do still need to get prints in order, I came a long way with that this year, I guess next year is part 2.

And can you believe I never did anything with the FASO trial year...... nothing.
I haven't had the mental bandwidth to do it.  There is still time, I just feel so incredibly mentally strained I haven't been able to face it.

LaG Volunteering

There are 2 Chicago shows today and I volunteered to help with concessions during both shows.
I did this for Cinderella too, back in 2019.

Mostly I was prepared to watch everything between shows, but others stayed as well so I didn't paint. That's ok.

I enjoy volunteering but at the same time it kind of messes me up mentally, I am noticing.
Through Daya's childhood one of the hardest things has been seeing other families celebrate together.

That's one of the things about raising her that has been so difficult- going through the good moments alone.

Daya is not in the show but seeing everyone come together for their kids, all these families, reminds me of how alone I am and have been, and the complete lack of people (family) in my life. Sometimes it really hits home in a bad way.

Especially with all the therapy stuff going on right now.

(Sometimes the therapist says things that really piss me off, and I think if he was a parent he would definitely approach things differently.  Sometimes I disagree with him.  Other insights he has are quite good and helpful. I guess Daya likes him and she's willing to talk to him so that's good, I'll take all the help I can get even if I don't necessarily agree with it. I just don't like getting hurt, and the sessions do hurt me. They also help, but I'm just so burnt out and tired from all of it. I have had enough. 

Some things he has said to me stick in my head in a bad way and I don't think he should have said it to me in the way he did. (Again, back to the not-a-parent thing.))

I'm so unhappy with how everything is.

This is a dark time, and everything just feels like one pile of shit after another.

But anyhow, I did enjoy the volunteering and it was good to get out.

Painting & LaG Musical

This morning I went back to Central Park to do another arch... Playmates Arch.

8x10 oil

Here is another Daya picture, I'm so surprised she sent it to me.

After painting I went home, but had to leave again.

Tonight I have a ticket to go see Chicago, the musical this year at LaGuardia.

Those top windows are one of the dance studios at Juilliard.

Chicago was fabulous.
I'm going again next Friday.

My friend Janet from the boathouse, who is a professional dancer, joined and it was wonderful to see her.

She knows 2 of Daya's LaG dance teachers!

Painting & Some Other Stuff

I.... forgot... that I had the day off today, so I logged into work as normal and worked for a couple hours.

When I sent something to my manager, he replied "Why are you working? You are off today."

...

wow.

Isn't that so stupid??

So I logged off and went to Central Park to do a painting.

We still have some good fall colors in the park.

This was a pretty fast painting, only an hour and a half!

8x10 oil

Both college applications were submitted last night.

I went to St Patrick's to light a candle.

My candle is the top row at the left.

I didn't pay for the candle because 1) I'm pretty broke and 2) it's a financial aid candle anyhow.

The tree is up.

3 Times Square is still under construction, the lobby still looks like crap and there is a new address sign on the building.

So strange to be at a place that was everyday home for 15 years and now it is completely foreign.