Elizabeth

Elizabeth! I was glad to see you back on FB tonight. I mean, I don't know if you actually are back, but a post is a post and I was happy to see your post, especially because of the content of the video. That lady is living the kind of life you deserve to have, and I know you will be living a similar type of life, one of your own design, just as long as you never, ever give up on your dream, which - as we saw last year (and really since 2012) - has already in some ways become a reality.

I have to admit I was a little worried about you. Not because of anything terrible, but just because of your disappearance from FB this year, and even Instagram of late. I know how big a change you underwent in your lifestyle this year (believe me, I of all people know and I empathise), but I had just worried that you might be feeling a little down because of the loss of free time to pursue your various arts. In years past, you were free to work on one project after another, and if a person looks back at your output from 2013 - 2018, and especially after you got out of college, it is very impressive.

So I know how difficult the change must have been, and must continue to be, even though you are making money and hopefully enjoying at least some aspects of your job. I just say all of this because I sensed a difference because of your absence. All I would say in that regard is the same thing I always said to you about being an Artist, back in the olden days circa 2013.

All you've gotta do is make sure the bills are paid. Everything else is about Art.

As we can see, the lady in the video has achieved this, and you will too.

I have always guaranteed you this result. All you have to do is keep believing in yourself, have confidence in your artistic gifts, and keep working toward creating art, even if you currently have little time to spare. 

I myself have little time, but one of my little goals this year has been to produce 12 colored pencil drawings, by years end, of my 1989 experience, using the Prismacolor pencils I bought last Winter.

My original goal was 16 drawings because I got off to a fast start. But then my job became a bit more demanding so I scaled it back to twelve, and I am on track to make my goal. I also have had to "make time" for hikes when before it was easier to get out there. But the point is, all these things are doable.
Everything can be done, so long as the Intent is there.

My belief, for you, is that a regular job, 9 to 5 lifestyle is not "who you are", and thus it is not where you will end up. Again, this is not to say that you don't enjoy your job. I have no idea if you do or don't, or if your feelings are somewhere in between. I know that when I got my job at MGM, my own feelings were all over the map. I was 18. The first day I told my Dad, "I can't do this". By the end of the first week I discovered that I could do it, and do it easily. Then I settled in. I never liked having to get up and go to the job, to drive there and have to be on time, etc. I hated the overtime. I liked having money to spend, but after I bought a car and some clothes and my first guitar, I discovered that I wasn't really a materialistic person. Having stuff didn't compare to having my free time.

And I went through a whole series of changes that became my life. While I had my MGM job, I found many things to like about it, and in hindsight it was a tremendous honor to have worked there, but there was no way I could have made a career out of it. It quite simply would have killed me, if not physically, then spiritually at the very least. So what happened is that my inner survival instinct took over, and I think that is true for many artists. I think that some folks just know inside that they aren't cut out for an ordinary existence, and they take whatever avenues they can find to locate the road that will "take them home" to where they were meant to be.

Elizabeth, you are already on the way to that road. I urge you not to forget your major accomplishment of just a year ago, of having your video showing repeatedly for weeks over Staples Center. Whatever you are going through as a result of the 180 degree change in your environment this year, please don't lose heart.

Nothing is permanent, except what you feel in your heart and what you know in your head.

Your Intent is what's most important, so let it direct your life, and remember - for an Artist, money is first and foremost about paying the bills so you can continue to make art.

When a person is as gifted and as creative as you are, sooner or later the right connection is going to be made, and then you will be at home in your world, just as the lady in the video is in hers.

As I always say, "keep posting", and I hope you will. But even if you won't, can't, don't feel like it or whatever, please know that I am still here and am thinking about you, and will always support what you are doing 100%.   xoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Well, I did also watch a movie this evening : "The Lady Eve" (1941) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda, and directed by Preston Sturges, who was behind some of the most sophisticated but also riotous comedies of the 1940s. His style was close to being Screwball and featured scenes of very fast dialogue and pratfall timing, but overall I would liken him closer to a director like Ernst Lubitsch, whose films we have also enjoyed, as an auteur of great visual style and unique wit. Sturges was also a writer, and as far as I know he either wrote many of the films he directed or adapted the screenplays, and thus his own take on wordplay is on display in every picture I've seen so far from him. His dialogue is hilarious, and it takes an actress the caliber of Stanwyck to rattle it off without stammering.

Very briefly, Barbara and her father Charles Coburn (him again!) are card sharps. They are scammers who, as the movie opens, are riding a steamship looking for a wealthy "mark". The patter is so fast at the beginning of the film that I was unable to determine if they knew Henry Fonda was on board before they found him, but they did, and very quickly Babs has him in her spell and at the ship's poker table with her Dad. Fonda is a nerdy scientist studying snakes (a slight Adam & Eve reference), and he hasn't much personality, but Barbara and her Dad have ascertained that he is also the son of a wealthy beer magnate, and is ripe for the picking at a game of cards.

This may be another blog I have to complete the following afternoon, as was the case last night, due to the late hour and the fact of "tired".  :)

I always have a lot that I want to say, but not always the energy, at this hour, to finish it. So, stay tuned tomorrow afternoon for a wrap-up on "The Lady Eve", and anything else I may be thinking about at that time. Afternoon writing has a different energy than does Late Night. Also, I will be getting my hair cut in the morning, always something worth commenting on.

So I'll see you then. Please do have an awesome evening and I'll send you tons of love in regard.

See you in the morning.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)