I’m making a pizza and I failed to preheat the pizza stone, i fear the crust will be undercooked.

I’m still painting, drawing, and writing poems. I write when I’m away from the home and when I’m in the studio, I switch between painting and drawing. Yesterday I finished a painting and I’m placing the second washes on a new very large one today. I have eleven drawings in various stages of finished depending on my mood for the individual piece. Perfectionism is debilitating.

The paintings are for More Different, the drawings are all for The Strangest Thing. The paintings are the last two illustrations I need for More Different. Well, just one now. Of twenty-three poems, nine are done and the rest are damned close, maybe one or two difficult ones to consider. Production is going smoothly.

The book is being pieced together, it will be finished soon. Close enough to finish where all the anxieties, doubts, and fears are so thick it’s tough to see past them. I’m gritting my teeth; for every concern that pops up, I am growling a defiant, “Eff you.” I am finishing this damned thing if it kills me. Eight years is long enough to claim being an artist and author without anything to show for it.

Though I have to admit, among the concerns that pop up, one that tickles me is: How will I celebrate? Finishing Odding was so anticlimactic it bleeds into pathetic. I bought a wealth of Miller Lite and celebrated by announcing my triumph to a chatroom filled with internet strangers. Brings me chills thinking about it. I’ll definitely need to up the anti, made all the more difficult since I’ve stopped drinking.