I have gathered 5 boxes.  I am going to be sorting through all the clothes that I have on the floor of my closet, trying to see what I can do without.  I really don’t know where to start.  I think I will start with those clothes that are still hanging. I can see them better.  From my standpoint, I am loosing valuable storage space by hanging on to things I don’t use.  Some of these clothing I have not worn for three years.  I am going to be brave, and look in all the closets in my house.  I am going to get closet organizers for them all.  What a good way to slim down all the things I have collected over the years.  I can see the clutter in my closets without opening the doors.  I probably still have things from my childhood that I keep for a reason that eludes me. I know there is no sentimental attachments here.  Everything of value, sentimental otherwise, is displayed in the basement.  Valuable are not supposed to be packed up and kept out of sight.  I am going to fill these five boxes with the clutter from all my closets.

I imagine that vision surgery would be one of the more terrifying surgeries to have to go through.  I could not imagine having a knife slicing my eye while I was still awake and staring right back up at the knife.  I do not care how many painkillers or other drugs they would have me on, I do not think that I would be capable of sitting still through the surgery.  I understand that it is one of the least complicated surgeries, but I really do enjoy my vision and the ability to use it.  As an aspiring artist, my vision is something I rely on greatly.  You do not usually hear about many blind artists, although I suppose there was one very famous deaf composer.  I also understand that there are probably a thousand other surgeries that are more complicated and more terrifying than having eye surgery.  I could not imagine having to go through heart surgery, or spinal surgery, or something even worse that I do not even want to have to think about.  That whole Kevin Everett story and the incredible medical procedures that saved his life really are an uplifting story, but I cannot imagine having to go through anything like that.       

When people think of injury attorneys they usually think about the kind of lawyers who are hired to defend the so-called “little people.” But these kinds of attorneys do not only defend the people who would otherwise be unable to afford the legal help they need. There are also the kinds of injury attorneys who defend the people being sued. I’m not sure if they go by a different title than this, but I’m sure they are much more expensive to retain since in all likelihood their potential clients are going to be the ones with the most amount of money. While many of these attorneys will work for a client and agree not to collect a fee unless they win the case, attorneys for the defendants can collect a fee regardless of whether or not they win the case for their client. I suppose it’s because they know that their client would be much more willing to pay for legal assistance if it’s them being sued. If they’re the ones doing the suing, they really have nothing to lose and are more likely to try and represent themselves in court. In their case, the pressure is on the attorneys to seek them out instead of them seeking the attorney out.

A good friend of mine has been wise beyond his years for a long, long while.  When we were in middle school he started his first online business.  It was a web security solutions site, and he made a ton of money off of it.  He got his start in middle school by hacking his way into the school’s grade system and changing some of the grades.  The thing is he made notes all the way through the system so they would know it was him.  When they called him in to the principal’s office, they ended up asking him to create a more secure system.  That situation ended up leading to other projects and the online business.  He ended up selling that business when we were seniors in high school for a ton of money.  All the while he had also been doing freelance web design, and making a ton from that too.  He went to college and double majored and graduated early.  Now he works for Bank of America and has his own office in the Sears Tower.  He really is living the dream.  He bought himself a new car for his birthday last month, and lives in a great apartment in the city with a gorgeous view of the lake.            

When my mother first started taking her own blood sugar things were pretty primitive.  We thought it was advanced back then, but compared today it's like the Stone Age.  You can go into any drug store and buy a complete diabetes kitfor hardly anything.  They are simple to use and state of the art.  My sister had to use one once for about a year when her blood sugar went out of whack.  She never knew what caused it, but the reading shocked her doctor when she finally did get into the office. I was too.  Cathy called me when she got home.  She was a little worried, and she was asking about diabetes in the family.  I told her that mom's was from medication; at least that's what her doctors told her.   Cathy's doctors tell her that if she watches her diet and gets some exercise she should be able to get to the point where her blood sugar is under control.  Of course, because I have a medicine cabinet full of kits and tests, I went immediately and tested myself.  It was normal.  I was glad about that.  Once I took mine then Tara wanted to take hers.  We spent about two hours taking tests and waiting for the results.

Sarah is my niece.  She is 6 years old.  I took her with me when I went to the animal shelter the other day.  I thought I might see what she thought of the puppies there.  She was so excited to see all the puppies, and I just stood back and let her have a grand time trying to decide which one she liked best.  She asked a lot of questions about how they got there.  She wanted to know where their families were and if they got lonely at night.  She wondered if they were afraid of the dark.  She finally decided their treatment was up to her standards.   She wondered who would hear them if they cried or wanted some water at night, and went about trying to convince me that we should bring several puppies home with us, just so they would have a family to love them.  I convinced her that we couldn’t bring them all home with us, but maybe she could pick one out to take home with her.  It was a hard choice according to Sarah, but she finally found the perfect puppy for her.  She said she was in love for the first time in her life.

  My first love was creating artwork.  I owe it all to my father, who was a trained artist and who I always looked up to and emulated because of that talent.  I would spend hours as a child creating hideous pictures with crayons and markers that I deemed “modern art.”  One of my first decipherable drawings, which my father still has, was a zebra which resembled more of a striped snake with box-like arms and legs than anything else.

 I also buried my head in books when I was kid.  But before I could even read, I used to sit and write letters of the alphabet in my pink and red Hello Kitty diary and ask my mom to take a look at the combination of letters I put together to see if I had formed any words.  The first words I successfully wrote were “milk” and “love.”  It’s funny how my first written words encapsulated what everyone first experiences of life with their mother.

 When adults asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up the answer is and was still the same: an artist.  But now I paint with words instead of, well, paint.

 For much of my life, I was alone, left to my own devices to sit and dwell with my own imagination.  As I got older, I strove to find my niche, a crowd where my eccentricity was accepted.  I wanted to be around other creative types and now that I’m quickly approaching thirty, I’ve realized without noticing it that for the past decade and a half or so that I have surrounded myself with a vast community of people who are nothing but creators.

 I just thought we were having drinks and dancing, ingesting the occasional hallucinogen, but really I was being entertained by a crowd of musicians, DJs, graffiti artists, photographers, and dancers along with the random clown or two.  I always thought of the loud, pounding music as an interference to my writing and something for me to enjoy only when I was out socializing but now I realize that I was always in the midst of people creating, much like I do, but that they do so out loud, while my creativity comes softly on a page with my pen.

 On the surface we just look like a bunch of uneducated, shit-talking drunks but if you listen long enough we are great orators, libertines, people who speak their mind freely, people who are trying to rise above societal constraints and find a voice.  We are people who are struggling to find our way in life and once we do we will be ready to help change the world. 

 So, all in all, the arts have influenced me above and beyond anything else.  They inspire me and motivate me.  The world is my muse.  And I never would have realized my own potential within the arts, had it not been for the things I’ve picked up and read, the artwork I’ve pensively furrowed my brow over, the films I’ve scrutinized, the performances I’ve witnessed, the opera music which everyone seems to think is ridiculous that I wake to, the dozens of genres of music that give me an awesome liberation when I swing my limbs in wild dance to.  Had I not been exposed to all this, I never would have been able to be the artist that I am.