My friend, Nadine, E mailed me to thank me for giving her a French press coffee pot I wasn’t using. She added that I should start a second art class and go twice a week. I started explaining why it was going to be too difficult and my narrative turned into the following, that I now post because I want to.

I have absolutely no time for a second class although I will probably take another class when Stan leaves for the summer. This one class already taxes my time and energy to the limit. Stan, the teacher, gives a lot of homework. So far he hasn't looked at our manikins or at some other stuff he asked for. I did two memory drawings, although he asked for seven. I did an attempt at a landscape. It was horrible. People are my strongest point. In New York, I took two courses at the School of Visual Arts (23rd St.), design and perspective. I did good work in both but have now forgotten almost everything I learned about perspective and the work I produced is in a time warp somewhere. I surely wish I could see it as it would help refresh my memory.

I am moving some furniture around in the family room to make a space in one corner for artwork that I don't have to put away at the end of a session. (Don't talk about the guest room; I am not ready to load it up -- it is over furnished as it is, and working there would remove me from the rest of the house. If it would be totally my studio, one purpose only, I would be more inclined to use it.)

During my Chicago years I painted several portraits in oil, one of a friend, who hung hers in her home for a number of years (it's probably in her basement now), and the other of a boyfriend whom I wanted to marry (that would have been a disaster). When I brought Jay home to introduce him to my parents, I wanted to show him this example of a really good portrait but Mom had thrown it out because she considered having it a scandal now that I was married. (Mom also, when she learned I was getting married, asked me to be sure to go to a doctor to have "it" sewn up so as to present a virginal persona to my intended. It was to larf.)

When I left Chicago, I was 24, right on the edge of the decision making curve that would, if I had made the wrong one, condemned me to a life of parent-dominated spinsterhood trying ever after to please parents with a Greek mindset from the 1800s. Leaving was an emotional and difficult time because pressure to stay was intense. I made the announcement and then the apartment I had rented during a brief trip to attend a sci fi convention in New York, was going to take longer to be available. This was near to disaster because my intent had been to announce and leave immediately to avoid the pressure I knew I would get to change my mind.

But I persevered. I packed stuff in two large trunks bought at a cheap luggage and junk shop on Wabash Avenue. I asked my sister to arrange to ship them to me when I was settled. She said she would. She didn't. It was November. I entered my new $17.34 a month, 6th-floor walk-up. cold water flat, commode in the hallway to be shared with the other tenant on that floor, bathtub in the kitchen with a lid on for storage, in the upper end of the Village, with nothing, not even blankets. That was when I succumbed to Jay's welcome invitation to stay with him. I had met him only two weeks before at a Hydra Club (sci fi pros) meeting. And I never moved out. Is this TMI? I got carried away.

As for time to do art, maintain workouts, improve piano work, cook dinner (the tyranny of it all), I am being overwhelmed by taking care of the house. The work has escalated to a large degree. Part of it is the cats. It's to the point where if I don't get on my hands and knees and clean all the baseboards 2 or 3 times a week, I have a grungy mess with cat hair getting into the water bowls. The glass bowls have to be scrubbed out every other day with vinegar and soap, as a gritty residue forms.

After the pool deck workers left, there was a fine film of concrete dust on everything. I have managed to clean off only some of it. Two days ago I spent 5 hours cleaning and when I was done, you couldn't tell. The shop vac and peripheral equipment was sitting in the family room. Ed went to the Chamber. I started cleaning a space for the stuff in the garage. I kept doing things as I saw them. I would start rinsing dishes and putting them in the dishwasher, need Cascade, go to the garage for it, see a really dirty kitty pan that Max likes to use, start cleaning that, run out of bags, etc., etc.

When I had a space, I moved furniture aside to get the shop vac into the garage as it is very big. When Ed got home he had, of course, to check all the garbage bags to be sure I hadn't disposed of anything IMPORTANT.

Finally, I put too many sheets into the shredder and it is now permanently stuck and then Ed tried something, and something snapped, and now we have to get a new one.

xx, Teal