I've been taking a class for the past 8 weeks called The Artist's Way. It's been incredible but has kept me so busy that I haven't had time to blog lately. It's a 12 week course and my friend Sark has been leading it at her house. Every Sunday night, myself and 2 other students, Dick and Decent, go over to her place to discuss the prior week and read the chapter for the following one. It's a spiritually driven course to help people to cultivate their creativity, through weekly tasks, daily journaling and urging artists to overcome fears and blocks that might be holding them back from doing things they have always wanted to do. It's been a pretty awesome experience. Every week I have to journal 3 pages a day, do a variety of tasks that are assigned to help you get back in touch with your creative side, and take myself on one "artist's date" (a date with just myself doing something, anything, that could be inspirational, last week was my chocolate covered strawberries-Billie holiday-inferno experience, not my best artist's date to be honest). A lot of it does sound hoakie and cheesy. We're constantly reading about how to "nurture" ourselves and I have just always hated that word. Other terms come to mind when ever that word is used, such as self-indulgence, chick soup for the soul, and Oprah. I always envision some middle-aged rich yuppie in white linen pants and some $200 blouse from J. Crew hugging herself at the beach as she mourns the loss of her child hood summer home while reading The 7 People You Meet in Heaven. I know that probably sounds incredibly jaded and judgmental but I really think the term "nurturing yourself" needs to be replaced with something such as "you need to Harold and Maude the shit out of life", or "try some spiritual masturbation today". So I have been spiritually masturbating and Harold and Mauding my way through life the past 2 months and it has been quite the experience.
I do have a little trouble with one of the students in the class, Dick. I felt like Dick was a good name for him, as there are so many dense, rotten, half-witted Dicks in the world, in fact, every time I look at him, all I see is a big, problematic Dick. He's like a character in one of those sappy t.v. shows, like Saved by the Bell. He's Zach Morris except he's in his 40's, has a gnarly comb over and no real mojo that makes him cool. He comes to class every week and when it's his turn to talk about what he did last week he always says, "I didn't do anything, what were the assignments, could we go over it again? I just didn't do it, but I don't feel guilty or anything, I feel pretty good about myself, I'm not going to beat myself up, I'm just really trying to nurture myself, by not being so hard on myself." Then as the rest of us share he goes over the chapter and tasks again and asks if he could have another turn sharing because there were things he did without realizing it that related to the homework. He has repeatedly asked us to change the times and the days of the class because he's too tired. He recently wanted to change the day from Sunday to Monday because he has to come to Artist's way with only a half hour in between the class and the end of his AA meeting and it's tiring for him. I said Monday doesn't work for me because I have a regular meeting Monday nights. He responded by asking if I can miss it for the next 2 months because this "back to back schedule on Sunday nights really wares him out". When I suggested we meet at 7:30 instead of 7 he said that didn't work because then he doesn't get home until 9:30 and he gets sleepy (initially the class was at 7:30 but Dick demanded we change it to 7 so he would get home sooner). He repeatedly asks us to change things around to accommodate his needs and it's like nails on a chalk board. Last night he even suggested that well Sark is away on vacation for the next 2 weeks, we take that time off of Artist's way so that he can catch up. And it's not like the man is busy, he even said himself last week that he doesn't read, listen to music, watch t.v. or really even go out. That he works an easy job and then goes to about 2 meetings a day. I have absolutely no idea what he is doing in the class. There are times when I just want to bitch slap him and say "maybe if you spent less time trying to cover your bald spot and hiding behind your weekly 75 Co-Dependents Anonymous meetings you might find yourself with a little more time and energy!" Once when we were talking about cutting out activities in our day that are unproductive he actually told us at that he believes he lives the ideal life and that there is nothing he would change. Honestly, I think I would kill myself if I lived his supposed "ideal life". One meeting, he said he wanted to count going shopping for some "new hip clothes" as his artist's date, it took everything in me not to say "dressing like Danny Kaye from White Christmas doesn't make you a dam artist." Of course, the good AA that I am, I said nothing and smiled at him. Last week he said he went to the hardware store by himself and that kind of counts as an artist's date because he likes tools, I think he failed to see the relation. 4 more weeks with the guy, I know I can do it, at least i hope I can. Tonight he told us that he doesn't feel the homework is necessary because he is already living a spiritual life and he believes that God's will for him is to go about his day and the creativity will come when God wants it to so he is not going to push it by doing the recommended weekly tasks. Oh well, Sark says we need to show him compassion, that he's obviously in a lot of pain. Hunter even pointed out that if a middle aged man is suffering from that big of an identity crisis, then he needs more sympathy and kindness than any of us. So my goal for the next 4 weeks is to try and love Dick.
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