close to the dollar.

so lazy, can't capitalize...

so with all this talk and ambition of making art a career, i have been letting my ADD kick in and get me off track. i get so deep into issues that have nothing to do with making progress and experiencing any drop of success. yesterday at work, i was venting about cell phonez stuff and management drama, and someone said to me "keep it as close to the dollar as you can." basically, focus on what makes you money first, then worry about the bullshit.

damn that makes sense. at least for me. my brain goes a mile a minute with thoughts, ideas, pictures, unicorns, naked lawn gnomes, toast, rocks, bridges, nash bridges, bridges over troubled water, etc. so of course this advice works for me.

with that, i believe i will go brainstorm and start putting down some ink on that page, sonny. whoever you are, go get yours and make it happen too.

art quest.

No dragons and shit here. No treasure at the end of the rainbow. This is just about me fighting with my inner demons to get off my ass and discover myself. It's been a year since i posted, and since then i have changed so much. Back then i was on a poetry kick. I still have such a passion for poetry, it will never go away. But now i look at myself and say "what can i do with the skills i have to make money?"

I have found that the thing that comes most naturally to me is making art. Poetry is grounded so deeply in being schooled and having that god damned degree behind your name in the bio. It burns me up. It especially hits home because my very learned cousin once told me that i shouldn't bother writing poetry because people who get published and make a living out of it are from harvard, etc. Honestly? Ok, well since we're being honest at just made me want to go do it more. And succeed. Like REALLY succeed. No bad blood to him, but i wanted to prove someone wrong. Let me tell you, it's hard.

After a while i said forget it. I picked up a pencil again to draw and make art, and i lost that flame too. So i wanted to make some money on the side, but all i could think of doing was what i did for a living: cell phones. Problem? Big problem, conflict of interest. So i had to stop...not that there was anything going on anyway. But i didn't want to lose my job over something so small.

I had an intervention. What was that you ask? Friends. My friends brought me back to the art world, in the little ways that they do. One invited me to a drink and draw event at a local pub. A bunch of artists got together and drew live models while having a brew. Mighty chill, mighty awesome. Another pal showed me the most wonderful website: www.etsy.com which opened my eyes to art as a business. A business! Why didn't i ever look at it this way? And through all of this i have begun to find myself. Slowly, the artist emerges.

Daughters.

My wife and I have two daughters: Gabriella, age 4, and London, 2 months old. It has been an incredible journey thus far and I can plainly see the road stretched out before us. But man, is it scary.

It doesn't occur to you how tough and frightening parenting is until you are face to face with the moon at 1:00 a.m. in the cool spring night (or morning technically). It stares at you and forces questions to the top of your brain...no, more like it DEMANDS answers.

Questions like:

"Will someone ever hurt my girls?"

"Are my girls going to become famous?"

"Will my girls hate me, or love me unconditionally?"

"Will I be healthy enough to see them grow up?"

This is only a fraction of the things that race through my mind. As morbid as some of this may sound, I am confident that any parent has thought these things at some point in their parenting career, and some worse things I'm sure.

But the best thing we as parents can do is soldier on, and take each day as it comes. Some things we worry about we have no control over, thus we can't allow these thoughts to consume us. Use that energy to live in the moment and most of all...

Love those kids with every ounce, every single drop that you can muster. Everything.

Sometimes

I created this blog as an alternative to Facebook and all the other social networking sites. I have become a bit complacent in regards to these sites for various reasons, so I decided to switch it up a bit.

Welcome.

I invite you in and thank you for taking the time to share my thoughts, ideas and musings.

My name is Kurt. I am married to a wonderful woman and together we have two beautiful girls. It is tough sometimes during the day to day process, but through writing, thinking and contemplating I am able to relieve some of this stress.

I am a poet at heart. Within my mind a thousand poems stroll by daily, and I am lucky to catch one of those and put it down on paper. Hopefully I can share some of this writing with you and you can share some of your thoughts with me. I have struggled within the past year or two to stick to a writing regimen because of work and family, but I have a grand plan to change all of that. We shall see.

So again, welcome and thank you. Let's see what I can come up with.