Thursday, May 25, 2000

I have been so busy the past few weeks with school.  I had my Senior show last week, and my juries were the week before that.  Juries in art school are basically a panel of people that you don't know, professional artists, who look at all the work you've done all year and decide whether or not you're any good.  Sometimes people have this mistaken idea that art school is really easy, but that's so untrue.  Anyway, I was really worried about my juries-- in fact, I was in the darkroom frantically printing an entirely new piece the night before my presentation.  Everything went well in the end.  I was upset with myself because I haven't worked as hard as I could, and I was afraid that that would show in the quantity of my work... but I guess the quality was high enough that nobody made a big deal of it.

Then, this week, there was a frantic push to finish this website job that I've been diddling over for a year.  I'm such a perfectionist; as soon as I start working on a design, I decide that I don't like it and I start all over again.  Anyway, I finally kicked myself in the ass and got the work done, and everyone seems pleased by it.  I'm looking forward to the paycheck, too.  I'm running out of money.  I haven't paid my rent yet this month-- I have the money, but between that and bills, I'm not sure how I'm going to pay next month's rent in a week.  I can work up to 30 hours a week at my current job this summer-- a nice deal, since I don't work too hard, but not enough to keep me afloat financially.  Hopefully I can start lining up some professional freelance work in photography or CGI programming.

I had a really weird experience tonight-- I went to the neighborhood bar with my roommate and his girlfriend.  I ran into this guy there from school who we refer to as "Nazi J."  Despite his skinhead past, he's a really nice guy.  He seems to have a handle on the bad emotional shit that he used to channel into being a skinhead-- he's getting over that now.  I also knew from a friend that he had a gay experience in his past-- he's very straight, at least on the surface.  But he was really drunk tonight, so before long he's asking me about what guys at school I like-- suddenly, he's telling me about the gay experiences that he's having NOW.  "Yeah, it still happens from time to time, but you know, I lock the door and close the blinds."  Shit.  Now, that's very weird.  I admit I think he's very sexy-- he's also really tightly wound and uptight, so I don't want to get involved in that.  Actually, for all I've fantasized about getting it on with straight guys, I wasn't really sexually into the conversation we were having-- but I also felt like he was coming on to me.  Suddenly he's telling me about how he thinks all straight guys have a gay side-- whatever, dude.  I don't really want to hook up with someone who's going to treat me like the biggest secret in the universe.

I also know he's done some really shitty things in his past.  I'm glad my personal emotional trauma doesn't involve harming other people.  I like the guy though-- I admire that he's trying to face up to his problems.  I hope he keeps it together.

OK, that's enough for right now.