Today I woke up with the urge to rant.

I opened my eyes to realize that it was a weekend, and I was happy.
Then I realized that a weekend is only comprised of two days and THEN I was unhappy.

Nevertheless, I went downstairs, patted my dog, stumbled on my cat and, stomach grumbling, reached for a can of corned beef, intent on eating it as fast as I can. I could go on and on blathering, telling you my usual routine but I'm sure everyone knows what everybody else does on mornings especially when you're single so I really should stop right here. Well....not unless you're single and you have someone over from last night's date....THEN you'd definitely have another routine, certainly not one where gobbling a can of corned beef first thing in the morning is included....well not unless you want to stay single. But ahem, I suppose that's a different matter.

So, back to business. It was on my third gulp of corned beef (cat and dog glaring hungrily by my side) when I realized that I had been intending to do a lot of things for the week, or the month, even the year. And as, always, I keep telling myself I'd get around to doing it. Let me see.....get a haircut, visit the dentist, buy something for mom, hang out with friends, buy a book.....is this list familiar?

I read this book once, called "The Artist's Way." It's supposed to help artists who are blocked or who are afraid of making the jump from routine-controlled corporate employee to ecstatically-passionate artist. Five minutes into the book and I was sobbing when confronted with the chapter on dealing with your repressed artistic fears and confronting yourself. Within ten minutes I had identified my problem. I, like most of my art-frenzied college friends have become a half and half. Half artist and half day-job person.Only when you get down to it, the artist part keeps on getting reduced and reduced and reduced.....

Still munching on the corned beef, (pets still glaring) I remember the days my parents tried to persuade me to veer away from an art-related college course and go to the coat-and-tie industry. As stubborness would have it, of course I won over their rantings. Now, as with every opportunity, I still try to convince myself that compromises can be made. That the arts is not only for the rich, and that my friends and I will still see bylines published, plates hung in galleries and films lauded by the critics. But on quiet weekends, you get to ask what your dreams are made of, and during evenings with friends, you ask yourselves if you've still got stars in your eyes.

Ah....such sentiments. And yet we face our pay days with hearts a-flutter . And why not? We could always tell ourselves that one day we'd buy that new writing book, then finally put together that manuscript, then scout for that publisher, and finally have the guts to work around the things we always make excuses for. Goodness, I could just cringe at the thought of my friends and I on rocking chairs in a popular cafe, rocking and creaking as we balance laptops on our knees, typing with arthritic fingers.

I guess we all have excuses for the things we don't do. But I'll be on the defense now and haughtily say, "Well, I'm writing in this blog right now, am I not?"

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