Poor Starving Artist Problem

Today solidified my stance.  I have officially made up my mind about the artist temperament.  In history class you always read about such and such philosopher/artist/writer/great thinker who was stumbling around insert random country without a insert random unit of currency to their name.  They moved from house/apartment/couch/floor/street corner to house/apartment/couch/floor/street corner.  Their family got sick.  The family died.  The philosopher/artist/writer/great thinker drank constantly (and maybe did other substances as well) as well as hired prostitutes, contracted random sexually transmitted disease/mental illness/other physical calamity and died.

100 years later they influence the powers that be, new artists, philosophers etc and become completely famous.  If only they could have capitalized on everything during their life time.  If only.

Well, there are a lot more artists in the world (mostly because it has become so easy to get materials and our exponentially growing population).  Not all of them can be famous.  Not many of them are even very good.  Let's be honest.  I studied painting, I like to paint for others, but it will not be a living for me.  I'm not critically acclaimed enough nor am I strikingly original in my work.  It is a hobby that pays for itself (now at least).

Writing however is my passion and it scares me, the nature of being a writer.  I can paint a complete painting in an hour.  A book takes time to write.  I am not one of those people who can churn a book out in two weeks.  I need to ruminate over ideas before committing them to the electronic page.  With the amount of time it takes me to actually write the book, if I wasn't working and did not have anyone to support me, I would be living under an overpass pushing a shopping cart full of soda cans waiting to be recycled.  I would be visiting the local food pantry religiously, hoping the food they were giving me didn't require reheating because the only heating mechanism available to me would be one of those oil can fires you see bums huddled around in movies.  Hopefully no brutal teenagers (or evil adult men) would rape or beat me for kicks, but that's pretty typical for women on the street. If I was lucky, I could get a place in a shelter where I could be safe.

We are sort of broke right now. When I say sort of, I mean very. It was a miscalculation on our part.  We thought Christian's job would pay more than it is, but as with all jobs, there is a learning curve and his job happens to be based on flat rate.  That means each job he does has an associated time it takes, and that is the amount of money he gets for the job no matter how much time it actually takes him to complete it.  So if a job that should take him an hour takes him 3, he only gets paid for one during that time.  Needless to say, the learning curve with this job is killing us.  That combined with me not having a real job at the moment, and a couple issues with our house in Phoenix royally fucked us.  Pardon my French. Once he is up to speed, he can actually earn a lot of money, again because of flat rate.  It's just right now we're playing Russian Roulette with our bills.

Then today, our car broke.  It broke on the Bay Bridge as we were driving to visit a friend for lunch (and see about figuring out a design for a commissioned painting for her).  She works in the financial district, which is a parking nightmare, and Christian and I were sort of fighting the whole time about how things should be handled with the car.  After some Chinese and a conversation about Sundays with Vlad, we were in a more positive mood.  Christian left to find an auto store to get a test done (I won't pretend like I even remember what he said needed to happen) and I went with my friend to her office to check it out and to wait while Christian did his thing.   An hour and a half later he had a vague idea what was going on and came racing down the street to pick me up.  When I got in the car he was chewing gum quickly and forcefully.  He was also talking a hundred miles a minute very loudly.  Apparently the car wasn't getting the gas it needed because their was a leak somewhere so it meant that sometimes he lost power while driving, which in downtown SF is sort of like trying to kill yourself repeatedly.  We made it home, but it was incredibly stressful and it made me wonder.  Is this my life? Is this going to be my life forever?

I applied for a few part time jobs in order to somehow get us through this, but I really don't want to work unless it is absolutely necessary and I hate commuting.  I'll be honest.  I like being in charge of my day.  I like the leisure it affords.  My friend loves her job, but she also has the cleanest most organized desk I've ever seen, and she does research all day long.  I would hate that.  I think.  I think I would go crazy.  And I would stop writing, because I can't be in front of a computer all day and then come home and do it some more.  All I've got to say is, I hate filling the stereotype of the poor artist right now, and I want everyone to cross their fingers, wish on an airplane, throw a prayer out there, put some positive thoughts our way, something.  I really don't want to become a toothless crack-head with no family and a bad case of syphilis lying in a ditch by the I-880.


I'm counting on you guys. Seriously. I don't even know where the food pantry is.