Both lenses fell out this week. The culprit was a tiny screw that unscrewed itself and then disappeared. It is particularly hard to find brown screws the size of mechanical pencil lead on a brown carpet with one eye squinted shut and the other with a lens held up to it.

But it is relatively easy to grope around for paperclips. Unfortunately this means you have Crazy Person glasses and also blurred flying giant paperclip shapes in your peripheral vision.

Why it happens at 2/3 AM is a mystery to me.

I wrote a haiku.

daylight savings? no
real vacation. fresh sheets don’t
smell of unwashed man

The theme is Saturday laundry efforts and circular polarities of time.

Locked myself out of the house this morning. That jingle in my coat pocket was not keys, but loose change. This is why I clip the keys to my belt loop. It is to prevent Tragedy. Absentminded, they say.

It was a cold morning pissing with rain. Frigid. The day also featured playful gusts of wet, wet, wind – cruel like the whims of a child.

Very bracing weather. Such weather makes Men.

Fortunately I had Bruce, my landlord, on my cell phone’s speed dial. I stood stolidly on the porch, ignoring the elements like the neanderthal brute that I am. Eventually some toady of his showed up in a lined parka and opened the door. Our Hero was saved.

This, while not the optimal human circumstance, was a lot better than many human circumstances and did after all last only 20 minutes. And I was not naked.

I drove on to Starbucks where I consumed 20 ounces of coffee in 10 minutes and thereafter effectively joined the human race. I’ve been part of it for the rest of the day.

It’s so tedious when bloggers get book deals and then they yammer on about it. Who cares?

Why can’t we go back to the voyeuristic thrill of reading about the daily neurosis?

It is also terrible when a previously funny or tasteless blog morphs into simpering nonsense about children.

These are just observations, not complaints.

Did you know I gave up negative thinking for Lent?

I’m actually doing a pretty good job metamorphosing from a dark and cynical Hater into a sparkling, effervescent positive Force of Universal Love. I think. The printer went on the blink this morning and I calmly turned it off and then back on rather than hurling it out the window. Which I really, really wanted to do because I was PISSED. Control. It’s all about control.

Today painting a simple self-portrait went hopelessly awry:

I immediately gave up on the whole mess for today and decided to just sink into a black despair. Actually, this wasn’t really a conscious decision so much as the inevitable outcome.

I will never know why I decided to adjust the height of the easel without removing the mirror from it first. I’ve been thinking about the whole bad luck thing and have decided to reject it utterly. Instead I plan to have 7+ years of fantastic luck. Which I think has already begun because if I’d had bad luck when this thing fell, it would have sliced me to ribbons. As it is, I have walked – well trudged- away unscathed.

Something I ingested yesterday has turned the roof of my mouth into a pulpy, stringy mess. I seem to recall burning it on overheated lunch. I do not like this.

Galkyd has its benefits, principally that it dries fast. It also makes my lungs ache, and yes I am using it with adequate ventilation. And I must say I am not very excited about that.

Galkyd works well as a thin glazing medium so I think I’ll keep using it for the bottom layers of paintings. But today Venice turpentine reappeared at the tack store and really nothing beats it for versatility and sheer joy in paint handling. Venice turpentine has the magic in it. That is just the way it is.

Here we have it mixed with linseed oil to make an easy glossy medium that holds brush strokes:

And this is what we used it for:

We also used traditional Venetian glazing medium in this painting and the 3 others that we started tonight. (Why do I keep using the Royal We?)

And now it is time for bed.

The FAFSA (Federal Application for Student Aid) never fails to blow me away and/or make me cry a bitter tear for the failure of Capitalism. Or the triumph of Capitalism. I don’t know which is worse.

They tell me:

Your estimated Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is: $34,291

Ouch. I’m not sure exactly what EFC is, but I do know that the result of it is terrible financial aid offers. I think it means that they assume I am capable of making this much money so they don’t need to offer me any. That’s fine, except: Who is my mysterious benefactor who plans to chip in $34,291 to my education and living expenses this year? Other than myself, and I can only make that much money by working full-time, which means I can’t really be in school… and so it goes.

I am doing fine financially, but last year the two of us were living on a real income of $15,000 plus student loans. Now the one of us is living on a real income of $4000 plus student loans. I just think FAFSA is creepy and degenerate, and maybe deranged. I wish my budget was as magical as they apparently seem to think it is.

Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know, FAFSA.