I almost gave up on it today, the painting thing. It would be so much easier to have my weekends to spend doing the necessary house tasks and not feel a sense of need to paint. I could just let it go, like those around me expect will happen. I find such expectations depressing and they pull at me seductively with the numbness they promise. I worked anyway and enjoyed the drawing as I do. Yet I still have a sense of emptiness after it, as if I cannot get the conversation right. Things always seem to go favorably when I am ready to give up. I slave away on the painting and want to scrap the damn thing and I bully through it and bammo it works. I find that I have to feel hope for the painting in order to get it right. The daydream of what it will become leads me. I am sorry, I have been an excellent listener, but in this I will not obey. Whatever it is, this silly thing leads me to my work and without it I am aimless. So I am not listening for once, I am disobeying you, I must. I walk the edges what is heavy already needs no help getting solid.