Watch Me Jumpstart

First work day in the studio. I laid down the first round on six small paintings. I've been doing six small paintings a week for the last couple of months. I go at it quickly with as little interference from my brain as possible and then go back and work with whatever is there in two or three short follow up sessions. The result is a kind of false spontaneity that will do fine until I can get to actual spontaneity.

Met my across-the-hall neighbour. I was a bit nervous but turns out she lived in the states for twenty-five years and speaks English. That made it easier.

It's still pouring rain, and has been since I got back from Canada about two weeks ago. The heavy smothering humidity that comes with a rainy, thirty degree day hasn't been good to my asthma but I shall overcome. It's the kind of weather where you walk somewhere and when you arrive you can't tell which parts of you are wet from rain and which from sweat. Unpleasant.

I had to leave at five because Tuesday nights I take the train out to a suburb (I guess you'd call it that) of Kobe and teach two different students at their respective homes. The teaching part is fine but the travel is a drag. Coming back is a twenty minute walk plus a train ride. I end up getting home at around eleven thirty. I haven't calculated what the pay works out to per hour and I don't want to.