Gratitude List:

Unknown, Signal Point. Personal collection.

1. They are no longer serving pumpkin flavored coffee at Trader Joe's. 
2. They've run out of pumpkin flavored toaster pastries at Trader Joe's. 
3. Root vegetables. After a month of pumpkin flavored toaster pastries, I'm eating roasted beets and carrots for breakfast and dinner. With this much fiber, who need lunch? 
4. A friend I met in Los Angeles about 10 years ago serendipitously called me the other day and offered a suggestion or two while I was trying to pretend like everything was just fine. 
5. Press and reviews. I know, technically this isn't something to be grateful for since it sounds rather attention-seeking, so gratitude might not be the right word, but I am grateful that I showed up to the easel every day—no matter what kind of colossal and irrelevant crap was looming in my head– and competed a body of work I feel good about and that some people have responded to the work.  The show has been hanging at the gallery for 2 weeks now. I haven't had the chance to view the work in solitude in a distraction-free, white cube space with decent lighting, aka, the gallery. I should make a point to do that next week. It's a Rothko thing. Chapel, up next. Ommm. 
6. Friends and people I call family. 
7. The dog. 
8. Roof over my head. 
9. The past, seriously. My life would have been boring without it, but I'm grateful it's the past. *I mean this in the best possible way. No one wants to be stuck in the past, even the glamorous, loving kindness salad days parts. It's the past, man. Time to move on. Note to self:  Birdman at the Belcourt opens this week. 
10. Micro-moments of awareness.