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10/31/2004: "I Yams What I Yams"
A couple nights ago I watched "Spiderman Two" and there was a line in it that got me thinking...Peter Parker tries to stop being Spiderman so he can have a normal life and be with the woman of his dreams but realizes it's not going to happen. He says something like "Sometimes you have to give up what you want the most to do the right thing, even your dreams".
See, I'm supposed to go to Anchorage for ten days over Thanksgiving to help my sister Jenny who is due to have her first baby. I also promised to finish painting the mural I started in the nursery. Looking at the calendar I realized it's the 2 weeks right before my show. There's just no way I can do them both. I can't take a shorter trip either because there aren't available flights so it's all or nothing and I don't think I could live with myself if I let her down.
I told her about it and I know she's really upset at me. I started thinking about it, and there have been so many times that I've let people down, that I've been a bad friend...missed people's birthday parties or flaked out of obligations because I'm painting or working on a show. Being an artist is the most important thing to me but that also makes *me*...the most important thing to me...and that's incredibly self-centered.
It's not the first time I've wondered about what I'm giving up, and if it's worth it. For one thing I'm not convinced that I like the person I've become and I don't know if it's possible to change who I am at my core, or more importantly, if I even want to try. I'm so used to saying "hey, this is who I am and if you need a person you can count on than you probably don't want me as a friend"...god that seems so lame. I'm going to die totally alone and that doesn't even freak me out anymore.
As for the conference in Kansas City I just got back from, well, it was...interesting. On my flight there I awoke to passengers and flight attendants screaming at me to get out of my seat. They were rangling a passanger who went off the deep end...put him in my row (last row in the aircraft) got him in cuffs, he cursed at the top of his lungs for the rest of the 2 hour flight and we had to wait until the cops came aboard and drug him away before we could deplane.
Coming back we had to circle around Minneapolis for an hour because Airforce One was at the airport getting ready to leave and they had secured the airspace around the airport. No one could come or go until he did. I felt like I was in "Die Hard II" not knowing what was going on and watching a bunch of other aircraft circling around and around with us.
I also got to stay in a swanky high rise hotel during a tornado warning (remind me not to watch "Day After Tomorrow" so much) ordered room service and watched HBO, pay per view movies and non-stop CNN. Man, talk about a lot of political adds. In Alaska we're a solid red state so no one bothers but in Missouri, a swing state, it was a non-stop bombardment.
I can't wait until Tuesday, if both Knowles and Kerry lose, don't plan to hear anything from me for a good long while because I'll be starting my paperwork for imigrating to Canada. Hey, love it or leave it, as they say...