I am soooo excited! I’m going to get to hang out at the ballet again! This time it’ll be the final rehearsal for Ballet Austin’s version of Twyla Tharp’s The Golden Section (with music by David Byrne of the Talking Heads) to be held on Valentine’s Day. I am so thrilled, I may burst at any moment! I’d really wanted to see it and had even planned to bug Lin about getting tickets, but going to a rehearsal is so much better. I know that sounds crazy, but I really enjoy getting behind the scenes almost as much as I do watching finished performances. I can’t wait until Lin gets home and I can tell him we have plans for Valentine’s Day! :)

In other artsy news, I have got to stop watching arts programming on TV. In particular, I have to stop watching biography shows on artists I admire. It never fails, I discover something about their body of work that leads my mind to classify them into the “hack artist” department, and then I lose respect and admiration for them. The most recent biography I watched was about Roy Lichtenstein. I have always loved his pop-art, comic book styled works. During the program, I learned that he also has a large body of work that is nothing more than re-workings of Picasso’s works. Yes, slightly different due to stylistic changes, but all the same … copies of someone else’s work. My first thought was “If you can’t be original, don’t bother doing art.” My next thought was “What a hack.” My third thought was “Why didn’t I think of that!” You see, I classify myself a hack artist as well. What this means is either most artists are, in fact, complete hacks, and I should switch my personal definitions for “hack artist” and “artist” and move on … or there are some great artists out there and all the rest of us are just experts at stealing and copying ideas. Of course, if I change my definition of “hack artist” to “artist” in order to accommodate the obvious fact that all artists seem to make shit up as they go along and copy other great artists, then I’d have to admit that my own work has worth. That might require a few years of therapy seeing as I have never, not even once, thought any of my own work has any worth beyond the joy it brings me to create it. Yes, I know … I have have issues. I’m an artist (or is that a hack), so I am allowed to have issues. :lol:

I am slow moving on the housework today. Too many days of laying around and not doing it combined with the fact this cold weather makes my bones ache (and Aunt Flo is visiting) is making it more than difficult to get things done. If I can just get the kitchen cleaned up, the cat box scooped out, a little more trash stuffed into the bin, and vacuum the living room rug, I think I will celebrate by being a slug for the rest of the day. Or playing with kitties. They are a little antsy today. After a few days of getting non-stop attention, they can’t quite understand why I am totally ignoring them and doing boring things like washing dishes and sweeping when we could be cuddling or playing. Poor, poor neglected kitties.

Speaking of which, here’s a cute photo of Ronin I snapped the other night.

And now … back to the drudgery of housework. :(