It felt like a slap in the face.
		"What HAVE you been doing with yourself?" 
		How could I answer truthfully?
		My life is so empty right now...
		"How are your prints coming?"

		Oh, that.

		It has been weeks since I have been visited by anything resembling 
		inspiration, and that turned out to be a fever.  I tried going back to the
		morning pages, and the idea books that are so full of past scribbles.

		I search and I search, and find nothing.

		When I am doing the shopping, I always pass the art supply shop.
		I run my hands over the Liquitex tubes and roll the design pencils 
		between my fingers...there was a time when I was bursting with ideas
		and every yen I earned went towards these materials.  
		Now they sit, collecting dust, next to blank journals and stacks of old 
		exhibition announcements.  The only people who see my work these
		days are the ones who enter my shrine of a studio.

		I lied to her.  I told her I'd been too busy to really spend much time on
		my own projects...but that I had some great ideas.  Like I said...I lied.

		What HAVE I been doing with myself?


SMQ 1997



or perhaps...