Entry one (and a half):

I think that I will be unhappy doing anything for money. To me that is not the ideal trade. Money can only result in material goods and while I find some objects beautiful/funny/precious/horrible/interesting, there are many more things in the world that cause stronger emotions than a material object ever could. I'd rather operate in a system where my work results in a different kind of trade. Making art for the sake of making art results in this different trade. The art I make becomes a chronicle of my human experience and becomes a vessel to communicate with the future (and maybe the past?). I view making letterforms as making art. I view making sculptures as making art (as opposed to objects of monetary value). I view talking to other artists as improving both of our abilities to make art. The ideal trade to me is the ability to collaborate where I do something to learn about something another person/community/being knows and I walk away with more knowledge instead of money. Knowledge or thoughts can be traded for something that money can't. I wonder if I can escape my job/career path. I feel scared and hopeless that I'm stuck. After the end of a work day I feel deprived of energy and cannot work on anything personal. I wonder if this is the point of hiring non-corporate people to do corporate things? My family is too poor for me to not have this job. Maybe I can treat my job as performance art.

My partner and I sometimes go to a cabin in the mountains. His family has owned this cabin since the 80s. His parents were married there. Everytime there's a fire in that area of the state I become extremely worried that it will burn down. I fear that if I lose it I will lose part of my future self. It was built by a hairdresser who used a book to build it, and although that hairdresser is dead now I feel like that person is a part of my living self. The cabin is surrounded by ponderosa pines and smells very good, if I smell a poderosa pine I think of the cabin. I fantasize about escaping there. Any time I imagine myself as an older woman I see myself there. I wonder if that is a life I can actually have. How can I have this life if I'm living the one I have now?