PAINTING, HOUSES, AND RESENTMENT

Abstract similar to the one I'm painting. The new one has intense color.
The gallery organization in London/Barcelona told me people really like my abstracts and suddenly! I wanted to paint them. I always thought they were a cop-out for me, or a form of relaxation when painting people was overwhelming. It never occurred to me to paint any abstracts just for the joy of it. Given the encouragement and the opportunity, I had a ball and I'm still having a ball with the same painting. Since I don't have to please anyone but me, I'm playing with it.

I'm grateful for the outlet of that painting; my bathroom is basically non-existent. Taking a shower with plastic sheets surrounding you--sticking to you--is the only activity that can be done in there now. We have to go down the two sets of stairs to the basement bathroom. Our main bathroom is the first work being done to fix the house. I hope we can sell the house and move to Abington--a Philly suburb. I've been saying I want a ranch house with a fireplace, garage, two bathrooms and three bedrooms on the first floor. So far, looking at the houses available, very few have fireplaces or two bathrooms. There are a lot of Cape Cods on the market; they have one bedroom on the main floor and two upstairs. That would defeat our purpose of no steps. Looking at the interiors of the houses I see on the web, their kitchens and the whole houses don't look as good as mine! We did our kitchen about fifteen years ago and other than the fact that it's too small, it looks very good. These other ones look outdated and cramped. Ugly.

Speaking of ugly, no matter what I do or how many prayers I send, I'm still miserable and angry at people who don't "notice" me. Resentment and anger are a very nasty mix and I truly wish I didn't feel this way. I still receive emails from a group I used to call my friends. There is still a mutual friendship between some of the people and me. But boy do I resent those folks who were unfriendly. It's because of the vibes I got from them (and the fact that I had very little in common with any of them) that I can't stand to go to their dinners. Maybe how I feel is normal, I don't know. I probably said this before: they began to have parties with a part of the group and Harry and I weren't invited. Some of our friends were and the parties became a regular activity they all talked about at the dinners. I felt uncomfortable. Harry was okay with it probably because he couldn't hear what they were saying. But I could.

I can see, reading this, there's no fix. We were shut out and if we were ballsy, we could still go and that's how I wish I were. But I'm far from that. I'm easily offended, sensitive, opinionated and shy. I'm still working on "being". I think it's time to put that chapter of my life into the past. Sometimes that happens; it's not comfortable but it's reality.