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8:00 am – alarm has been going off for a half hour.  I sleep another half hour.

9:30 am – time I am supposed to meet a friend for coffee at Weatherstone, but instead I am lugging my bike downstairs.

9:45 am – coffee commences, we talk about bilingualism and the drawbacks of translation.  I devour an entire almond croissant.

12:15 pm – after meeting up with another friend and walking to another coffee shop for beans, I finally head home to paint.

12:30 pm – about five brush strokes end up on my canvas before I am distracted by prospective properties on Craigslist.  I also look at bike frames. 

1:10 pm – decide I should wash my paint brushes before I really dig in and paint, but I’m hungry so I make food instead.

2:15 pm – finally get around to cleaning my brushes.

2:40 pm – you know what sounds good?.. a protein shake.

3:05 pm – five more brush strokes accomplished, but I need music to drown out the ghetto-blasting taking place in my next-door neighbor’s driveway, so I fiddle with a playlist.  

5:05 pm – don’t remember anything that took place over the last two hours, but it looks like a little bit of painting got done.  My palette is messy anyway.  Guess it’s dinnertime.

6:30 pm – intend to paint for only another fifteen minutes before stopping to do something else unnecessary, but the spirit catches me.  It’s about time.

7:22 pm – forgot about a pot of tea boiling on the stove.  Not good.  The kitchen is steamy like the jungle but luckily the pot hadn’t yet burned.

7:45 pm – back on a roll.  I paint for a solid two-and-a-half hours, save for restroom breaks.  The process is painstaking but it feels good.

10:15 pm – starting to feel exhausted.  I pop some popcorn but don’t actually eat any of it.  Zone out in front of the TV for fifteen minutes instead.

10:30 pm – back in the studio.  I surge like a madman through my last 45 minutes of painting. 

11:15 pm – eyes are too strained to continue; I throw in the towel.  For all the time I did manage to spend on the canvas, the painting itself barely looks any different.  There’s no real sense of accomplishment as I stagger into bed, only a vague impression of cosmic servitude.  I wonder at why it took me all day to commence creation.  Only one answer circles round and round my head as I drift to sleep; one word so simple, yet to my best attempts, confounding: fear.