i am an artist because...

Because in five years I will read this, and I will love my life.  Because I will know how I got there.  And I will regret nothing, because life will be great.  We will build off of all of this beauty, never settling for less, never regressing to some place of average everyday nonsense where we reminisce the days of old and lament what we no longer have.

We will have this (or more) forever, and I will not look back someday and regret not keeping that promise.  I will keep that promise, keep trekking along through the artists' life.

This life is awesome, and we make it fucking awesome.  We will remember these moments through our art.

I am an artist because someone needs to capture the magic, and when I re-read what I write I can feel the magic and music and the love and the people all around me.  Because I wrote these words in a room of musicians and artists; and when I read this in five years, I will still feel the music they made-- the organic crescendo into awesomeness that happened as the air of the room became filled with our passion and each artist breathed it in and survived on it for an hour as we each spat out our own art into the night-- and because I hope you will feel the magic someday, as well, as you read these things, without ever having been there.

the evangelist.

I was writing a lovely piece about my night in the city when I was interrupted, approached by a young and friendly-looking Evangelist.  I was compelled to indulge him.

I was waiting at a bench to have dinner with friends, and he apparently found me vulnerable and sell-able and approached.

"Do you have the Son?"  he asked, rather than greeting me.

"Um, I don't think I do,"  I answered.  No idea what he was talking about.  I glanced west toward the sunset, then questioningly back at him.

"The Son," he repeated.  "Do you know Jesus Christ?"

Oh!  "Well, I know of him," I answered.  "I was raised in a Christian family."  Thinking that if I answered, yes, I do know this Jesus, this guy would not need to keep talking.  I was wrong.

I enjoyed chatting with him from a philosophical point of view, but I quite resented his salesman attitude, trying to determine why I had "left the faith" and to rope me back in.  Pretty annoying.  Also, he wasn't actually as friendly as he put on in conversation.  When I warmly said goodbye--it was nice meeting you--and have a good night, he simply walked the other way without a word, presumably to find another lone and lost soul.

I am upset with myself for not being more assertive; I told him I was finished talking shortly after I told him that, no, I, in fact, do not "have the Son", but allowed him to continue the conversation after that.  I didn't mind talking; I don't know why I feel I have to give these people a chance, but I always listen to what they have to say.  But he was quite disrespectful of my time and initial assertion that I was finished talking, and it makes me feel a little weak that I allowed him to have my time.  I could never go buy a car alone.  Well, he didn't sell me on Christ or sin or anything like that; my atheism is steady.  It's my cajones that need some work; I need to develop the asshole in me that would allow me to call this guy a jerk and then walk away.

As usual, I won't delve into the utter ignorance and fallacies of the beliefs of yet another aggressively faithful character to cross my path.  But I will say that he was quite ignorant and/or disrespectful of the fact that I was kindly acknowledging, accepting, and allowing to exist the beliefs that he held so dear, while he was not doing that for my own.

Also, he told me he thought I was pretentious to think I don't need a Savior, as if I'm not a Sinner like everyone else.  That was pretty damn rude.