Jason Driskill

First, I’m allergic to cats.  I’ve been especially aware of this lately.  Melissa has gone for the summer to work in Nashville, but Amie and I are taking care of her cat - Anouk - while she’s gone.  Anouk is a very sweet cat, some special breed that has short rounded ears.  Cats are characteristically somewhat independent, and Anouk is no exception to this, but she has been missing Melissa a lot.  Late at night she paces up and down the hallway mewing pitifully, and the other night she even was putting her paws under the crack of my closed bedroom door, as if she were trying to get in and snuggle with Percy and me.  If this would have not upset Percy, I would have happily let her sleep in my bed, even though I seem to be quite allergic to her and wake up in the mornings congested and sneezing all over the place.  Poor kitty.  I’ve been petting her in the mornings and in the evenings just to make sure she’s not attention deprived.

So speaking of pets, Percy has been uncrated for the entire time we’ve been here.  He has snuck into the trash a couple of times with minor consequence, but so far he hasn’t chewed anything up.  I couldn’t be prouder of him.  He still seems a little homesick, but he’s seeming more comfortable than last week.  He has apparently become comfortable to revert to his habit of pulling little mouthfuls of food from his bowl and leaving small groups of kibble on the floor in various places around the apartment.  This habit is certain to drive Amie insane, as she has a particularly intense affection for keeping the floor clean.

After spending over a week without a desk, I was going crazy without any decent surfaces on which to type.  So I looked online for any solutions I could come up with that were both stylish and cheap (please notice I didn’t say “affordable” but have relegated myself to the realm of “cheap” at this point).  I found nothing.  Since I brought the old stolen door with me, I decided to go ahead and use it as my desktop and prop it up with some bookshelves, if I could find some cheap ones that were the right dimensions.  It was harder than I thought it would be, but finally on Target.com (of all places) I found some clearance items that seemed like they might do the job.

They are modular teak wooden endtables that are on castors, 15″ cubed and open in the front and back.  So simple, and on sale for $20 each.  I ordered four of them and a matching chair, and then began a period of waiting.  Yesterday they finally arrived.  And now I have a desk!

After getting that settled, I took my last box of art supplies to the Third Street Studio and set it up for production.  After a trip to the art supply store today, I’ll be ready to make art again.  That’s kind of an odd feeling, since it’s been so long since I’ve had studio space.  Granted this is temporary, but it’s going to be great.