It took a while, but I finally decided to make those changes I previously talked about to a couple of the last paintings I completed. 

I hemmed and hawed over it for an unnecessary amount of time, but sometimes that’s what it takes. Paintings take as long as they take. I have to keep telling myself these things. 

Wanting to fuck up their faces after the fact, was not how I intended it to go. It felt like I wasted a lot of time halfway rendering them, but whatever, right? Oh well. That’s what it took to “get there.” I wish I could have been loose from the get-go, and I will keep practicing that approach. But I feel like this practice has been taking a lifetime.

In any case, here is how Shabbos Dinner Abandon looks now. I decided to leave the mother’s face alone and only fuck up the little kid’s face, plus screw up their hair a bit. I like it much better. It’s how I intended it to look from the get-go:

Then I moved on to Disorderly Conduct. I messed up everyone’s face, and it’s a lot crazier now. It also makes me laugh, which is just something I do to entertain myself. And that’s important: 

For now, I decided to leave She Rose From the Bed alone. It was originally more rendered during the process, and then I totally changed it as I went along, so I keep kinda doing this. Her hair was clearly like the photograph, but then I turned it into something strange. Then I liked it more. So I’ll keep this for now unless something blatantly stands out in the near future:

But I plan to move on—to the 3-panel piece. I don’t have a title for it yet. The progress folder it’s in is called “Grandma,” but some of the files are named “Mikey’s Birthday,” so I guess that’s kinda the working title. I’ve thought of “King Baby,” but that seems too obvious.

It’s been hard to select the photographs for this series because I want the most candid ones. There aren’t too many to choose from. I’m also (mostly) looking for ones with me as a child in them—also not many to choose from. My parents snapped about ten times more pictures of my brother than they did me. Probably the reason for the floating crown over this head at his little birthday party, the precious boy. The king baby:

In the Shabbos one, the original photograph has my brother in it. I had to change it to be me. I will have to make those kinds of changes to a few others, but that’s what I’m stuck with. 

I’ll be working on the 3-panel one today as soon as my headache goes away. I woke up with it and am now waiting for the Advil to take effect. Hopefully, it will work. The sooner, the better. 

In a tiny bit of other news, as of today, I’ve finally lost a whole four pounds after being on the diet for three and a half months! Can you believe this shit? Four lousy pounds. I’m grateful, but I was losing one or two per week on the same diet last year. Of course, I am not being as strict on the calorie count this time around. I’m hungrier than I was then.

I’ve been reading about why that is. And it’s not good news. It has to do with hormones and how they affect your metabolism. Who knew? When you are used to being a certain weight for a long period of time, and then you lose a bunch of weight, you need to maintain that new weight for a good long while. If you don’t, once you gain the weight back, your metabolism slows, and it’s harder to lose it again. It’s because the hormones that make you hungry, like ghrelin, leptin, cortisol, and even your thyroid, increase. They increase a lot. 

I’ve been drawing little characters of myself lately. I feel like I will always have a permanent belly. My flat chest is now accentuating it.

So now, if I don’t eat every few hours, I feel faint. My blood sugar is all fucked up. Last year, I was able to eat 1350 calories per day. I never felt lightheaded. I guess I got used to the deprivation of calories per day. But now, I can barely maintain 1550 sometimes. It’s way harder. 

Add to this the numerous meds I take that increase weight gain and the fact that I’m over 50. It’s been a battle. I feel like I have to blame the increase in cortisol—the stress hormone. You’d be surprised how much havoc that shot does to your body. I was under a lot of stress at the time of my solo show. Then it just got worse into the holidays with an array of bad news that is still lingering.

But, I’ll take the lousy four-pound loss. At least I’m eating better food now. And maybe slower weight loss is better. Maybe it will lessen my chances of gaining so much weight back again. 

Okay, I’m out.