This reminds me of something from my distant past. A group of investors wanted to give me $100,000 to promote my work, but the deal included the proviso that I essentially be chined to my easel, painting "for them" until I died. We went around and around, but I could never get them to drop that demand, so in the end the deal never happened. I have to wonder what might my life be like now if I had signed on the dotted line.

At any rate, the folks I'm currently talking with already have a vested interest in my work since each member has at some point acquired at least one painting of mine. Collectively, they have contacts in Hong Kong and other areas and would like to see the value of their works go up significantly in the next year. Their interest is apparently in having me expand my markets into those monied areas where it would receive "the recognition and prices it deserves." Well, maybe. I do know that they are in the process of making some kind of deal with a person or gallery in Hong Kong. Dubai has also been mentioned. Someone is also apparently putting together an auction site ONLY for my works, which might work in cooperation with my own corporate identity, Cirrus Arts Corporation, to make available a sort of commodity market for my paintings, both new and old. I can see some sense in this, because it could help create an honest global marketplace without the expenses and dangers of shipping works to galleries half-way around the world, and it would concentrate the active buying and selling of my work in one location, but for all to see, letting the market place its own value on the pieces. It actually sounds kinda fun, But for the moment, all I can say is that negotiations continue.

I've not had the experience, but I imagine that what I'm facing to the continued care for my wife (ex) as she continues to decline must be something like picking up body parts after an explosion. If the person was a stranger,it's just a terrible, but impersonal job. If it was a friend, the horror must go up a considerable amount, since memories of the person will be more direct and personal. Picking up pieces of a loved one, though.... I can just barely imagine the horror. I probably not need to explain why.

For the past couple of weeks I've once again been giving serious thought to moving, for two reasons. One is that ti is so hard and exhausting to be with her so much of the day, which is typically filled with brief and almost always failed attempts to communicate, as well as to note the rapid decline of her memory. I wonder when she will no longer remember who we were. I remember the day my mother could no longer remember me, and I don't want to go through that again. So I think about leaving, and even about leaving Tucson, severing all ties so that some day I would wonder (alright: every day) how things were going. But i'd have no part of them. Problem is that I don't have enough money now. I could have done it a couple of years ago, probably, but not now.

Perhaps I'm already (or still) one of Mary's body parts, but don't know any longer where I fit or what I'm supposed to do.

Sleep issues have returned with a vengeance, and the psychiatrist is stumped. My whole metabolism seems to change wildly over a period of a few days: weight gain followed by loss. 20 mg of diazepam having no effect one night, then 10 mg making me stumble the next. I've given up. so I just sleep when I can and work or think when I can't. I try to keep busy doing something so that I don't think too much... like a friend who believes that if he were to quit working so hard, he'd die.

Mary can no longer remember which button to push to change the TV from regular programming to watching movies. So yesterday I made a large label and stuck it by the button. I hope it helps.