The best world to live in as a painter is the world of obsession. Maybe I should capitalize that and make it a real world, that way I can get to it—today. Obsession. Actually, I don't know why I keep dismissing the project I'm currently obsessed with, as though I weren't obsessed, as though I were living in the fallow far-flung pole of no-obsession. I am obsessed! But it is not work at the easel, which is the real work of the painter, what is done at the easel or, as is also the case, the wall and/or the floor. Of course, I know that isn't true, strictly speaking, but paintings are what painters make, so also, it is true, even when it is not true because painters can do lots of work that is real work even if it isn't at the easel. I am making paintings I'm obsessed with, only they aren't paintings in the traditional sense, so I dismiss them as less than, even though they might possibly be greater than anything I've done before—certainly, they are greater than in size. But I am sure that what I'm saying makes no sense. Without specifics, nothing makes sense. It is a (specific) quirk of my writing that I could write a fairly long document without once stating anything truly specific, which might explain why no one reads what I write. A dog is barking. Now another dog is barking in response. Now they are both quiet. It was a short conversation. This is a self-abnegating paragraph, and for that I am sorry. My topic cancelled itself out by realizing, as it was unfolding, that it was a false premise. This is all my fault. I was not forward-looking, and I am too dismissive of the work I am putting into the project I am working on, which is a true and ongoing obsession, because it is so much like play and so captivating, it can't possibly count as Real Work (which is done at the easel). Please forgive me for leading you nowhere. This was not me in my aspect of trickster (the paragraph would read much cleverer then), it was me in my aspect of dull thinker. In my defense, I will tell you one more thing, and that is that I have to begin a new painting today (separate and apart from the project I am working on that has my blood singing its red song), and I have no idea, absolutely no idea what to paint. That's why I began this paragraph as I did, because I wish I knew, I wish I knew what to paint. Sometimes I know, sometimes I know at least the next five paintings I am going to make, that is the painter's enchantment!