All the Time Lost

March 11, 2026

“All the Time Lost.” 6/8/25. acrylics and pigment ink on clock face. 28 inch diameter.

In early 2025, I’d been trying to embrace the notion that just because I can’t yet see that things are as they should be – that doesn’t mean they aren’t (or that they won’t be). It just means I can’t see it yet.

As summer crept up, I was not feeling so optimistic. I was thinking a lot about how I’d essentially lost all of my thirties to relapse. How even if my career was going well, it was not going anywhere near as well as it would be if I’d been at it all along.

I was thinking about how back in Round One,1 I was grateful for all of the tragedy and trauma in my life, grateful for my addiction and the time I’d lost to drugs — because all of that led me to art and a life that I enjoyed.

AND I WAS THINKING ABOUT THAT THING WE DON’T LIKE TO TALK ABOUT. And how it’s super fucking hard to be grateful for that. Because what did I get out of it? Eight years of relapse? Hurt, fear, distrust, resentment, and [insert OTHER BAD THINGS here]?

Looking back at my records, I’m kind of blown away by how well I did in those early months (and how quickly I started to take it for granted). The relapse may have cost me momentum, but wasn’t it still a minor miracle that I was able to pick back up as quickly as I did?

 It didn’t feel that way. I was making money, but – even when I’m doing well – if I’m not hitting new benchmarks of success, I start to feel like I’m spinning my wheels. I crave constant progress.

I’d been commissioned to paint A CLOCK, so time was very much on my mind. I titled my clock “ALL THE TIME LOST” and journaled my pessimism into it.

Not everything needs a positive spin. Some things are JUST BAD. If you wanna believe there’s a lesson in everything – sure. But those lessons are not always worth their cost.

“Everything works out in the end. If it hasn’t worked out, it isn’t the end.”

Oh yeah? Works out for who? Innocent people spend decades in prison. Some people DIE YOUNG. Is death an example of shit “working out?” We’ve all got main character syndrome. Someone else’s death isn’t our life lesson.

“Everything will be okay in the end.”

The end is death. If everything is “okay” when you die, it just means “nothing matters when you’re dead.” And “if it doesn’t matter now, then it never really did.”2

It was totally obnoxious but I wound up in the same place I always do:

Any logical conversation about meaning ends at nihilism. So – UGGGGGHHHH – we’ve gotta make our own meaning and make the most of the time we still have left. As ANNOYING AS THAT IS. (‘Cause “for better or worse, someday this will all be over”).3

That was about as positive a conclusion as I could get to. I journaled some more, thinking about the kinds of art walks and street markets I’d been selling my prints at. I was making job money but not runaway success money.

Everything has an opportunity cost. Am I wasting time on “sustenance money” at the expense of higher risk, lower immediate-return efforts that could pay off bigger later? Am I inadvertently branding myself as a street-level artist when I wanna be in high-end galleries? I’ve only been clean 14 months. Am I impatient? How often should I be hitting major achievements?

And BECAUSE THEY’RE NEVER FAR FROM MY MIND…

Signed, limited-edition “classroom” sized clocks are available for purchase in the webstore.

As for girls, the current dearth of FRESH CANDIDATES actually has me reconsidering investing my time and energy into saving/repairing one that’s still broken. 

I’m comfortable for now. I miss having a partner. If the rest of my life looked just like this but with a partner, I could be happy with that. But I’d like more.

By sometime in the fall, I had an epiphany: I was happier than I’d ever been. It occurred me that this was true even without a girlfriend. It had barely been a year since I’d been seeing someone but it was still the longest I’d ever gone. Was it possible my happiness was at least in part because I didn’t have a girlfriend?

I honestly can’t say but I do know it’s because (contrary to what I’d written) I did not go back to the girl I knew to be broken. And I didn’t go out with any other girls I met that weren’t emotionally where I needed them to be.

In the past, the moment I met a pretty girl that liked me, I was in. It didn’t matter if she was fucked up. I probably even liked it if she was a little fucked up. That was no longer true. I want someone who is both inspiring to and inspired by me. Someone who wants me but doesn’t need me. 

I’m not gonna pretend that the song title “(Holy Shit (I Can’t Believe)) I Still Don’t Have a Girlfriend”4 doesn’t regularly pop into my head. But lately I am hitting new benchmarks of success. AND I’M SO FUCKING BUSY EVERY DAY. Things are going really well and I don’t have the TIME to stress girls all that much.

It’ll WORK OUT when it’s supposed to.5

  1. “Round One” is what I call 2013-2015 – the three years I was making art before I relapsed and stopped for almost 9 years. ↩︎
  2. That’s a lyric from “The Politics of Starving” by Against Me! ↩︎
  3. Another lyric – from “My Staple Diet Of Rice, Vitamins, Alcohol, and Painkillers” by The Murderburgers. ↩︎
  4. A song by The Steinways. ↩︎
  5. I finished this painting/clock in June 2025 but wrote this statement for it in January 2026. ↩︎

Ever since the fire that burned down my bus/home, I’ve been hemorrhaging money. Luckily, I’ve also been making a lot of money. After getting ProPanels the last week of December, I started applying to “higher tier” events, like juried art festivals. I’ve been getting into most of them and it’s going well so far. This week though, I’ve got decisions coming in for six of them so CROSS YOUR FINGERS FOR ME. This week has the potential to make me feel like THE UNDISPUTED CHAMPION or to majorly bum me the fuck out. That said, I applied with a booth photo I took of my very first set-up (before I knew what I was doing) so… my future applications will be better. (That’s what I’ll tell myself anyway if things don’t go my way this week).

I don’t really use this “blog” for anything but adding art to the website and writing whatever’s on my mind right when I do that. If you want near-daily updates from me, I post all the time on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. There’s a bunch of stuff on there from the last month about THE FIRE, the new RV, the painting I’ve been working on for the last month, and lots of videos in which you can see how clever I think I am.

And check out the Events page. I’ve got stuff on there right now for the Carolinas, Atlanta, Kentucky, St Louis, Chicago, and I’ll add more as they’re confirmed.

Here are the three songs I mentioned:

(this is the best one)

Poetry by (2,025) Girls I’ve Brutally Fucked

January 13, 2026

“Poetry by (2,025) Girls I’ve Brutally Fucked” | 5/10/25* | acrylics on canvas | 12 x 24 in

I painted this as the front and back covers for a split 7-inch by Apocalypse Meow and Todd Congelliere. It was the first time I’d done a commissioned piece in my usual/expressive style instead of taking the more labored cartoon/illustration approach.

The caption (“I was talking to this girl I REALLY GAVE IT TO. She said she wrote a poem about it. A poem about my fucking. That made me smile.”) seemed a little much for a pop punk record so I replaced it with the band names on the actual record layout.

I hadn’t actually seen the poem yet when I made this, but I read it soon after.  Turns out it was only partially about “my fucking” and way more beautiful, affectionate, and insightful than I feel like I deserve. It’s really great and – in that way – makes me feel kind of shitty, even though I didn’t do anything wrong. We had sex, it was fun; we hung out, it was fun; and then we repeated that cycle a few times. I guess friendship and fucking don’t really go together without feelings developing.

I’ve been sleeping around lately, getting involved with different girls to different degrees; I’m probably asking for trouble. I’m probably about to fuck myself – one way or another. There’s a lot more I could write about all that but I don’t wanna push myself to be too honest / transparent right now. That feels okay.

There’s this other girl… I wrote (what I guess I’d call) a long prose poem about her and about my experience with her in the week after we met. I’d developed feelings of my own for her [how novel!] But I was conscious of the fact that – this sort of thing – it does happen fairly often with me. I wrote a little bit about that too:

I’ve got these fucking warm, fuzzy feelings for a lot of people. A lot of my friends – I love them, I hug them, all that. But when I have these feelings for girls [I’m attracted to] (it doesn’t matter how many) I love them and I also want to kiss them, sleep with them [etc.] I don’t think that’s wrong or weird but you’re not supposed to do that. You’re supposed to have feelings for one person that are strong enough that you don’t even want to connect with another person in that way. That seems like bullshit.

I don’t know… maybe I’m just selfish. Love and sex are all twisted up and make for difficultly-navigable terrain. I just wanna love and fuck without being confused.

Everything from here forward was written in May 2025. Everything written above this is from 12 years ago, in the period when I was the most girl-crazy and the most promiscuous. I was meeting lots of girls that wanted to sleep with me and I think I was just really excited about that because that, in itself, was sorta new. It was the first time (since I’d been a teenager) that I wasn’t in a committed, monogamous relationship, and it was the first time ever that I’d had confidence that I wasn’t entirely faking.

A year or so after all that though, I relapsed and then (another year or so later) I tried to kill myself. Right before the attempt, I lit my biggest painting on fire and then slashed and smashed the others. There were seven in all and – when I was FEELING BETTER – I started the process of stitching them all up with dental floss. This one wasn’t super torn up but it was so badly smashed that it needed to be stretched across new bars. For that reason, it was the last one I got around to restoring. I just did it recently but also decided that the painting itself needed some work. Like the actual art wasn’t up to my standards anymore. Which makes sense because I made it more than a decade ago. So that’s what I did. You can see the original “finished” version of the painting here.

This painting is not the kinda thing I’d make today. That thought in the fourth paragraph (about “asking for trouble”) is ESPECIALLY PRESCIENT. ‘Cause that’s exactly what happened – and to a more traumatizing degree than I could have ever imagined. But even though the sentiment of this painting is the kinda thing that could SEND THE WRONG MESSAGE in 2025, I don’t wanna change those elements of it. I like being honest. I like telling the full story. I’d just turned 28 and I’d spent most of the years prior in a single committed relationship. So now I was in a phase of experimentation. And I was pretty excited about it. And while I’m embarrassed by just about everything in this painting’s statement, I don’t really think I should be. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with rough sex or liking rough sex or even just figuring out what kinds of sex you like. So long as you’ve got a consenting, enthusiastic partner, be adventurous. Go for it. Do whatever. Life’s too short to not find happiness and fulfillment wherever you can.

This has no business being on the internet but I’m neurotic and can’t stand the idea of leaving something out of my “portfolio.” I’m very much taking advantage of the fact that my mailing list was lost in the domain transfer and very few people will be notified that this is now online.

All of This is Just to Get Girls to Like Me

November 18, 2025

The DEATH OF SAMMY THRASHLIFE – but first: my newest painting and its story.

All of This is Just to Get Girls to Like Me | 10/23/25 | acrylic on canvas | 24×36″

“Come inside with me,” Jon said. “I wanna show off how punk you are.”

Ooooo – that made me feel PRETTY COOL. I was fourteen years old and this older kid who played guitar and sang in a punk band thought I was SUPER PUNK.

We went inside THE KFC where he worked and he got his paycheck. When we got back in the car, he explained to me, “Yeah, I don’t really dress punk anymore. There’s no one in this town to be punk for. It’s definitely not gonna get you any girls. It’s still fucking cool though.”

I think the knee-jerk judgmental reaction is that Jon was wrong. That you should be yourself no matter what.1

But Jon was also just a kid navigating adolescence and figuring shit out (even if, to me, he couldn’t have been more of an ELDER STATESMAN; I mean, come on, he was in ELEVENTH GRADE).

(It’s also worth noting that we’re talking about clothing. An expression of identity but not identity itself. It’s not FUNDAMENTALLY IMPORTANT).

I respected him and thought about what he’d said. (OBVIOUSLY IT STUCK WITH ME ‘cause I’m writing about it 25 years later). But I didn’t tone my shit down any. I STILL HAVEN’T. (For better or worse).

The wrong reading of “All of This is Just to Get Girls to Like Me” is that I’m doing anything for that purpose. I’m not. What I am doing is being myself in the loudest manner possible. And I am hoping that these paintings, my writing, my BEHAVIOR, and my style will act as a BEACON to the girls that are already predisposed to finding them attractive. My hope is that all of these things provide a SHORTCUT to girls seeing who I am and what I’m about. 

I gotta say: it sure felt like it was a more effective tactic when I was doing this 10 to 12 years ago. My whole SCHTICK is not as attractive at 39 as it was at 28. But that’s okay. I’m a victim of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. That’s what addiction does to you. I’m also a victim of PUNK ROCK and its attendant Peter Pan Syndrome. I likely always will be.

Which is ALSO OKAY. As much as I sometimes get down on myself, I fucking like me. I THINK I’M SUPER COOL (and definitely still REALLY, REALLY PUNK).

When the time is right, the right girl will come along, see, and appreciate that too. ‘Cause I’m not super interested in girlS anymore. I want THE girl. (Even if I don’t know who she is yet).

Speaking of which, the text that’s actually in the painting reads:

ALL OF THIS IS JUST TO GET GIRLS TO LIKE ME
(More precisely, a girl. The right girl).

Do you THINK I’M SPECIAL YET? Do you wanna be my girlfriend now?

(Can’t you tell how thoughtful I am?
Don’t you hear THE MOUNTAIN GOATS SONG I’ve got playing?)

And then, written on the side of the canvas:

So I decided to cannibalize my own idea. One of my next paintings was gonna be called: “Girls Don’t Like Boys, Girls Like Weed and Target.” But let’s be real – that’s ‘cause it would SELL. There’s no EMOTIONAL TRUTH in that. So, instead, I made it part of this painting by filling space with Target logos and pot leaves. And now I can joke that it’s SUBLIMINAL MESSAGING.”

I advertise the borderline personality disorder diagnosis all the time, but I also suffer from a really serious disorder that CAUSES ME TO THINK I’M FUNNY. With god’s help, maybe one day they’ll find the cure.

  1. I don’t think it’s fair to direct this at Jon, but a PARTICULAR SONG comes to mind. ↩︎

It’s been 19 months since I got clean and almost a year since I crept out from the shadows and rejoined the world. Everything’s gone really well for me in that time. But I’m older than I was in ROUND ONE of my art career and Sammy thrashLife feels even sillier to me now than when I first jokingly coined it. So I’m in the process of “rebranding” with my real name.

The new logo, which only took two hours to make. (Not impressed?? Are you suggesting it shouldn’t take me that long to write my own name??)

I think I fell into a trap where I thought everything about me needed to pull focus. That I needed every element of my presentation to cast out a line to hook someone. “I have borderline personality disorder. I used to manage with heroin. Now I make art instead.” That’s all true but maybe I don’t need to LEAD with the backstory. Maybe I should let my art speak for itself. (IT CERTAINLY HAS PLENTY TO SAY). And then if people are interested, they can discover the rest.

So I’ve launched samnorth.art (and samnorthart.com, for anyone whose brain just CAN’T HANDLE a dot-art url) and will be building those out soon. And I’m gonna phase out “Sammy thrashLife” on all my banners, fliers, social media, etc.

The new site may not have a blog or a webstore. It’ll still have the statements for each painting and drawing but they’ll likely be a little more tucked away, rather than the focus. If I’m being HONEST, all of these changes are aimed at the way I’m perceived by high end galleries and collectors. I’ve got no interest in changing my artwork, changing my personality, or changing my BEHAVIOR, but if some minor adjustments to my presentation help to get me taken more seriously: COOL.

If that at all concerns you, please know that I wrote the statement for another painting last night, it directly addressed my desire to be “taken more seriously,” and yet I STILL COULDN’T HELP MYSELF from making it as raw, as fucking ridiculous, and as embarrassing as anything I’ve ever made. So much so that I’m nervous to share it. So if you’re a fan of all this, exactly as it is – don’t fret; Sam North is very much the exact same artist and writer as Sammy thrashLife.

Motivation (Will Work for Food (maybe) / Will Beat Off on Live Webfeed for Perfect Love and Acceptance)

March 25, 2025

“Motivation (Will Work for Food (maybe) / Will Beat Off on Live Webfeed for Perfect Love and Acceptance)” 12/26/24. Acrylic paint and pigment ink. 48×30″.

Allow me to SET THE SCENE for you: it’s 2013, I’ve been institutionalized for two years, but I’m finally gearing up to re-enter the real world. Part of that process is figuring out what my life’s gonna look like in the outside world. Where am I gonna live, what am I gonna DO FOR MONEY, etc, etc.

Strung out on heroin, I’d graduated by the skin of my teeth from Georgetown Law in 2011. But I discovered art in treatment and that’s pretty much all I wanna do now. I don’t know if it’s possible to make money from art, but I don’t really care. What do I need money for? I start researching communes where I could live for free and get fed in exchange for pitching in. But there’s a hitch in this plan. I NEED A GIRLFRIEND. I need GIRLS TO LIKE ME. And – at the time – my logic is such that I decide that this would at the very least, probably require a home with air conditioning, so that I’m not perpetually sweaty and smelly. And it turns out that a lot of these communes or “intentional communities” (as I learn they’re often called) do not have air conditioning. So that’s out. I’m gonna need money for the most basic of amenities afterall. WHAT TO DO…

(Before I tell you this next part, remember that OnlyFans didn’t exist in 2013 and similar sites were totally outside of mainstream consciousness; most people had never even heard of such a thing).

Two of my fellow inpatients approach me one day. “Hey, Sam – we just found out you can get paid just to masturbate on camera! There’s this site you can sign up for and they’ll pay you to beat off and record it!”

I laughed. “Uh… okay. So… what are you telling me? That you guys are gonna try it?”

“Fuck no! We’d never do something like that. But we figured you probably would!”

I laughed again. THEY WEREN’T WRONG. I despised the idea of getting pretty much any kind of a job. It felt like prostitution to sell my time, doing something I didn’t enjoy, just for a paycheck. But masturbating for a paycheck… while, arguably, a little closer to literal prostitution, it didn’t feel that way to me. Doing something on camera that I’d be doing sometimes anyway – if I could get paid for that, that seemed like a pretty good deal.

So that’s the background of this joke. “Will work for food (maybe)” = I’m not willing to get a job just to survive. (The “maybe” in that statement – it’s a lie; I will not work for food). “Will beat off on live webfeed for perfect love and acceptance” = But I will masturbate on camera if that pays enough money to facilitate the circumstances that would need to exist in order for me to find a loving partner.

I chose the phrase “perfect love and acceptance” because that’s what I was really after. I’m a broken fucking child. I just want someone to tell me I’m good. To love me as I am.

By the time the painting was almost finished, I was still in treatment but had already found a girlfriend. I was still living at the facility but – at this stage – was allowed to have a phone. I met a girl on Facebook that would visit me on weekends. I was even able to file requests that would allow me to leave the property with her for up to two hours at a time. Normally, this sort of thing would never be allowed. Patients weren’t supposed to date for at least a year after getting out of treatment (let alone while they were still living there). In my case however, the treatment team had decided that I was so ROMANTICALLY INCORRIGIBLE that there was no way I wasn’t gonna get into a relationship once I was back in the outside world and – the way they saw it – better to let it start before I left so that they could keep an eye on it and help guide me through any issues that might arise.

Quick aside: that was probably the best thing about Tranquil Shores and why it was the first program that worked for me. Not because they let me do whatever I wanted (they definitely didn’t; they even KICKED ME OUT at one point but – when I learned my lesson, they let me back in). What made Tranquil Shores so great… – every treatment center promises “individualized care,” but Tranquil Shores was the first facility that actually seemed to understand what that meant and deliver on it. It was not a “one size fits all” approach to recovery. They recognized the nuances of each patient and tailored their treatment plans accordingly. Another facility would have prohibited me from dating – knowing full well it would happen anyway – and then it wouldn’t start until I was out on my own without the support system of a full treatment team. Tranquil Shores worked with reality, not some idealized vision of what they wished reality to be.

[EDITORIAL INTERRUPTION: These last two paragraphs were all leading to the revelation of a particular detail that I’ve decided I’m not going to include after all. BUT I’M STILL GOING TO LEAVE THOSE TWO PARAGRAPHS IN THE STATEMENT ANYWAY. I do what I want. (If you wanna know THE SECRET I WAS GONNA TELL though, just ask me and I’ll tell you)].

Flash forward to the future/present day. After all, everything I’ve just told you only takes us up to early 2013 and yet this painting is from 2024…? That’s ‘cause it’s version TWO POINT OH. When I painted the self-portrait holding the two signs, I’d just discovered my passion for art but WASN’T GOOD AT IT YET. Not visually. The version of this from 2013 looks terrible. BUT I STILL LOVE THE CONCEPT and I wanted to have prints of it in my inventory. That meant I had to recreate it. Or – more accurately – make a new painting that just featured that main component (the kid holding the two signs).

And – more importantly – these days, I’m in a very similar place to where I was when I got out of Tranquil Shores. When I came up with this concept, I was maybe 7 months clean for the first time since I’d become addicted to heroin. And when I started this new painting, I was six months clean after coming out of a nine-year relapse. In both instances, I was single for the first time in YEARS and very much in the process of rebuilding my life, essentially from scratch. The feelings that swirl around those two cardboard signs (“will work for…” / “will beat off on…”) are VERY MUCH RELEVANT AGAIN. The idea of using this concept to make a painting I could be proud of was exciting to me. So that’s what I did.

There’s a little journal scribbled on the canvas, about how much had changed in the two months since I’d started the painting. I’d bought an RV, was preparing to move out of the apartment I’d gotten with my friends (after getting clean in April); (for the first time in 9 years) I’d started actually going out in public to sell my art (I’d only been selling online since April). I write that I feel good about the money I’m now making but also my anxiety about whether it’ll continue and some other (logistical) things that were stressing me out.

Elsewhere, I wrote: “Anything I have is just something I can lose.” There’s a comfort in having nothing. But once you start to get things back… you’re at risk of losing them – and that can be painful.

On a seemingly (but not at all) related note, I also wrote the word “possession” even though I was thinking about “cupidity.” “Cupidity” is greed for wealth, material goods, and/or power but – in my mind – I’ve REDEFINED it to be more like greed for a PERSON. (I mean, come on: most of the word is CUPID; it should mean something related to ROMANCE). So I think of it as that feeling when you like (or love) someone and want them to be your partner – for good, nice reasons: sure – but also because you DON’T WANT ANYONE ELSE TO HAVE THEM. I think of it as a jealous, controlling kinda thing. It was on my mind in relation to everything I wrote about in my previous painting, “She’s Cut With Xylazine.”

On the sides of the canvas I wrote a couple other things that I didn’t necessarily want to be visible to anyone but the painting’s eventual owner – or anyone who sees it in person that cares enough to really look closely from all angles. 

I also wrote: “I just wanna fall in love again. I want it so badly.”

And I wrote the words girls, love, and sex over and over again in a loop (“GIRLS LOVE SEX GIRLS LOVE SEX GIRLS LOVE SEX…”) because of (and IN THAT ORDER for) OBVIOUS REASONS. (Because those things occupy a lot of real estate in my mind; in that order because I THINK I’M FUNNY).

The moment I finished this painting, I started work on “Peeing in the Pool (of Tears (You’re Drowning In)),” which goes in another direction. But the story of my recovery (and my life right now) very much continues in the painting that I’d make next. The primary text on it says: “Everything Works Out Exactly as It Should (is Something I’ve Been Trying to Get Myself to Believe Again).” I’m planning to add it to the site tomorrow so check back soon. [Update: It’s up. You can see/read about it now].

Wanna know what I’ve been up to lately? I’ll tell you in in tomorrow’s blog entry.

Prints of “Motivation” are now on sale in the webstore. Send a message to find out if the original painting is still available for purchase or to order a larger, custom giclée.

She’s Cut with Xylazine

October 4, 2024

“She’s Cut with Xylazine” 9/29/2024. Acrylic paint. 24×20″

My next painting was “pre-purchased” before it was started. The only request was “could it please be one of the journal heavy paintings?” That was a bit of a problem. My journals from August are so boring. I was really happy and complacent. They are not interesting. Really just a collection of “here’s what I did today” entries. Because “she” and I were spending every day together. She’d signed a lease on a studio apartment just one block from mine. I’d held to the idea that we shouldn’t move in together right away. That we should take it a little more slowly and cautiously. But we were having such a great time together. Even when my grandpa was in the hospital, she came with me every single day and was so good and kind and supportive. Two days before she was set to move in, I asked, “how often are we gonna do overnights together?” “Every night,” she said. I still thought it was important that we have our own apartments, but why wouldn’t I want to go to sleep every night and wake up every morning next to her? That she wanted the same made me very happy.

She’d always been the partner in the relationship who loved more. She was more in love with me than I with her. But she was so insecure when we met that she never really let me fall all the way in love with her. And then I was on drugs. Our relationship dynamic was a natural consequence of those two things. But now, totally clean, I was excited to be equally in love with her and not take her for granted at all. It made me very happy to show someone that kind of love.

The day before her move she said she was scared. I’ll cut to the chase. She didn’t move. And then she changed her mind. And then she changed her mind about changing her mind. And that cycle went on until the apartment was gone and she’d burned through all the money that’d been set aside for her move. She was stuck and I was tired of being dicked around. I blocked her number. (This is the very short version. What she actually put me through after the first failure-to-move was both agonizing and agonizingly drawn out).

My painting would get PLENTY of journals now.

I know it makes me sound like a FUCKING PSYCHOPATH but it makes me ANGRY that we’re not together.

SO MANY lost experiences that should have been shared. [Every time I see something that makes me smile, I want her to be there with me – or I at least want to tell her about it. I want those to be her smiles too. But she’s out of the picture now. We don’t share anything].

A friend of mine died this week.

Her circumstances were remarkably similar to this person I’m writing about. Trapped in a bad situation. Paralyzed by fear. Using substances incredibly recklessly to cope. When she could have just walked away. But she didn’t want to admit defeat. She’d tried a new kind of relationship – if she broke up and moved out, it would be another failure. (SO WORRIED about how other people see us, ready to literally die first; talk about tragic and pointless).

I was talking to another friend after we learned of the death. She was having a hard time but said it was made easier by the fact that people in her life depend on her. “Gotta keep going for them. Simple as that.” It reminded me very much of where this next journal (written a couple weeks ago) goes.

I’m not trying to be all melo-fucking-dramatic but what’s the point? What good reason is there to not kill myself? [It’s so hard to even get my thoughts in the right order].

I know she loves me and yet we’re not together. I know I make her happy in a way no one else ever has or maybe ever could. And she makes me happy.

The thought of even trying to find someone else seems so fucking stupid. How could I ever love anyone else as much as I love her?

She will come back to me eventually but can I even take her back then? If I let her take me for granted, she will take me for granted. And it won’t 

work out. She’ll never be happy in a relationship where she feels like she has all the power, or where her actions don’t have consequences. Is she too broken for it to even work out anyway?

I’m not sure there’s anything in the world that I love doing enough purely for its own sake that it’s enough to make me happy without her. Making art makes me happy but not enough that… 

FUCK! I’m so lost.

If I’m with her, I have the drive to be more successful. If I’m not with her, I need the drive to be more successful or else I’ll never be happy.

If I have her, I’m willing to do what I need to do to make money off my art more aggressively. Because then it’s for something. But if it’s me alone, who cares about making any more than I need to live?

It hurts to love someone so much and not be able to have them. I made it too easy for her. Maybe disconnecting is what I needed to do to get through to her. That feels like a “game” but maybe that’s what it takes with her.

What I need to do is just be patient, let whatever happens happen, not stress about her or about not being in a relationship, and just do my best whether it’s for her, someone I don’t know yet, or [duh] myself. It’s just so hard to be totally self-motivated AND – let’s face it – I’m just always starved for love, attention, and validation.

The next section of text in the painting is the “untitled prose poem” that I shared last month. It’s heavy on the kind of SALACIOUS stuff that generates clicks. It’s also really honest because it wasn’t written with a mind of it ever having an audience. It was maybe a letter that I was going to send, maybe just for myself. Click this link and it’ll open in a new window. Then you can come back here.

My dreamgirl versus THE LIE SPIDER…

“My dreamgirl” is a phrase I used in a letter I wrote to her. I’m not going to share it here (because it was private and) because I don’t want to romanticize this relationship right now. And – at the risk of TOOTING MY OWN HORN – the letter is VERY romantic) “I read it everyday,” she once told me.


BUT… (next journal from the painting):


Maybe I’m not in love with you. Maybe I’m just in love with the idealized version I have of you in  my head. Maybe I shouldn’t have to make so many excuses for you. Maybe the fact that all of this is so “complicated” and requires so many explanations to make sense – maybe that tells me everything I need to know. Maybe I should believe you when you show me who you are. Maybe actions speak louder than words. I like to pride myself on my ability to see through your lies and get the truth out of you, but maybe I’m still not getting the whole truth. Maybe you’re just as dishonest with me as you are with him and I’m a bigger sucker than I realize. I don’t really think that’s true but it’s probably more true than I want to believe. You didn’t earn your nickname for nothing. You are the LIE SPIDER.

And she really is. The nickname goes way back. It wasn’t even really derogatory, just matter-of-fact. Because she will lie about anything. She will lie when the truth is fine. And then she has to tell another lie to cover the first lie. And then another. And eventually there’s a whole complicated web of lies to keep track of. “You are a lie SPIDER,” I’d once told her in a moment of (good-natured but nevertheless) exasperation. The name stuck because it would earn its relevance again and again with every new web of lies.

I was thinking about how much clean time I have now,

how little I’m tempted by drugs (not at all), and how this situation with her (everything before, plus now having her blocked from contacting me) was so much like a withdrawal. And how I was having such a hard time with it. How “relapse” was so tempting to me. I could easily have her back in the same way I’d had her before. She still wanted me. She just wasn’t willing to do what I needed her to do for her own sake – for her own well-being and happiness. But if I was okay with a sick girl, that was still on the table. But I don’t want a sick girl. I want a healthy, happy life with a healthy, happy partner. I started to journal about it when I hit on something. 

She’s the drug I can’t stay away from.

I need to think of her like I’d think of heroin. I can’t afford to relapse. Just one time runs the risk of pulling me back in and starting the cycle all over again.

It’s easier staying clean now that heroin doesn’t exist anymore and all the fentanyl is cut with xylazine. Shooting up isn’t comforting in the way it used to be. It’s not the easy, stressless escape that she still is. I still love the way she makes me feel. Ooooo – shit. But that’s the thing. I love the way she used to make me feel – or could make me feel IN THEORY. But the reality of the situation is that she’s so broken right now that she just makes a mess of everything and leaves me feeling worse. Just like the drugs would. It’s like SHE’S CUT WITH XYLAZINE. She’s THE GIRL CUT WITH XYLAZINE. She’s necrotic.

God damn – that’s a PERFECT metaphor. “Until they get the xylazine out” (of her), she’s too overloaded with poison to serve any purpose. She should be avoided at all costs. No good can come from her.

[Very quickly, xylazine is an inexpensive veterinary tranquilizer mixed (or cut) into opiates to increase volume and, consequently, profit. It doesn’t provide a euphoric high; it simply knocks the user out. The real issue though is that it rots the skin off your fucking body. Xylazine has completely infected America’s illicit opiate supply].

That really crystallized it for me.

For the next week, I was able to focus entirely on my work, get a ton done, and just generally be in a better mood. The drugs I was addicted to don’t exist in the same way anymore. And the girl I was in love with doesn’t exist in the same way anymore.

That said, I’m not gonna pretend that I’ve totally gotten her off my mind (in the way I have with drugs) or that I don’t still secretly hope that something will change and she’ll become “xylazine-free,” but – at least until that happens – it’s made it much easier to not be consumed by her or to get pulled back in to her shitty cycles of destruction.

Part of me still feels like I need to be there for her. I really do worry that she may die. But I did everything I could to try to help her. And she wasted my efforts and then I did it again. And again. And again. If something happens, I’ll be fucking furious (and devastated) but not at myself. For me to continue trying right now would be insane. She’s got to want to get better herself. She’s got to take at least one step on her own. And I’m not saying what would or wouldn’t happen at that point or what I would or wouldn’t do, but that doesn’t matter anyway. I. can’t waste my energy trying to predict or plan for something that’s totally out of my control (and may never happen). I can’t help someone who refuses to be helped. It’s not selfish to worry about, to prioritize me. To take care of me. (SOMEONE HAS TO). And the other people in my life that I care about. I’ve got enough on my plate without taking on XYLAZINE PROBLEMS.

all images on the site are fairly low-res but click/tap for a larger image with somewhat clearer details. for a truly high-resolution image, BUY THE PRINT 😜


Hey! I finally set up a webstore to sell prints! You can buy your very own 14×11-inch “She’s Cut with Xylazine” print today! Not only will you get a beautiful, provocative piece of art for your home, but I’ll get to continue sleeping indoors!

Thanks so much to everyone who supports my work. Whether you buy, share on social media, drop a comment, or even just take the time to read this stuff, I can’t express how much it means to me. I couldn’t do this in a vacuum. You all are what keep me going.

And speaking of “keep me going,” I now have FIVE MONTHS CLEAN off any/everything again! Time flies when you’re an emotional basket case!

Update (April 2025): This painting is currently hanging in THE RINGLING MUSEUM OF ART. If you’re reading this anytime prior to July 30th (2025), you can go SEE IT IN PERSON.

untitled prose poem

September 8, 2024

I wrote a stream-of-consciousness prose poem. It doesn’t have a title. It may or may not find its way into the painting I’m working on right now. It’s about the girl who says she can’t live without me – and the guy that she rebounded with when we broke up – who she’s still living with because she’s too piss-scared of change to crawl out of her rut.

If you’re going to cling to a safety net
Could you at least choose one that’s less pathetic?
A chronic masturbator, jerking off in his car
Into socks that he lets pile up in the back seat…

I know you like having someone you know will never leave you
Or hold you accountable for anything
But how about a chronic masturbator
who jerks off into tissues that he throws away?

‘Cause it’s embarrassing having to try to explain
Why we’re not together
Even though you’re in love with me
That this is a tough choice for you
DOES NOT REFLECT WELL ON ME

I think you’re afraid to be in a healthy relationship
Which is why you never leave the bad ones
I know you’ll try to come back to me
(Because you’re still trying)
But I know you’ll try harder
You will eventually make a real effort
But even if I took you back for real
And we made a real go of it
I don’t think you’d stick around
Because you wouldn’t be comfortable
With someone who makes you happy
With someone you like fucking
With someone who loves you
And dotes on you
You’re too used to neglect
And alienation
And watching TV on separate couches
And sleeping in the same bed
Without ever making physical contact

It breaks my fucking heart
How scared you are
How broken you are
How much fun we have
How much love we have
Until you self-sabotage
So I pull back
And you go back
To living alone
In a house with someone else
Where you drink
And cry
And are always sick
And never happy
Until we reconnect again
And you start to heal
And start to love
And start to smile
And laugh
And everyone can see how happy you are
And how in love we are
Until you fuck it up all over again
And the cycle goes on

I’m too old now
To be wasting time repeating the same mistakes
I’m ready to be happy
It breaks my heart
That it won’t be with you

Because you’re everything I want
You’re my dream girl
I can’t imagine
Being more attracted to
Having more fun with
Having better sex with
Sharing more love with
Anyone else
You’re perfect
Except for that one little thing
Inside of your brain
That nullifies everything else
That makes it all worthless
Because it’ll never work
Because you’re too afraid
to just let yourself be happy

And you hate yourself so much
You can’t believe anyone could really love you
Unless there’s something wrong with them
So you stay stuck in your rut
With someone that you know you at least have control over
Because he’s the personification of a wet paper bag
Except that wet paper bags
Don’t get drunk and watch Andrew Tate videos
Or have a dozen jizz-crusted socks in the backseat of their car
You can cheat on him
(And show him videos of you cheating on him)
Show him what it looks like when you’re with someone else
Who you actually love
And actually fuck
And enjoy it
You can scream at him
You can say awful things to cut him down
To make him feel totally worthless
You can be cruel
Because you resent him
Because he doesn’t make you happy
And he’ll just take it
And resent you
But never leave
Just sulk
And get drunk
And text you Andrew Tate videos

That’s the life you’re choosing
That’s what you’re afraid to let go
It’s a tragedy
A genuine fucking tragedy
Because unlike the movies
This won’t have a happy ending
Unless you make it happen
And I don’t think you can

Update from two days later (Tue, Sep 10): The same day that I wrote this (but before I’d posted it) I got a phone call from someone on this girl’s behalf. I was told that she’d been looking at keepsakes of her father (who died a little over a year ago) and had come to the realization that she didn’t want to waste one more single day of her life living without me. I was asked to please call her and hear her out. I was skeptical when she gave me all the usual lines. She was going to officially break it off with that guy and let him know that she was moving out at the end of the month. She also told me she’d already found a couple of prospective apartments. She begged me to believe her and give her another shot. I told that, frankly, I didn’t believe her but that she could come over. So that night, she asked me to pick her up. When I told her I was outside, she told her sockboy (actually, we usually call him “Lumpy” but his real name is Brett) that she was going to the kitchen for a glass of water, but instead came out and got in the car. She stayed the night and – when I dropped her back off the next day – she said she was gonna tell Lumpy the truth about everything when he got home from work and that she’d call me the next morning to come pick her up so we could spend the day together.

Instead, she texted me just to say, “I’m an idiot.” I called to ask what that meant (as if I didn’t already know) and she said that she’d only gotten as far into the conversation with Lumpy to say that things weren’t working out, but hadn’t been able to muster the courage to tell him the full truth about her and I, or that she was planning on moving out. I asked if she was still planning on moving out and – oh so predictably – she said she didn’t know. Said she needed “time” to figure it out. Even though I had already been giving her all the time and space in the world and she reached out to me (as always) to once more say she was certain now.

So I’m cutting off communication again. And hoping that’s the last time I get dragged through that same cycle. I could make excuses for why I keep letting it happen or explain what I think needs to happen for me to stop but I’ll just leave it at that for now.

Oh, wait – one more thing. Remember the part where I mentioned that she sent Lumpy a video of me fucking her in order to hurt his feelings? While drunk, he told her that he had kept the video. Because he jerks off to it. Probably while sitting in his car. Into a sock. That’s probably still lying in his back seat. What a champ. Cheers, Brett Riddick. Or Reddick. Or whatever the fuck your name is. If anyone ever has cause to Google your name one day, I hope they find this page.

SECOND UPDATE!: This poem is now also a TikTok video because 🤪.

Mental Health Services Available to Strippers, Junkies, Cutters, and Other SICK GIRLS

April 17, 2019

“Mental Health Services Available to Strippers, Junkies, Cutters, and Other SICK GIRLS.” 12/6/17. Acrylic paint. 3×4′.

WE ARE ATTRACTED (AND ATTRACTIVE) TO THOSE WITH EQUIVALENT LEVELS OF MENTAL HEALTH. 

I was single for the first time in years, painting for the first time since I’d relapsed, and wanted something that functioned as an ad to put on my Tinder profile. A painting that said: “Hey! Are you a SICK GIRL?! Well, CHECK ME OUT! ‘Cause if you’re seriously damaged, we’re a PERFECT MATCH!” Only as the painting was nearly finished, did I come up with…

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES AVAILABLE TO STRIPPERS, JUNKIES, CUTTERS, AND OTHER SICK GIRLS

I was extremely pleased with myself. That self-satisfaction salved a lot of the anxiety I’d felt as I painted and journaled across the canvas all month.

In addition to the sentence that opens this statement, the painting is filled with those small-print journals:

Yo – I am super fucking codependent. It’s been maybe two weeks that I’ve been “single” and I’m already fiending like a lonely little sad sack. Painting helps but it’s weird on a back porch instead of on the street with an audience and a stream of validation and girls.

I keep thinking if I could just find the right record to listen to or the right colors to energize me or the right title to plaster across this thing, I might get excited to paint and not just want to go lay down. I’m smoking way too many cigarettes, sitting out here, NOT painting.

I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

People say shit like, “You don’t know how good you had it ’til you lost it.” I don’t know if I knew [before my relapse]. I honestly might have. (Certainly at times; in moments, I knew how lucky I was). One thing I know absolutely: I DON’T HAVE IT THAT GOOD ANYMORE. But I still got something. I still got some things (people, a bed, whatever) to be grateful for. I’m thinking maybe this is one of those times to realize how good I got it before I don’t anymore…

I’m not sure what’s motivating my behavior. I mean, I know I’m codependent. I miss her. But I’m not doing everything I could to get her back to me. Is that what I should be doing? I’ve been chasing other  girls… “Chasing” is a strong word. I’m barely even casting my line out. But is it even fair to do that? Am I even looking for anyone as more than a temporary substitute until I can have her again? (I don’t like that I’m writing this, knowing it’ll soon be public record [on my website, where I publish everything I make]. No girl wants to be a placeholder. I’m not doing myself any favors putting this out there). Whatever.

I’m lonely but I miss her. I’m lonely because I miss her. I miss her because I’m lonely. At least one of those is true. (Or more true than the others). I don’t know which one. I absolutely love her. But do I need her back because I love her or just because I’m codependent? 

I’m having plenty of fun without her. I probably wouldn’t go out as much if she were here. But part of that is because I’d be more content just being at home with her. Content. With her. That sounds like not a bad thing. 

If we’re apart for long enough for her to get over me, which I’m piss-scared of, I need to be (ready to be) over her. That’s probably not gonna happen unless I meet someone else. A right someone else. That doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world but, in my current state, doesn’t seem super likely. Then again, the sale of a painting or two could drastically change my “current state.”

GIRLS AND MONEY. [That’s what it always comes down to with me]. I’m no more substantial than mainstream hip hop. AWESOME.

This little bit of clean time and my return to art wouldn’t last long. I sold a few paintings and used the money to buy a motorcycle, bring Wallis down to Sarasota (where I was living), and get us our own apartment. By June 2018, I was fully back on heroin and off art.

Though I’d get one more (even shorter) bit of clean time at the end of 2018, the relapse as a whole lasted more than 8 years (2015-2024). Only at the very end of 2024 did I finally start to get my life and art career back on track.

There’s another bit of text in the painting that says, “All my girlfriends have scars.” I tied this to the statement about attraction between people with equivalent levels of mental health – the implication being that my girlfriends’ self-harm scars mirror my own damage (external and internal). As I’ve noted previously, quite a few of the girls I’ve dated have been cutters. Certainly not by design. I’m usually too oblivious to even clock self-harm scars initially. I once had the experience of noticing a girl’s extensive scarring only after waking up next to her.

What you’re reading, this is the second statement I’ve written for this piece. The first was drafted during the second pause in my relapse. That draft closed with this passage:

My new girlfriend, Juliana, has a history with self-harm.  As time passes, I’m hoping it proves to be just that: history. But, in any case, it’s no coincidence that she (LIKE ME) “suffers” from some mental health issues. Honestly, if she didn’t – if she were completely well-adjusted – I have a hard time believing that she’d have any interest in me. She’s just too wonderful. Really, her only issue is insecurity. Especially when it comes to my past with other girls. THIS ARTIST’S STATEMENT IS CERTAINLY EXACERBATING THAT. She cannot handle anything involving my past with other girls. I don’t know exactly why it’s such a sensitive area for her but I know that [in] her previous relationships, she has not had the loving partners she deserves. I’m proud that she s already repeatedly tells me that no one has ever treated her as well as I do and that I make her very happy. It’s my hope that – just in loving her and treating her well – I’ll be able to help her feel secure, safe, and loved. Which isn’t to say she’s a “project” for me to “fix,” but I can’t deny that the title of this painting still has some application to my life.

So we’re both sick but I think we’re good for each other.

WE’LL SEE HOW IT GOES…

So how did it go? 

NOT WELL. Her insecurity, jealousy, and (as I’d soon discover) secret alcoholism would coalesce into violent fits of rage. I should have just walked away but my codependency kept me locked in and kickstarted me back into relapse. When I finally got clean in 2024, it was only because we’d just finally broken up.

I’m no longer interested in “strippers, junkies, cutters, and other sick girls.” I’m no longer willing to go all in with the first hot girl that likes me, regardless of her mental health. I’ve now been single for longer than any point since I was 14. My next partner can (like me) have a history with mental illness but (like me) needs to come pre-fucking healed.

Love and chaos can be exciting but I’m ready for love and stability.

12×16-inch prints of “SICK GIRLS” are available for purchase in the webstore. For availability and pricing of my original paintings, send a message.

As noted, I wrote a draft of this statement back in 2019. For historical purposes, you can read it here.

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