Went to Jerry’s Artarama. Thought “Hmm, I’m not confident I can find it again–better Mapquest it and print it out.” Which I did. The directions were clear and easy to follow, and thus, in record time, I arrived.

At their shipping depot.

Which is not a store, but rather the warehouse. Because I’d grabbed the shipping address, not the store address. Because I am something which resembles an idiot.

I called James on the cel phone. He laughed uproariously for awhile, then found me the correct address and tried to dictate directions. I took them. I followed a road that was supposed to cross another road, but instead became a succession of different roads wandering through a set of housing developments. I re-found the original road. I called James again. He expressed bafflement at how I had managed to get where I was. There may have been a tesseract involved. He got me headed in the right direction–sort of–and told me to take Buffaloe street to the right. Buffaloe did not go right. It was one of those streets that has a different name on both sides of the street, so what was Buffaloe on one side was New Hope Church on the other.

Thoroughly buffaloed, I called James again. For those keeping score at home, that’s three times. I took the street that wasn’t Buffaloe, but which should have been. I found my way to the art supply store, after some fairly dangerous swerving wildly into lanes, which I tend to do when I get really flustered and see an important sign, and the sign and corresponding lane become much more important than, oh, whether there’s anybody in the lane I’m about to rocket into. This is not a good habit to have, believe me, and only partially mitigated by the fact that I also have the reflexes of a small, frightened mammal. (‘Course, I’ve never gotten in an accident or gotten a ticket yet, so I’m really not that bad a driver. I just think I am.)

I finally arrived–called James so he wouldn’t worry–and bought the stuff I needed, a hot press watercolor block, some interesting canvas, and some hot press watercolor sheets. Perused their mini-canvases–gotta do more of the little froggies, since they’re a good saleable size for cons. Then I called James again, who directed me home. Got lost immediately, went the wrong direction on the relevant freeway, turned around, and headed home with my fingers slowly grinding the steering wheel into powder.

When they said I’d have to suffer for my art, I’m pretty sure this isn’t what they had in mind.