"I've never seen such -- such beautiful shirts before."

Artists, as we all know, tend to have addictive personalities. My best guess is that it's because in order to create anything of significance you have to be rather addicted to the art itself. You sort of have to give yourself over to it in the same way that an alcoholic loses control of themselves.

I have thankfully managed to avoid substance abuse problems thus far in my artistic career, but that doesn't mean I'm free of addictions. Here's my latest:

(not pictured - the stripey one, which is in the laundry, and the pale blue one, which I'm, um, wearing right now.)

That's right, tank tops. Specifically, ribbed cotton tank tops of the sort that one might call "wifebeaters" except I don't have a wife and if I did I'm not all up in the domestic violence. They're about five bucks apiece at Old Navy, and every time I go in, they suck me in and I buy a couple more. I can't escape it - there's always a new sale, or a new color. It's most embarrassing when I go up to purchase them and realize that I am actually wearing one at the time of purchase. The clerks usually don't comment on it, but I know somewhere in the back of their minds it registers, and they know me for what I am.

But there are worse things to be hooked on, I suppose. These are comfortable, versatile, they look good, they last pretty well, and it saves me having to figure out what I'm going to wear on any given day. I have actually worn one of these things to work every day this week. I rather like the symmetry of them in my dresser drawer, all stacked up in neat identical piles.

Call it my nod to Jay Gatsby, albeit a very, very low-budget nod.