1:01 a.m. The artists' lot is an odd lot indeed.

If you think you're an artist, you may not be one at all -- real artists usually don't think about the self in terms of occupation, but rather in terms of tool. I see. I touch. I shape. I fall in love over and over and over again.

Real artists don't wear costumes.

Real artists are always lost.

Real artists are never satisfied.

Especially, self-satisfied. How can the tool claim the paint? The camera blinks, but who owns the light? How can the self take credit for the inspiration?

Real artists are often far too happy for this world ...

The slightest breath of song, the familiar muscle that has learned to make a curve, the moment when you're lost in the moment ... no human heart can hold such joy. The overflow is what the world calls art.

... and far too sad.

Too many voices outside your head tell you to stop. Too many dollars float out of your reach. Too many people walk by without looking. Too many days go by without cease. Too many nights go by without dreams.

Real artists can only fail.

Failing, falling, diminishing, ending ... eventually you are lone witness at your own edge of the known universe. And here, there will be no more dragons.

So what should you do if you suspect you are a real artist?

Well, no amount of drugs or drinking or bashing or oblivion will take your suspicion away. You will still wake up and you will still look at the wall and you will still know.

Conversely, no amount of drugs or drinking or bashing will make you an artist. If you didn't have the vision before you uncorked the bottle, no amount of heavy labored breathing will ever turn your Merlot into a blushful Hippocrene.

Face it, my little artist friend: You were given a blessing that feels like a burden. You might try ignoring it at the party or leaving it behind in the school yard, but it will wail piteously through your faux office walls and claim you as its phantom limb when you try to pretend it's dead.

You might as well shoulder it, even though it will deform you, inform you, transform you. It is you.

Now, on the matter of awards and the artist: the honorific will be pinned directly into your skin. Do you still want it?