I really like this piece and what you said about grammar is 100% right and I follow that same rule as well. You did an amazing job on this. The only thing that I would add was a little more description of yourself, the other character and your surroundings. Add a little of those three and you are looking at a published piece. Bravo!

Okay, there needs to be some more character description between you and your character. By common writing rule, after each line of a conversation you need a new line, such as: "Top of the morning to ya," Bob said as he passed "Same," I said as I looked down at my shoes as I walked by... and it is just those little things taht need to be fixed.

The basis of this story is amazing. I love it. However, there are some questions. Like why the sentence structure? Why is there no character description? Why is there next to no characters? Is this really a short non fiction story or a Monologue? Decide what you want this to be and expand. But you have a goos start thus far.

You have fallen into the same trap that most people have when they are writing a story in the first person, you fall into the "I" trap. I this and I that. You need to reread your story and change it around a little bit so you can get out of using I every time that you are talking about yourself and add some character description as well.

This is a good start. But we need to get some character description of yourself and the others that are in the story. Add that and you will have an amazing story that is sure to be published.

This is an interesting piece. For an essay, it is good, but I don't know if this would be good enough to be published. It is missing some energy, activity. I would suggest that if you wanted to get into essay book writing, I would look for some David Sedaris or Charles Bukowski. It would be interesting if you were able to put a little of them into your writing. You would be able to have an AMAZING piece. Best of luck to you.

how does this reflect an artist life?

it is a good quote written by a true writer. Congrats.

it is interesting the way you wrote the last part of this. Is it that you where just interested in the person in a lustful way or was there something more? I would rewrite that to say something that isn't so player like.