Chapter Four Inking, Being Groggy, Doing the Work

Hello Dear Readers, I am writing to you from The Groggy Place. 

Yesterday I took Kiddo and we both got our dose of both a COVID booster and a flu shot. I was expecting to be a little sleepy, maybe have a bit of a headache. I was not expecting to get the shakes and the cold sweats. 

So sleep was already not great when, at 4 o'clock in the morning, there was a loud clatter from somewhere in the house. Probably the kitchen, though a half-awake brain is not the best judge of such things. It sounded like lots of stuff had fallen over, a total cacophony. Maybe some of Kiddo's stuff fell off a shelf. There were burglars in the house, I thought. Or worse: mice.

I got up and scoured the house, shambling from room to room, but could find nothing. Had I imagined it? I checked on Kiddo. He was awake, and had heard the noise, so the good news was that I wasn't crazy, but now I was going to stay with Kiddo til he fell back asleep.

We have a suction-cup hanger in the bathroom that holds a squeegee for cleaning the glass. Every now and then — maybe twice a year — its suction powers give up, and both the holder and the squeegee fall, bouncing off the tile bench and onto the tile floor, probably bouncing a few more times than is strictly necessary to satisfy the rules of physics, feeling the same jazz-percussionist freedom of expression that Kiddo must feel when he wails away on the pots and pans. I had not considered this, though, because my exhausted brain had transformed it into something completely different.

In the morning, frustrated by the way I had turned on all the lights and rummaged throughout the house, my lovely partner asked, "if it had been mice, what would you have done?" Which is a GOOD POINT. A good point for someone who is thinking clearly.

(Note: this is not intended to be a plea for sympathy. I'll assume you're all patting me on the back, saying, "there, there." If you would like to sympathize, tell me about your living-with-mice stories. We occasionally had them at our old home, and the fact that they were so cute made it even more frustrating that they would poop under our oven.)

- - - -

Hey, I've started inking the pages that I thumbnailed back in this video!

This whole scene is why I was recently digging up my anatomy books. The flagbearer gets a lot of screen time and he is so semi-nude.

There's a panel in there where one of the captain's arms is 20,000 leagues long (I didn't take a photo of it because I am embarrassed). It's strange to encounter mistakes like that. I end up thinking, "how did I not notice this earlier?" I'm grateful for the ability to fix it digitally.

- - - - -

Regardless of what you're pursuing in your own life, regardless of how creative it may or may not be, I hope you get as much as I did from this Elizabeth Gilbert quote, taken from an Oliver Burkeman (Four Thousand Weeks) presentation:

There is something about this that really gets me. Who's misty-eyed? It is not me, surely not me. And, for the record, I think PDAP is coming along great — I really, honestly do — but that doesn't mean this can't be true sometimes, too. I think it must be true for everyone.

- - - - -

We went halloweening the other night and our little 3-year-old bravely knocked on doors and (like a little mouse) squeaked, "trick or treat!" This is a first! He wouldn't do it last year. I'm so proud of him.

Until next week,
I remain,
sleepy,

TC