October Oofing Festival

Just a post to send a ping that I'm indeed, still alive.  But I've been consumed by the gluttonous moving-monster.

As it seems with all months lately, October is already half over.  The trees in these parts are getting to that 'bare and spooky' look which is fitting for the month already.

I've only had a few moments to get out and take pictures of some areas.  I usually do this for 'tree ideas' and inspiration about places I find 'cozy'.  Like the little picket fences on homes hidden away by trees and bushes.  The 'witch houses' I find on some blocks are amazing.

The big move has hit the overdrive part.  The past two weeks have been back-shattering as I've been solo moving furniture, boxes of junk, barrels, machinery, bird feeders and countless steel drums and near industrial beer-making equipment.  Freezers are emptied (and there's no frigging way I'm moving _those_ by myself) and are awaiting their final haul to the appliance graveyard, and I've plucked choice components out of my old work station and laptops so the rest can be sent to be recycled.

I haven't been this sore since I started working moving furniture back when I was in my 20's.  This month has emphatically taught me that I am NOT 20 anymore, and all those years of manual labour have taken a toll on me.  But in the end, I've made progress.  I have a couple more trucks to hire to get the last of the mad-tangle of 'stuff' out of here, and then it's just a case of sitting in a weirdly empty house, akin to Scrooge with his few mean sticks of furniture left, and wait for the day I drag what's left to the new den.

I've been doing a lot of financing, a lot of talking to lawyers and bankers and other people who move large numbers around and charge wild prices for photocopies, but it's part of the process.  It means I'm at the coming end-stage, prepping to have it all ready, and the only thing left will be to coordinate getting a bed delivered on the move-in day, the internet, and electricity.  The rest will be a slow process of boxes exploding out contents as I see where I can put it.  So much has been purged, and something tells me that boxes I packed last month will have more stuff to be purged as I've started to really just let go of all the nostalgic things.

For the first time in what feels like at least three decades if not more, I looked up events going on in the city over the greyer and colder months.  I'll have time to go out to do things again, time that isn't dominated with either fixing an old house, or clearing it out.  One such event is the 'Lighting ceremony' for the Christmas season that occurs just a few blocks from the new place.   I've never got to see it in all my years here.  It's supposed to be quite a 'thing' to witness.

There's a ton going on.  I forgot that I'll be blocks away from the major concert halls and event areas, and there's a veritable buffet of things to go do and see when I'm finally settled in.  It'll be something to take the edge of being in a new place, and largely alone for a while.

I got to sit and ink a little more again.  I really do miss the stability of waking up, getting a coffee, and just doing illustration for the day.  It feels like forever since I got to do that for a full day.  It's been months of 'moving' and 'estate' and 'people to see'.  Getting to sit and ink on one of the now far overdue commissions was nice.  But I guess I shouldn't hammer myself too badly,  When I took on doing commissions I was under the impression that I'd be in this house for another few years at least.  Due to many circumstances, that couldn't be the case.  The house is slowly fading and 'dying'.  It's master has moved on, and it's heart went with him.  It would require a small fortune sunk into the place to make sure parts of it didn't just give out entirely, and it was never my intent to stay here indefinitely.

I mowed my last lawn a couple weeks ago.  It felt weird yet liberating.  I've always mowed and shoveled.  And it's unlikely I'll ever do either of those things again.  I gave the mower, the trimmer, all the yard stuff and ladders away to kind neighbors and friends.  I wasn't looking for cash for them.  They've helped so much over the years that I was happy to just help them out.

Once I get a few last things out.. that will be it.  Wow.  Nearly 49 years.

I'll be releasing at least a couple Halloween-ish sketches before the end of the month.  I have two in mind, and as I mostly just await financing approvals and a couple meetings, I'll have time again.  It'll help to have arty stuff to whittle away the days, thirty and counting.  I've packed all my books and haven't got a thing to read save things online.  

A sketch of the kids at Halloween on 'Wroth perhaps, and maybe a bird who sings the spooky songs on the wind.  While I likely won't ever give candy out again (Condo's tend to not do that unless they have an event on Halloween), I can at least savagely snarf a box of mini-chocolates and stumble around like Gollum in my bituminous empty home, arguing with myself about 'eatsing the candyses'.

...My voice actually echoes in this place.  How very haunting.

-T.J.