void recognition, somewhat

in

Recognizing that the void mentioned yesterday is coming, at least partially, from the reality that – after two+ decades of dreading the holidays – I no longer have to dread them. Can't help but laugh when the texts from the funeral home arrive about grief in the holidays: I don't have grief in their lit candle prayers sense but in the sense of an umooring brought by a freedom from dread and a total lack of a notion of how to navigate the holidays and life in general without said dread. Happy dead turkey day to those who celebrate.

something(?)else(?)

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Second day in a row that my Attendance Card has featured me pondering something – though I think this one is more effective than yesterday's.

An unshakable feeling that there's a void, something missing. A part of me, perhaps? The parts that are there are fine, dandy, solid, settled: marriage, writing, all that. No, this is something else.

Writing is fine save the striving of the last ten years. I'm done with it. I'm going to do what I want and stop worrying about what it could lead to. No point; write and publish for its own sake, my own way, my own things. Definitely an epoch of "burn things down and start over" in this, the post-Twitter era.

But that something else has been nagging at me for awhile, longer than awhile. Doing my best to not force it along: have a feeling that it, like anything worth anything, will hit me in a moment of unthinking. Can only ride the waves until then / carry on, etc etc.

the morning's attendance card, a sketchy, broken line me pondering the questions of this unknown void.

earbliss/20221122

in

When I woke up this morning, did I think I'd end the morning mesmerized by a collection of music from late 70's/early 80's Italian softcore? Nope. But here I am. Utterly brilliant.

"scribble monster jam"

in

Pervasive stuckness this morning so another Lynda Barry exercise (MAKING COMICS, pp. 61-62) was required. This time, "Scribble Monster Jam," which involved a paneled and quartered piece of paper, four quickly drawn shapes, two minute monsters, and an index card with four complete sentences – "Something you have to do / a line you have memorized from a poem or song / a question you have been wondering about / a specific command by a king or a queen" – which I was then required to add to one of my drawn panels of my choosing.

Dialogue translations from Tylerglyphics: REMEMBER TO PICK UP THE PIES... LIFE IS WHAT HAPPENS... SPEAK, MORTAL!... IS THIS MY LAST NAME?

Still stuck – though fun was most certainly had.

to those who

in

22 November, always, even more than a decade after my Executive Director tenure ended and almost a decade since I resigned from the board, is an anniversary – a morbid one, certainly, but more packed with personal meaning than Thanksgiving ever could be.

How much of myself did I give to that gig? (too much and not enough) How much did I gain? (I found my way to writing, fully, through it – so there's that – but I also gained one (maybe two) very deep, very profund regret(s), forks in the road etc) How much did I lose? (everything – but not everything I lost was worth keeping, far from it) ...

I suppose I'm thinking of it in more extistential detail this year than normal: we signed our wills yesterday and I realized that, outside of my wife's family and one very important exception, I have no one to pass anything on to. Being the end of the line in which your last name isn't your own is simultaneously rewarding and confusing.

Current solution: live what I've got while I can and let the rest of it fall where it may. I've pretty much got the "staying alive" part down – soon with cybernetic enhancement! – now I have to figure out what living entails. Been trying to figure that one out for years. So far, no luck – but if I do stumble upon my answer, you'll be the first to know.

Also: that partially completed thing to my left was supposed to be a dog but my 4'33" ran out before I could fur it out.

the morning's attendance card, a sketchy me pondering existential things while a partially-drawn dogchild looks on.

"(but I don't know) what that something else could be"

in

Wrote the above in a note to myself in (one of the) WIP(s); I write this rather frequently, actually: an agnostic faith that I might find it or might not (?) – difference being now that it bothers me far less, if it's the latter, than it used to.

(This is what I tell myself.)

Playing GOTHAM KNIGHTS on the Series S and I'm entertained enough: once I read that the combat was more ASSASSIN'S CREED than ARKHAM (I can't counter? What?!) it made sense and I was able to get over the initial reluctance to embrace it. CYBERPUNK 2077 is waiting in the wings. Still playing ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD, though that's much more of a backburner endeavor, more often than not played in handheld mode (that OLED screen on the Switch is GORGEOUS), except when I have to face one of those stupid tests of strength in the shrines; as someone sagely told me on Mastodon: "When fed up, go foraging": I have been foraging with increased frequency – perhaps I should apply that axiom beyond ZELDA and into the WIP…

Important note: in spite of my Racoon Mario getup below, I've yet to actually fly but the day is young and the sun is only now rising.

the morning's attendance card, a sketchy me rocking something approximating a Racoon Mario getup from SUPER MARIO 3 with one Spockian eyebrow raised. Thus far, I'm unable to fly.