Considering it a victory: the sink is out, I wasn’t covered in frigid, 30-year-old water, and beyond smashing my finger, didn’t do any bodily harm to myself removing the massive sink from its home of the last 70+ years. The sink’s next home will be as a plant basin outside K’s shed.
The cabinet is the next to go out, then paint patching, clearing, and pool table rebuilding and installation. And probably more shelves. Because shelves.
Exhausting day involving lots of water spraying everywhere - Paintshop sink removal project has begun - but at least I got to see The Shed at night with the lights on because I forgot to turn them off and ohmyfuck I’m so tired but hey we have water again thank you emergency plumber.
Writing this more for myself than for anything/one to give myself a lay of the land splayed out ahead that I can ignore as needed as I traipse about to wherever it is I'm going.
Writing: abandoned anything and everything that I'd consider aspirational, as in: anything that I hope leads to something else or a "writing career." Working solely on things that I either want to write simply because I want to write them (two short fictions) or that I'm writing for others (a short comic that could become more and a concept album) the latter of which came after I said I was considering being done with writing (cue Michael Corleone, GODFATHER: CODA). Nearing the end of one but have to dive back in on the other: been too long since I've looked at it and don't want to lose the feel for it as much as I'm fearing that I'm losing the feel for it.
Talking to others: my MacroParentheticals newsletter is dead; long live the titularly-challenged "whenever I finish something / feel like it" dispatch. I did the magazine model for more than a decade and I'm worn out. Sticking with this space as my main vessel for comms, as it has been for many years now. Haven't gotten sick of it yet, so I'll take that as a good sign.
Metalwork: I had a lot more fun tearing apart a glockenspiel than I ever had playing it. As for what it becomes, your guess is as good as mine, though pieces of its frame have already shown up. Toying around with some ideas for the keys. I also have a torn-down lawnchair waiting to become something, and a burnt-out recliner frame which has a design for its next life, though I have to bring its metal carcass here first.
Also have a portable welding table to assemble because now people are asking me to come weld things for them.
Cartooning / comics: Informalties - now borderless! – continue, as ever. Want to do another A.A. VOID. Starting to miss the little guy.
Painting: had fun – 15 minutes, to be exact – plan to have more fun. Best guess is that it might become a useful brain-unsticking exercise (15 minute / 30 minute time limit) than a full-throated vehicle of expression.
The Paintshop: The Collection's home and the workout area are complete. Unwanted / needed books delivered to the used bookshop, trash and other detritus either disassembled for metalwork or placed at the end of the driveway as an offering to the belching truck. All that remains is the ripping out of a sink and final clean-up before pool table reassembly and placement. And moving slate. Once that's in, I'll figure out how many more shelves to build.
And a next project. Probably another shelf for K's Botanical Garden set.
Been awhile since I’ve shared anything from The Collection, but now that Paintshop reconstruction is nearing its end, several pieces have found their new shelf-home. So…
Another wall of bookshelves built and brimming.
The first of 🤷 bookshelves are built and alphabetized, Abbott ➡️ McCarthy. Top two shelves were built by K’s grandfather, rest are my new additions. Slowly, slowly this project trundles on.
Paintshop transformation continues. Built an action figure display(!) in the space between where The Collection ends and the books begin. P.S. boards across chalk ware Supermen are placeholders to keep them from falling while I muck about with said transformation.
Remodel / repurposing of The Paintshop into workout room (one section) and the home for The Collection (second section) and my grandfather’s pool table. More shelves need to be built and much construction and demolition in the non-Collection areas. But I needed a place to be at least somewhat realized to keep my sanity during the process.
Far more enjoyable to build my own shelves than to wage war with instructions and dowel rods and another fucking allen wrench.
For the past two days, an incessant bang/clang. Pretty sure it's construction on the bridge a little ways down the highway, but can't be sure.
Speaking of construction: Shortened day as I'm also neck-deep in transforming The Paintshop into the pool table room / workout room / Collection haven and have bookshelves to build. Going with two wall-mounted shelves per unit, around the top of the room. Need to save up every bit of space I can find to ensure proper cue-table distance for shooting pool. Once the shelves are up, might have a better idea of what else I need to do with the space.
As for here, I'm in the process of figuring out the best way to have this digital space represent me where I am now, creatively and authentically, without losing that something something about it that makes me want to consistently evolve it so that it remains an omnipresent part of my life.
Need to go buy lumber. And mozzarella for salad. And a new coffee grinder. Fucking burr grinder died on me at 0500 this morning.