point being?
One of those days – probably due for one actually, but damn it's been one of those days. Spent all too much time staring at the screen with the Projects splayed across it, kanbans and canvi etc etc, thinking of the right words and failing and then trying to add another extension to my improvised solar panel snow-clearing device and succeeding until I found it still wasn't long enough to make me not have to climb up on a ladder in 40mph freezing wind gusts and wondering, like that one clip from that one SEINFELD episode that's shown up in my Insta feed of late, "What am I doing?" What's the point? Freezing my extremities off (though it's rather cozy in there until it isn't so, to rectify, I step outside and recalibrate my temperature before stepping back in for another 30 minutes of warmth appreciation) in a shed, The Shed, for things that will fall into the obscurity of the internet of people talking at each other, but then I decide that the only point at this point is "fuck it, might as well" because if there's one thing I do know it's that there's no guarantee of anything except none of us getting out alive so there, I've found, after a quarter of a century of doing this to myself, my "creative principle": Fuck it, might as well.
process space
Now that I'm in month four of working in The Shed, I've finally figured out what the space is (beyond the obvious, a Shed in which I work and figure out the right heater-solar panel-grid balance, especially in today's brutal wind): it's a space where process – not result – reigns supreme, the spatial equivalent of my "Working" folder. Over the last few weeks, I've been removing anything finished or completed from the space, be it Weldo Quixote or Miggy the Shovel Creature or comics or finished drawings or scripts or anything so that, with the exception of a few pieces from CW&T and odd antiques and entertainments, The Shed's filled with nothing but the tools I use to make things and the limbs and sinew of various works in progress, a space of freedom from result in which I can alternate between planing a drawer built by my great-grandfather and writing another tale of REDACTED for mi hermano's musical inspirations.
fuck me it's still fucking cold
though I suppose that the upside of this sudden early winter chill is that I get to test out all sorts of heaters to keep myself from freezing in The Shed. And slippers (I have ugged). And shirt jackets (WalMart special FTW). And hats. Current heater combo of electric wall heater set to 60ºF (50º overnight instead of 45º) with an infared heater under my desk set to 68º (small fan heater wasn't enough) when I'm working has done the trick. Four extra solar panels would be nice, but as I mentioned in the last piece I wrote about this (two days ago – clearly this topic is at the forefront), AC Sun Gods operate on their own multiversal schedule and I anticipate them showing up at random odd times; nonetheless, I don't have to plug into the grid for very long in the evening and early morning and the battery stack is up to the task throughout the day. And it's also warmer than The Paintshop ever was, if I'm being honest with myself – though given my memory I can't be certain.
leave a message and beep
It's been a week since I stopped taking my phone with me to The Shed. Usually took it not out of some need to check in on socials or things like that (though I did let a search for new music distract me into countless little rabbit holes; I've since stopped listening to music while I work – hence the decided lack of EarBliss)) but because I was worried about missing allegedly essential texts or calls regarding absolutely urgent lifethings. But not only have those texts and calls, with the deaths of my mother and maternal grandfather (12 years of various stages of caretaking take their toll), ceased – but I realized that (most) people contact me these days only when they need or want something from me. They can wait. Living my life on my terms can't – not after 20+ years of facilitating the lives of others.
solar prioritization
Winter has settled in but at least it's December now thus making it a little less ungodly though a little slower descent into it would've been nice. Alas, into the deep-end / through the ring of fire seems to be my usual way, and it's no different this year, learning the ins and outs of how to keep The Shed at least somewhat heated in its empty, sunless hours without draining my battery stack – though it has, somewhat, been easier the last couple days as there's finally, after a week of clouds, some sun to charge up the solar panels so I only have to plug into the grid once a day instead of (at least) twice.
(Still waiting on installation of four more panels but the Apple Creek Sun Gods bow to no schedule but their own: it’s “a week from now” on some universe, right?)
While I'm still considering closing off the vaulted ceiling for the season, I've settled on a solid all-around heater, a Dreo Electric wall heater that I've at 55-60 throughout (45 at night) that really does a nice job, even with the expanse of stained shiplap overhead. I keep a Dreo tower fan heater at my feet, the same one I used in The Paintshop, and it does make the floors a little less frigid.
But hey, if there's one thing the deep-end solar winter temperature exams have provided, it's project clarity: is what I'm going to work on worth working on in the comfy chill of The (winter) Shed? Whittled things down to three and a half projects from a nebulous six, the three point five (the half being AA Void cartoons) being those that give me the most creative pleasure and let me forget the extremities that are freezing off.
P.S. No newsletter today: there were things I wanted to do with it that I didn't get around to so I'm taking the month off and returning in January with a new form.
