Post-Heroes Con Week Diary

6-25-12

I wake up and check email and online stuff. I upload my videos and my pics from the Heroes Con trip to start a blog and a video blog. Finally I hear the bots waking up and we have a great reunion. He’s hugging and kissing on me and obviously missed me! We play some flashcards as he is starting to learn his colors and shapes now. He’s getting real good at it!

Then I return to editing the video footage I shot. I had a bunch of long “confessional” type of videos I recorded in the hotel room but deemed them not that great for the video I was editing together. I shoot an intro and edit it in. I upload my daily diary and pics to the blog and then upload the video to youtube. Then I follow up online with all the Heroes Con news and other news I missed over the weekend. I then do dishes and take out trash til the wife gets home. We run to the bank and then to Meijer. Then to Logans for dinner. Then we head to the mall where I get the new Classic Rock magazine (RUSH is on the cover) and bots gets some discs at the FYE. He’s being very well behaved today. We stop off at Cirilla’s to get a new card game to play while I drink tonight. We get home and play with bots for a while and he passes out finally. I drink some screwdrivers and shots of pucker while watching youtube music videos and we play our game. We decide it kind of sucks with only two people, so we retire to the living room to watch and make fun of MTV rap videos. I drunkenly rant about how modern popular music just sucks to me and I get a great buzz going. We retire to the bedroom and yada yada, I fall asleep around 1am.

6-26-12

I hear the wife get up around 3am cause the bots is wide awake. She attempts to lay with him and it doesn’t take. So we just let him play and he passes back out and so do we. She gets up around 9am for a doctor’s appointment and I get up at 9:30 and get the bots up. I update blog and online shit, and confirm the wants of a customer on a couple commission sketch cards I am doing. I then pull reference for sketch card working for the rest of the week. The wife returns from her doctors’ visit and we head to East Lansing. We stop off in Flat Black and Circular and get bots a disc. I get a Rush DVD used. Then to Five Guys for lunch. Then to Target where we get bots some various things and then back home. The wife heads to work and I do a bunch of nothing around the house. She returns and bots finally goes to bed around midnight. I watch some boxing on Showtime and pass out shortly after that, exhausted.

6-27-12

I wake up at 9:30 and get bots up. I wake the wife up who wants to go to the hospital to take care of a shot blood test thingie that should take only 15 minutes. We get there and it ends up taking an hour and a half because of a miscommunication at the lab. The wife leaves furious and pretty much in the worst mood possible. We go to Kroger and I get a few items for the house and bots food and head home cause funds are low. She relaxes in her room and I make a video for an art sale I need to do. I upload it and do the announcement all over the net, hoping for some sales.  The wife leaves for work and I play with bots for a while. I need to desperately get to work on the cards but I am completely unmotivated. I’ve noticed that since my return from Heroes, I haven’t touched a pencil at all! I was so pumped the draw over the weekend and now I got nothing. Like the tanks are empty. It’s a very odd feeling.

I spend most of the day just lounging around wondering why I am so unmotivated, and playing with bots. Finally I say ENOUGH and get to work on cleaning and moving things around the house. Usually a change of scenery or re-arranging furniture gets me in the mood to draw. So I cleaned up my office area real good and hung some poster prints up to give myself something new to look at. And like magic, I felt motivated. I pull out the sketch cards and get to work. I pop in the Clone Wars movie to get my mind in the world I need to work on. The wife comes home with food and we eat. I spend another hour penciling and inking cards. Finally around midnight, I am feeling much better about myself and the motivation tank is starting its refill. I lay down with her watching AVGN and pass out shortly thereafter.

6-28-12

I wake up to a text from my dad saying he loved me. Which is an indicator that he’s up and was seeing if I was up. So I get up and text back with him. He calls and proceeds to get on me a bit about my weight. Its too early for me to hear this so I just laugh and try to diffuse the situation without making it more than it should be. See, I am well aware of my current state. My mirror works. What us fatties don’t like is it pointed out, especially by those we care for. All we do is get defensive and say “well, you got this or that problem too!” We deflect and move to an abusive adhominum state rather than attack the argument. At least that’s my initial reaction. We know it, we just don’t like to hear it. We like for any change to be OUR idea. So I just smile and nod through the conversation and he knows he’s got me mad about it. But we end cordially and I sit and stew for a while. He’s right, I know he’s right. But all I can see is red and how I want to call back and say “well what about you and your problems!” But I resist cause it will get us nothing. I’ll just take my lumps like a man and drop my swords and take it like I always do. Maybe one day I will wake up and listen for once.

Anyway, I update blog and check online shit. I doodle some sketches in Cheesecake books that have to go into the mail and I pack them up with some artwork for free. The wife wakes up and we go to the post office and Logans for lunch. Then to Save A Lot to stock up on groceries for Cody’s visit next week. We get back home and she heads to work. I am still feeling unmotivated for the day so I start cleaning again. Before long I am re-arranging furniture in my office. I don’t know why, I just feel the urge for a change. A couple hours later, I emptied and moved the fish tank to the living room area, separated my bookcases and moved my desk against the wall. I now have a large open wall space to put new posters up and it gives me something new to look at. We lose our mini “desk table” area, but it works. And it makes the area more “art focused” than I had it before. While moving a bookcase, it broke in half in the middle. So I made it a half bookcase, and it seems to work well. I am trying to keep clutter to a minimum there as well. All in all, a good new approach and we’ll see what kind of life it breathes into me. Change is good sometimes.

My co-worker at the Vu texts to see if I will take his Saturday shift and I agree to it once I check who I am working with.  I guess its time to start making money there so we can pay off some bills and be done with it all. I email back and forth with Jordan about some artwork deal for the video game they are doing. I get an offer of a sweet deal but I want to meet to discuss it. We agree to make plans to meet so we can start. Aqueon fish products emails me saying they are sorry for the fish tank light going bad and the long delay I had in getting back with me about it, that they are sending a replacement for free to me! Awesome folks there at Aqueon!

Finally around 11pm, the wife takes the bots to bed and I get to work on penciling 13 more Sketch cards. I even color four of them during the Bigfanboy podcast. I bow out early from the show as I am tired as hell and pass out around 2am.