September, 2009
...So, during one of our two weeks of vacation over the summer, we (my wife and I, natch!) were hanging out at our humble cottage in Canada. I always say "our humble cottage" because it is. I think people may be misled by the concept of a "getaway cottage" and envision something more elaborate, or indulgently luxurious.
...So, during one of our two weeks of vacation over the summer, we (my wife and I, natch!) were hanging out at our humble cottage in Canada. I always say "our humble cottage" because it is. I think people may be misled by the concept of a "getaway cottage" and envision something more elaborate, or indulgently luxurious.
It ain't.
It's very nice, but it's extremely simple and small. It was built from a kit (from Sears, I think) in the early 60s by my wife's father and her maternal grandfather. Mostly, it's an escape from the real world. For instance, there's no phones or internet.
Mostly, we go there to hang out and read, or write (my wife) or draw (theoretically me).
But, whatever. (Sorry for the self-conscious apologies...)
I'm terribly misquoting her, of course, I'm sure.
But my point is, and what I got out of that exchange, was this: I'm not in the frame of mind to just write something quickly and candidly when I post on one of my blogs. I tend to approach it like an article or essay or something. I think there's a place for those longer pieces of writing on blogs; in fact, a lot of the blogs I check out subscribe to this philosophy of extended self-expression. But, a more immediate, diary-like impulse makes up another aspect of blogging, I think, and that's something I need to get in touch with more.
Because, all I do is start things and never finish them!
Very frustrating.
So, anyway, I'm just saying, and warning you, I guess, dear reader, that I may try to be a little more spontaneous, for lack of a better word.
At the very least, perhaps I'll make more frequent appearances on my blog, huh? Huh?
Lately, I've been feeling broke all the time, due to a combination of circumstances: the gradual cutting back of my hours at work as they try to save money at the company (they've slowly gone down to 37 hours from 40. Not a huge cut, but it's there.); the additional costs of our three cats all requiring separate kinds of food from the vet and one of them also being diabetic, so there's the cost of insulin, too; the cost of cat-sitting as we frequent our cottage during the summer (we take the diabetic cat but the the other two we leave home and so we have some cat sitters and that adds up as well).
[NOTE OF EDITORIAL INTRUSION: Because this post covers so much time, some contextual info, as best as I can remember it.
First, where I worked: Metro Community News. Metro was a weekly shopper paper (similar to a Penny Saver) and I worked in the printing department on their web press. Originally I was simply a fly-boy, one of the lower rung assistants in the department, but eventually I was promoted to roll tender (although I'm not sure if that happened yet at this time). As one of the roll tenders I'd be responsible for keeping the paper loaded and running on the press when we were printing. I would operate a clamp truck, similar to a fork lift, except instead of a "fork" for lifting wooden palettes, the truck had a set of jaws (or a clamp) that enabled me to grab a roll of paper to load on the end of the press. The rolls weighed approximately half a ton. At this point in Metro's history, the owners were having issues trying to sustain the level of income they were used to prior to the digital age due to the various alternative methods on the internet available to consumers to advertise things. See, a weekly shopper paper's bread and butter is classified ads. It would take another seven years, including a change in ownership, before the Metro Community News finally went belly up as Community Papers of Western New York in July 2016.
Second, our cats: we still had our three original cats! Our first born, (El) Zorro (the diabetic), and our first pair of siblings, Allie and Kodiak (Kody). Aww... ]
March 14, 2018
EIGHT AND A HALF FREAKIN’ YEARS LATER...
So, in my attempt to write 50,000 words of blog posts in 2018, I've been re-visiting the numerous unfinished blog posts I have at all three of my blogs but never finished or even re-visited again after my initial burst of inspiration, and this was one of them. I felt one of the ways I could address the frequency of posting on my blogs was to simply finish some of these damn posts I’ve started but now lie unfinished, three blog closets full of loose ends accumulated over the years... cripes.
This post’s title caught my eye. Even though I started it almost a decade ago, I understood what the title referred to (that whole exchange between my wife and I at the cottage).
In my various persistent ambitions to write more and draw more, I’m hoping that the increased consistent frequency of such activities will naturally improve my abilities in those areas. Of course, the key phrase here is “consistent frequency” and I’ve yet to establish anything like that, ever, except in terms of drawing decades ago, twice: 1) when I was working for two years during the 80s on The Record, the Buffalo State College newspaper, including a formal stint one year as Co-Graphics Editor and 2) a brief, glorious time when my friend, actress Lisa Ludwig, agreed to model for me as I did drawings of her from life. And then she got pregnant with her second child and that ended that. That kid, her son, has now been out of college for a couple years. I’ve yet to get back into a regular rhythm of drawing since then. And I’ve never had any period of time when I was writing (even blogging) regularly, as you can tell from my various blogs’ spotty archive history.
Although, this year (so far) I’ve made a little headway with regular posts.
December 16
However, NINE FREAKIN' MONTHS LATER...
What the hell.
So, my train of concentration is not really focused on any one thing, as usual, but I'm trying to plow through and get things done or wrap things up that I've started a while ago.
Right now, my biggest other "loose end" is our old house. We still own it and we're still making mortgage payments on it. But we've moved into our "new" house over a year ago.
So, this is becoming a huge issue because of the money involved. The house we live in now (my dad's old house which we inherited when he passed away in 2016, and also the house my family moved into in 1969, so I've actually moved back into my old family house) is paid for, so no mortgage payments there. But, paying the utilities for two houses is really beyond our current income, so I need to get my shit together and finish cleaning up the old house, etc.
But, I can't help thinking about personal projects and goals, like blogging more, making comics and movies, etc.
So, my focus is struggling TO stay focused.
Also, with the end of 2018 looming ahead and bearing down upon us very quickly, I keep thinking about things I wanted to do this year that I haven't accomplished and trying to see what I can salvage and also anticipating next year's goals. So, that's all in my brain right now.
Right now, my goals for the last 15 days of 2018 are:
1. Try to get over to the old house as much as I can and continue cleaning.
2. Get my Christmas shopping done.
3. Keep working on my 2018 goal of writing 50,000 words of blog posts (my progress is being posted in the margin to the right). I already know I won't complete 50,000 words before midnight, December 31, but I'm going to keep at it and by doing so I'll hopefully start developing some regular discipline of writing going into 2019. And then, re-set for myself ANOTHER goal of posting 50,000 words for 2019.
4. Try to clean my basement living space here in the new house. At the very least, set up my TV which I got LAST Christmas and also set up my drawing table. Plus, figure out where to put all these T-shirts that I have had folded and sitting in an orange laundry basket for several months now. These all seem like pretty simple, straight-forward goals, don't they?
5. See if I can somehow create at least one piece of merchandise on my Society6 account.
I think that's it.
Jeez, for me, that's enough.
December 17, 9:25 pm
ONE FREAKIN' DAY LATER...
Oh, that's actually not too bad.
Actually, just writing that I'll be back tonight after this month's BM-VM meeting.
I want to finish this post up, but I have a lot of running around today, including "zipping in" to Canada to take care of some banking. I'm just trying to stay focused (as I mentioned above) and apparently, that in itself is a task. I'll cut myself some slack and blame the general stress and attendant distractions that comes with it on Christmas preparations (just a week away!). Anyway, back tonight when I have a little more time.
December 18, 3:53 am
Arghh!
I'm a lost cause!
Instead of writing when I came home, I spent my time obsessively wasting my time searching for crap on the internet. Dammit!
Anyway, I should go to bed, but I'm trying to maybe jog my attention and thinking towards more constructive activities, like finishing this post just before I go to bed in the next 5 minutes or so, and maybe that will carry into my dreams and subconscious while I sleep and my brain will work on that... rather than the soul-destroying bullshit I was looking at for the past few hours (give or take... I dozed off a couple times so it wasn't completely a non-stop waste of time, I took spontaneous breaks. Whoo. Hoo.).
This makes me think of an idea I've had years ago and which still applies to me: the devil is laughing at me because I'm so easily tempted not so much into being evil but wasting my time. Although, much of my time is wasted on not the most uplifting subjects. I'll leave it at that.
So, let's talk about something else...
...Alright, it's after 4:30 am. I'm going to bed before I totally fuck myself up sleep-wise and rest-wise. I do have to work (and close) today, after all.
Ugh. I'm just pathetic.
8:16 am
Wait, did I just miss something there?
Ah, there's no fooling you, attentive blog reader! Or not.
Before I went to bed at 4:45(ish), I started writing about three filmmaker-related documentaries I recently watched on Netflix. And then I removed what I wrote.
While I've been trying to write more blog posts, I've noticed that some of my haphazard writing efforts on my three* blogs have caused a lack of thematic continuity, at least, among other content issues. In other words, I started writing about these filmmaker documentaries, but this morning I removed those paragraphs and started a new (unfinished) post on my film blog with those paragraphs because that's where those thoughts should be.
Yeah, "should."
Well, yeah. Should.
Arguably, all these blogs reflect myself, why not just write one single blog? Because I feel it makes more sense to have some idea of thematic organization, that's why I made a point of starting separate blogs.
So, there.
Good, I'm re-affirming my sense of writing purpose!
Alright, I should wrap this up. Writing purpose affirmations aside (why, yes, here's my business card), I'm having some difficulty trying to maintain the point of this particular post. Gee, I don't know why, I only started it OVER NINE FREAKIN' YEARS AGO.
I'll leave with a coming attraction of sorts, some ideas for my 2019 New Year's Resolutions. Actually, my resolutions are typically goals and creative projects I say I'm going to work on, like the aforementioned 50,000 words worth of new blog posts.
But I've been thinking more in terms of directions I'd like to pursue.
So, here's a list:
WHAT DO I WANNA DO (WHAT DO I WANNA BE) WHEN I GROW UP:
A debater
An essayist
A history major
A filmmaker (director, writer, editor)
A cartoonist (comic books, webcomics)
An illustrator/painter
A merchandiser and marketer (specifically re: WNY filmmaker Sam Qualiana's Metroshia Productions... more on this later)
A documentarian, historian about WNY filmmakers
Financially successful
Oh, and though I never think about it, but I should, a homeowner.
I think all my life I lacked actual ambition. I had daydreams of things I wanted to do, but I never really acted on it.
But, I'm going to be 59 in less than two months. In less than eight months I'll be able to withdraw from my IRA without a penalty. I'm getting old, man!
I need to fucking shit or get off the pot.
And on that note...
*kinda, sorta. Holy crap, I have so many blogs I've impulsively started, they're like bastard children I've fathered and abandoned during my impulsive and compulsively promiscuous youth, some of them forgotten but lying around somewhere on the internet. Right now, I'm focusing on the "main three": Behold! The Wanna-be Filmmaker/Etc., King of Unfinished Projects, and A Rambling Wastrel, I.[NOTE OF EDITORIAL INTRUSION: Because this post covers so much time, some contextual info, as best as I can remember it.
First, where I worked: Metro Community News. Metro was a weekly shopper paper (similar to a Penny Saver) and I worked in the printing department on their web press. Originally I was simply a fly-boy, one of the lower rung assistants in the department, but eventually I was promoted to roll tender (although I'm not sure if that happened yet at this time). As one of the roll tenders I'd be responsible for keeping the paper loaded and running on the press when we were printing. I would operate a clamp truck, similar to a fork lift, except instead of a "fork" for lifting wooden palettes, the truck had a set of jaws (or a clamp) that enabled me to grab a roll of paper to load on the end of the press. The rolls weighed approximately half a ton. At this point in Metro's history, the owners were having issues trying to sustain the level of income they were used to prior to the digital age due to the various alternative methods on the internet available to consumers to advertise things. See, a weekly shopper paper's bread and butter is classified ads. It would take another seven years, including a change in ownership, before the Metro Community News finally went belly up as Community Papers of Western New York in July 2016.
Second, our cats: we still had our three original cats! Our first born, (El) Zorro (the diabetic), and our first pair of siblings, Allie and Kodiak (Kody). Aww... ]
March 14, 2018
EIGHT AND A HALF FREAKIN’ YEARS LATER...
So, in my attempt to write 50,000 words of blog posts in 2018, I've been re-visiting the numerous unfinished blog posts I have at all three of my blogs but never finished or even re-visited again after my initial burst of inspiration, and this was one of them. I felt one of the ways I could address the frequency of posting on my blogs was to simply finish some of these damn posts I’ve started but now lie unfinished, three blog closets full of loose ends accumulated over the years... cripes.
This post’s title caught my eye. Even though I started it almost a decade ago, I understood what the title referred to (that whole exchange between my wife and I at the cottage).
In my various persistent ambitions to write more and draw more, I’m hoping that the increased consistent frequency of such activities will naturally improve my abilities in those areas. Of course, the key phrase here is “consistent frequency” and I’ve yet to establish anything like that, ever, except in terms of drawing decades ago, twice: 1) when I was working for two years during the 80s on The Record, the Buffalo State College newspaper, including a formal stint one year as Co-Graphics Editor and 2) a brief, glorious time when my friend, actress Lisa Ludwig, agreed to model for me as I did drawings of her from life. And then she got pregnant with her second child and that ended that. That kid, her son, has now been out of college for a couple years. I’ve yet to get back into a regular rhythm of drawing since then. And I’ve never had any period of time when I was writing (even blogging) regularly, as you can tell from my various blogs’ spotty archive history.
Although, this year (so far) I’ve made a little headway with regular posts.
December 16
However, NINE FREAKIN' MONTHS LATER...
What the hell.
So, my train of concentration is not really focused on any one thing, as usual, but I'm trying to plow through and get things done or wrap things up that I've started a while ago.
Right now, my biggest other "loose end" is our old house. We still own it and we're still making mortgage payments on it. But we've moved into our "new" house over a year ago.
So, this is becoming a huge issue because of the money involved. The house we live in now (my dad's old house which we inherited when he passed away in 2016, and also the house my family moved into in 1969, so I've actually moved back into my old family house) is paid for, so no mortgage payments there. But, paying the utilities for two houses is really beyond our current income, so I need to get my shit together and finish cleaning up the old house, etc.
But, I can't help thinking about personal projects and goals, like blogging more, making comics and movies, etc.
So, my focus is struggling TO stay focused.
Also, with the end of 2018 looming ahead and bearing down upon us very quickly, I keep thinking about things I wanted to do this year that I haven't accomplished and trying to see what I can salvage and also anticipating next year's goals. So, that's all in my brain right now.
Right now, my goals for the last 15 days of 2018 are:
1. Try to get over to the old house as much as I can and continue cleaning.
2. Get my Christmas shopping done.
3. Keep working on my 2018 goal of writing 50,000 words of blog posts (my progress is being posted in the margin to the right). I already know I won't complete 50,000 words before midnight, December 31, but I'm going to keep at it and by doing so I'll hopefully start developing some regular discipline of writing going into 2019. And then, re-set for myself ANOTHER goal of posting 50,000 words for 2019.
4. Try to clean my basement living space here in the new house. At the very least, set up my TV which I got LAST Christmas and also set up my drawing table. Plus, figure out where to put all these T-shirts that I have had folded and sitting in an orange laundry basket for several months now. These all seem like pretty simple, straight-forward goals, don't they?
5. See if I can somehow create at least one piece of merchandise on my Society6 account.
I think that's it.
Jeez, for me, that's enough.
December 17, 9:25 pm
ONE FREAKIN' DAY LATER...
Oh, that's actually not too bad.
Actually, just writing that I'll be back tonight after this month's BM-VM meeting.
I want to finish this post up, but I have a lot of running around today, including "zipping in" to Canada to take care of some banking. I'm just trying to stay focused (as I mentioned above) and apparently, that in itself is a task. I'll cut myself some slack and blame the general stress and attendant distractions that comes with it on Christmas preparations (just a week away!). Anyway, back tonight when I have a little more time.
December 18, 3:53 am
Arghh!
I'm a lost cause!
Instead of writing when I came home, I spent my time obsessively wasting my time searching for crap on the internet. Dammit!
Anyway, I should go to bed, but I'm trying to maybe jog my attention and thinking towards more constructive activities, like finishing this post just before I go to bed in the next 5 minutes or so, and maybe that will carry into my dreams and subconscious while I sleep and my brain will work on that... rather than the soul-destroying bullshit I was looking at for the past few hours (give or take... I dozed off a couple times so it wasn't completely a non-stop waste of time, I took spontaneous breaks. Whoo. Hoo.).
This makes me think of an idea I've had years ago and which still applies to me: the devil is laughing at me because I'm so easily tempted not so much into being evil but wasting my time. Although, much of my time is wasted on not the most uplifting subjects. I'll leave it at that.
So, let's talk about something else...
...Alright, it's after 4:30 am. I'm going to bed before I totally fuck myself up sleep-wise and rest-wise. I do have to work (and close) today, after all.
Ugh. I'm just pathetic.
8:16 am
Wait, did I just miss something there?
Ah, there's no fooling you, attentive blog reader! Or not.
Before I went to bed at 4:45(ish), I started writing about three filmmaker-related documentaries I recently watched on Netflix. And then I removed what I wrote.
While I've been trying to write more blog posts, I've noticed that some of my haphazard writing efforts on my three* blogs have caused a lack of thematic continuity, at least, among other content issues. In other words, I started writing about these filmmaker documentaries, but this morning I removed those paragraphs and started a new (unfinished) post on my film blog with those paragraphs because that's where those thoughts should be.
Yeah, "should."
Well, yeah. Should.
Arguably, all these blogs reflect myself, why not just write one single blog? Because I feel it makes more sense to have some idea of thematic organization, that's why I made a point of starting separate blogs.
So, there.
Good, I'm re-affirming my sense of writing purpose!
Alright, I should wrap this up. Writing purpose affirmations aside (why, yes, here's my business card), I'm having some difficulty trying to maintain the point of this particular post. Gee, I don't know why, I only started it OVER NINE FREAKIN' YEARS AGO.
I'll leave with a coming attraction of sorts, some ideas for my 2019 New Year's Resolutions. Actually, my resolutions are typically goals and creative projects I say I'm going to work on, like the aforementioned 50,000 words worth of new blog posts.
But I've been thinking more in terms of directions I'd like to pursue.
So, here's a list:
WHAT DO I WANNA DO (WHAT DO I WANNA BE) WHEN I GROW UP:
A debater
An essayist
A history major
A filmmaker (director, writer, editor)
A cartoonist (comic books, webcomics)
An illustrator/painter
A merchandiser and marketer (specifically re: WNY filmmaker Sam Qualiana's Metroshia Productions... more on this later)
A documentarian, historian about WNY filmmakers
Financially successful
Oh, and though I never think about it, but I should, a homeowner.
I think all my life I lacked actual ambition. I had daydreams of things I wanted to do, but I never really acted on it.
But, I'm going to be 59 in less than two months. In less than eight months I'll be able to withdraw from my IRA without a penalty. I'm getting old, man!
I need to fucking shit or get off the pot.
And on that note...
