Everything Squared Away

 I spent my weekend chasing my own tail. That was not my intention. I had been in the mood to simplify my office. That all started when my newest unnecessary purchase from Amazon.com showed up. It is an ironic catalyst that a vicarious online purchase triggered my want to declutter and simplify. I will talk more on that later. 

I bought a 5.6mm lead holder to challenge myself to learn to sketch with a wide tip lead. To me this is a bit like going back to the fat crayon after years of coloring with the standard skinny size. It takes a lot more dexterity to work a thick tip (insert your own innuendo here.) Turns out I can draw just as well with a 5.6mm as I can with a .5mm lead. The fun part of trying a new medium is in doing things that you cannot do in others. I can make some broad sweeping strokes (feel free to apply innuendo again) with a fat lead. For cartooning it can add some definition that I typically have to approach differently. 

I finished that first sketch and was really happy with it. I dropped it into the scanner and decided to produce a inked version. Normally I thicken and darken in the inking process. My favorite inking pens, with the exception of the brush, are all thinner than the 5.6mm lead. I decide that is ok. I add some fine detail. I clean the image up. It goes back on the scanner. I crank out two copies for color. 

By this point the drawing is telling me a story. This isn't a nice young man that I have drawn. I cannot decide if he is bratty and mischievous or downright evil. The character becomes two different characters in the narrative of my mind. I make the mischievous kid a ginger. I botch the freckles with a heavy hand. He turns out ok. The evil kid is blonde. He gets dark circles under his ice blue eyes. He looks skeletal, cruel, and exactly as I intended. 

I let the inks dry as I am packing away my materials. My markers and pencils have a home in a sorter that is much smaller than I had pictured in my head when I bought it on Amazon.com. I like to blame this on not having a good grasp of the metric system. It floats around my office based on how frequently I am drawing. I want it to live on the desk I work on, but space is limited. It rests next to my printer and the boxes I keep my sketching paper in. Between those things and the box I keep my unread comics in half of my work table is always full. This is a source of frustration for me. 

That gets me thinking that I need to rework my office. My tool cabinet is mostly full of junk. It has become a catch all on top. This is an even greater source of frustration. I have a vision in my head of putting the cabinet beneath the work table. They are designed to stack this way. I will clean out the drawers, get rid of stuff, and be organized again. 

I spend Saturday bringing about the beginning of this vision. I immediately hate it. It takes me less than an hour of work to undo it. Much cleaning, sorting, and organizing follows. This somehow spills out into changing around two bookshelves and reorganizing the top of my closet. I dream again of emptying each room of my house one at a time and only bringing back the necessities. I do not have the time to do this the way I would like to. 

I did some good in all the moving. As I write this my office furniture is in the same exact configuration that it was before the weekend began. I have accomplished nothing from that perspective. This is a great source of frustration. 

There are many small wins. The clutter is mostly eliminated. I have made progress on three other projects. The dishes are caught up for the week. Still, my vision escapes me again. I dream of a day where each room of my house and all my vehicles are in good condition, organized, and geared exactly as I want them. I have all the functions and modifications I have ever wanted figured out. With that done I just have to maintain. This is a beautiful dream. It is a source of great pleasure (no innuendo allowed here.)

That has started to be the thing I want to accomplish most other than getting Teagan raised as a reasonably well balanced human. I don't need a perfect house. I just want the house I have to be in decent shape and well organized with no clutter. Mess is different. I don't mind perpetually fighting mess. I want a utility vehicle and a get around car. I want an adventure bike (read dual sport) and a bike I can make long trips on. They could be the same one. I haven't figure that part out. 

Most of all I want all of them reasonably squared away. I don't mind working on things. In fact, I really enjoy it. I just want to reach that place of having everything done for a little while. I imagine that will feel like I have arrived at my destination for the first time. 

Perhaps that is an unreasonable thing to want. Maybe no one has that. I don't know. I know that it is something I am pursuing. 

I have to admit I like the 5.6mm lead pencil, but I sure wish it had not triggered that whole line of thought.