Ad Astra Per Audentia

Sauce has finished. Hope everyone enjoyed.

I'll see if I have anything else that I can post in a few more days.

Honestly, I just haven't had a lot to say.

But I did want to say that I hope everyone had a good holiday season, and to wish everyone a happy new year.

Well, my birthday just ended in all time zones, so I guess it's a good time for a postmortem.

It wasn't that I had to go to work on my birthday - that really was my fault for not scheduling it off, and I figured, hey, a basic, regular shift at work wouldn't be so bad.

It wasn't that I got requisitioned by the manager 20 minutes into my shift for a "special project" - basically cleaning the entire front IV area, and I mean ENTIRE area: scrubbing all walls and ceilings with essentially a giant Wet Swiffer, taking everything out of all drawers and off of all shelves and wiping them down before putting everything back, and doing it all twice since everything required first a layer of bleach, then a layer of alcohol. Hey, it's a vital job to forestall contamination, and it can't be helped that there wasn't a med student around to do it the day before, like there was supposed to be.

 . . . it was that after I finished, five minutes before I got to leave, I heard a coworker mention that, in fact, there HAD a been a student the day before who cleaned everything, she just never logged it, so the manager never knew. I had just spent eight hours pointlessly cleaning a room that had already been cleaned the day before.

It's a little demoralizing.

At least I got to close it out with dinner with the family and a few presents. Lifted the mood considerably, as did the fun little LJ giftie from Ace. Here's to reaching the next birthday, which has GOT to be better than this one! :-D

That's all there is, there isn't any more.

Had to get up at 5:45 this morning to start the coffee and almost forgot my promise! Well, I did finish a cleanup, so here goes nuthin'.

I made a set of four minicomics. I suppose I could make more, but I felt the need to stop after four. I carry them around in a little repurposed plastic pocket protector inside my purse. I didn't really plan on doing anything with them.

This is the first one, "Dance." I'll try to post another next Monday. Ad-hoc Sauce supplement.

Hello! Still alive!

So what is new? Not much. Made my one year anniversary at work, it will now take an act of Congress to fire me. If I can hang on for 19 years, I get a pretty decent pension. We'll see.

I draw mostly with friends now, but I don't see them much because everyone has horribly unfair work schedules. I should try to find a drawing meetup in the city that really isn't just an excuse for people to drink heavily with sketchbooks in front of them.

I usually feel disinclined to draw when by myself. I am not using my little table as much since I got rid of TV, and I am trying to get myself used to using a lapdesk so that I can draw while watching Youtube videos. However, even when I can keep from totally balking at it, I find myself just eventually laying the tools down and watching the videos. I think left to my own devices, all I really want to do with my free time these days is watch videos. Just find a bunch of them ranging from ten minutes to two hours each, chain them up and watch the days go.

I'm working on my continuing ed for my certifications, too. I told myself that if I finished another module, I would write this blog post. Honestly, I'm not sure which activity was meant to be the incentive. You guys are great, of course, but I'm just not that gung-ho about writing at the moment.

I'm not unhappy, but I'm in that weird baffled mood that ended up as a prelude to the last bout of unhappiness. Just keeping an eye on it for now. I can't tell if not particularly wanting anything in life is more of a blessing or a curse. Maybe "zen" is just the word we used before we came up with the actual diagnosis of clinical depression? Too deep for me. At least I'm getting to the gym more. When I'm less protective of my time, I don't resent spending more of it on a treadmill.

I still have a bunch of Sauces left, thankfully, and definitely some ideas in the hopper that I still think are good and am trying to get myself excited about. If I complete another continuing ed module, I'll go back to work on cleaning up an old comic to spice up the LJ with. Going to try for a Monday post this time.

I'm trying not to be worried or worry anybody else. I'm just not pleased with my lack of output. I'd chalk it up to getting older, but if I tried to do that, Terry Gilliam would astral-project into my brain to yell at me that he managed to finish The Man Who Killed Don Quixote at 78 and that I have no excuses. I guess I'm confused by the need to get myself pumped up about art or incentivize myself for regular production, because I've never really had to do that before. The drive was always just there and I never really questioned it. It's just how the world works - fish swim, plants grow, Audrey writes and draws shit. So what happens when plants stop growing and fish stop swimming?

If the weather starts getting worse, which it will, I'm going to try dragging comic materials to the breakroom at work, see where that gets me.

Oh well. Was hoping to throw up some extra things to fill out the offerings these days, but I guess I'm not quite there yet. At least Sauce is still chugging along nicely.

I'll admit that my discipline is utterly shot and needs work, but I will say that the inexplicable, unseasonable 89ºF weather hasn't been helping. Also, and I'm not even sure how they managed this, but the AC at work is BROKEN AGAIN, so I'm guessing this is going to get worse before it gets better. :(

According to coworkers, apparently, the AC system nearly always breaks when the outside temperature goes above 80 or so. This naturally begs the question of then why do we even bother with an AC system in the first place?!

Fifteen minutes to the end of Monday and it still ain't ready. >_<

One more day or two. God dammit, Audrey.