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December 21, 2005

Year In Review: February

Started out the month strong, drawing like a maniac. I was doing the daily panel, as well as a weekly page, in addition to sketching for fun. My growth rate was staggering already.

I officially stepped down from my leadership role with the CCN on the ninth. That was such not a good time.

But, it also showed me who my friends were. I got so many phone calls over that whole debacle.

I started scripting the now award-nominated Band on the Sun strip for Duane to draw. I have a fond spot in my heart for these:

I got Bronchitis. That was a waste of a week.

I wrote a love-letter to the music of David Bowie. Funnily enough, it's still one of my better-remembered writings.

I bought the special limited edition final issue of Promethea:

"And when I say 'limited', I mean 'only one thousand produced worldwide'. When I say 'special', I mean 'signed by Alan by god Moore and Jim mothafuckin Williams III'."

This was my best piece of February:

I've still got it hanging next to my desk at home. I just cut loose and had fun with it.

On February 18th, my mom's birthday, my world got turned upside down:

"Twenty five years to the day that my dad told my mom that he no longer loved her, Nichole told me that she wanted out of our relationship. It's an amicable split, without a lot of drama, but it's still a bummer nonetheless. We were to be together for three years this coming July.

We're working out all the fine details now, like our lease and living arrangements, but it shouldn't be too much of a shake-up. This is easily the easiest break-up I've ever had.

There's a passage from the Tao Te Ching that's always stuck with me, and has been my life's mantra since the first time I read it:

The sage's way,
Tao
is the way of water.

There must be water for life to be,
and it can flow wherever.

And water, being true to being water
is true
to Tao.

Those on the Way of Tao, like water
need to accept where they find themselves:
and that may often be where water goes
to the lowest places, and that is right.

Like a lake
the heart must be calm and quiet
having great depth beneath it.

The sage rules with compassion,
and his word needs to be trusted.

The sage needs to know like water
how to flow around the blocks
and how to find the way through without violence.

Like water, the sage should wait
for the moment to ripen and be right:

water, you know, never fights

it flows around
without harm.

If you've ever spoken with me at length, you've probably heard me reference this piece. Something like 'Be the river' or the like. I view every life as a river flowing to its eventual end. Sometimes rivers flow together. Sometimes they flow apart.

For a while, Nichole and I, our rivers flowed in the same path, but now our final destinations are taking us apart. It is what it is.

"It is what it is." My favorite bit of zen from Goodfellas."

Instead of turning to booze (although I did have a few Black & Tan's in the evenings for the next couple of weeks (I have a really fond memory of reading Born Again while drinking one)) or something else self-destructive, I turned to my art to help me cope with what I was going through. I may have been going through some really emotional times, but it was also the most energetic and invigorating time I'd had in a long while.

I started up a weekly strip:

And, the review of February:

Exercise (Green Marbles) 1 marble - Staying on workout schedule for whole month 1 marble - Staying on diet for whole month 3 marbles - One for each week I stayed on the workout schedule (I added the weekly marble, as it was a little nicer having that immediate reward. I'm changing a whole lifetime's worth of bad habits as far as exercise and diet go, so this is a tough category. I'm stickin' wit' it, though, for the whole long road.)

Day Job (Black Marbles)
1 marble - Stayed out of the bullshit office politics
(And damn, but was that HARD this month...)

Finance (Blue Marbles)
1 marble - Stuck to the plan

Comix (Red Marbles)
1 marble - Worked on developing Black Chamber
1 marble - Stayed on task
1 marble - Whole month of 22, Three Sixty Five
3 marbles - For each page of 'Bad'

Personal (Silver Marbles)
1 marble - Did chores around the home

The positives:

My art has really drastically improved over this last month. That's always nice. This was also my first solid month of working out, and I'm seeing some positive changes in how my body looks and, more importantly, feels. Also, for the first time in a LONG time, I'm not financially strapped. I've actually started developing a nice little cushion.

Setbacks:

Well, the biggest change, of course, is the split between Nichole and I. That's caused a lot of changes in my plans. Moving into a house is now out of the question. A longtime buddy of mine is going to be my new room mate, and the apartment complex is actually building a third room onto this apartment for only an extra $35 dollars a month, so I get to keep my studio space, and will have a three bedroom apartment for just over $500 a month. All of the living arrangement changes go down at the end of March, so that makes it so I can't go to SPACE, though, which is a bummer.

The other obvious setback was my stepping back from my involvment with the CCN. I'm still fairly active there, but not in any sort of leadership position. I'll probably not want to get back into a leadership position, either. I don't know, I think I'm more of a nomad than a leader. I'm definitely not a follower, but the hat of leadership just didn't sit well on my head.

So, the obvious problem now is, what do I do with irrelevant marbles? Do they stay in the old jar? Do I go ahead and move them? Do I just take them out of the equation? I'm unsure of what the most productive thing to do would be. I've got seven of them now. I'll have an answer by this time next month, hopefully.

The question of the unused marbles really puzzled me, but over time, I came to a really good conclusion on what they would represent.

Posted by Schamberger at December 21, 2005 07:00 AM