Five weeks since my last post. Last week was both “30 weeks” and “7 months.”
Tonight’s 31 weeks.
Several days into August here…meaning it’s been 1 year since that scare with Chloe. 1 year since my new, as yet-unused eyeglasses script. Nearly a year since the Claremont signing at CNJ. A year since Drew’s and my first visit to Mike at his new house.
So much that rings differently a year later. As so many other things have, and will, in a rolling basis.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last 9 weeks or so working on the comics accumulation. And finishing up my run through the original CSI series.
Started watching CSI from the very beginning back in late March or so, and finished the most recent season of CSI: Vegas last night. I’m not sure that I really WANT to dive into CSI Miami or CSI New York. I’d watched more of both of those than the original when they were airing as new episodes. But while I made it through 20 seasons of Law & Order: SVU 2018 into early 2019, this CSI run has proven a bit darker, touched by me being at a whole different place in life.
And frankly, I’m coming to the conclusion that I’ve had enough of the darkness and death and seeing people (albeit fictional) on the worst days of their lives. At least for awhile. That was part of why I stopped watching The Walking Dead. The comics were black and white, drawings on a page; easy enough to read and take in the story but they stayed art on pages to be read. The tv show put actual people and “live-action” to it all, and that got to be a bit much.
Back in June, I’d brought my X-Men boxes back upstairs. 15 shortboxes, plus boxes and piles of stuff accumulated over the past couple years SINCE May of 2020 when I organized those boxes. And I got stuff shifted around, re-consolidated….and THIS TIME actually “inventoried” the stuff. As of this typing I’m at just over 4100 comics officially in the X-Collection.
I’ve spent much of the last few weeks hauling up the longboxes, and this week the shortboxes, such that THE bulk of my COMICS are now in the cave. I’ve got some stacks on shelves and such left down there that I need to consolidate and bring up; but that part of the process should more or less be done by this weekend.
The goal being NOT to “take over” this cave as much as to make use of the larger space to spread out and have the comic boxes spread out and open to facilitate the first all-accumulation sorting I’ve attempted in 24 years. The last time I did a “full accumulation” organization was Fall of my senior year in high school–Fall 1998–and I maybe had 5 or 6 longboxes and a couple shortboxes at the time. Total.
I could ramble more on details–stuff I’m most looking forward to finding and bringing back together and having quick/easy access to…but THAT may well be better suited over at my comics blog.
31 weeks, and broken record that I am…I’m getting by. That early “shock and horror” seems to have faded…but it’s definitely left a significant hole in me, my heart, my life, not having Dad here in-person.
He’d have been SHOCKED (and impressed) at alllll these boxes and just how many comics I actually HAVE; I know he knew I had a lot, but even I myself am somewhat surprised at the visual volume seeing so much in one space, not divided between a house and an apartment, or divided in different parts of the basement and upstairs, etc.
I picture him grudgingly having agreed to let me do this as it is…shortly before Christmas, I’d had the idea of bringing all the comics up to use the space here in the cave, get comics sorted properly, and then back down to the basement. Dad almost certainly wold have readily agreed to the PLAN…though I’m sure he’d have expressed some doubt at the volume; and reminded me several times to keep stuff moving and that they weren’t going to STAY up here, etc.
(But on that, how many other times in my life has he sacrificed for me, or otherwise given me space, support, encouragement, etc. and so on?)
As I sit here typing, I’m in the cave…both cats were over here, and more space for Daisey, so I brought the laptop to type here before I figure out something for dinner.
Chloe’s curled up on the couch, doing her upside-down-head thing, snoring. Sarah’s curled up in Daisey’s “spot”. And Daisey’s here in the chair with me, warming my lap and chilling/snuggling.
I’ve allowed little silence over the past months. I pretty much always have some audiobook going overnight. Usually just background noise overnight, though sometimes whatever audiobook works its way into dreams, or I wake in the wee hours and have to switch to music to not stay awake for the rest of the book.
This comics project is also giving me something concrete to DO…something that NEEDS doing…that is far beyond just some weekend project. I tell myself to do SOMEthing “making progress” every day. Whether it’s carry a box upstairs; inventory some sorted comics; do SOMEthing furthering the process TOWARD an organized and inventoried collection.
Such a focal thing that I keep going back to that AS I type along here, stream of conscious-like. Blah.
Saw the new Top Gun a couple/several weeks ago. Wasn’t sure what to make of it. It could NOT live up to the “hype” I’d heard…BUT I still definitely ENJOYED it.
Especially for seeing it in the theater, witht he big screen and theatrical sound system. I realized I hadn’t paid NEARLY enough attention when I “watched” the original back in…April or May or June. So I may try to rewatch that and see how I take it 2nd time through.
The new one definitely hit differently for this point in life.
For one thing, I’m pretty sure that at the least, Dad and I would have watched it…albeit as a rental here at the house. Knowing what I do now, how stuff has gone, if I could go back in time, I’d surely push to get him to the theater to see it, with all the complications that’d include. But we would have watched it. Probably would have gotten Mom to watch it, too; made a family night of it.
I often felt like I could be a bit “off” in assessing what he’d think of certain movies…though that may have been MY enjoyment of “superhero” movies that to me have plenty of action, but never really grabbed him at all the same way. But I do think he’d have enjoyed Maverick quite a bit, and I suspect it would have spurred some definite conversation for us.
I was never in the military, myself. But through Dad, and then over the years through several friends who’ve been in, I’ve gained a new appreciation for those who have served; beyond what I’d already known/seen/”assumed.”
And watching the film, I saw a lot of the multi-generational aspect of things; characters interacting where it was relatively easy to picture Dad there, and wonder about HIM and HIS friends. To appreciate the direction someone might come from looking back on a career and newer/younger up-and-comers; interacting with friends’ adult children, or being one of those adult children interacting with a parent’s friend.
Plenty of similar thoughts and half-thoughts and such.
Dad probably would have also been shocked whenever that was, to realize I had NEVER SEEN TOP GUN before 2022. I always knew OF it; I may have seen parts of it; I was aware of “Take My Breath Away” and maybe other music from the film; but had never actually specifically watched it.
New DRAGONLANCE book came out yesterday, officially. “Classic” Dragonlance; “Dragonlance Destinies” vol. 1; “Dragons of Deceit.” First new Dragonlance novel in over a decade. By original series authors Weis & Hickman. First new Dragonlance book I’ve gotten since Dad. First new physical book I’ve actually started reading since Dad.
While I was with Mom at that used books store in Pennsylvania back in August or so 1995…whether it was the one Grandpa went to or not, I can’t remember for sure (I may be thinking of two separate stores), that was when I came across some Greyhawk book by Rose Estes. I believe it was the 3rd book in a series, and I couldn’t find books 1 or 2, so put it back. I may have looked for a Shadowrun book, but couldn’t find one that was an obvious starting point. But I DID find the first two books in another fantasy series–Dragonlance. “Dragonlance Chronicles” vols. 1 & 2; Dragons of Autumn Twilight, and Dragons of Winter Night.
My friend Jim gave me Dragons of Spring Dawning a few months later; and I remember checking Waldenbooks and B. Dalton at the Mentor Mall for other Dragonlance stuff frequently.
I remember being at that Waldenbooks with Dad when I bought the collected Legends Trilogy, using Christmas money from Grandma K. And some time later, I recall being with Dad at Waldenbooks buying the first books of the new “Fifth Age” stuff; as well as a couple of the box sets of the new RPG at the time.
Whether I ever shared in detail with them or not (or if it’s part of a lengthy letter I remember writing to them in college that I never sent), I remember thinking of Dad (and Mom) with a quote from one of the Dragonlance books, that has stuck with me. “We raise our children to leave us.”
Not that parents necessarily kick their children out, but they raise them to be able to leave.
In my case, I stuck around fairly close. I went 2 1/2 hours away for BG; about an hour for Kent; and it wasn’t until 2016 that I officially moved back in with them, ostensibly to help with Dad and get ready to find a place of my own…which turned into 5+ years and being able to be so much more “help” for/with Dad than any of us imagined.
I COULD live on my own somewhere; or I can be around to help my parents. To help Mom. No great need for me to “live alone” just for the sake of “living alone.”
But anything “good” anyone sees in me…I’d charge that that comes from Mom and Dad. So much I got from Dad that I never realized. Surely plenty of same from Mom that even now I don’t realize.
31 weeks. Over 7 months. Pushing an hour or so of sitting, thinking, typing, rambling, whatever all this post has been. No tears. My heart aches in that way that I’m sure it always will for the rest of my days. I miss Dad. I miss what WAS. I miss sitting out here in the cave and talking to him, watching tv and/or movies with him. Being around this house and simply knowing he’s around; that we’re under the same roof.
So I keep occupied. Try not to “think” too much (not that I’m always successful). Push this comic project along, cuz it’s something “tangible” and long-term that’s already taken a couple months. And put one foot in front of the other, take one day at a time, and….something.
The Life of Walt 