The household god

Here is the guy I made to protect our new home-is it Lares
(the Roman/Latin name for the god of the household)?

Packing Packing Packing

Still packing, believe it or not-the studio has been one big nightmare to box-I find it hard to fathom that I've been packing and throwing things away now for almost two years: first, my parents' place and now my studio. A large portion of the work here I have only myself to blame for-I've been accumulating stuff since I've had the place. Wow, wouldn't it be great to make it disappear-my fantasy would be to arrive in NM with two suitcases. But, I am my Father's child and this will never be.
As I've already promised myself, I'll be shuffling off even more stuff after we get to the SouthWest. I simply don't have the strength to let it go presently...knowing this is frustrating in a purely practical sense-but somehow, it just can't be helped.
There is a cut-off date at this point: we have hired a mover (although we can cancel and modify this date) to come for the stuff on September 10-11...
Below are shots of the second floor and the first-there is still a lot of stuff to pack, but I can definitely see my progress-what's that line? After this, I'll never move again!
BTW, this move breaks with the long-standing Skrips tradition of never budging/never moving once a place is found...

Dear Diary,

Sure has been a while since I wrote to you. 

Life as I know it has changed a bit. Presently, I'm packing up both studio and home and moving to the southwest-to an area a bit south of Santa Fe, where the tarantulas roam.

New Mexico will be my new home-or hacienda, as it were. 

I won't try and fill you in on the whys of this move-let's call it a conscious effort to stop the growth of roots under me here in NJ. Almost a lifetime spent here is plenty- I'm ready to go. I can hear my parents rolling around down there, asking me why the hell I want to go and do this….

The shedding of excess goods (and, trust me, there is plenty of excess), shifting of daily-used objects and tools, and all the subsequent packing following has left my life upside down. Going to a part time job has been my one source of real order in the topsy-turvy mayhem I've created.

What is starting to really tell on me, what has started to really grind is not doing any artwork for over a month now. I knew that I'd miss it and couldn't imagine how I'd get through this time. Unfortunately, there is more of the same in store: the earliest I figure to be able to do any work is mid-September-and that's if everything goes smoothly, without any hitches. 

There has been a feeling of loss of identity. This, coupled with all the sentimental items I've had to sift through (I have mounds of stuff from recently emptying my parents' house, never mind all the things I've saved and stored because it never seemed right to discard them), has been wearing on me rather visibly the past few days. I can't pull off any marathon days-my emotional state simply will not allow it. Besides, the heat of the season and the range of the nature of the job (between jaggedly emotional and so boring you feel as if your brain were being sucked out) also create some serious barriers to working very long hours.

In theory, I thought that I'd seek some sort of fulfillment by doing small paper paintings at home. But the reality has been that I'm way too tired to function even on a simple level, never mind at a creative one.

The dog has kept me going-he disappears at the right times, but also lets me know when we've been too long at a certain task. Yesterday, I packed seven boxes, ripped up more high school drawings, chucked out more superfluous family photos, disassembled a motor-driven machine in order to pack it and made a trip to the dumpster, "losing" six bags of garbage and discards. The work goes on, even though it's tough to see any real progress as my pace is so slow.

Milestones

On Sunday, it will be a year since my Mother passed away. It is also a sad day for the people of Japan-a day of remembrance for all the dead who lost their lives during the horrific earthquake.
I visited my Mom in the hospice that day-she slept during the whole visit. I brought a crossword or two for us to do together which was wanted just the day before, when she was bright and almost cheery. She died later that night, Cara (my ex-wife) by her side. When Cara called to give me the news, she was a bit taken aback that I would not come to be by my Mother's side. I didn't have the strength. I guess you can figure why I've never visited their grave.
My Dad passed a little less than three weeks before-I was there when he died. I don;t know if he knew it, but others have assured me that he did. I have mildly cursed him through this year as I've been getting rid of his vast stockpile of stuff. It has taken me that long.
Tomorrow, I put their house up for sale, the house they lived in most of their adult lives. The plaque my Dad made reads "July 31, 1948". The house holds their story, but not mine. I dunno why I've never felt tied to the house-maybe that will all change now as I go through the motions of turning it over to strangers. Much like a near-death episode, will all that I've experienced there now flood back over me in final remembrance?
Although I suppose they lived long, healthy lives, those lives still feel like they were far too short. The lesson here is to live the days like they were your last-right now I hear Joplin belting out "git it while you can...".

Do you want to reset your password?

Jeezus-after spending 15 minutes trying to recover my password for this ULTRA HIGH SECURITY blog, I'm all spent-I can't even remember what it was I wanted to write about-I even hesitate to publish this rant, but, what the hell.
Don't y'all feel as if this password thing is almost akin/parallel to the latest trend in ultra-sanitation? We can wash and wash-all it does is make us more susceptible to infection. Seems like the more we block our "virtual" doors, the harder it is to get in-it's almost as if we're leveling the playing field and having as tough a time as the bad guys to access what we (in theory) already own. I'm also finding this true fior banking-why am I being charged to take out my own money? If you want to see how this works, simply make ANY sort of transaction over the new wunderkind, the bank called Paypal. Not only is interest collected on your money, but any movement you cause within your account makes the bank more money.
In the true way of the curmudgeon, I eventually see sites charging fees for changes we make to our passwords. So not only will we invest our precious time with these "essential" and virtual padlocks, we'll soon be paying for what we didn't even want in the first place.
Doesn't sound too preposterous to me, considering how much I've got to pay the bank to hold my money. Stuffing the cash in one's mattress might not be so far-fetched, after all.