It’s “the holidays,” and it’s been lovely, but I wouldn’t want the internet to think I’d forgotten it. So here I am, with another short-term memory-drawing of the north country. It was funny passing by the same spot the next day and realizing how different the construction of the bridge is, and how there are bigger, uglier buildings just past it. But, isn’t that the great part about memory? The relevant parts stick out. I’m really enjoying doing these landscapes in this way. I think it has a lot to do with cartooning, and with only including the pertinent details. If I ever teach a class, I’ll probably make my students do some memory sketching. First I’ll show them Laura Park, who does a lot of it.

In other news, my whirlwind tour of the New York metro-area is drawing to a close, and it makes me sad. Caitlin and I extended our Christmas stay in Connecticut, due to that big snowstorm the entire Eastern Seaboard is talking about. One of my oldest and dearest friends was staying there, with my parents, and blended right in, an extra sibling, just like he used to when we were kids. That was lovely.

The other day a bunch of us took the commuter rail down to Grand Central. It was the day after the storm, and the train was packed. My dad had to go to his bank, my sister to the French Consulate, my Chad (that’s the friend I mentioned) to Brooklyn, along with a friend of his who joined us on the train. Caitlin and I took the subway over to Penn Station, and never emerged to the light of Manhattan. We just got straight onto a New Jersey Transit double decker train and took it to her grandmother’s, where we’ve been the last two days. Upon arriving in New York, neither Caitlin or I felt the Country Mouse sensation that I’ve had when emerging from a day’s travel on Amtrak directly from Vermont. There was none of that “gorsh, there sure are a lotta pretty people…an’ boy do they move fast!” kinda thing. I don’t know if it was the buffer of some days spent in the suburbs, or the familiarity of the commuter line, or what, but it just felt comfortable and right.

I’m looking forward to our approaching weekend stint in Brooklyn. I miss the old borough, and haven’t been back since August. I’m worried that I might never live there again. I can’t stop thinking about what I’ll do, and where I’ll be, after graduating (unless I fail) from CCS this coming May. I know I’ll stick around in Vermont for a while, but I don’t know for how long, or how I’ll be paying my loans. Ah, the future! There’s nothing like the New Year to make you obsess over your plans, is there? Welp, that’s my life. Sorry to get all reflective on yas.

The other day I saw this happening. I felt really sad, like this was some sort of a betrayal. Each detail that hadn’t been removed, like the mailbox on the wall and the little flag on the porch column, and the kid’s room wallpaper I spotted through the window, felt like a cruel reminder that somebody lived here. That people have been living here for probably more than a hundred years. A hundred years! And then the steam shovel, it’s business end like a mammalian face, mouth agape and just sorta knocking things around, then pulling, then smashing through. When I finally stopped staring, and walked by, I started to choke and cough on air-born house dust.

I dunno. Maybe this was just the outpouring of disappointment after I went to pick up some covers at the printer’s. They’d been printed horribly wrong. All 300 of them. I was really excited to see them and to make some more Oaky Lindy 3s and get them out to the public. Ah, well. It’ll just hafta wait ’til January.

it gets a lot bigger || that is, if you click it

Poll time, blogheads! Would anybody be interested? in purchasing or gifting these two posters? They’d be digital inkjet prints on nice, archival, 11″×17″ cream colored paper. Probably with short descriptive text (hand lettered) in the black corners. Signed and numbered. The whole deal. For $8 for one or $12 for both (the second at half-off). Let me know, by comment or by email, and I’ll make em available on the shop or by direct order. If you’re not sure how you feel about my work, maybe you can allow some other people to tell you it’s not too bad, for some punk kid.

Now that you’ve slogged through my hucksterism (second week in a row), how about some good news of family, friends, and fun? I’m getting pumped to roam around all three of the NYC tristates! First at my family’s in Connecticut, see Better-Half Caitlin’s family in Jersey, then pal around with my dear ol’ college chums in Brooklyn.

And how better to kick off this whirlwind tour of the New York metropolitan area? A Wu-Tang concert in Burlington! It’s gonna be full of bros, but all the founding members but ODB and the RZA are gonna be there! (Although, the Razor dropped out only about a week ago, and after I bought a ticket. Supposedly he’s filming something in China. Whatever. Maybe they’ll each drop out, one by one. Still ready to love it.)