Karma.....that'd be right....

Starting to feel like I did something terrible in a former life.....hope I bloody enjoyed it!!!....Looks like I may have to move from my big arse mansion on the mountain......well that blows....My nice landlady and her shifty husband have got themselves into some kind of financial bover gov'ner....and although they say I am welcome to stay as long as I like, I am getting that feeling in the pit of my waters or something....

So I can just sit here and hope.....not my style.....or start preparing for the worst.....Bingo!!

They say optimists are miserable sods because they are constantly disappointed.....and at least a pessimist is occasionally happily surprised when something goes right.....People think I am a pessimist....I am not. I prefer to think of myself as a realist....Hope for good....prepare for the bad....and be surprised by neither.

So although it is a bit of a roadblock to artistic endeavors in the short term, it may be just what I need....So the most important bit of a pre-move strategy is to thin out the amount of stuff I need to move....So off to the markets goes this little pig....Jiggety Freaking Jig.... Time to liquidate the stockpile of collectible crap I have been toting around the country for way to long.... I really want rid of it, what was a security blanket has become an anchor. I don't want to be a bloody Del Boy wanna be anymore. So out goes the junk.

A good friend gave me an idea....a bloody good idea! Involving teaching art to kids....So I need to chase that with everything I have....While preparing to uproot the kids and myself to a new house.... What the hell ....Lets JUMP!!!!!

Stranger in a Land II....

Not so much strange as uncomfortable.....a night at the ex's with the kids while she goes out.....not ideal but better than them not seeing her at all.....

Just found out that in addition to asking out all my friends and ex's my scumbag cousin is now trying to get a date with my current friend.....wow this guy is a piece of work....He is really ruining my faith in Karma...

On the art side, the new water colour pencils are great.....a wonderful step between fine line work and painting....a step I needed I think. I have always found brushwork to imprecise for the pictures I enjoy....but the use of water colour pencils is far more precise...and allows me to build up colour in layers, the same way I use the ink for fine detail....

When  I get back tomorrow I will post the results.

The Other Other Shoe......And some Water Colour Pencils

So a lovely day shopping, a big pile of water colour pencils, great lunch with a friend and......then of course the spanner....Get a ex-txt asking me to make the appointment for my sons haircut because as the manager of a large government department she is afraid of phones....and then one of those dreaded ambushes by the head of school to have a little chat about my son's behaviour....stomach sinking....it was the one thing i was happy with....So 3 hours of talking to him and trying to work through things, think i started to get to the bottom of it....Part frustration and Part anxiety and part attention seeking.....Guess I should have expected some fallout from the separation with the kids.....I don't think it's a coincidence that his major outbursts today where after he found out his mother wasn't coming to see him last night....My damn fault for telling the kids....Phoned her to talk about it, but just felt like i was interrupting her new shiny life....I get that she wanted to leave me....I didn't think that meant not having to think about kids....really mad right now. I know her mother was a cold hard selfish.....well you get the idea....but you would think that would make someone more aware of the fact that ignoring your own children....even when you are in the same room as them, fucks people up....So she gets her life, hanging out with someone who did something unspeakable to me, and god knows what else...and I get financially screwed and made to feel guilty if I ask for help.....that seems about right.....maybe I should just take the kids and move somewhere a long way away....

Oh but the pencils are nice....

The other shoe.....

The increasing realisation that I am in this alone now has arrived.....To tell the truth the separation had very little impact on the kids....and seemingly little on my ex. That probably speaks volumes I guess....I had hoped that maybe this would allow us both to focus on the kids a bit more and get my own life back in focus. To a small degree that was happening, and I accept progress is slow.....and many years of being there for everyone else is a hard habit to break....probably just having a crappy day. Just feeling a bit like I once again got the shitty end of the stick....I do the hard bit with the kids, school, nightmares and keeping them confident and as stress free as I can, I was really hoping that being the fun weekend parent would be a roll she could embrace, enjoy the kids for the brief time she has them and not see them as an inconvenience to her alone time, they still look to me to explain the way she acts, I explain a lot of it by saying her job is very hard....I am sure it will improve as she finds her own way...Just not getting my hopes up that it will happen quickly....and not letting it get me down to much

On the bright side I am finding it a lot easier to make the house function, amazing how much better it feels just to get stuff done instead of dwelling on the fact that you want someone else to help.....when there is no one else there you just do it.....much easier and less soul destroying....

Couple on new commissions for pictures over the past few weeks....a few more chapters of book....and a dozen other projects on the go. Kind of amazed at how things are moving along in that department. No one to share it with, but that isn't so bad.....

I have decided to shift the collectibles stuff a bit cheaper and quicker....starting to feel it is a distraction to what i really want to achieve....the money will be very tight for a while, but i have cut back just about everything to the wire....at least I don't answer to anyone else for it....and that's a good feeling.

Just a few things I needed to get of my chest....don't want to bottle things up, it stops me getting things done...

Whoops bottle all filled again!!!! I get the impression that my ex is so desperate for friends that she will overlook just about anything....Maybe I should take that as a sign to just let it go....She once said she had changed as much as she could, and resented that she changed at all.... Maybe she did, I didn't see it....It probably wouldn't have mattered anyway. I need a break I think, starting to let things get on top of me again...The Prozac isn't even touching the sides....Starting to think I should stop taking it....I only started to get to that emotionally detached world my ex inhabited...I thought it would help....turns out emotionally detached people are no fun to live with....yes I saw the irony....

So to re-cap feeling like shit......kids sad.....ex who only ever liked me for someone I wasn't....and no clue what to do next.....

I know......a bit more Prozac.

Update a few hours later.......

Alright I feel a lot better now....My new rule is I leave the rant....even if it makes me cringe a bit....can't grow out of tantrums if I hide them.

Do I really need a list.....

Probably.....but list making seems to involve to much thinking about what you need to do, instead of just doing. So maybe I should stick with spirit of the list, and not the letter....

1 - GET UP
2 - DO THE STUFF YOU NEED TO DO
3 - THEN DO THE STUFF YOU WANT

There we go a list.....

The Evening update.....did everything on the list....wow this is easy....

Coffee 13 on a Sunny Day......

A sunny day in the mountains and a lucky coffee.....took a few hours out this morning to relax and smell the roses, or the coffee in this case.....So pleased with my first ever watercolour I may look through some of my old black and white stuff, for stuff that needs a bit of depth.

Maybe I could use a little colour?.......

I tend to work in black and white.....and not just on paper. Maybe I need a little colour, maybe that would cheer me up a bit?

Turning over a new forest.....

The last year was not a friend to productivity.....in fact it has pretty much been an off the rails, in a ditch, belly up train wreck.....but that's life for you.

Now that, with fingers crossed and a knock on the nearest timber, the worst is over - it is time to get back on track, to continue the train metaphor....and that means kicking out all thoughts of back-up plans and embrace the sink or swim approach to art.....

So daily updates and works in progress will be the norm......

Welcome to MY LIFE 2.0

Change is good......Right????

Strange days indeed....March madness maybe? Sparkey has landed in Australia, and here in about 5 days....My seven year old will become my eight year old on Saturday....and my four year old turns five ten days later.....oh it it looks like my marriage of over 10 years is over....i think that last one might take a while to process.

I wasn't going to be personal blurt guy in a blog, but to be honest not sure who else to tell. Oh and a stack of new tattoo gear arrived this week (deftly done change of topic). Found a undiscovered talent, or at least not discovered enough to be charging big $$$ yet talent. Guy in China making very nice hand made tattoo guns, I may have gone a little crazy but as soon as i got one of his tattoo guns i realized what a good gun was....brass and hand made, v.sexy :) other boxes contain everything else, inks, fancy power supplies and other scary fun stuff.

I am pretty much stocked and good to go, i just need a big tub of Vaseline and some Detol (as the actress said to the Bishop).

Busy days ahead.....never been so sad and so motivated.....

Where's the bit in the middle?.....

The bit in the middle was overtaken by that pesky time eater, life.....So i will fill it in later and keep going with present day recollections, which are more reliable anyway.

A week from today Sparkey will arrive at my house.....all the way from Northern Ireland. This of course will result in a blog filled with interesting photo's of tattooing and me trying to get him killed by Australian wildlife. It is a tradition, or old charter or something. Come to Australia, you might accidentally get killed, as the song says.