I did, however, take Thursday and Friday off work. And I had a gameplan, which was why I didn't want to screw it up by spending a bunch of time pondering imponderables here at The Signal Watch. Thus: Hiatus. Thanks for your patience.
Here at League HQ I maintain a home office which a few of you have had opportunity to visit. On some show on Spike, it would likely be referred to as a "man cave", but its far brighter and cheerier than what I'd guess many man-caves to be. Its where I keep my comics in boxes, display my action figures and toys, etc... Its a homey little spot, but it doesn't get enough attention, nor have I been good about organizing my comics of late. Basically, I had more than three long-boxes worth of comics that weren't really bagged and boarded, and hadn't been entered in the online database I use to inventory my stuff. (I use an online service called comicspriceguide.com).
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| this represents about 16-18 months worth of Superman reading. I should mention, after taking this picture, I realized I hadn't added my "Superman/ Batman" issues to the bin. Also: Jeff the Cat is always around. |
This stuff is incredibly time consuming to deal with, and its not a good project to pick up and then do in bits and spurts. Comic organizing all kind of has to happen either weekly or with a single, sustained effort once in a while. Cleaning all those toys and shelves? That isn't exactly something you want to do every day, and when you do it, man...
But the course of true-organizing never did run smooth.
You may have heard we had some trouble with Scout's feet post-rollerblading (its not as crazy as it sounds), and so no more rollerblading for our girls. But that turned Wednesday night into a fiasco. A few pain pills later, and Scout is now right as rain, by the way. But that threw off my Wednesday night something fierce, and I had to deal with it at the eVet, or I was going to lose sleep on Wednesday night plus I'd lose time on Thursday.
Thursday and part of Friday I mostly spent clearing off shelves, dusting and cleaning both shelving and more action figures and toys than I want to talk about. I'm trying to get down to some nice balance of iconic stuff for a few characters and not really caring if Superman overtakes the collection in that room. But the upshot is that I did get rid of a few shelves worth of stuff, or at least cleared it into boxes that I now have to deal with separately.
Yes, I also stopped very early Friday so I could go with PalKevin to see Captain America at the Gateway, where Austin Books and Comics had brought in comic writer Mark Waid to talk about comics, Captain America as a character, etc... to an eager audience. I'm a pretty big Waid fan, so I can't really talk about it without gushing, but he seems every bit the gentleman and scholar you read about online. And his lady friend was pretty charming to boot.
So I mixed up Friday through this afternoon alternating between organizing comics and re-arranging parts of my office. I basically didn't finish either project.
I managed to get all my comics bagged, boarded and inventoried, but I didn't merge them with the larger collection, and I didn't start to pull out stuff from the long-boxes that I don't want anymore.
I also didn't finish with the stuff in my office. I hung some little red shelves, and those look okay. And I re-hung some stuff in frames... that sort of thing. But I'm far from done.
Jamie returned this evening (we are very happy to have her home again), and I did try to clean up as much as possible, but the house is a bit of a wreck. Me, two dogs and a cat did nothing to make sure the house was any better when she came back than when she left.
I talked and talked about what I'd done, and then I took her in my office and I saw it on her face... in her eyes, it all looked exactly the same as it had when she left.
Pointed a few things out, but I think she just sees a blur of Superman-ishness and a bunch of junk she really doesn't care that much about, and that's fine. But it did make me laugh a bit realizing that as much time as I spent, ain't nobody going to notice but me.
I took some quick pics with my iPhone, but the flash was all buggy, so I did the best I could. I think the camera lens needs a cleaning.
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| part of the action figure collection. I cleaned every last shelf and every last item. You can see an issue of Superboy that Randy gave me up top in a frame. |
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| no, I do not wear the cape and belt. And the boots don't fit. The lower Power Girl image was a gift from CanadianSimon |
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| why did I buy so many comics..? By the way, I've had those discolored boxes since around 1989. Jamie gave me that issue of Superman on the right where he's racing The Flash. |
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| this should give you an idea of what kind of mess is still left to be dealt with. There's that Jill Thompson print. |
