Stripper's Guide

Hello folks -- sorry there haven't been any posts for a week. No, I don't have the Coronavirus. That would be a great excuse, but I'm glad to say I can't use it. No, the problem has simply been a lack of time.

Allow me to explain. If you are a regular follower of Stripper's Guide you may also know that I've been in a state of flux in regard to my comic strip collection for years now, often not being able to do research or show samples because a good portion of my collection is in storage, 2000 miles away.

The good news is that those days are finally over. Last summer my wife and I had a garage built on our property. The first floor was for the vehicles, but the second floor, one climate-controlled 800 square foot room, was to be my new research office and storage facility. We had a builder do the shell, but we spent most of the summer and fall in shingling the outside and doing all the finishing work on the inside. With that done, in December I took a plane down to Florida, rented a 26-foot U-Haul and packed up two storage units worth of newspapers and books, then drove the whole kit and kaboodle up here to Nova Scotia.

In January and February all I seemed to do from dawn to dusk and beyond was set up file cabinets, bookcases, and shelving units, and then unpack boxes and boxes and boxes into them. As things now stand my new research room is basically functional and I can get at all my files.  The only blemish is a giant pile of boxes in the middle of the room, which are filled with accumulated material that has been waiting all these many years to be filed. There's a job that is going to take months. Months of fun, yeah, but still months.

So, you say, what the heck is the problem? You've finally got everything at your fingertips, so now make with the blog posts, stripper boy.

Fair enough. Ya got me dead to rights. Except I've only told you the good news so far. But here's the thing. Without getting into a long and convoluted story, in February I bought a neighbor widow lady's house. She wanted out, didn't really want to deal with the real estate market, and so fool that I am, I made an offer and she accepted. The house is a real mess, but it has good bones, and the real estate market in our area is so hot that I just couldn't resist. Even though I am bone-tired from everything I told you about above. So now I've got a house that has to be renovated from top to bottom to get it on the market. I've signed on a partner who has many of the skills I lack, and he's a real working guy -- puts in 8+ hour days Monday to Friday at the house, and often comes in for more on the weekends. I've got to try to keep up, from ego if nothing else, and so I'm putting in the kind of work hours I haven't done for years. And finding out I'm not 25 anymore. I'm discovering that I just can't do a full day on that project and come home to sit at the computer touching up scans and trying to writing coherent prose. All I want is a cocktail, supper, and a movie on the TV, which I will never see the end of because I'll be asleep.

So there's the deal. As unlikely as it sounds, the blog has been hijacked by a house flip. I don't know when I'll get to the point on the project that I have the energy and headspace to get back to the blog, but I promise I will. It might be next week, but you better figure on more like a month. Please stay tuned, and hey, if you're interested in moving to Nova Scotia, I'm going to have a real sweet house ready for you soon!