And so we come lurching to the end of another week – according to the USPS HR department. My payweek runs from Saturday to Friday so today is considered the finale of my toil. Since I still have to work tomorrow I’m not going to feel like I’ve finished my week until I clock out tomorrow evening. Thank you for allowing me to toss this missive into your mailbox. I hope you are doing well!

These Days …

As of August 12th, I will have been working for USPS for 8 years. I’ve had my own route for about six and a half years but I’ve continured to carry off other routes in that time. I’ve delivered to almost every mailbox in the four zip codes that our station services. Yay me!

We’re doing a lot of mandatory overtime at my station. Between being short on carriers and having carriers on vacation those of us who show up for work are often “asked” to carry part of another route regardless of whether we are on the Overtime Desired List. My body isn’t happy with me because of this.

Well, not just this. On Saturday, July 24th, Sarah and I loaded up the car and drove from Seattle to Santa Rosa. The distance is a little over 800 miles. It took us about 16 hours.

On Sunday the 24th we attended the memorial of our friend Andy Syversen. Andy had passed away last September but his family had held off having an event until some covid restrictions had been lifted.

On Monday the 26th Sarah and I did another 16 hour drive back to Seattle.

When we woke up on the 27th we both hurt. Apparently sitting in one place with minimal breaks for exercising isn’t good for you. I had taken the 24th and the 26th off from work (thereby sticking my coworkers with filling in for me on my route – sorry folks!) but that Tuesday was a scheduled day off. From the post office. We still went to visit one friend who is in town for medical care and then had dinner with one of my high school classmates who was passing through town.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday I limped through delivering mail. My supervisors held off scheduling me to carry extra the first three days because of that limping but I still did overtime. There was an election here in Seattle on August 3rd and the candidates had to get their mailers out. Many many mailers. For some reason political marketers have decided that oversized cardstock mailers are the way to push their clients. Those things are a nuisance to case and often don’t fit in the mailboxes easily.

On Sunday, August 1st, we had breakfast with a couple of passing-through-town friends and then an early dinner with our in-town-for-medical-treatment friend.

Monday and Tuesday I worked overtime. I’d recovered enough that my limping was minimal so I got to deliver parts of other routes.

Wednesday was this week’s scheduled day off. I spent it doing catching up on chores.

Thursday – overtime.

I’m expecting more overtime today. We’re supposed to be scheduled for one eight hour day each work week and, if that doesn’t happen, any overtime we work on the day that’s not an eight is paid double. So today I’ll either go home at 3:30 or make a little extra cash. I’ll be happier to go home early but the cash wouldn’t hurt.

Revisions and Edits

It should have been obvious to me. Circular designs look good on t-shirts. They make good magnets and buttons and stickers. But it still took me a few months before I grokked that. Once I did, I looked through my older images to see which ones would look good in a circle.

I did this King in Yellow illustration back when I was relearning how to color on the computer. I was posting a black and white image and then the colored version to my website.

I liked the black and white version but the original colors needed some work. More contrast. More luridness.

Much better!

The next image was an even earlier one, done when I was finally having time to draw again after my first year of a heavy, time devouring postal work. These first drawings were only done and posted to my website in black and white. This is one of my various interpretations of the atomic zombie fishmen from The Horror of Party Beach. 

I made some edits to the lead fishman before I started coloring. I’ve had enough practice recently that digitally adding to the drawing is easy. I couldn’t have done when I originally drew it. I still can’t draw an image from scratch digitally but perhaps if I keep practicing ..
.

The next illustration was done for an RPG supplement that will probably never see print. The featured elephantine critter is one of the “brothers” of Chaugnar Faugn, a Great Old One invented by Frank Belknap Long. The original version was/is in black and white. I’ve put some of my black and white illustrations into my shops but I thought this one would look good with some color.

Lurid color of course. I hear some folks aren’t into lurid color. Silly people.

These designs can be found on various schtuff in both my Redbubble and Zazzle stores.

And that’s it for this week.

Be good to yourself. Be kind to others. Say hello to passing dogs. Rest when you can.

Cheers!