I’m packed and ready to go. Trouble is the move is still a month away. The walls are bare except for artwork in progress. After living in this apartment for over five years it is most of the way back to being unfamiliar. It hasn’t been a bad environment to get work done.

I leave the house once a day for a walk or bike ride. Wednesday was warm so I took a long ride. Marie had made some banana bread she wanted to share. That was reason enough for a trip to Garfield Park. I came home with my first sunburn of the year. There will be many more as summer kicks in. I hate the feeling, but is one of the markers of the year passing, so there’s value in it.

I finished a painting of boxes in my front room. That’s every book I own, plus art supplies and odds and ends. All that remains unpacked are clothes, cookware, and the art gear I’m still using. I expect to make several more paintings of these empty rooms before I leave May 2nd.

My big project this week has been working on a one-volume Hack book in time for the tenth anniversary of the first one’s publication. I’m aiming to release it early next year. Once I started opening the old files it was hard to stop. It’s pretty painful to reread a lot of the old writing, but the chance to polish it up and reconfigure it into a new thing makes it feel worthwhile. I’m looking forward to doing a whole new layout once the edits on the text are complete as well.

I’ve settled into this new routine very well. I could see it continuing to be a productive time for weeks, even months. But I know that I’m very fortunate to have food in the refrigerator and a roof over my head and much fewer concerns than many. Reading the news every day leaves me feeling helpless so all I know to do is dive back into my work. I hope you all have enough to do to occupy this time rather than lapsing into bad thought loops. I wish I had more to say or wise advice or jokes. I wonder how people will be changed by this plague time. I doubt I’ll be any different, but who knows?