October october-- oh HOW i loved her.

I began last month with a trip to NYC, which was my first since the onset of the pandemic. I was visiting some friends in February of 2020 right before the entire world went ape shit and decided that we’d lose our minds. Even though I could see some of Brooklyn start to go downhill, I didn’t think all too much about it at the time-- fast forward two years and I realized that a city I once loved was nothing more than a cesspool of drugs, homelessness, and generalized chaos. To be fair, I’ve spent the majority of my time on the upper east side, so seeing the problems on the other side of the city was a real eye opener, but the atmosphere still felt totally different-- the energy of the city wasn’t what i onced loved. I think it’s great when city planners do everything they can to gentrify a neighborhood, but these clowns don’t realize that the issues in those neighborhoods just get pushed out to the next one-- Anyways, Joe Fish and I made the best of the work trip and it was nice to interact with people on a large scale again. 

I spent the entire month working on Inktober-- Papasan and I challenged each other to do the daily prompts put out by RetroSupply everyday and we were both successful. We were both featured on their Instagram page once which was a real confidence booster-- They’re listed below the CHECK EM OUT tab on my ABOUT page. They have a ton of wonderful procreate and illustrator brush packs that I highly recommend & the customer service is great. 

The third week, We made a work trip to Baltimore. For a city with a reputation of hardcore violence, I’ve gotta say the Inner Harbor was absolutely beautiful-- There were foot cops stationed every few blocks so I was pretty confident in Baltimores rejection of the DEFUND movement. Friday in Baltimore happened to land on my birthday, which, I’ve gotta tell ya... SUCKED. I didn’t realize how sad I’d be being away for my birthday, and It really didn’t hit me until I was laying in bed at 11 o’clock that night. Needless to say, that’s the last time I opt to work on a birthday. Joe Fish was great however, he made the absolute best effort to cheer me up by going out and grabbing a SURPLUS of buffalo wings and peanut butter cheesecake-- the guy knows me too damn well. 

The month flew by and ended with a halloween party thrown by Joe Fish and his lovely gal, Kate. They go ALL OUT for this party every year, complete with a full bar cart & food menu that beats most restaurants I’ve been to. They out-do themselves each time and It’s something I seriously look forward to every single year. 

There were also a few GREAT birthday gifts I received which I’ll cover next week-- Now, go enjoy the weekend, kids!