Don't Blink!

When we last left our hero, he was planning to go to Disneyland with his family for his 55th birthday, a milestone that meant he was finally going to be eligible to retire and to pursue the creative dreams he had been building on for 10 years. He was going to build a $200 lightsaber and recapture some of the magic he had lost since he was 12 years old and in love with Star Wars.

::blink:: 

What the hell just happened?

Two years passed, that's what just happened. We went to Disneyland! I built that lightsaber! I celebrated my birthday!

A rainy but happy day at the Happiest Place on Earth!

Lightsaber activation at Savi's Workshop!

Birthday dessert at Buca Di Beppo!

I retired and started collecting my pension! I prepared to go out on the road and bring comics and math to the world! I started buying comic book collections so that I could sell at shows that weren't geared toward Artist Alleys and educational comics. I bought a new wardrobe and all the technology necessary to reach my goals, and gave myself until the fall to make a go of it, else I would return to the classroom, earning both my pension and a salary. And then the world was struck with a global pandemic and everything came to a screeching halt. 

The end.

No, literally; that was the end of my dream. There were no more school visits. No more comic book conventions.  Hell, for a long time there was just no school. Everyone hunkered down at home and did virtual instruction wherever possible until the end of the school year. And when we finally did go back to school, there were restrictions placed on spacing and visitors, and there were times when everyone just stayed at home again. And then we went back to hybrid instruction, with half the kids in the building at once. Just to have something I could do to make money, I signed up to be a substitute teacher despite the danger. A week later, school was shut down again for the rest of the calendar year. I worked only sporadically for the better part of a year and a half. The last two months of the 2020-2021 school year, though, I worked almost every day as a substitute. It was great!

I have to tell you, I loved substitute teaching. During the shutdown, I was looking for other creative outlets, and rediscovered my love of tabletop roleplaying games, specifically Champions. And some of my old gaming buddies from the 1980s asked me if I'd be interested in running for them online. I never thought I could maintain a weekly schedule, but I said I would give it a try. And substitute teaching provided me the quiet time needed to maintain a weekly schedule. I felt like I was 22 again, fresh out of college and doing substitute teaching as part of my two part-time jobs. I used to take a bag full of game books and materials with me and work on my Champions stuff while watching whatever movie the teacher left for lesson plans. Maybe it was a little bit of a regression, but I think I earned a little break from full-time work, having done it for 32 years. I think that despite the pandemic, I was the happiest I'd ever been.

But financially, substitute teaching just didn't make a lot of sense. When I was working the tail end of that year, I was actually bringing home more money than I had when I was teaching full-time, between my pension and subbing. But during the summer, there was just nothing coming in. I started selling stuff on Ebay, which turned out to be extremely lucrative, especially when I found a box of 20-year-old Pokemon promo cards in the basement. I paid our mortgage for two months out of that box! But as the new school year approached, I could see that there were 100 teaching openings in my old district, and nine of those were in secondary math. It seemed selfish just to keep working to stay stable while not making any headway in my dream of making Solution Squad and Heroes of  STEAM viable. It just wasn't going to happen, and I'd taken up an extra year beyond what I'd promised; well, that bit was a little out of my control, but still.

So, at the end of July, I applied for and was hired for a position teaching high school geometry. My full salary was restored, and I have rejoined the ranks of the overwhelmed. Well, kind of overwhelmed. No, I'm pretty much whelmed at this point. Unlike my colleagues, I had the privilege of a year and a half not teaching in the pandemic; not really. I wasn't scrambling to make lesson plans with stuff changing two or three times a year. I just showed up and took attendance for the most part, and there's not a whole lot of stress involved there. And I have to confess that retirement was good for me in another way. My philosophy about the things that stressed me out as a full-time teacher before is simple: IDGAF. I know now that I can walk away from this job whenever I want to and still be financially solvent.

After I received a couple of solid paychecks to go along with my pension, I revisited the whole idea of making educational comics. I realize now that I was never going to make money at it. A little bit of market research was revealed to me in an article that showed me that my book was actually selling really well for a graphic novel. And with as little money as that brought in, it was never going to be a moneymaker. It turned out to be kind of a really expensive hobby.

I analyzed my feelings as to why I was still doing it, and I'm pretty well satisfied that I accomplished all my goals. For what it was and who I was, I received far more recognition and validation than I ever expected. I also got to experience the drama behind power struggles among those who crave power in the educational comics space but don't have any real talent, and I bowed out.

I've decided to actually have a life for a while. I'm taking a break from all the troubles and tribulations of making comics. I'm tired of being the boss. I want to binge watch TV shows, read books and old comics, and do the things I've heard so much about for the next little bit, while trying to be a better dad and husband. Whatever I do, there's one thing I can't stop doing, and that's writing.

I'll be writing here in this space for the foreseeable future. No Patreon to collect fees and feel pressure to make money. I don't need to make more money now that I'm back in the classroom. If I want to add photos or illustrations to my work, I can. It's free to read and it's free to ignore. I'll link to these posts on Facebook and Twitter and let the chips fall where they may. I'll be writing about comics, television, gaming, movies, education, all the usual stuff I've written about in the past. Writing is like my meditation. It's how I work things out and sort out my thoughts and feelings. Feel free to watch and laugh at me. I will most likely deserve it.