It's now almost three weeks since my last post.
I took a conscious break from posting, during my two week trip to The Netherlands.
A day and a half ago, I returned to my little town in Portugal.
The contrast with The Netherlands and with Lisbon, where I spent a night on the way to Holland and on my way back, can't be any bigger.
It's good to be back.
The two weeks in The Netherlands were pretty exhausting and so was the traveling itself. Airplanes, airports and big cities are hard to enjoy for me, these days and make me feel stressed and unwell.
I caught a cold, in my last week in The Netherlands, which lead to a serious ear ache, during too quick a descent of the airplane, just before it landed in Lisbon and an overall weird feeling in the next 24 hours or so.
To get back to The Netherlands:
My mom was, naturally, glad that we visited her and that my three siblings and I were present on her 70th birthday, on the 21st of April.
I managed to get a single print of my book ready, on the morning of that exact day and that too must have made her pretty happy.
It was also nice to spend some time with my brother and sister, who Iive in The Netherlands, as well as with some friends, although it was kind of a shame ( but no surprise to me ) that all of them only had very limited time, due to busy schedules. I can;t help but feel that we're on a different wavelength, these days.
The aforementioned way of living is exactly what I escaped from and one of the main reasons why I left the country. It's suffocating and exhausting and unhealthy.
I am now slowly getting back to my Portugese way of living, trying not to fall into the productivity trap ( that I still sense, lurking in the dark, waiting to jump on my shoulders ). I am looking forward to my mom sending me her notes, containing some corrections on my book.
I reminded her of this, in a phone call, yesterday, mainly to keep myself accountable.
In all honesty, I already feel like this project is finished ( eventhough it isn't, entirely ) and I don't want to lose too much momentum, don't want it to bleed dry, before I actually have a printable version. A version of my book that I can hand out to friends and sell to fans, groupies, distant family, relatives and, last but not least, total strangers ;<)
Merch
I talked a little about this in yesterday's podcast episode, but right now, after some serious consideration, I decided that I don't feel like pushing merch onto people
My buddy 
Something I am seriously considering, is to get myself some baseball caps and T-Shirts and – now I think of it – perhaps some cups/ mugs and bags, with illustrations of Hypersensitivosaurus and Cold Turkey. The idea is to wear and use these, myself. And to, possibly, hand these out to family and or friends, if they like it, so they can spread the word about my work.
When anyone strikes up a conversation, asks about the illustrations, I/ they can refer them to my book.
I would like to actually have a printed and/ or digital version of my book ready before I start using the merch.
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If you'd like to hear me talking ( about some of the above and more ), I invite you to listen to my podcast, The Life of Hypersensitivosaurus where I share my creative process ( and more ).
After a similarly lengthy break, I once again recorded an episode, yesterday:
Finished a first version of my book and kind of forgot to mention it
although I did mention it in my blog, days before my trip, here
TO BE CONVINUED...
pics: Coja, today ; a screenshot from some possible merch: 'Cold Turkey' mugs and baseball cap.
