Efforts to find that new rhythm – or way of thinking about / listening to it – continue. Getting somewhere, I think. Maybe.
fri/20221202
Fantastic chat with Liam: came away with a feeling of how photographs could be an extension of someone as essential to their being as their brain or heart. Letting the recording itself sit until first of next week then will turn into the episode: need a couple of days after a deep dive into the work of others to refocus on my writing (even though the current isn't speaking to me this morning – hence why I keep two WIPs going at once, two different tabs, the hopes that maybe one can unlock the other – or lead to utter fuckall). Full interview should be live sometime, Weds-> Fri.
Might be time to partake in a little side project, something totally different from the main WIPs. Hard and fast deadline – a week or a month or so. Asking self, What would be to me as photography is to Liam – maybe that's what sketchy me below is trying to figure out?
CGM switch day today, from the Libre to the Dexcom. First phase of my cyborg pancreas changeover. Bit of trepidation (at least part of aforementioned utter fuckall?), but the covering bandages arrived yesterday so if nothing else I don't have to worry about a boisterous German Shepherd tearing it off my arm; little victories.
prototyping = essential AND utterly enjoyable.
"(but I don't know) what that something else could be"
Wrote the above in a note to myself in (one of the) WIP(s); I write this rather frequently, actually: an agnostic faith that I might find it or might not (?) – difference being now that it bothers me far less, if it's the latter, than it used to.
(This is what I tell myself.)
Playing GOTHAM KNIGHTS on the Series S and I'm entertained enough: once I read that the combat was more ASSASSIN'S CREED than ARKHAM (I can't counter? What?!) it made sense and I was able to get over the initial reluctance to embrace it. CYBERPUNK 2077 is waiting in the wings. Still playing ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD, though that's much more of a backburner endeavor, more often than not played in handheld mode (that OLED screen on the Switch is GORGEOUS), except when I have to face one of those stupid tests of strength in the shrines; as someone sagely told me on Mastodon: "When fed up, go foraging": I have been foraging with increased frequency – perhaps I should apply that axiom beyond ZELDA and into the WIP…
Important note: in spite of my Racoon Mario getup below, I've yet to actually fly but the day is young and the sun is only now rising.
this would be a title if i could come up with one right now
Inverse proportionality's vanishing act continues: whereas once fewer words in the Main Work meant more words here, they are – as with yesterday's more with more – few with few (though there are, as I let this flow, more here than on the main work so perhaps it's a return to SOP?)
What I can tell you is that Kirby has been demanding to sit in my lap – while I'm sitting in the office chair - all morning: growing up with The Morkie and The Jorkie, he's yet to understand how massive he is; three more months of velociraptor age-range that could last three years or his entire life. Whatever works: he is, utterly, Derbz.
Also: go read THE MEMORY POLICE now. It’s a fucking masterpiece.
Bivalent stabjab this afternoon; die COVID die.
(back in the) grooves(?)
Banner day yesterday of site transformation, rebalancing: added pages for Attendance Cards, for VIOLENTLY ADORABLE, and Frequencies and "latest" (back) to the About page LINKS. Hoping that Squarespace adds a Mastodon social link icon soon but I suspect it will fall under their "such and such takes awhile to implement so please be patient (while we try to add stuff and break everything)" canned response.
Also nifty: the inspirations behind my new Principles page dug my efforts.
In word-land: banner morning this morning of getting back into the fiction groove – one of those rare mornings when I have a lot to write here but also managed to get a lot done in The Work: usually the amount of writing in this space is in inverse proportion to the amount of writing in The Work – of finding what wasn't working (efforts to combine – didn't need to combine stories, only to switch the medium of one) and how to – possibly – make it work for me again; also set a goal of releasing a new Etude by year's end.
I have now listened to Mr Leonard Cohen on vinyl for the first time and it was like listening to him for the first time ever – and this coming from someone who has a piece of his wisdom tattooed on his arm, "(if your life is burning well), poetry is just the ash."
Related: this was also my first time listening to music via physical media in years and I seem to have forgotten how, the patience, the focus it deserves. Efforts underway to return to that sort of patience from streaming befitting the investment in aural physicality. As I replied to K when she asked, "Why vinyl?": streaming is an e book, cd a paperback, vinyl the hardcover.
If you haven't checked it out, that Amazon Prime documentary on the music of Bond, featuring Billie Eilish and a ton of others, is fantastic. Helped to crystalize an unrealized goal I had as a music student: to have written a song as beautiful (and tragic) as "We Have All The Time In The World" and a score as rousing and exciting as ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (still my favorite Bond film).
Today's (and all moving forward) Attendance Card drawn in 4'33": Barry said she had her students draw for the duration of a song, so I decided to draw for the duration of John Cage's 4'33". Initially conceived card as a shrug but turned into what I can only approximate as a "Hallelujah" response to Mr Cohen on vinyl.
instance / workrhythm
Successfully moved Mastodon instances from the catchall Mastodon.social to writing.exchange – I'm now at @twweaver@writing.exchange – and, in so doing, learned the value of the local timeline: what a delightful group of creative and generous people. Further, set a donation of $100/yr to the admins to keep the server lights on – which is what I probably would have paid by self-hosting my own – with the value of a new community. Worth it, I think – this co-op model is wonderful.
Accepted, somewhat, that I've slid into something of a natural workrhythm in which I work on stuff for this space / newsletter on weekends (makes me a little more elastic in terms of work/life etc etc). The two projects/day thing isn't going to work: my brain was too muddled and I spent much of the day yesterday in a jittery, button-pressing mess.
Looks like my Principles page will be going live tomorrow, maybe – eight of them in an ever-updating document.
shorn / split
Sheared my hair yesterday for two, maybe three reasons: one, I was sick of having it and needed a change, especially since I popped into this world with a head full of black hair; two, I like wearing hats and my hair looks like shit every time I take one off; and three, I don't have to draw my hair on these cards anymore. At least for awhile anyhow. This is a victory.
Finding that doing two projects a day and splitting them into different workblocks, starting the second project in block two and continuing in block one of the next day and repeating with a different project – prose->comics is usually the switch – is helpful. Means I don't have to continue in block two, when I'm tired and hungry and can do so instead when I'm more alert in the 0500-0700 workblock.
It seems that that's all I have for you this morning, site. Here’s a cartoon.
muskville->mastodon: week two or maybe three IDK all the days merge together anyhow
Remain content with my shift from Muskville to Mastodon (@twweaver@mastodon.social): still in the process of deciding value of having my own, single-user instance when I have this space. In truth, however, my shift is more than a purely "fuck Elon" move but rather a happy confluence of a long-standing desire to exit Twitter cold turkey for different social pastures and the dumpster fire that is Twitter's descent into Muskville. Amazing how a 14-year addiction vanishes when the supplier becomes tainted and (more evidently at least) corrupted.
Current thinking for how a single-user instance would function/interact here: this space would move to once-daily while all whenever/whatevers would move to Mastodon (EarBliss, dogpictures, etc.) That being said, I like the way this site is set up, with the zuihitsu combinations of things all on a single page – hence my present reticence to rock the boat.
But who knows. Maybe the mood will strike me and I'll go for it (when host sites open back up after the present diaspora) and then change it (my new 404 page is nothing if not the entire mission statement / creative statement of this space). Who knows. So long as I avoid redundancy (I've set Mastodon to delete all posts older than a month, so this space is currently essential as a living, breathing document of myself) and being redundant I'm good.
In other: I am stuck in ZELDA – stupid strength/battle tests. But hey, if nothing else, I was right about needing to combine things (in The Work, not ZELDA) - had to see it to believe it or believe it to see it maybe one maybe the other, IDK.
formless forms taking form maybe or maybe not
Think I somehow combined MARIO with POWERWASH SIMULATOR in this morning's attendance card. Oh, the things that happen in 3.5 minutes.
A single line written this morning (3.5 seconds?) led to a return to another short thing and unlocked the thing that was missing from it – but not enough to push it forward: returned to the other thing in W2. Not ready to follow through on yesterday's notions of connectivity and combination between the two seemingly dissimilar projects (a tonal shift from a projects began and developed before LAST CHRISTMAS and projects began after) but I'm not ready to discount the potential either.
Regardless, the form of PRESS (A) 02 has started to take shape and make sense, if only to me, which is all the sense it will ever / has to make.
Newsletter work this weekend; MacroParentheticals0090 arrives Sunday morning in subscribers' inboxes. You can sign up here, if so inclined.
