The boy gave me three vials filled with colored water. She followed behind, shooting photos with a wide angled lens. I’m not sure what they were scheming, but they were giggling the whole time.
I can’t believe how quickly time flies. Last year, work was grinding down my body and psyche. Fortunately I only had three weeks left before jumping out to the airport.
I was trying to do right for the Division on the way out, but it was time to decouple.
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We played Marco Polo at home
Marco’s white cane was a roll of old drawings.
She started next to the bed I walked circles around Marco until cornered by the bathtub.
He cheated, hiding in the closet, standing on the toilet.
Never said Polo!
Finally caught, he grabbed Marco’s shirt and followed her around, a little red caboose.
We finally made him Marco He squinted, not blind, swinging his cane as a baton.
It’s a pain to track which goes with what…so I’m mixing up the Inktober 52 prompts with my own 5WP’s. Bon Appetit!
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2/10 Inktober 52 (2022), week 51
flickering victorians pacing gaslit verandas
This was the last 5WP for an informal series on magic using Inktober prompts. I had a rough time composing this piece. When I was younger I would be disappointed the deflation that comes with the end of a project. Now I’m just used to it. On to the next!
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2/11 Poetry Haul #3
shoulders cry pleading seeking peace
hibernation silo free body struggle
frequently understatement ever vigilant rights
You really can’t cross the same river twice. In early February, I had just come off of a month of pointed brush work. I don’t think I could do this right now. Even though I’m still practicing daily, I’ve lost the edge that comes with focusing on it solely every morning.
To do this again, I’d have to relive January, like the Borges story where Pierre Menard creates a life to spontaneously re-create Don Quixote.
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2/13 Inktober 52 (2024), week 28
ratty rebels raided royal realms
I save of all my scrap sheets. This was graphed on a test page for my team holiday cards. Of course, many attempts to work on such sheets also don’t turn out, so they just get blacker over time!
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2/16 Inktober 52 (2025), week 7
4 triangles make a pyramid
I love calligraphy due to its handcraft. But the final deliverable is always on a screen. So am I a digital artist?
Maybe. Two months after the initial publication, I can’t remember the original ink color (turned out it was pink). The background was obviously an addition after the fact. And actually, this is version 2 because I had originally uploaded one where the script color opacity came out differently between the sky and sand backgrounds.
So yes, this is absolutely a piece of digital art. But in this digital age, is everything digital art? Maybe that’s a meaningless distinction? Everything flits across a universe of flickering rectangles, while the “real” work sits inside an old cardboard Sun Chips box.
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2/15 Poetry Haul #6
vision notified no cold hope
dismiss despair supply prove dream
remarkably somewhere slam hot truth
Like clockwork, I start publicly running the script of the month after two weeks of practice. After fourteen days, I’m comfortable with the muscle memory even if it hasn’t hit full smoothness.
On the third week, it gets locks in, edging towards boredom. By week four I’m playing with variations on the script.
By week six or seven I feel like I’ve already lost the script, or that it’s merged with the new script of that next month.
It’s a slightly depressing cycle, but no skill is permanent.
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If even knowledge is impermeant, I guess a cardboard box of papers ain’t a bad parting gift.
Cya next time!
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PS—Bissell Vacuum Cleaner
We’ve tried a few vacuum cleaners over the years. We have a $400 Miele in the closet, and we’ve also spent similar sums on a couple of cordless Dysons.
But our workhorse is an $18 Bissell. We’ve bought four of them. The first one died. The second for my mother-in-law and then we accidentally bought two more online when we were moving into our place. No matter, just keep one up and downstairs.
It’s just a little handheld vacuum with a handle extension and a flat insert to let you push it along the floor.
That’s the magic. So cheap you’re never scared to use it. Dirty kitchen. Suck it up. Laminate floors? Without brushes, this vacuum can’t ruin anything. No bags to track. Just dump it out and wash the filter.
And no batteries! This thing runs forever. Light and nimble, well worth the hassle of occasionally swapping plugs when vacuuming a large area.
The cheapest product came out to be the best one. At least the most regularly used everywhere, and is there a better definition of “best” for a household appliance?
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PPS—Stainless Steel Baking Pans
We bought an 8″x10″ baking pan, a few years ago. Small enough to fit a toaster oven. Works great. Flat plate of stainless steel with a slight rolled rim. Nice and shiny.
And a second one last year, so we could swap back and forth, but we gave one to our in-laws.
But I got cute with the third one. Intsead of reordering the exact same item, I got one that came with a little grill rack.
It was so small!
I double checked. The dimensions were super close, just off one inch in each direction: 7×9 versus 8×10.
Do the math.
63 square inches to 80 square inches. I bought something that was almost a quarter smaller than the original!
What an embarrassing display of innumeracy. My mental math is great…if I use my brain.
But the rack is nice. We’ve gotten good use out of it. No complaints.
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PPPS—Practice
2/12
Around mid-February I realized that I would totally lose the straight brush if I didn’t practice it regularly. So I started filling the empty lines between the main scripts with cursive.
Last summer we visited the Big Bear Zoo. It was HOT! The wolves thought so too.
There were actually three in the exhibit and on this platform, but I needed two, so I picked this photo.It was a moment of wonder to be half an inch from these majestic animals.
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Two little fish harass the shark.
My arms clap like a crocodile—clap! clap! clap!
Eeeeeeee!—they jump off the boat-bed into the carpet-ocean, only to race back on deck.
They hide under boxes—he can’t eat a turtle!
The second they step out, this shark drags them into the deep, black bathroom.
Clap! Clap! Clap!—I stalk the cook in the kitchen.
I’m procrastinating on taxes by compiling this post. Taxes are a cost of society and a lovely spring buzzkill. On the bright side, we’re about to head out to an airshow at Nellis, so I’m getting our fair share of entertainment (and propaganda) for these taxes.
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1/29
daddy, you look more chinese! (without glasses)
The boy is still earnestly drops lines of joy. I wonder how much longer it will last; it’s all so fleeting.
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1/30
fried onion topping my cereal
I do love fried onions.
For a week in January, I played with funky Uncials, and it’s on the list to revisit for a full month. I wonder if I will ever stumble into a particular script that “is it“. Likely not—I’m a too into variety and impatient for perfection.
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1/31
unruly mindless fake constitutional scholars
unforgettable kerfuffle eggheads evaporate around
senior space gang, andromeda chapter
These poetry hauls can be challenging! But it’s always fun to make them work. I love the mental picture of an alien biker gang who faux-studied our founding fathers.
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2/5
… and the pursuit of Leisure
This was inspired when Thomas J Bevan announced a Symposium on Leisure. I’m super happy with both of these. A couple months later, I’m not confident if I could do this today. The downside of picking up new scripts is losing old ones along the way.
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2/9
trauma rejection surpass interior style
diversity through self illusion recognition
analyze capital ammunition beyond currency
I made a mistake on “interior” so I rewrote the poem on a single page—which I immediately recognized was the right format for these poetry haul exercises.Sometimes you gotta keep doing something until the right format arrives. Repetition is the heart of process.
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Between commenting on two-month old 5WP’s and editing four-year old blog drafts, these newsletters have become an exercise in archeology.
I do appreciate each of y’all who read and comment on them. Thanks for joining my delve into the past!
Cya next time!
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PS—Word by Word, Ann Lamott, 1996
Bird by Bird is such a classic that the library has a long wait for the audiobook. So I started with this recorded seminar that she gave in Austin.
I dig it—I’ll be reading Bird by Bird.
Three key takeaways.
If you’re gonna be a writer, then write. Getting published is only a result of writing.
Find a writing group to work through this all together.
Draw deeply from reality.
I appreciate her suggestion for writer’s block. Give yourself permission to think. If you can’t write, then maybe force yourself to not write for a while. Sometimes your brain needs space to recharge.
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Here are a few other exercises that sounded fun (though I haven’t tried them in the four years since I listened to that workshop).
List 10 favorite words.
Spend 300 words on someone you truly hate.
Describe yourself in detail five and ten years from now.
Where you would want to live, do it in exquisite detail.
Why you are here, why do you insist?
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PPS—Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, 1995
Vulnerable, crass, funny. Brilliant! I see why it’s a classic writing workshop in a book. Anne explores the difficulty of the process, and exhorts the reader to do the work.
She doesn’t shy from the benefits of the writing life, but reminds us that outside success isn’t all that special. Our personal problems don’t disappear after our shell gets polished.
So, it’s about sitting down and writing. Work and make it happen. Taking things one “small assignment” at a time. Finding a cohort to work with.
Don’t be disappointed when a project always ends with a whimper. (They all do.) Life keeps moving. The process stays going.
TLDR: Sit down every day, jump in, flail around, do a bit at a time, gut yourself to examine the innards, deliver, and do it again tomorrow. It’ll add up to a good life.
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Speaking of Process, a friend and I started a journal of student work at Berkeley that lasted for two issues. It darn near killed me both years. For the longest time I thought it was a waste (aside from meeting one of my best friends). As a middle-aged man, I’ve learned that friends are rare. A buddy is one helluva a haul for a project.
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This book is nominally about writing, but her subtitle is perfect: “Some Instructions on Writing and Life”. Her notes on completing a book mirror too closely to the work I’ve done as an architect. Writing might be her profession, but this book transcends her medium.
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It is refreshing to read a self-help book by a great writer. The book shines; you don’t have to trust claims of her excellence in some other field—the proof is right here, page by page. Her display of craft makes her advice all the more visceral as she bares her soul and wrestles with the difficulty of life.
After months of craziness at work I picked up the pen to draw my hand again. As the pen meandered across the page I was impressed with the magic of marks in 2D turning a white sheet into hint of fleshed out reality.
At the time I was also one story from finishing Calvino’s Cosmicomics, thanks to M. E. Rothwell ’s encouragement to pick up the book.
A few weeks later, I picked up a new badge and swiped in at the airport.
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I forgot lunch at home. No matter, I keep sardines in my desk.
Mama had a bright idea. She came to the park near the office.
They played on the structure in the golden sun. I ate my lunch at 4.
Homeless guys surveyed for cigarette butts. One coughed.
The boy slipped off the steps and cried. Blamed his sister.
We lectured about personal responsibility. He moped.
They drove off to violin class. I worked till 8 (these four day weeks run long).
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—2/20/2025
Hat tip to Hazel Burgess who encouraged me to try blind contour drawing!
I’m now distant enough from these pieces they’ve become surprises to revisit. I should to accelerate the release of these five-packs, but things are about to crazy at work. If I fall further behind, that will let them age longer as old surprises to uncover.
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2/6 Inktober 52 (2024), week 19
world floating in a jar
I had a rough time with the composition, and I need to take a month to practice the sign painting script to hit right.Even so, I’m happy with this final version, even if it took a little computer magic to make it work.
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2/7 Inktober 52 (2022), week 9
uhoh them mops gots buckets
In retrospect, I the sign painted UH-OH would have worked better, but in the moment I pushed the cursive in the finished versions. I’m looking for a good pointed brush outside of my Pentel pens, but it will take a few tries to get right. That’s gonna be an expensive exercise since it requires buying individual brushes.
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1/25 Inktober 52 (2025), week 4
aquarius poor ganymede mixing nectar
I’ve been starting my mornings by practicing the my script of the month. Pushing the finished piece with the hue function gave it a nice watery feel, by changing the colors. My main practice inks are yellow and pink because they are quite dry (so they don’t heavily on cheap paper).
BTW the original Aquarius myth is sad, if not traumatic. Them Greeks told things real. Same for the Bible, even if we normally gloss over those parts.
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2/1 Inktober 52 (2025), week 5
we’re all in this zoo
As always, there are so many little decisions that must be made after the overall concept. Again, the practice sheet came to the rescue, adding a little extra noise to give the composition presence.
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2/8 Inktober 52 (2025), week 6
a light in the swamp
The top two versions are tweaks of the same scan. All versions were done as black/grey ink on white paper and then inverted in GIMP. After that, it’s about how hard to push the dials.
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As much as I’d prefer to do it all perfectly on the page, the computer is an integral part of my process. These discussions about process are my penance for relying so much on the box.
Similar to the writing seminar in undergrad, I suspect my most influential class in grad school was the digital photography course with Frank White. As an architectural photographer, he unapologetically embraced the computer as part of the process.
Of course, the process is a lot harder if you don’t start with good inputs, but the final piece is the final piece. Excuses about what happened along the way don’t matter for the deliverable.
That’s how I do it here. I’m not above the occasional process photo to flashthat I can do most of it in real life. I’m not hiding anything, whether it came from the pen or was pushed in the computer.
It just is.
Cya next time!
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PS—10 Bits For a Creative Practice
I wrote this as a response to someone’s post in early 2024, but the records have been drowned in the endless feed of content. I liked this enough to save it as a draft and it’s finally time to reshare it.
Show up every day.
Jump in! FFS just start.
Study the greats.
Celebrate your peers.
Don’t freak out about bad work.
Tension is the trigger to breathe. Relax.
If you can’t do it slow you can’t do it fast. No rush.
Pivot freely.
If the crop feels wrong, the crop IS wrong. (Trust your gut)—an aphorism I learned in that photography class.The concept of trusting default triggers has served me well over the decades for many things beyond images.
Do it again tomorrow!
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PPS—Self Help Junky
Another response to someone else (exactly who lost in the endless feed).
As a former self-help junky, I’m a big fan of the anti-self-help movement. Of course, a moderate approach is generally best in life, but if you could only pick path I’d recommend skipping self-help.
But I’m moderating this reactionary stance after reading Kenny Werner’s Effortless Mastery.
I wonder if the question for judging a book is “how” versus “what”. Don’t invest in books that tell you what to do (or avoid). But there might be value in books that explore how to get somewhere that you already want to reach.
In that spirit, here is a quartet of self help books that might be of use:
Fail-Safe Investing, Harry Browne (great life-finance advice, though do your own research on portfolio composition because the specifics are dated)
So Great they Can’t Ignore You, Cal Newport (good compilation of career advice for someone entering the workforce)
Several Short Sentences about Writing, Veryln Klinkenborg (this book goes beyond writing to life, even if a bastardized version of his advice has infected LinkedIn with punchy shallow drivel.)
Effortless Mastery, Kenny Werner (a slow approach to practice, nominally about music but it applies to anything. It’s a distant second best to Tai Chi training at a good school.)
All that said, the Bhagavad Gita would trump all of these books, even if it’s profane to place this text next to self-help fare. May the gods forgive me.
But always be ready to ignore anything that you read in these books. Never confuse the author’s confidence in their advice for it’s applicability to your wild and wooly reality.
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PPPS—Black to Yellow
For giggles I took a brush pen with black in and put in a cartridge with Lamy Mango Yellow. The first sheet shows the transition from pure black (marked with the cyan slash on the second line) to yellow.
1/24
Interestingly, when I went back for more practice, there was still some more black that came out of the brush.
1/24
The next morning I made the “aquarius” 5WP (above), which had more black sneaking out (every other line was made with that black-mango ink, the other lines were made with the former mango pen, now filled with a pinkish ink).
Funny how these things play. The joy of the real world!
I have a weird work schedule so I sleep in my own bedroom. When my mother in law stayed with us, I moved a mattress into this loft with half of the kids’ books. It’s so cozy that I’m still here.
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One summer morning in 2021, we played in the five-foot side yard, hiding from the sun’s brutal light.
We just bounced a red ball back and forth.
He stood in the middle to intercept the ball. She threw it over and around her brother. I just tried to keep it from devolving into pure pandemonium.
In that moment, I realized this was a once in a lifetime event. It was so out of normal, this wasn’t going to be repeated.
Before end of the year, I pushed out a few 5WP’s there were trapped in my phone. And starting with the new year, I’ve jumped into the “Poetry Haul” challenge by ARTSTACK.
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1/7
dawn flickers through stucco tracts
Morning sun is always inspiring, even through banal suburban neighborhoods on the way to work.
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1/8
divine subconscious confirmation bias machine
Using the I Ching and Tarot, I occasionally indulge in randomness for self insight, even though I don’t subscribe to new age woo. I treat these practices as public-domain versions of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s “Oblique Strategies“.
Even without the woo, divination must be treated with the proper respect. Consulting the unpredictable is a powerful way to recontextualize the moment. It’s also the perfect way to tell yourself whatever you subconsciously wanted to hear, a dangerous game.
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1/9
gently ready to explode anytime
As far as I know, I’m well liked as a Project Manager. If that is true, it’s because I try to be gentle and kind with my consultants. On the other hand, I also make it clear that we have standards which need to be met.
It’s a weird dichotomy, partly from my own personality. I’m really nice until I suddenly flip out. That second part ain’t great, but I’ve been getting better at avoiding rabid foaming mouth moments as I continue to grow up.
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1/10
parenting is slowly letting go, first yourself, then the child
I’m certain older parents have a more perceptive opinion of this wild aspect of being human. But this is what I got as a dad of two kiddos.
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1/11
acrimony broken phones shattered hearts
lingering silence chill moonlight pearl
greatest time lost through memory
Artstack started posting a poetry challenge sharing ten words for a week. Add five extra words and we got a triptych of 5WPs!
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With my recent focus on dip pen copperplate and straight brush calligraphy, the Pilot Parallels have been neglected.
I could feel the rust in my fingers while running these Foundational Hand letters. But I’m super happy with how the brush has progressed, so I guess it was a worthy tradeoff.
I’ve kept my interest in calligraphy so far by keeping things fresh. Normally, I don’t have a ton of patience for refinement. Maybe one day I’ll hyper-focus on greatness at one detail. In the meantime, I’m happy with getting pretty good at something before tackling another challenge.
Cya next time!
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PS—Scratch 3.0, MIT Lifelong Kindergarten Lab, 2019
My friend’s boy was taking a class in Scratch. I thought, this might be interesting. And a weekend in 2021 disappeared.
Scratch is a magnificent simple block programming system designed for kids. It was easy to jump into and my daughter and I were having fun drawing and programming a sprawling game with multiple minigames.
That might not be the right way to create a long term habit, but it got our feet wet.
With our (still incomplete game) I took over the reins of the programming, letting her do the drawings. The next step was to unleash her on the computer, so I borrowed a couple of books for a more structured training that lasted a month before we lost interest.
Inadvertently I had stumbled into “paired programming”, where two programmers share a computer. This novel technique is said to increase collaboration and concentration. For a few weeks, it turned out to be surprisingly effective. We collaborated and learned together, pushing ideas back and forth and a live example of by stumbling through the modern instruction manual—YouTube.
The part that really makes Scratch tick is its social aspect. Given the dark side of Facebook and Twitter (now “X”), it is not something I compliment lightly. Every Scratch program allows you to “see inside” giving you a resource to cut through frustration.
But like many moments in childhood, the early interest faded quickly. We pushed out a couple small games and that was that. The boy is now old enough to play with Scratch, but the little rascal prefers sneaking off to play games.
Still, it’s a great resource, kudos to MIT, even if we haven’t used it to its full potential. Yet.
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PPS—ODDADA, Sven Ahlgrimm, Mathilde Hoffmann, Bastian Clausdorff, 2024
I found out about this game on Friday with this excellent review on Good Game Lobby. Slept on it overnight, and bought it on Saturday. They played it all afternoon. He also played it most of Sunday until we dragged away from the computer to read books.
Obviously, this is “composing” on “easy” mode, but twenty songs in and we’re still having fun with more variety to explore.
The sweet spot for a computer game “enjoyable but not addictive”. I’ve spent too many hours on Civilization which is why I’ve avoided that narcotic after the first version. Hopefully sandbox games like this will find a proper balance.
Six months later, I have to admit that we rarely play this game. There is only so many things to do, and composing music isn’t their thing. That said, he saw me looking up ODDADA on the computer and asked to play it after dinner. So he still likes it.
Still highly recommend.
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PPPS-Practice
1/16
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PPPPS-Happy Trails
In January, the IT pro at SPWD left for an awesome opportunity. She happened to be in town so I ran a card over to her. While graphing it out, I ended up with a second card, which I just gave to the guy who instituted the GIS system at our airport, apparently one of the most sophisticated airport systems in the nation.
Last May, I finally walked the arroyo in the neighborhood. The gravel gully led to this very concrete channel where plants insist on taking root in every available crack. I now regularly stroll thorough this arroyo, feeling the microseasons. It’s my path of centering.
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This afternoon we walked a couple loops around the local elementary school. The second time, boy decided to ride his bike. He swept circles through the parking lot, his teal jacket basking in the golden haze of an almost setting sun.
This is a time of utter chaos that will eventually reach us 2,400 miles out from its epicenter.
But today was a perfect day.
As I’ve matured, I’ve realized that we never get to live our dreams (life is much too mundane for our wild imaginations). That’s OK, this dour realization has freed me to savor such fleeting moments.
