As an architect, I stare at ceilings. While being wheeled to the MRI and getting a drain stabbed into my liver, my main memory was watching the details where the ceilings met the hospital walls.
Ceiling fans, especially with light kits, are an unloved feature of residential architecture. In today’s conditioned age, they are somewhat redundant. But they’re still part of life in a hot climate. Even if they don’t get used, it’s better to have one—with four to six blades—than to have none.
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My wife made homemade noodles last night. She uses a recipe that is 2 parts flour, 1 part water, and 1part eggs.
I’m a fan of a decadent 3:2 flour to egg recipe. But no matter, her noodles were tasty and springy. It was great in a soup, then as part of a stir fry, and finally as a treat for lunch.
When we first started making noodles, we rolled it by hand. That’s a lot of work! So we got a KitchenAid attachment, which was expensive but has been among our most used kitchen gadgets.
These noodles might be an unnecessary expense of time and money, but what a savory little luxury!
The Portland trip took a lot out of us. The trip was great, but planning and then recovering took a bunch of extra time before and after the actual time off. And then we followed it with a jaunt to San Diego right before school started. Travel is fun, but it eats into “free” time for sure.
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2/25 Inktober 52 (2024), week 21
quack quack sexy selfie sandwich
How did duckface became a social media phenomenon? I guess every era needs its thing.
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2/28 Inktober 52 (2024), week 20
we don’t see our mythology
I went light for a white on white vibe. Then reversed it.
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3/1 Poetry Haul #8
somewhere we assemble wonder moon meet rich star light award fall and honor sun girl
I had some fun with extended italics as I wrapped up February.
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3/2 Inktober 52 (2025), week 9
lamp with a fresh genie
The flat brush runs fine, but I’ve continued to have trouble with cursive with a pointed brush. The Pentel brush pen works great, but I’ve never gotten the hang of normal pointed brushes.
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3/3
touching hands through a loupe
I had purchased a collage by Duane Toops and zoomed in with a jeweler’s loupe. Collage is a tactile art, I could see his hand in the cuts and ridges of paper on paper.
The cursive looks like it has regressed, it might be time to add it back on the list as a monthly focus.
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Again, it feels like I’m trying to just get something in before another month disappears. Things have been super busy at work. But it’s a good busy. I’m doing good work on great projects.
I just need to slow down the pace. As much as I hate to admit it, things at the airport can wait, especially as time with the wife and kids continues to drip away.
I didn’t get this posted in time for August, and then my body revolted to put September on hold for three weeks.
Even worse, after returning from the hospital with my liver abscess, another family member went to the ER after dropping a bunch of weight and experiencing serious discomfort in the gut.
The family is going through a bout of organ revolts. We’ve had a good run, so I guess we were due.
Health shouldn’t be taken for granted, and yet, that is exactly what we do during the good times. One can’t live on permanent high alert, but I need to cultivate a practice of gratitude to savor the quiets between the storms.
Cya next time!
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PS—The Mentor Leader, Tony Dungy, 2010
In 2021, I stopped reading self-help books—I got what I needed out of them.
After starting a work-related newsletter, I tried to restart the habit to grab some professional ideas to go with my artistic interests.
Naww, I’m past peak Self-help.
There’s nothing wrong with this book. This book matches Tony Dungy’s public persona—a quiet dude who makes everyone around him successful.
I blasted through the book at 2x speed. His main point is that a mentor leader should be humble. Being humble means receding into the background; success is found in elevating those around you.
I dig it! I bet I’m less humble than I’d like to believe, but I appreciate the appeal of his message.
Tony goes heavy on Christianity, but given my recent forays into ancient wisdom literature, that’s fine, even as an atheist.
Worth a quick listen if you’re in the mood for a generic leadership book, though you might remember nothing from it four years hence.
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PPS—The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson, 2016
It’s kind of amazing to listen to a self help book and have nothing to say about it, even after trying to come up with an interesting take for a few days.
Just standard tough love, self-help fare, with a lot of F-bombs. The title is perfect for this book. If you pick it up, you’ll most likely dig it.
I didn’t disagree with Manson’s main points. There are only so many ways to approach life and his recommendations match how I see things, in spite of his crass delivery.
Pick your priorities (chose your f’s).
Control your reactions.
Owning your world is better constantly being the victim of your own psychodrama.
Avoid highs—chemical, relational, any type. They’re temporary and the crash only gets worse the longer you delay.
Commitment is freedom. It creates depth versus breadth.
Don’t pursue the results, pursue the process. Or if you don’t enjoy the process, give up on the results and chase what you enjoy doing.
The unconvinced will not be persuaded, but the book is fine if you want another take on such riffs. Another listen for 2x speed.
I landed in the hospital with an abscess in my liver, which revealed itself by a relentless fever with soul sucking fatigue.
Morning 4
The first days in the hospital continued to be a haze of fever and fatigue, though greatly relieved with the interventions by the nurses and doctors.
Night 7
I was initially diagnosed with an ominous “growth in the liver” at the ER. Fortunately this ambiguity was resolved in a couple of days with an MRI, it was “just” a bacterial abscess in the liver.
Morning 7
I felt the full force of our health care technological complex, with ultrasound, CT scan, MRI, endoscopic ultrasound, and finally draining the abscess by an interventional radiologist, who used ultrasounds and x-rays to pinpoint and pierce the mass. And that doesn’t include all the other everyday hospital technologies that the nurses utilized throughout the week.
Night 8
Midway, I was transferred from a single room at the fifth floor to a double room in one of the oldest remaining wards. It was fun to explore this architectural relic. The air conditioning and roommate made it feel like riding an airplane.
Morning 8
Golden hour never fails. This new room had a streetside view of a residential subdivision. I wonder what it’s like to live in the shadow of the city’s major medical center. I guess you stop hearing the sirens.
Afternoon 8
As soon as the labs on my liver goop was completed, the doctors updated my prescription and sent me home that evening. My parents, who visited every day, came back to pick me up. I was happy to come home to the kids, but it was a sudden transition back into civilian life.
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Yeah, that was one long week. The fever started right after Labor Day, and a two days later I was in the ER digesting the news that there was a growth in my liver. Thankfully, an MRI clarified that it was “just” a golf ball sized bacterial abscess.
As for cause. The official explanation is dumb luck—a stray bacteria snuck out of the gut and wreaked shop in the liver. Overworking might have made things worse, but other people work much harder and longer with minimal consequences. Then again I’m not other people.
I’m on the mend, popping antibiotics, swimming in serious night sweats, and there’s still that a drain line…but I gladly take this over the specter of the C-word.
As painful as it has been, this was a clarifying event in my mid-forties with some takeaways:
My personal priority rank is Family > Health >>>> Work > Calligraphy > Reading >> Blogging >>>>>> YouTube (this last one is tough!).
Due to various reasons, Work had snuck in front of Health. No more.
Until I adopt a consistent health practice, I will not to pursue a promotion. I may even start going back to my old Tai Chi school, even if the kids continue to show no interest in martial arts.
As much as I love my calligraphy as a meditative practice, it doesn’t pay bills and it doesn’t improve my health. I need to “pay myself first” in the morning with exercise and move the pen if I still have time. If I miss morning exercise before dropping the girl off at school, I might walk some laps around park near the office. My work is flexible and I’ll just start late.
I didn’t regret anything up to this point. It would have been nice to take more trips abroad as a broke college student, but that’s an ancient regret, colored by the fact that I now have savings, which was not in my portfolio during the great recession.
We’ll see how the bills line up, but if I read the documents correctly, the cost of the hospital stay may be laughably small for an American. If so, I might keep working to maintain this awesome county employee health insurance thru 65 (instead of 62 as allowed by the pension). Of course this is predicated on still enjoying the job.
Moving forward, I’ll be both looser and tighter with money. I have a habit of buying books on the thought I’ll read them one day. When mortality strikes, buying “on spec” stinks of hubris. However, if I think I might enjoy something right now, I’m not gonna wait.
Investment wise, no changes planned. My wife and I have always been conservative, and it was comforting to know that I wouldn’t need to make any tweaks to the portfolio, even with an extended career disruption.
We have a slew of papers that need to be executed (advance directives, wills, homestead exemption). Once I’m well, those will be the top priority for our home economics. Second in priority is getting my wife fluid through the morass of retirement and investment accounts.
Interestingly, I intuitively knew each bullet point (except #6) before this chaos in September. So nothing has changed, just the universe reminding me, emphatically, to get it done!
Funny how things work, hopefully y’all not need such an incident to finish what you already know needs to be handled.
On vacations, we have settled upon magnets for our souvenir, usually purchased on the way out of the park after it has closed.
Last summer, I initially settled on a nice, mid-mod, metal and enamel Disneyland magnet, only to find this quartet of Munchlings at the next store over. So the Mouse got us twice.
We also got a 5-pack of Mickey Mouse lollipops to ostensibly alleviate the boy’s motion sickness. It did not prevent a couple of incidents on the winding road up to Big Bear.
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I can’t believe our Disney + Big Bear1 trip was almost a year ago. As the years tick by, I’m becoming more aware of how few of these trips we will have together. That said, counting down futures vacations is a very nice problem to have.
This year’s summer trip was a family reunion out in Portland. With the advice of a friend and my sister we hit up a bunch of cool places over five action packed days.
The falls. As advertised, this is the must visit. Take the Historic Columbia River Highway and hit up the falls along the way. We went on a weekday, but I suspect it’s impossible to find parking on Summer weekends. Visit the Gateway to the Gorge Visitor Center for a possible free parking permit at the famous Multnomah Falls.
Mount Hood Fruit Loop. We drove around and got some nice scenery, but it was late in the day so we didn’t get to see much farmy stuff. We had already eaten by the time we got to the “Gorge White House”, but this place had a great vibe.
Bonneville Fish Hatchery. A free must visit to say hello to Herman the Sturgeon. The kids had a blast feeding trout for a quarter.
Farmer’s Market at PSU. Epic vibe on a lovely Saturday morning.
Peninsula Park and Rose Garden. Late one evening, we ended up wandering around the Rose Garden with my sister. The warm weather and the late summer sun made for a magical moment. It was nice to offload the kids for fifteen minutes with their aunt.
International Rose Test Garden. Lovely as well, but nowhere as intimate or charming as the garden at Peninsula Park.
OMSI Museum. What you might expect from your local kid’s science museum. The highlight was a chemistry lab which the Vegas Discovery Museum does not have.
Portland Japanese Garden. Gorgeous garden. Not cheap, but we easily spent a good four or five hours there before heading out to the airport.
Even though public transit in Portland is better than most suburban metropolises, I’m certain that it is vastly preferable to have a car. And if you have a car, the “Parking Kitty” phone app makes it super easy to pay at the meter. Aside from that, I guess one’s visit is at the whim of the weather gods. We hit record highs, but for folks from Vegas, that wasn’t a deal breaker.
In all, a great visit. When we go back, I’m guessing we’ll check out some other places to mix things up, but we’ll return to the Falls, Bonneville, Farmer’s Market, and Peninsula Park.
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In the post with the wolves, I forgot to mention that the kids had named them Sesame, Vanilla, and Cloud. So the full name of the stuffy from the gift shop is named “Rocky, Sesame V. Cloud”. ↩︎
My cursive in February hit an apex after a January of practice.
It was also when I finally gave up on the square format for whatever aspect ratio that the piece wanted.
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2/18 Inktober 52 (2024), week 26
suddenly aware the butterfly slept
Almost three weeks into February Italics, I was getting a bit more confident with the script, while still playing with brush.
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2/20 Inktober 52 (2024), week 23
dino with batter fried chicken
One morning, I spilled a bottle of ink wash. My first move was to grab a sheet of paper to soak up the mess. Made for a great texture!
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2/21 Inktober 52 (2025), week 8
fish fish pisces two fish
GIMP has three different ways to invert a piece. In this option, the original colors were kept, except for white and black.
Inverting a piece absolutely feels like a cheat, but if it works, who am I to refuse the delights of the machine?
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2/22 Poetry Haul #7
dream flight hosting remote realms
black haze guarding seven wishes
deeper songs access slumbering people
I love the when a page shows layers of partial stanzas frozen in messy process.
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2/24 Inktober 52 (2024), week 24
off on knock out over
I am super comfortable with the Pentel brush pen, but have not found a straight brush that feels right for calligraphy. Trying to do so would be an expensive pursuit.Art gets really expensive when you forsake satisficing for maximizing.
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I can’t believe we’re in mid-May. How does a year fly? I need to internalize the Cult of Done Manifesto and push things out faster.
Or maybe just enjoy the pace I got. It’s a balance when navigating internet hobbies, especially when work is super busy.
Cya next time!
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PS—Fuck you and your family
During the pandemic, I took daily walks and found a black Honda Pilot plastered with obnoxious bumper stickers and window decals—stick figures in various poses, a few f-bombs, and this window decal.
This was the only one that was remotely amusing.
I get a kick out of other families’ windshield representation of themselves. The basic stick figure trope as well as Disney, Star Wars, football, and this version cursing at everybody.
I’m not impressed with crudity for its own sake. Curses lose their sting when used wantonly, but this window decal was playful.
Subverting expectations is too highfalutin’ a descriptor, but at least it had something beyond the other gas station bathroom humor on that car. The occasional zag against the mainstream can land, even if being a dick just makes you a dick.
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PPS—Waiting for emails
The start of the school year was rough. The school district’s distance learning program was totally overwhelmed with new enrollees in Fall 2021 due to the sudden rise of the Delta variant.
Even though we had been enrolled for a months, this fresh turmoil meant we did not receive any information. So we headed into the first day of school not knowing her teacher, when we should meet, etc.
At least we picked up a Chromebook and some textbooks earlier in summer.
This wait was a special sort of torture, hitting refresh on my email every few minutes hoping to receive a missive from her new teacher. I even waded back into Facebook to check in on other parent’s frustrations. Misery loves company.
Then I would blame myself for the anxiety. Sure, it would be nice to start with a special sort of excitement. But who really cares if it day one is a whimper or a bang?
Soon enough, none of this anxiety would matter. She would hard at work with whichever teacher she got. Who cares if she misses out on a few days of second grade instruction? We’ll still be in here.
(Ultimately, it turned out to be a bigger mess than I feared. The first month was a wreck with a substitute trying to learn her way in the worst possible circumstances. Fortunately, the school district enticed a cadre of devoted teachers to tackle a second shift and our girl ended up learning in the evenings that year. It’s all an ancient memory as she heads into middle school).
In that moment, life reminded that in spite of our era of instant communication, we don’t always get what we want when we want it. Even if it felt necessary.
Character traits are earned by doing, so I guess I owe the gods some gratitude for this chance to practice patience.
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PPPS-Practice
2/5
I started my daily practice with extra printed templates that I used on the lightbox. This was the last of these printouts before transitioning to binder paper. It’s much cheaper and they’re lined on both sides!
Then again, it was fun to be reminded about how I would maximize these sheets with layers in light colored ink—a habit that I’ve continued during my morning meditations.
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.
While viewing the wolves, the kids named them Sesame, Vanilla, and Cloud. So the full name of our wolf stuffy from the gift shop is “Rocky, Sesame V. Cloud”.
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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!
