"Don't eat me: I'm trying to make this so it doesn't strangle you"

– me, to Kirby, as I attempt to adjust his collar / fit a new one on him because he grew overnight. Again.

(It does seem that I'm naming these morning curtain risings – for the time being – after things I've said to the dogchildren in the predawn.)

Currently +/-0830 in the morning, the sun is shining, and the AC is alive with the sound of riding lawnmowers circumnavigating tiny lawns; I've been back here for more than ten years (after ten glorious years away) and I'm still unable to reacclimate myself to that particular heartlandic phenomenon...

Speaking of: in-lawn fun awaits this afternoon; I'm already sneezing like a motherfucker – high allergy alerts in the inbox –  might as well add tall mowed grass to it while I bake in the afternoon sun. Delightful, yes; I hate weekends.

(At least I get to listen to podcasts.)

What I do love is what this space is becoming. I'm happy here, sharing whatever strikes my fancy to no one in particular. Questions as to why I continue to waste my breath on social media abound. (To hold your breath is to waste it, as Alan Watts says.) Perhaps as this space slides out of beta, I'll have a better answer for myself other than 12 years of addiction and habit.

In full TSR0007 edit mode (and interview mode, for 0008 on Tuesday) so the comics thing will shift a bit to the backburner... aiming for 0007 release next Weds, more likely than not will be next Fri. August's MacroParentheticals lands in subscribers' inboxes tomorrow morning.

On with the day, whatever it may look like, bleary-eyed and etc...

“Don’t eat the couch”

I used those words this morning.

Still trying new things out in this space, honing, refining, Goldilocksing: aiming for less effort, less thought intensive. Make it part of the morning ritual – considering this something of a beta week here while I get my sea legs.

Tags starting to make more sense to me, coalescing into something useful: Informalties as whenever/whatevers, dashed-off thoughtlets. These Morning pieces as a daily thing, the curtain raising / hoist that rag. Whatever else shows up throughout the day as whatever it will be.

The dogchildren await their sustenance.

Learned / in process of

(Since yesterday):

1.) In order for The Work to work in the afternoon, it has to be a different project than in the morning. When I started yesterday afternoon in an attempt to continue on with the novella, it was an abject disaster. Once I shifted over to the comics thing, I was golden – and made something resembling progress. (And this morning's work on the novella also went well.)

2.) Still haven't figured out if "Informalities" remains the tag for these morning pieces or not. Given what this space has morphed into, it might be something different. Or simply an excuse for me to think about pointless things.

3.) If I had to pick one space in which to talk to myself, this is it. I'm all too aware that I'm talking to myself in the media social; I'm aware of it here too, except that I'm posting things here because I enjoy it.

3a.) August's newsletter arrives on Sunday. If you're not already a subscriber, you can sign up here, if so inclined.

4.) The wiki-knowledge-base approach in Obsidian is great for unpacking text (and my edit-as-I-go method): I add brackets around a piece of text I'd like to dig deeper into, and a new document is created with that title: a fresh slate, a new node, to explore and deepen. File accordingly.

5.) Anti-mask/vax parents continue to be a thorn in the side of my wife's school district. I often wonder what could be accomplished if those militantly anti-(insert any reason-infused issue here) corporeal trolls turned their attention to issues that actually mattered. They claim they're doing it for the children but, in my experience, kids are a lot more adaptable than their parents which, of course, brings up the whole control / what will my children think when they can think for themselves issue that threatens the fragile illusions/delusions of so many shitty parents.