/20oct2021

Welcome back to that time of day when I pretend that I can add links to a post in the Squarespace app.

Deeper view of the structure of NonFic thing emergent and, even though this last chunk of the morning ended in abject disaster, I'm feeling pretty good about its direction. WRT abject disaster, today was a case study in why I work projects in three-day chunks and not four or a week: by the last block of the morning, I'm tapped out on the project and start to mentally perambulate in nonbenficial directions. Back to FicThing tomorrow.

(Could I soldier on? Certainly. Would it be worth it? Probably not. The three-day habit less a recognition that I've gotten nowhere than one of being time to put some distance between us. )

New GROUND LOOP coming this afternoon: planning to talk about how the two pods, TSR and TGL, interact – or don't interact – with one another. Depending on where this week's recorded manifestation of talking to myself goes, I might discuss plans for the next phase of both shows. But I have to come up with them first. Maybe it'll happen while I'm talking about them.

In other news: halfway through the second of eight bags of the LEGOTable project... mine eyes, they see only blue connecting bits and red gears...YAKUZA 3 made me tear up last night (I would not want to be on the receiving end of Kiryu’s retribution)… I have fallen victim yet again to the Criterion flash sale: NIGHTMARE ALLEY and CAT PEOPLE coming my way this week. The stacks, they grow.

I cannot add links to a post with the Squarespace app; reality, she beckons.

/19oct2021

Why I've switched back to the one-per schema: I find my day – or the digital representation of it – to be far more interesting if I synthesize it into one entity as opposed to a spread of multiple boring things; the whole, in this case, being far more interesting (to me) than the sum of its parts. (But I might be wrong; wouldn't be the first time.)

Split the NonFicThing back into separate sheets from the Assembly Draft but now there's an order, a roadmap. Started the morning with 12 sheets, brought it down to four. A better arrangement – see thoughts above re: synthesis.

(Guess that thing I read once but of course can't find again so I might have imagined it about Don DeLillo's habit of writing each paragraph on a separate piece of paper has finally come into being with this new process of processing...)

The Table is cleared of projects, the projects having been relocated to a smaller desk while The Table becomes a Lego workbench: my grandfather had to have the Technic CAT D11T bulldozer and, given his love of displaying the finished product and my complete dismissal of the finished project in favor of the process, I have my work cut out for me. Invariably, the middlemom will ask, every Sunday, my favorite day of the week, how that Lego's coming. Afternoon non-pod work, then: Lego assembly as both an investment in silence and a lesson in the outrunning of inevitablity as the recipient of said process, my grandfather, is 95 years old.

Plus, you know, the ability to make a 95-year-old smile like a kid in awe makes all of it worth it.

Five years ago today my blood sugar was 877 and I was +/- ten minutes from dead...

... but I'm not dead yet and, having not been killed by my cytokene-fever-dream immune system hurricane and – because I’m not dead yet – having spent the morning of this half-decade-hence anniversary of learning that I had Type One Diabetes – my own election year October surprise – assembling the disparate dots of the big thing about it, TFD (This Fucking Disease, a working title) into a 5,418-word Assembly Draft, I can report that it looks like I've figured out where to land. No small amount of joy here that, after another few (insert unknown timeframe here), I might finally get this fucking piece about This Fucking Disease out of my head and, in so doing, bring to an end this, my era of thinking about writing it and about not writing it.

There is, SW and AK, something here/there/everywhere.

Speaking of Beatles: thrilled that they chose the take with George's best LET IT BE guitar solo for the 2021 remix; can’t wait for GET BACK to arrive on the Baby Yoda channel.

The furnace is on for the first time this year and I'm pleased as the proverbial sugar-free punch to report that it has been one of those good writing days. The day awaits.

MainFicThing Three

Three-day chunk of work on The Main FicThing brought to a close, back to the NonFic Thing tomorrow. Landed on more details but any semblance of direction is wanting – or, rather, any semblance of useful, small-detail direction is wanting; this is, however, part of the deal of this way of working within the swirling chaos. Continued acclimation to this process that I know, in shorter things, yields more interesting results. A matter of getting fully accustomed to the process.

Small talk Sunday visiting adventures later but hey.

THE BATMAN (Trailer 2)

“It’s not just a call. It’s a warning.” (Oh yes.)

Treasures from our first antique mall visit since the plague began all those years ago.

The Table of which I spoke…

… in this morning’s maundering: one of my grandmother’s treasures. She was a brilliant artist and silversmith; to have a part of her in my own workspace makes it feel more like home, a space to thrive.

It’s the home of my projects in process: when I’m working on them, they go to the main desk. When not, they live on The Table. AnotherFicThing now lives on the table, too.

As does the requisite well-chewed puppy puzzle toy: it’s important that Kirby has his projects too.

AnotherThing upon the table

FicThing is moving along nicely, steadily – a slow acclimation to the process of processing chaos: an organizational structure emergent that helps me see a larger picture and affords the chance to swim deep into the chaos. As it should be, probably.

Related: the overarching theme of the workmorning seems to be long-gestating dots finding their context. To wit: there might be a new thing – or, rather, an old thing reemergent; I think I stumbled upon a potential context for its existence. Note that I was skeptical until I checked morning blood sugar - 118, best it's been in a week. The NewThing - AnotherFicThing – has been rescued from the Purgatory file and moved to The Table

The day awaits, whatever it might hold.

Links, 15oct2021

• A useful primer: What is an NFT? (via The Economist).

• Intrigued...

• A mag in five pix: M-A (A Space Between) #1 (via magculture).

• Must-buy: VIZ announces new collection of Junju Ito horror stories (via CBR).

• Danny Elfman on not being afraid of failure (via The Creative Independent).

• Ume Yamazoe is an ‘inconvenient’ hotel renovated from a Japanese mountain hamlet townhouse (via Spoon & Tamago).

EarBliss, 15oct2021

CODE OF BEING, by James Brandon Lewis Quartet: new JBL is always cause for celebration; that CODE OF BEING is such an extraordinary album makes its release all the sweeter.