solar prioritization

Winter has settled in but at least it's December now thus making it a little less ungodly though a little slower descent into it would've been nice. Alas, into the deep-end / through the ring of fire seems to be my usual way, and it's no different this year, learning the ins and outs of how to keep The Shed at least somewhat heated in its empty, sunless hours without draining my battery stack – though it has, somewhat, been easier the last couple days as there's finally, after a week of clouds, some sun to charge up the solar panels so I only have to plug into the grid once a day instead of (at least) twice.

(Still waiting on installation of four more panels but the Apple Creek Sun Gods bow to no schedule but their own: it’s “a week from now” on some universe, right?)

While I'm still considering closing off the vaulted ceiling for the season, I've settled on a solid all-around heater, a Dreo Electric wall heater that I've at 55-60 throughout (45 at night) that really does a nice job, even with the expanse of stained shiplap overhead. I keep a Dreo tower fan heater at my feet, the same one I used in The Paintshop, and it does make the floors a little less frigid.

But hey, if there's one thing the deep-end solar winter temperature exams have provided, it's project clarity: is what I'm going to work on worth working on in the comfy chill of The (winter) Shed? Whittled things down to three and a half projects from a nebulous six, the three point five (the half being AA Void cartoons) being those that give me the most creative pleasure and let me forget the extremities that are freezing off.

P.S. No newsletter today: there were things I wanted to do with it that I didn't get around to so I'm taking the month off and returning in January with a new form.

Monthly-release approach to writing fiction has given me what I needed (a defined timetable and a desire to find out what happens) to bring the once-MainFictionThing I threw out to make way for the monthly Fictions back from the bin (at least in this early stage) as the second and third of the Fictions. The first release is still rolling out in Sunday morning's edition of MacroParentheticals, with the former MainFictionThing being released in two parts in June and July. Think this might become the default approach: a two-parter followed a single, unrelated fiction before the next. Feels right.

shake shake shake

A desire to shake things up here though I don't know which things will be shaken. Considered multiple avenues, including simply a homepage featuring a single Attendance Card and occasional edits to the Currently page – though suppose I always could go with the Currently page as the homepage, since it would combine both...

Unsure if this desire is indicative of a switch to more inner processing or a genuine boredom with being online (as I've become generally bored with the internet which is both a reflection of me and of the internet's current state) or something else; I have, I suppose, been doing this blogging thing for a minute or two – but it is, nonethless, a form I've loved and continue to love: along with email newsletters, it's the warhorse of the internet age.

Note: most likely change / shake shake will be no shake / change at all – but I can’t deny that the desire is there.

something new

Been a long time coming, but today feels as good a day as any to commit it here (so I can possibly undo it by Sunday's newsletter, but I doubt I will, not this time): I'm stopping work on MainFictionThing and moving on to something new.

I love the characters and the story, but I can't crack it, and, more importantly, I feel no connection to it, no spark, none of the important, unwritten things to make it at least semi-compelling to a reader. It feels like a relic of a former me, a time – among other things – when the most important person in my life for the entirety of it was still alive.

As I'm moving on with other aspects of my life, it's time to move on with this one too, into something new. The something new is percolating, and I need more time to process it, but I think it'll work; all I know is that I've little interest at present in long-term, long-form projects, fiction or non–: the weekly SHORTBOX MEMORY REVUE pod is part of it, but not the whole of it.

Aiming to have a better picture of it by Sunday's MacroParentheticals. In the meantime, the only way to get that clearer picture is to play with sketches and fingerpaints and see what comes.

Big thank you to Macro subscribers for your outpouring of support following yesterday's early release / TFD-venting session. While it’ll take a spell for me to return to full operating capacity, your kind words (and a fun night out – though the food was a major disappointment does no one use salt anymore jesusfuckingchrist) certainly helped. Will resume regular weekly dispatchery a week from Sunday. ❤️

Eyelash-freezer of a run this morning (morning run for the weekends: makes things a little easier married-schedule-wise (and gives my upper half a couple of days off; might do the same mid-week, will see) but makes things a little harder "oh shit it's cold"-wise) in untrammeled cemetery snow powder: pleasant to look at and conceptually pleasant, but reality is, as ever, possessed of other ideas. Four miles.

Similarly struggling with even the newsletter this morning: words aren't coming and I'm beginning to think that my attempts at a third workblock have, no matter how much I've enjoyed adding it in the afternoon – and being able to add it in the afternoon – left me with only fumes to work with the next day. Won't deny that the breakthrough the other afternoon was nice – haven't felt it, the creative equivalent of an orgasm, in longer than I care to admit – but it's useless unless I'm able to think clearly enough to expand and build on it the next day. Better, I think, to find something else to fill those postprandial/post-run hours and let the pieces and fragments stew in the afternoon miasma of IDK.

Also struggling with newsletter formatting and rendering: seriously, WTF Buttondown? Something's amiss…

tiny projects

This interregnum between the penultimate drafting of the main thing and final typesetting and design might be granting me a peek into where I'll be heading, creatively, once it's done: a full embrace of Rubin's experiment train of stake-lowering thought, a practice of tinier, smaller projects, each project existing solely to explore and finish and move on. Partway there with the weekly Shards, but I'm aiming to expand aspects of its intent (namely, that they're nothing but experiments) across the totality of my creative practice; now that the ambition to have anything resembling a creative career is dead and buried, I’m having fun simply tinkering or, as my late grandfather would say, “potting around.”

SitRep/20231023

Sent a quick (ok, not so quick as my editing skills are nonexistent at present) follow-up newsletter to subscribers with an update (and thank you) on the current situation. Recording a bit of it here, for my own reference (and remembrance).

“As for my grandfather, he's still kicking - in spite of having a second massive heart attack which should have killed him on Saturday evening – and I'm working with an amazing hospice team to make his final days as comfortable and pain-free as possible. This was my first time working with them: I had set it up for my mother, but we determined it was too risky to move her – fortunately, one of the hospital nurses had worked as a hospice nurse and knew how to handle it. Their work is truly amazing: two hours after I signed the papers, his room at assisted living was converted to a full suite with hospital bed and everything and we had him back there from the hospital. He was pleased to get back – and with the throngs of visitors who came to see him.

Today, I'll make the calls to cancel all future follow-ups and dialysis appointments. Once those treatments stop, he'll have anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks, visiting friends, loved ones, and able to simply drift away, painlessly; he's earned his rest after 96 great years and one hellish month of 97 and, at this point, it's the best gift I can give him. Profound relief on all fronts.

As for me, the combo of no sleep and T1D wave-riding has kicked my ass. Hopeful that I can start to build myself back up in the coming days. But it has given me deeper empathy for his mindset and situation: if the last four days did this to me, I can only imagine what it did to his system – and he's got 55 years, borked kidneys, heart, bladder, and three tubes (one of which got torn out on Thursday evening, which overwhelmed his system and led to this endgame) on me….”

principle09 :: this is it / this is me

Updated Principles page with 09 :: this is it / this is me:

I'm not aspiring to anything other than continuous progression and improvement at my chosen art: this site, the newsletter, and the zine are, until they are otherwise, my chosen, wholly independent delivery systems for whatever I think, ponder, and create. The expressions and experiments and explorations shared in these spaces are neither aspirations nor stepping stones for anything bigger: I've spent more than half my adult life caring about things out of my control and, as I enter the back half of same, I've little interest in continuing down the same path. This space is – and these spaces are – for better or for worse, the truest expression of myself in this moment; whatever the next moment brings will be dealt with when it's time to deal with it. Until then, this is me, and I'm good with it.