a brief note on “process videos”

I don’t and won’t make “process videos” because, one, I have no clue what I’m doing as is and therefore dedicate all my concentration to not cutting off limbs and/or setting myself on fire; and two, I’m enough of an internet boomer (young Gen-X or ancient millenial cusper that my 1981 self is) to remember the last time “share your process” was all the internet rage, back in 2006-2013, give or take, and to remember those dark days, weeks, months, and years that I was vulnerable, green, and hopeful enough to waste what creative energy I had back then on it with precisely fuckall to show for it now so pardon me if, in this, the video / hey guys era of process (videos), I’m resolved to keep my practice and my limbs to myself – though I’m sure a TikTok of an old shit like me losing a finger would be a total viral sensation but nonono/sorry: the most you’d get would be is a little run-on grotesque like this typed with nine fingers or less on the internet equivalent of a cuneiform scroll (insert blogs rool / toks drool or somesuch chant of the internet-old and infirm). Dog videos on the other hand? Count me in.

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spending/spent this raindrenched morning – for the first morning in a couple of years – writing by going about it the same way i do metalwork: piece by piece assembled whenever into whatever - which is pretty much what i did before only now i embrace it instead of drowning it in whatever combo of mental gymnast fuckery I let seep in. plan is that any fiction (though some non-, i imagine) i write / publish will be available only as a self-published zine though i might make text available in this space (tbd) oh and related: i handwrite in all caps and publish in all lower-; a conundrum, sure – but whateverthefuck: im enjoying myself.

project updates

I made a table yesterday for the Pondio but didn’t get it finished thanks to my stupid little propane burner fritzing out (safety features grr) and my stupid little weary exhausted brain which didn’t see fit to move it into The Shed before the rain and accompanying tornado warnings hit so it’s completely soaked and delayed while it dries out in The Shed.

While I was waiting on that to dry, I got around to putting my first little zine in ages into Affinity Publisher and moving the pages around and making it fit. Once I wrangle my brain into working on a computer again, I should be able to put it into the world.

And, after The Greeter, I’m devoid of metalwork projects – though one of K’s colleagues did supply me with a milk crate brimming with scrap metal fun…

cyborg pancreas decision trees etc

A brief example of T1D decision-making, even with cyborg pocket pancreas and being a Bluetooth-connected device: had to change out my CGM this morning because it was 18 minutes from the end of its 10-day lifespan but it was a running day and I’d have to run with the thing warming up so, even though it’s a beautiful, pre-wind advisory Sunday morning – my favorite day to run, so long as I don’t end up on the path of Amish buggies on their way to whoever among them is hosting church that day – I decided to stay home and box instead. Main reason being that the CGM was going in my abdomen this time and the last time I tried to stab myself in the stomach with its flexible stabby thing the goddamn thing failed during warmup, so I had to put it in my arm again which isn’t always fun and I didn’t want to have to deal with another one failing and going three for three in my poor left arm.  Good news: this one is working fine, and my gambit paid off - even if my blood sugar won’t be quite as happy as it would like to be; I am nothing if not a moderately-functional part-cyborg Bluetooth device. Victory, for the time being.

the (as yet) unmade

In the throes of limbo on two metal projects so here’s a list of things I’ve yet to make that I want to make:

• a series / gaggle of weird little zines

• a graphic novella (with or without a collaborator, though i'd prefer the former)

• a narrative short film

• a novella

• a large metal dinosaur

• a damn good track / ep that eschews my institutionalized music composition reflexes for the same visceral and improvisational central to my totally clueless – and intentionally ignorant – metalworking practice.

Do I have any of these in me still? I'd like to believe I do (99.99% that large metal dinosaur is happening this summer), but time will tell.

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An acceptance that I will never be good with or at the influencer (when, out of curiosity, did "thought leader" wane? I hated that term too - but at least it had a little less of a manipulative bent - but I'm curious as to its erasure from the lexicon) video / TikTok-itization of the internet and am, as such, content to be an internet dinosaur talking to and with himself and his past selves and the two other people who might imbibe his blogs and newsletters and such.

I had hopes that my brain might cooperate today but, alas.

At some point the urge to write again will strike me but first I have to play with my new laser welder.

/202509091200

Today being one of those post-project massive Shed clean-up days which have become essential rituals - but this one especially so: I'm finally getting the laser welder set up. Or at least figuring out what I need to get to set it up (I think just a thing of 1mm steel wire but 🤷🤷🤷. Also have to set up a thing to mount my little argon tank to the wall which may need to be changed depending on how much argon this Goldfinger device actually uses. Computer monitor sits, wanting me to work at it but these days my happiest creative moments are spent away from screens with a (shielded) faceful of sparks or scribbling with a pencil in a notebook. Rolling with it.

a big fucking corkboard

For the first time in more than 10 years I've a raging desire to buy a big fucking corkboard and fill it with index cards with scenes and scraps and phrases and stuff on them (in no particular order), a desire to bring the tactile prototyping approach to thinking that metal (or cardboard and tape) brings to the present (and far-preferred) iteration of my creative practice. Not sure what these hypothetical cards are meant to become – I remain proudly medium agnostic until the time comes to declare my project-faith – though I do know it will be something a.) I can do on my own (or learn to do on my own) and/or b.) nifty, the latter of which is really all that interests me these days. Or, perhaps, it's all just a desire to redecorate The Shed and make one of the walls more useful than as a shelf for things that could and probably should be shelved elsewhere because they're going to fall on me any day now.