notebook / @tww

(Recording this truth here as a reminder to myself when I hate it in three days): first morning with the new schedule / routine and I love it.

Encore: this week’s attempt at answering a frequently asked question I’ve never been asked: What’s up with your obsession with fountain pens? + a second listener query, uninterrupted by barking dogs.

A week of change continues and ends and it’s time to wrap up this daily series once again. Too many time constraints, too little evolution, and a general desire to stop that pervasive feeling of wasting my breath have culminated in the current plan, for now:

Sunday becomes written word day (and a day off from the Main Project(s)) with these daily pieces switching to weekly Sunday morning releases, three per month – the fourth being reserved for the monthly newsletter – and residing at a new blog at the main site: The Informalities / RSS. This Micro space will be for whenever/whatever pieces that pop up during the week, thus reclaiming the MicroInformalities title.

Wednesdays remain aural days: GROUND LOOP, SOCIALIZED RECLUSE, RE/EMERGENCE, and other upcoming stuff – involving an audio component – will release on Wednesdays.

The rest of the time I’ll be toiling away; this space will remain my whenever-whatever cross-posted thoughtstream. Dog pictures and such.

Kirby’s vet checkup: he’s more than doubled in weight (13 to 27 pounds) since last month and is in perfect health: “Keep doing what you’re doing.” One more puppy-checkup to go.

The new watch - a Casio G-Shock GA700-1B XL (requisitely - and exquisitely - puppy-proof) - has arrived and I’m already in love. Coupled with my on-the-go note-taking / thoughtjot switch to cheap memo pads, a cheap memo pad holder, and my beloved Fisher Space pen, my unplugging continues apace. Will obviously use phone / tech / etc for The Work - and all of its attendant subsidiaries; this being simply an unplug from perpetual cellular attachment.

Every day I run through the cemetery; every day I see a (largely untended) tombstone with my apparent last name (a story for another time) on it. A daily kick in the ass - most useful.

Speaking of cemeteries: health orders in Ohio will be lifted on 02 June; lotteries and such. A realization that my life after will be the same as it was before the plague and the 10 years before that. I leave it to you to enjoy the hedonism that will no doubt ensue and inspire countless uninispiring thinkpieces; my place is here, me myself and I.

Words and such.

Kirby vet appt this afternoon (update, 1500: went well. The day awaits.

With a third one coming hopefully this year, I’ve added a Books page to Parenthetical Recluse (duly filed under “better eight years late than never”).

New: in this week’s episode of THE GROUND LOOP, I answer another frequently asked question I’ve never been asked: “What’s up with your obsession with fountain pens?” - and my second listener question.

Puppy teeth, man - puppy teeth (recitation 13,584).

Just received stunning new music from EJK: re/emergence0003 is on its way. Follow the link for more info and how to get early access.

Recording complete.

EarBliss, 11may2021: JESUP WAGON, by James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quartet.

Writing this with a Jorkie on my lap and thinking - more than I should, probably - about my afternoons, those hotbeds of self-recrimination, depletion of self-respect, and general ennui. Efforts to fill those with another workblock of The Main Project useless: tried yesterday and ended up deleting everything I had scrounged in this morning’s session.

Moving forward, though, with another way: since I’ll be recording tomorrow’s GROUND LOOP this afternoon, I’ll start using the block for side projects - stories, RE/EMERGENCE tales, and other - perhaps scripty - things - that aren’t necessarily beholden to my intractable requirements for repeatability and allow me to let other parts of my brain roam free.

When I reach the point with Main where more time is required, I will, of course, use that afternoon block for it (as I’ll use the morning chunk for sides, should their end be in reach); however, at this point, I think it’s better to use that postprandial time for moving smaller things forward, spinning the side dish plates, as it were, in addition to the Main platters.

Kirby’s big-dog collar has arrived. Still a ways off from wearing it (maybe), but we couldn’t resist.

EarBliss, 10may2021: C.M.S.O. (Learning by Listening Vol. 1), by Orca, Attack!

Finished the third game in the GEARS OF WAR series, the first trilogy of the saga: tears, as per series usual at the game’s all is lost section (see last week’s TGL for initial reaction), and, after a bit of trepidation at the outset of the game, a feeling of completion, accomplishment, and that particular satisfaction at having taken part in a great story well told - even if it took me ten years to find that magic - and heart. So very worth it.

(Let it be stated here that few things depress me more than a great story poorly told.)

Speaking of: tried watching TENET but a.) I fell asleep (which isn’t saying much these days) and b.) HBOMax was in stutter mode, rendering the film nigh-unwatchable and causing us to cancel our viewing. Most likely outcome: will rewatch from the start, but, if what I saw holds - and I truly hope it doesn’t -, it’s by far my least favorite Nolan film (with some of his best action sequences), the director having climbed so far up his own ass that his trademark steely-cold, detached gaze on everything has been rendered a parody of itself.

Kirby is now three months old. The day awaits.

Trying to wrap my hands around flam rudiments. They were bastards in my previous percussive life and continue in this present effort at personal re-education. Anyhow, this is what I’ve written and said this week:

Misplaced Confidence / Endo-bound, 03may2021.

Cereal / First Thunder / Intuitive Creative Permission, 04may2021.

THE GROUND LOOP, Ep0003 - What haven’t you tackled, creatively, that you’d like to try?, 05may2021.

Wrist-Cyborg Fadeth / Tech Updates, 06may2021.

Replenishing a Mind Numbed, Kinda, 07may2021.

We have entered the teething phase…, 08may2021.

See you tomorrow.

Used a phrase I never thought I’d use: “You were bitten in the face. That means you back off.” And so the day begins. (Just another day at Jurassic Park; hours of operation: 4:30AM - 10:00PM.)

…farewell: puppy teeth, table legs, slippers, shoes, pedals, writing desks, desk desks, carpet sides, carpet corners, carpet interiors, chair legs, human legs, plant life, huchera, vegetation, mulch, rocks (ok maybe not those), drumsticks, stick sticks, pond piping, pergola frames, rope, couch leather, couch fabric, blankets, towels, magazines, book spines (sorry bottom-shelf dwellers, I still love you), kettlebells, dumbbells, bell bells, crockery, crockpots, baskets, barrels, pots, pans, food bowls, ceramic frogs, terracotta frogs, garden gnomes…

Mem: invest in Kong as we should’ve done with paper towels during housebreaking. Puppy teeth NFT FFS WTF LALALA

Archaeologists Have Identified the Only Known Example of a Pregnant Mummy, via artnet.

Red-Eyed Subjects Peer Forward in Bright, Impasto Portraits by Artist Annan Affotey , via Colossal.

Bar Owner Accused of Selling Fake Vaccination Cards, via Medscape.

Japanese Carpenters Unearth 100-Year-Old Wood Joineries While Taking Apart a Traditional House, via Open Culture.

Discarded Technology and Branded Trash Are Stacked into Dystopian Structures in Alvaro Naddeo’s Paintings, via Colossal.

Dense Pencil Drawings of Retro-Future Worlds by Yota Tsukino, via Spoon & Tamago.

The Longing is deliberately slow and tedious, but I can’t stop playing, via The Verge.

Anyone Can Identify And Report Stolen Art Instantly With New Interpol App, via Forbes.