Now:

A page that updates periodically about what I’m up to and into right now. You are viewing the version of this page from October 20, 2026.

Making

I’ve been scraping together a little poster or graphic when I can, just to see if making things currently holds any juice for me. Nothing too complicated or deep but something that didn’t exist before, and that’s what counts. Tapping into the resentment if that’s what it takes to prove I can still make anything, still have some crumb of agency. Vectors and rasters to sequester the same urges that might drive someone with less access to tools to trash a public bathroom.

I think I need to switch media, get my hands on something new. I’m thinking about Kero Kero Bonito making Time 'n' Place live because the shit they were working through didn’t feel processable by clicking around on the computer. I should make some wheat paste, or think of a good tag.

Last week I ran up some flyers—both that anti-slop flyer-for-flyers and a more general designer-for-hire one—and walked around targeting high-income neighborhoods where it felt like somebody might want something for their boutique soap store or catered block party or whatever. No hits yet but I got a few hours of sunlight and I got to feel like I was making progress.

I’m shopping around this HTML class I wrote up in the spring, which I’d originally pitched to the library and was going to run there, but now the library is under renovation through March and they don’t have the space. My email to the local makerspace bounced. If anyone in Pittsburgh has the keys to a room with a projector and would like to offer a hands-on intro to website building to six to ten people, ping me.

I have one paid gig on my plate right now and a couple of leads that are not returning my emails even as I ramp up my “Just following up, thanks!” frequency to the very edge of plausible politeness. Working only when other people remember you rocks when the pay doesn’t also depend on it: the other way around, it’s a lot of forced downtime that you can’t spend working for want of work but you can’t really spend relaxing for material reasons.

Of course the job search continues, the way you could say that the wind continues, varying in intensity by the day but never ending. I got baited onto some website this morning that offered to AI-remix my resume to sneak it past the other guys’ AI and I figured you might as well fight fire with fire but then after it was “optimized” they wanted $2.99 for the PDF and I closed the tab, disgusted with myself. Remember how the school photos company would print a big envelope of pictures and send them home with you but if your parents didn’t pay you had to turn them back in? Great scam. I need a scam like that.

Doing

Worse than ever, thanks for asking.

I’ve needed to go to Oakland to pick up a library book for two weeks and I haven’t found the time somehow despite having literally nothing but time. I’m going to therapy and whining about feeling like a bum for 56 minutes and then wondering if that’s helping me more than the copay is hurting, mentally. I’m broke, what else is new, it’s the downhill half of the month and it’s going to be a tight squeeze again. Vibing out my personal finances the way you can sketch what a guy’s on-base percentage would’ve been if he didn’t get injured in June, Dorktown polygons straining to shave past a plane at Y=0. My dad got tickets for Billy Strings in Baltimore on Halloween and I had to let him down because I’m scheduled at work and I can’t really afford the trip anyway. That part I left out.

Just today I had to renegotiate my student loans because the Cut Me Some Slack, Dude Plan I was on previously by virtue of my negligible income has been voided by a federal judge. In freelance, I always tell people, I love doing album covers but they don’t pay, because musicians are scraping by on so little that it’s tough for me to wedge in with “Can I get some of your no money, please?” That’s the laugh line. Now I’m having that done to me by the government, pitiable small-time shit. You sold a seventeen-year-old kid a lemon and it’s my fault it didn’t land me a job cushy enough to offer you a monthly kickback?

I got on some new meds. I know the science, it’ll be a couple months before I notice anything, but it’s about to be daylight savings time and I figured I could use a foothold to get through winter. Wellbutrin didn’t do much for my mood but it was nice that it stabilized my heart rate so I could drop by the plasma place when I needed fifty bucks. When I said all this to the psychiatrist (besides the plasma part) he looked surprised and said “Wellbutrin didn’t work for you? That’s one of my favorites.” I’ve been wondering what he meant.

Thinking

Yesterday, instead of engaging with anything new on my long list of new stuff to engage with, I rewatched Dan Olson’s video I Don’t Know James Rolfe.

It’s kind of about the Angry Video Game Nerd, a thing I am slightly too young to feel any way about, but it’s also about becoming obsessed with something because—with or without you realizing—it’s a mirror for your own problems with yourself. I only fully picked that up this time around and immediately started checking myself for it like ticks.

One thing I do for sure is try and gauge how I’m doing by how other people are doing. In some spaces it does not help and in some spaces I can juice a little relief. Online being an endless gallery of the best and worst stuff imaginable makes a sort of self-esteem speedball out of this behavior. I’m not nearly as good as this guy, but I got off pretty easy versus that guy. I’m in a bad way at the moment but I don’t know anybody who isn’t. Knowing that doesn’t fix it, but it curves the grade a little. You might be suffering, but at least you’re not special.

Reading

The slump is over, or I am declaring the slump over regardless of the evidence. George Bush on the battleship back from Operation Read Books Again.

The Mercy of Gods was alright. Not exciting enough for me to grab the second one right away but I’ll probably get to it sometime. Walking Practice was interesting enough that I blew through it in a day, I think I would have turned on it if it was much longer. Then I spent a while wading through Adventures Among Ants which was pretty neat.

I just last night started the new China Miéville book, which I opened on my ereader and saw a clean 1200 page count. But so far it’s really good, immediate, grabby. Although I like finishing a book for the tally I also like being in the middle of something long you can think about when you’re away from it, not having to choose something new for a while.

Listening

I finally got around to the new Pond album they put out in June. I think I like it less than Stung but it’s pretty good. I hope they tour in America again.

Otherwise it’s fall out, which means it’s They Might Be Giants season. I’m a big defender of their 2010s stuff. Maybe they never made another album as cohesive as John Henry but Join Us through I Like Fun is a crazy run. Those records have a lot of their best songs from the perspective of a weird guy, and if you ask me that’s really their butter zone.