So, I discovered that I simply cannot use fountain pens--or any other permanent or semi-permanent marking devices--in my planner. It's no fault of the planner. It's me. I make too many mistakes. Using Wite-Out to cover up a mistake, which was covering up a previous mistake, makes for one hell of an ugly planner. And my writing is ugly enough. I don't need anything else to add to the ugly.
Fortunately, I had another blank notebook waiting in the wings. I took the opportunity to rethink my planner. My monthly and weekly layouts were surprisingly similar, one of the few differences being the amount of space allotted for each day. The monthly had my main to-do's while the weekly included the little to-do's required to complete the main to-do's. The flaw in the weekly layout was that a two-page spread covered just six days; I couldn't even see a whole week at a glance. Not to mention, the days weren't labeled with days of the week. I'm sure if I had kept at it, I would have been utterly confused.
I was going for a minimalist, linear design--rather than using lines laboriously drawn with a ruler, I simply used dots at what would be the beginnings and ends of lines. This led to my downfall. When dating the sections, I mistook the bottom-left dot as the start of another day. No, sir, that was the bottom of the page. I'll spare you the details of correcting my mistake, which then led to another mistake, which then led me to throwing my hands up.
I wasn't down for the count. What if I started again skipping a monthly section to focus on weekly layouts? What if I used "crop marks" to better define the sections without resorting to a ruler? What if I abandoned my beloved fountain pens for the pile of Pilot Frixion pens, markers, fineliners, and highlighters, all easily erasable?
With a new, more traditional two-page weekly spread, my new planner is marvelous. And the two or three mistakes I already made have been erased into oblivion. Yet, somehow, my math went all wobbly and the notebook will only house half a year. Luckily, I have one more identical notebook on hand, so I'm covered.
This is my first year taking a deep dive into planning. I'm not really the planning type. But sometimes we have to leave our old ways behind so we can grow and learn. And grow and learn shall be the way in 2025.
]]>Can I just repost the last post? I think I was writing about forgetting to blog. And that's exactly what I've done.
I'm trying to get back on track with virtually everything, so here are some highlights:
I am looking forward to making 2025 a much better year than 2024, which, quite frankly, was an expletive year.
]]>Oh, yeah. I have this blog. Sitting here. Waiting.
I often forget to blog. Probably (partly) because I have a JIRL. Yeah, the world needed another acronym, so I created one. Just now. Journal In Real Life. As in: a paper journal you write in with a pen. Or a pencil, preferably 6B. Of course, Gran would say I'm hoity-toity by using a fountain pen. I would say she was hoity-toity for not only using the term hoity-toity, but teaching it to her grandchildren. Someday, I'll write down all the Gran-isms. There were a lot of them.
It's right that I'm thinking of her at the moment. Today would have been her birthday. She was an obliviously happy person, not afraid to sit on the floor to play board games with her grandchildren. She was a good cook, and made a chocolate malt to die for. Her red cinnamon apple dumplings were a treasure, the recipe for which is tragically lost forever.
What started as a blog post about forgetting to blog turned into a small tribute to my grandma. Happy birthday, Gran!
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This was my first attempt at a poured acrylic painting. It was made using an inexpensive set found at a discount store. The "canvas" is more like a textured piece of cardboard. But it came out suprisingly well. The colors aren't captured correctly by the scanner, but the spirit of the painting is intact. I suspect this won't be my last.
Side note: it's difficult giving abstract art a title, but "What Happens in the Dark" popped in my head. So there it is.
]]>The following was spontaneously composed on my AlphaSmart Neo2, a 90's vintage educational device adopted by thrifty writers as a distraction-free writing device. This is evidence that writer's block doesn't exist. The words are all around us. Just listen, and look.
Sometimes, you can't find the words. Just underline where they would go and keep going. Fill them in later, Mad Libs-style, or leave it to the reader's imagination.It's 7:39 am and the house is quiet. But it isn't. The ceiling fan in my wife's home office whirs rhythmically, and I just realize the refrigerator had been humming in unison--harmony?--with it. But the fan is having it's solo. I notice a nearly imperceptible ringing in my left ear--tinnitus or interference from the army of electrical devices that _______. Down the street, to the left, a dog barks, off and on. Birds chirp from the wires in the back yard. The kittens patter around, creating punctuation of pounces on rug over hardwood floor. The calico licks my bare toes, lightly. Her tongue is a stiff-bristled brush of hooks on flesh. The calico joins her sister, a bicolor brown tabby, in the window. Their tails swish silently, in unison. The calico has settled on the back of the couch near the window, watching as the tabby scans the sky and ground for something, anything, that moves. She repositions herself, then crosses the back of the couch to the other window. An airplane can be heard making the final turn to line up with the runway. And now another. The airport is small, serving mostly private planes. But I wonder, who with the means of a private plane would come to Riverside. Is it merely a stop on the way to somewhere important? If I had a plane, I would fly to anywhere but Riverside. I love Riverside--all but five or so years have been spent here--but the world is large and I've seen the smallest fraction of it. The ceiling fan and refrigerator are singing harmony again, as cats patter across the back of the couch.
Still Just a Geek: An Annotated Memoir by Wil Wheaton
