Monthly Archives: February 2020

Character Study

If I’m remembering correctly, I first spotted Shopgirl while spending one glorious holiday season working at Barnes & Noble. I mean, my brain could totally be making that up just because I was surrounded by books, girls, and a shop for several hours a day, but that doesn’t sound nearly as catchy for a opening sentence does it?

So, I first spotted Shopgirl while spending one glorious holiday season at Barnes & Noble. It was a little odd because I didn’t think of Steve Martin as a writer, so I made a note to myself that it would make an interesting read at some point. Which is why I immediately went out and spent the next 20 some odd years avoiding the book.

Rando With Mando!

Perhaps this counts as cheating, but since I make the rules around here… I’ll allow it.

Check out the newest episode of Free Range Idiocy where Tim and I recap our favorite moments, characters, and episodes from season one of The Madalorian.

Endurance

Bit of a rough week adjusting to some new glasses (progressives because… age), so since my life is basically feeling like one big adjustment, I didn’t have much inclination to work on Adjustment. However, since I don’t want to leave anyone hanging (especially myself), how about a poem that I go back to from time to time called “The Secret of My Endurance” by Charles Bukowski?

Keep Your Pace

It’s taken me a couple decades to learn this lesson, but pace is important.

I can bike a lot further if I find a good pace. Go too fast too soon and I’ll burn out really quickly. Go too slow and my progress will be piddly enough that I’ll quit out of boredom. Find a good pace that’s still pushing me a little bit while also not burning me out, and I’m good.

Life and creativity is like that – they have a pace that allows for pushing (getting better) while also not burning out. But it’s not the same pace for everything.

My Favorite Thing This Week

Let’s finish up the week with a little gratitude and joy shall we?

I have the privilege of leading the worship team at my church. In a nuts-and-bolts manner of speaking, it means I wrangle the schedule, write charts, lead rehearsals, play bass guitar, and sing. In a broader sense, I make decisions about how we’ll play songs, communicate with various team members solely in movie quotes, encourage people, pray for them, and generally have a great time.

This week, I looked over the schedule and realized that my presence on stage was somewhat superfluous and decided to take the weekend off for my birthday.

On the Benefits of Getting a Haircut

Maybe it’s getting older, but I’ve begun to appreciate going to get a haircut a lot more over the last few years. There’s nothing quite like a fresh cut and appreciating how good it looks (at least until I get my hands on it), but that’s not the only reason it’s refreshing.

Working from home is great. On a day like today, when the snow is falling and school is cancelled, my commute is the same as it always is – down a flight of stairs in my slippers with a fresh cup of coffee. No need to cancel a bunch of plans because the kid is staying home today. No rush to get outside and shovel or clear the stairs.

However, it’s not all pizza, unicorns, and afternoon naps.

Word Wednesday: Reflections

For those who might be tuning in via my Facebook post and my post about Facebook from yesterday, welcome to Word Wednesday! Each week, I post poems that I’ve been working on in place of a more traditional blog post.

If you click on the category, you’ll see lots of blackout poems – where a newspaper article is used as source material to create a poem through blacking out or redacting all the words that aren’t used (a concept stolen from writer Austin Kleon). You’ll also come across something called Adjustment, which is a project I’ve started this year where I’m creating poems from the pages of a book called Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk.

My New Social Media Policy

Well shucks, that sounds awfully corporate and official for some guy working out of his house, but it’s actually the best title I could come up with. The beginning of this year has been interesting and I’ve begun to think of my life as more of being CEO of Todd, Inc. rather than just doing a bunch of stuff. After all, I have control over pretty much everything that I’ve chosen to do – time to start acting like it.

So one of the biggest moves this year is something I’ve spent a few posts talking about: social media and how to deal with it. After 21 days away and then an experimental week back without any real changes, I’ve come to a terribly unscientific conclusion.

I stink at this.

So, it’s time to start making some changes.