Week note - on making stickers
Most Tuesdays I meet my friend, Austin, at Crow Bar around 7pm. Sometimes 7:30 if one (or both) of us loses track of time.1 We drink a few Rainiers, catch up on each other’s weeks and devote at least an hour to scheming.
Our schemes are objectively half-baked. For example, there was a time we were focused on purchasing and refurbishing old claw machines. We’d fill them with oddities as prizes in the same vein as popular local mystery vending machines, with the meaningfully distinct twist of a game of skill. This, like most schemes, did not work out. The joy, however, is not in success but the act of creative and collaborative scheming.
About a year back our scheme became hyper local bumper stickers. We’d do one off “drops” that’d be sold like loosies behind the counter at our favorite dive bars. They’d be ridiculous and crude and something that’d catch the eye of the kinds of weirdos we knew. We spent weeks workshopping ideas for stickers and stashing the best of them in an Apple Note. (We still use the same one.)
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This happens most of the time. We both have ADHD. ↩︎
Week note - vi
Another late update. I took last week off of work to deal with my shingles. It turns out shingles last longer than I was expecting and I spent much of that week in pain and cranky about it. I’m hoping things start to take a turn for the better soon.
The week was spent mostly watching movies, playing video games and doing some light chores I’ve been putting off for ages.
Week note - v
This is a note about travel and illness. Two things I try hard to keep separate.
Last week was the first full week of our annual Sierras roadtrip. It did not go according to plan. At first it seemed like several nights on a sleeping pad had tweaked my back. By the time we finished up in Coos Bay, I was sore and a dull pain started throbbing beneath my right rib. When we arrived in Lassen Volcanic National Park the throb transformed into a sharp and rhythmic pain.
I spent my time in the Park working from my van perched in position that would rather upset my physical therapist. When I wasn’t working, I practiced convincing myself that this was, in fact, a very normal and every day sort of stabbing pain. Nothing a good ignoring couldn’t fix. I, gracefully, declined to do much hiking while in the Park to give my beleaguered body time to heal from a surely treacherous but only mundanely strained back.
Wednesday we began the next leg of the trip with a four hour drive down to Tahoe. I was not much fun as far a road-trip co-pilots go.1 I only survived through willpower drawn from knowing a real bed awaited me at its end. When we arrived I climbed in and allowed myself to feel optimistic. That night I took my partner out for dinner2, both as a thank you for all the extra effort she was taking on for us and to (hopefully) mark a change in the tenor of the currently strained vibes of our trip. The meal was fantastic. I was certain that a night sleeping on a real bed would set things right. We popped on a movie and I took a muscle relaxer. (Some things can be left to fate, others require pharmaceutical intervention.)
Shortly after the movie finished, I woke up in the (confusing) throws of pain. The dull throbbing I had attributed to the spasms of my unhappy back muscles had transformed into a ceaseless stabbing pain that drove me to tears. I woke my partner and explained we might need to make the drive back to Portland tomorrow. (I did not want to die in California.) She, the love of my life, held my hand gently, offered kind words, and then popped in her ear plugs. Before rolling over, she explained, “if I’ve got to do the drive, I need to sleep and I can’t sleep through all your sniffling and moaning without these.”
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My contributions to our chat were mostly insightful additions like “oh fuck” and some longer (though ultimately not moving) exposition on why it would be okay to kill me. ↩︎
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We had venison tartare, scallops & pork, and some ravioli that was incredible. The view from this place is the main selling point and if you find yourself in Tahoe City you should check it out. ↩︎