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Day Eight for Imaginary Life Four, Poet:

Apprehensive

at the edge - a daily routine
I teeter within as they look on
the performance is nuanced
the execution tight
but if you look close
and inspect the edges
you'll see the hunger leaking through.

Haiku of the Day:

Man at urinal

poised like a soldier at ease

arms behind his back

Today's Drawing

Woebegone

1 : strongly afflicted with woe : woeful
2 a : exhibiting great woe, sorrow, or misery
b : being in a sorry state

Big Feeling

Day Eight for Imaginary Life One, Dancer:

Music. Oh man music is back!

I often go through these weird bouts of time where music just fades into the background of my life and does absolutely nothing for me. Today was the moment of reawakening. The music returned and manifested itself in expressive body joy.

A day of dancing and tunes.

Haiku of the Day:

When we become love
the heart unfurls like a wing
and catches the wind

Today's Drawing

Cabal

1 : the artifices and intrigues of a group of persons secretly united in a plot (as to overturn a government); also : a group engaged in such artifices and intrigues
2 : club, group

Beard Attempt

Day Eight for Imaginary Life Seven, Survivalist:

I'm going to try growing out my facial hair.

It is certainly not going to be pretty.

It has nothing to do with survival but here it is...survivalists have beards right?

I'm mostly curious what will happen and how it will play out.

I won't have a job in 5 weeks and my wife has given me her blessing to not work for a while.

Here we go!

Haiku of the Day:

Number One Grandpa
boards the train with his namesake

on a baseball cap

Today's Drawing

Vamoose - to depart quickly

Dungeons

Day Eight for Imaginary Life Two, Board Game Designer:


So I'm creating a Dungeons and Dragons campaign for my brothers and my wife. It's a pretty hefty endeavor, seeing as I've never done it before and I've only played it a couple times myself. It involves a great deal of math and planning and studying up on the basic rules. I've already gone through the player's handbook a couple times to get my footing and the campaign sketches have begun! My hope is to be able to create a main arc for the whole story that's built up by mini arcs. There will certainly be more on this as time goes by - I'm enthused!

Haiku of the Day:

The breath of the throng

fogs up the cool window glass

our water blinds us

Today's Drawing

Peculiar

1 : characteristic of only one person, group, or thing : distinctive
2 : special, particular
3 : odd, curious
4 : eccentric

Storm Eye

Day Eight for Imaginary Life Ten, Spiritual Counselor:

Getting back into the Meditation world again. Trying to find healthy habits that stick is very difficult. Emotion subverts the logic around every corner. This life is weird since I have to make sure I'm on stable ground before I can help others...and I haven't been there lately. My priorities wax and wane with the propensity of tropical weather.

Be your own eye in the storm, they say.

Haiku of the Day:

An iron chain link

about the size of my hand

suspended by wires

Today's Drawing

Tantivy - at a gallop

Long Haul

Stabbing at another "Check In"

Days of My Lives:
1. Dancer - 7
2. Board Game Designer - 7
3. History Teacher - 7
4. Poet - 7
5. Carpenter - 7
6. Voice Actor - 7
7. Survivalist - 7
8. Playwright - 9
9. Drag Queen - 7
10. Spiritual Counselor - 7

I'm excited to only have a couple months or so until the big move is underway. I have a last day of work and they're interviewing my replacement. I'm finally getting caught up in this space and feel like I have a handle on it once more. I drew quite a few pictures today to get caught up and it feels good. I hope to get some good work out of this yet.

Haiku of the Day:

Finally catching
the tail end of this project
How long will I last?

Today's Drawing

Iota

1 : the 9th letter of the Greek alphabet
2 : an infinitesimal amount : jot

Nine Nine PI

Day Seven for Imaginary Life Three, History Teacher:

I'm gonna recommend a podcast here that is pretty amazing and if you haven't heard of it, I highly highly recommend giving it a shot. It's 99% Invisible and it covers all aspects of design. It's informative and short and delightful.

Also Roman Mars has a wonderful voice and is very smart.

Check out his TED talk about flags here.

Haiku of the Day:

First taste of the sauce
since three weeks ago - I taste
sour mash and bubbles

Today's Drawing

Reconcile

1 a : to restore to friendship or harmony
b : to settle or resolve (differences)
2 : to make consistent or congruous   
3 : to cause to submit to or accept something unpleasant
4 : to check (a financial account) against another for accuracy

Making More of a Mac

Day Seven for Imaginary Life Five, Carpenter:

I've got a fun idea, but it's still in it's infancy.

I've got this old computer that I was going to donate, but now I'm thinking about repurposing it into some kind of interactive screen or something in a wooden housing unit.

I want it to be unique but also functional.

I might turn it into a server for music. Certainly a possibility...I have this thing called a Makey Makey that has some great potential. Maybe I'll hook it up to an emulator and make it possible to play?

Well regardless it's on the list now.

Haiku of the Day:

Across the country
the hordes raise their voices and
cry: TGIF!

Today's Drawing

Mettle

1 a : vigor and strength of spirit or temperament
b : staying quality : stamina
2 : quality of temperament or disposition

Maybes

Day Nine for Imaginary Life Eight, Playwright:

The storyboard got revamped once more and we talked shop. First doubts tremor through the room and I get ever so slightly sad. But also relieved. Maybe the time has past. Maybe we're due to simply sit and work and enjoy what we've come to put together. Maybe we'll stage in some other tomorrow.

Maybe.

Haiku of the Day:

Catering orders
A fresh hell to navigate
right before the fall

Today's Drawing

Palpable

1 : capable of being touched or felt : tangible
2 : easily perceptible : noticeable
3 : easily perceptible by the mind : manifest

Heart Dance

Day Seven for Imaginary Life One, Dancer:

Home early after heart broke for the second time in two days. Danced a little to repair. Movement mends.

Still wounded but walking. This little guy's got some fine legs and a few more bounces yet.

Haiku of the Day:

Hungry heart wavers
Ripe meat dances in the air
The craving is huge

Today's Drawing

Consigliere - counselor, adviser

Molten

Day Seven for Imaginary Life Four, Poet:

Choking

Sudden, like a lightning bolt-
but a bolt that lingers
plasma bright and eerie
with a faint buzzing

The heat is beyond compare
a fourth state of matter
when God touches things
and forgets to remove His Hand

I lie under a steel plate
heated by the plasma of the frozen bolt
the plate is iron and glowing molten red
as nipple protrudes from the center

The molten nipple is above my head
and it stretches out to my forehead
It is no longer a nipple - now a polyp
A cancer I have to cross my eyes to see.

and there it all freezes once more
The molten iron polyp
the shimmering, fuzzy bolt
but I am left my own time

A Sunday afternoon's time
under that hot motlen ball
waiting for the ball to drop
and burn my face -my taste -my breath

But no such relief
I lay and wait and squirm and count
to numbers back and forth
and see God in the orange smoothness of the bulb

Haiku of the Day:

The great unceasing
Reality frays the edge
and I unravel 

Today's Drawing

Nefarious - flagrantly wicked or impious : evil

Priestin'

Day Seven for Imaginary Life Ten, Spiritual Counselor:

Saw an actual spiritual counselor today. Emily and I had to witness our friends in the presence of a priest so they could get married. It was a little bizarre. We rolled up to the ol' church house around 7:30 and filled out some basic paperwork in the guy's office. He was cordial and charismatic. Simultaneously creeped me out and put me at ease. There's a psycho/emotional stink that comes off of people like these: They know things and have heard things. It's the same weird energy of psychologist's offices.

I'm reminded of being an acolyte and having to wear robes during services. And that I played Judas in our church's Easter play three years in a row...I loved the character. I sympathized with Judas deeply. I felt like I was betraying God all the time...

Haiku of the Day:

In the rectory
icons of Christ spilling out
as we witness friends

Today's Drawing

Eclogue - a poem in which shepherds converse

Still Counting

Check in day!
I've actually been keeping track of my days here, believe it or not:

Days of My Lives:
1. Dancer - 6
2. Board Game Designer - 7
3. History Teacher - 6
4. Poet - 6
5. Carpenter - 6
6. Voice Actor - 7
7. Survivalist - 7
8. Playwright - 8
9. Drag Queen - 7
10. Spiritual Counselor - 6

Making slow and terrible progress on the pictures. I'm about 12-14 days behind pretty much every day now. I should reset but there's something in the principle of it. I want to complete the set. Not something I'm sweating over, just trying my damnedest to get it done. Someday soon I reckon.

Looking forward to being unhinged again, at the edge of doing nothing...we'll see where the paths go.

Haiku of the Day:

Dread around nothing
It is the null, senseless void
that addles the mind

Today's Drawing

Loll

1 : to hang or let hang loosely : droop
2 : to recline, lean, or move in a lax, lazy, or indolent manner : lounge

Not Much

Day Eight for Imaginary Life Eight, Playwright:

Story-boarded like a boss today and got a look at our space. It's good to be able to come back to a project with a little bit of time in between. Gotta remember that for other projects as well.

Otherwise an uneventful Saturday.

Haiku of the Day:
Organization
As we web plots together

Index cards galore!

Today's Drawing

Gadarene - headlong, precipitate

Loft or Low?

Day Six for Imaginary Life Five, Carpenter:

Starting to get a sense of what's going to be coming with us to our new place and I'm thinking of the possibilities of whole new arrangements. One of the things I wanted to make in our current place that I never got to was a "reading cave".

When I was in college I had a bed with height settings that I lifted to the highest level so I could sleep underneath it. I LOVED sleeping like that and having a completely unconventional space in my room with levels. So I'm thinking either high up or down low. Or BOTH.

Soooooo much potential.

Haiku of the Day:

New iPhone update
the interface of my life
just changed drastically

Today's Drawing

Juggernaut

1 : (chiefly British) a large heavy truck
2 : a massive inexorable force, campaign, movement, or object that crushes whatever is in its path

Speakin' UP

Day Seven for Imaginary Life Six, Voice Actor:

Spoke with my brother about helping him out with an upcoming project with voice stuff. Another reason I feel like it would be nice to be closer to home. Ah well.

Did some voices while reading to Emily. I'm a little uneasy with certain voices, especially if they switch around a bunch. I'd like to figure out some way to practice more regularly to get the muscle memory to work.

Haiku of the Day:

All the glass vessels
from the preceding six years
etch a clear timeline

Today's Drawing

Implacable - not capable of being appeased, significantly changed, or mitigated

Zooming In and Out

Day Six for Imaginary Life Three, History Teacher:

I'm a news junkie. I've been following the election like a crazy person. I'm pretty sure it's part of the reason I'm been bumming as of late...so many things to be afraid of. That's why it's good to study history - to get that distance, that context so you don't feel like you're drowning all the time.

Unless you start looks at climate change. Then it's best to zoom and try to forget...*sigh*

Haiku of the Day:

In the great below
we raise our lanterns higher
to face the darkness

Today's Drawing

Hare - to go swiftly

Kibosh?

Day Seven for Imaginary Life Seven, Survivalist:

This life has hit the back-burner since I stopped reading my zombie cookbook. We're continuing the massive purge of our crap before the move and it's making me rethink priorities. I realize how few clothes I own. And the cold weather's creeping up. What do you do in the cold times?

I'm starting to get afraid of the new life that's ahead. I'm getting a familiar dread. The old move stress has creeped back in.

Haiku of the Day:

Brutal retelling
of a husband's poor finger
cleft twain at the nail

Today's Drawing

Kibosh - something that serves as a check or stop

Moving to Move

Day Six for Imaginary Life One, Dancer:

I'm using the dance as a therapy these days. A chance to express all the feelings. This is where the machine breaks down - where I can't get the clockwork to do what I want it to do. Too many feelings. They are derailing. I get on pure reaction time and have spend all my time catching up.

There's a symptom treatment going down while the cause wrecks its sweet self across the landscape.

Haiku of the Day:

Muffled conductor
spouts out a few instructions
for the commuters

Today's Drawing

Flippant - lacking proper respect or seriousness

Fall Comin'

Checking in and hoping to keep a little more up to date with things leading into the move.

It's proving difficult.

I haven't had anything to drink in September so far. The residual from the resolution I had for this month at the beginning.

I can feel the fall coming. It's taken residence in my bones.

Haiku of the Day:

Hitting the pavement
all the limbs tense and shakey
I'm a newborn foal

Today's Drawing

Myrmidon - a loyal follower; especially : a subordinate who executes orders unquestioningly or unscrupulously

Get Done

Day Six for Imaginary Life Six, Voice Actor:

I'vebeen trying to read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston because it had come up on the new "season" of Crash Course Literature and I thought I should read it. Unfortunately the dialect of the dialogue has been a real chore to wade through. But today I started reading it out loud and it was much better. I figured that along with reading aloud to the wife and during a couple runs of the game Above and Below, I deserved a credit towards voice actor today.

Haiku of the Day:

With an empty day

and a cogent continence

so much can get done

Today's Drawing

Devolve

1 a : to pass by transmission or succession
b : to fall or be passed usually as a responsibility or obligation
2 : to come by or as if by flowing down
3 : to degenerate through a gradual change or evolution

Penguin Trial

Day Seven for Imaginary Life Two, Board Game Designer:

I'm working on this D&D campaign slowly but surely and it's fun to start picking and choosing how the world will become manifest. I'm often overwhelmed by the options with things like this but I'm finding myself able to take a step back and impose some restriction. I'm learning! Also the not drinking probably has helped along with not being so friggin' busy all the time.

Haiku of the Day:

Trial at the Penguin

The libations call to me

Pizza staves them off

Today's Drawing

Sylvan

1 a : living or located in the woods or forest
b : of, relating to, or characteristic of the woods or forest
2 a : made from wood : wooden
b : abounding in woods, groves, or trees : wooded

Bad Seeds

Day Six for Imaginary Life Four, Poet:

Fed the poet today with a movie about Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds called Once More with Feeling. It was simply beautiful. It all circled the drain of the tragic death of his teenage son. I am reminded of how to be yourself and how suffering does not necessarily make a "good" artist.

I highly recommend watching and listening to his music.

Haiku of the Day:

The echoes of grief

hypnotic and punishing

A one-two gut punch

Today's Drawing

Bevy

1 : a large group or collection
2 : a group of animals and especially quail

Adventure Journals!

Day Seven for Imaginary Life Eight, Playwright:

Started workshopping the notebooks from the summer that I put together with a couple of my collaborators on this project we'll be putting up at the end of the fall before Em and I leave. They wrote journals as their characters based off of prompts I gave them once a week or so. Poetry excerpts and music and stuff like that. The result is astounding. I'm incredibly impressed with them and ready to take on the challenge of staging it. I get the notebooks this week and hope to be able to glean from their rich offerings.

Haiku of the Day:

Girls on adventure

they climb trees and uncover

life's great mystery

Today's Drawing

Untoward

1 : difficult to guide, manage, or work with : unruly, intractable
2 a : marked by trouble or unhappiness : unlucky
b : not favorable or propitious : adverse
3 : improper, indecorous

Wet Tarantella

Day Seven for Imaginary Life Two, Board Game Designer:

Digging in deep to the D&D realm. I've even drawn a map! I won't share it here yet because I don't want to spoil it for my potential adventurers. This is so reminiscent of my childhood when we would have these fantastically visions for game worlds. Hell we made our own version of D&D without even knowing it while trying to recreate the same mechanics of video games (which were based off of D&D to begin with).

I may share some of the text I'll be writing for it here or maybe a recording? Podcasting this stuff has become pretty popular. Who knows?

Haiku of the Day:

On six inch wedges
she danced an accidental
wet tarantella

Today's Drawing

Will-o'-the-wisp

1 : a light that appears at night over marshy ground
2 : a misleading or elusive goal or hope

Laberless Day

Day Five for Imaginary Life Five, Carpenter:

Haven't touched this one in a while, probably because I know I will be moving soon. Odds are there will be a frenzy in the fall/winter as we set up the new place. I especially excited to start crafting a gaming board, as I've mentioned in the past. I'm intently considering making our dining room table. 

So many plans!!

Haiku of the Day:

Vegging out, couchwise
buds-in; pants-off; no problems
Keeping it real, yo

Today's Drawing

Sagacious

1 : of keen and farsighted penetration and judgment : discerning
2 : caused by or indicating acute discernment

Snake Hunting

Day Five for Imaginary Life Three, History Teacher:

Another pleasent day of vacation in Maine. My aunt and uncle have been living there for a long time now and are basically historians of the areas around Portland. I'm inspired to be more connected to the history of my own city and the cities I've lived in.

Also realizing how some much of history is about studying a community at a specific point in time and that time can be the present.

Haiku of the Day:

Going snake hunting

in the dangerous jungles

outside Westbrook, Maine

Today's Drawing

Asperse

1 : sprinkle; especially : to sprinkle with holy water
2 : to attack with evil reports or false or injurious charges

Spinning Out

Doing a check in today because...who cares they're my arbitrary rules.

I've been negligent. The dates on the blog are no longer true. I've mentioned this before but it's getting out of hand now. I've been planning on dedicating a day to maintenance and catch up so I can make sure I've got pictures and haikus for each day but it's gotten out of control. I'm going to seeing how much I can do and keep up in this month but it may be pretty sparse. I'm often far overestimating my creative capacities. I'm a dreamer with execution problems. This I know. THIS is the reason for the project. Figuring that out.

Haiku of the Day:

Atop the dome car

New England passes us by

You can taste the fall

Today's Drawing

Quodlibet

1 : a philosophical or theological point proposed for disputation; also : a disputation on such a point
2 : a whimsical combination of familiar melodies or texts

Temptation Evaded

Day Five for Imaginary Life Six, Voice Actor:

Got into a few more voices today but I've not had the time to sit down and record. I want to have time for these things but with all the obligations of life and this new move barreling down on us I'm strapped for minutes. Most of them are spent on emotional recovery.

I've had an idea to start a D&D campaign with my brothers for around ChristmasTime. This means more time around Board Game Designer, Voice Actor, Playwright and Poet even.

Haiku of the Day:

First booze temptation

But the hand doesn't waver

A seltzer for me

Today's Drawing

Adjuvant

1 : serving to aid or contribute : auxiliary
2 : assisting in the prevention, amelioration, or cure of disease

Allergies

Day Six for Imaginary Life Eight, Playwright:

Got the gang back together to work on one last show. A preview of a year and a half's worth of work. It feels good to dream and plan. We're hesitant but excited. I want to write but the sick mind keeps rejecting it.

I'm allergic to seafood in the harbor.

Haiku of the Day:

Light calculations
numbers nestled in their cells
They're trying so hard

Today's Drawing

Oenophile

: a lover or connoisseur of wine