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 November 10, 2025.

Making

A couple of weeks ago I had a conversation with my partner about how I feel, work-wise, very much stuck in the small-time; doing little projects where I either get to express some ideas but it's over in a day and pays $200 or I get dependable hours but it's all pre-templated cutout work. I am grappling with the idea that my portfolio, as it currently stands & is presented, does not make me look like a Graphic Designer For Hire but rather a guy who went to school for design, has since pivoted to weird little illustrations, and hasn't even put one of those up in several months.

So I've hauled a couple of personal projects out of cold storage and I'm trying to get them to a publically-viewable state. My old outer-space brand system thing, my less-old Pittsburgh Olympics thing. Basically trying to put up some proof-of-life of the part of my brain that cares about typography and logos, and I just gotta hope that any potential employers will accept a photo of it grimacing into the flash while holding up today's newspaper.

Doing

The dismal march of applying for jobs continues. Get up, open LinkedIn, upload my résumé to some website, spend fifteen minutes manually typing my résumé into the same website, get a rejection email. Repeat eight to ten times a day, lowering standards as necessary, until insane. I'm waiting on a call back to go wrap pastries part-time at Costco.

Anyway, what else have I been up to that isn't so soul-eroding. Laur and I went out for Halloween with some friends and had a good time; caught NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD at the indie theater, had some dinner, and then just drifted from bar to bar around the neighborhood until late. We still have maybe three dozen horror movies on the shelf we didn't get around to watching this year.

Saturday I went out and walked around and shot photos, as a means of forcing myself to do anything even sort-of creative. Some of them are good. Either way I was moving around absorbing sunshine for an entire morning, which has gotta count for something.

The other day I clenched my eyes shut while I clicked the Update All Apps button on my home server dashboard and I'm elated to report that nothing broke that I couldn't fix myself. Been riding that dub down for a little while now.

Thinking

When I got up this morning it was snowing outside. Ground's too warm to hang onto it but there are pockets scattered around. I took Lauren to work and then I walked to the corner store and I found my eyes tracking them, soaking in the white light. The worst mental-health season for me is the span between Daylight Savings and the first snow and I am grateful that this year it was very short. I kind of flinch to investigate why this is (the snow part, I mean) but I guess it's an environmental indicator that another year is almost up and I'm still here, nothing to show for it except older but at least alive.

Reading

Blew through a couple of nonfictions: Seth Harp's book about Fort Bragg (well-written if harrowing) and Adam Higganbotham's book about the Challenger disaster (review repeats). I just got started on China Mieville's Embassytown, which I am enjoying very much. Who would've thought an avant-garde author would have some interesting ideas about the way language shapes cognition?

Listening

It's Ambient Noise Season for me, so not much new stuff, although if you haven't heard my old standbys in that department check 'em out. I've also been rinsing this Paul Coleman album of once-long-lost Weather Channel music, which simply shreds.