Creative malaise creeps in with cat-like efficiency, a million tiny unseen movements by a living statue, completely unnoticed until it’s suddenly asleep in your lap. Then you want a snack, so you try to get off the couch, but you can’t because this clearly overweight feline has claimed your legs, has no visible intention of leaving any time soon, and you’re like “How long has this thing been here?!”

I have a story I’ve dragged my heals on for nearly 6 years, and the only way past this current psychological hijack is to bring it to life. My brain has been given permission to work the problem. It slowly circles the idea. Tiny lights on the console flicker to life. Fluorescent lights illuminate the room. A whirring of gears, a humming of mysterious electricity deep within the grey goo.

Anyway, here is a lovely drawing of Francis the sheep holding what can only be considered a very large weapon. Maybe? It might be a culinary device. It might make donuts holes. Or sausages. You never can tell what the future holds. Or space-faring sheep, for that matter.

Arthur C. Clarke said “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This isn’t that.

I spent several days trying to fix Omega’s bike last week. I sacrificed my Youtube feed to bike repair videos explaining how to tune a derailleur. I learned all about smooth shifting and adjustment screws and cable tension. The chain would slip off the front sprocket whenever the bike was shifted into the first gear. At first I thought it was because the old bike was missing the chain guard on the front sprocket, but the job of the chain guard isn’t to keep the chain on the sprocket, and more importantly I couldn’t find a replacement that fit, so that wasn’t the problem. All signs pointed to the derailleur being out of adjustment.

I located my screwdriver, and my wrenches which was no small feat since I don’t own a proper toolbox. What tools I have squat in whatever corner of the house they like the best. The screw driver for example lives in a cardboard box in the mud room next to the mini fridge, under a half empty bag of chips. The wrenches live on the bottom shelf in the corner of the garage under some gardening pots. It’s a terrible system and I hate it and I can never find my measuring tape.

So I spent several days learning about how derailleurs work, how to adjust derailleurs, pleading with derailleurs, swearing at derailleurs, but nothing would keep the chain from slipping off the front sprocket. And so finally my brain, clearly exasperated because I just wasn’t getting any of this, let me in on a little something it noticed days ago, that might be relevant, I don’t know, maybe, did you see how the front sprocket is slightly but obviously bent?

Anyways, I always know where the hammer is, and now I’m a bike repair hero of some very low calibre. At least to Omega. For a hot minute. It’s since passed.

Hey! This piggy doesn’t have sprocket problems. My guess is that his scooter doesn’t even have sprockets. It has chips, though, probably from my mud room. Chips, I think we can all agree, are way better than sprockets.

A thought occurred to me a couple days ago, and it wasn’t a complete thought really, but a bit of a thought, a seed of a thought to be sure, a possibility that might grow into a something. It was accompanied by another thought which was “You should write this down before you forget it” but I hear that thought so much I only barely acknowledged it and then promptly forgot the first thought.

I didn’t even realize I had forgotten the original thought until much later that night, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, enjoying that brief moment of calm before trudging off to slumberland. That’s the time the brain does the bookkeeping. It came up short. “You had a thought of great potential but you neglected to write it down and now you have forgotten what it was,” it said “goodnight.”

Anyway that was days ago, and the search party is still out.

Hey! If you dig this dumb sketch, you might also like the comic it turned into. It was called Future Tense, and while longer than this tiny postcard, I’m not convinced it was better. Just different. Certainly less colourful, in the literal sense.

9 brains and still no sense of personal space

The last couple of weeks have been a blur. The kid’s elementary school had a bbq on the 22nd. Spare and Cracker Jack are in the school band, so we watched their performance for the first hour, then starved for the second because they ran out of food. We came home and grilled hot dogs. Omega had a 10th birthday party on the 24th. Cracker Jack graduated grade 8 on the 26th. Lizzy had a birthday on the 28th. Today we celebrate the previously mentioned graduation with a buffet lunch, then later this evening continue celebrating Lizzy’s birthday at an escape room.

Wait! There’s more! Omega’s actual birthday is next week! Only after that can we rest. 🙂

While I search for my calm, please enjoy this watercolour sketch thing of Robot and Francis hiding from a space octopus. I’m sure they’ll be fine.

The universe is really big. And unimaginably weird.

An adventurous young astronaut discovers things can get very strange (and fishy?) in space.

You might ask “Ryan, what’s the point of this?” and I’d reply “I don’t know!” Because that’s what happens when you go into a thing with no real purpose, and no real reason, just a kind of wistfully floating along until you decide it’s all completely wrong but just add fish and a weird light source and it’ll be fine. Like life.

Set phasers to stylish, yo

Unique science fiction and fantasy shirts like this one are available on my Etsy shop.

I want a big life. I want to experience everything. I want to break every single rule there is. They say ambition is an unattractive trait in a woman. Maybe. But you know what’s really unattractive? Waiting around for something to happen. Staring out a window, thinking the life you should be living is out there somewhere but not being willing to open the door and go get it. Even if someone tells you you can’t. Being a coward is only cute in The Wizard of Oz.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Four Minutes (S05E09)

Her entire 4 minute set was superb, and the lead in adds more context, but this is the meat of it. A superb finale. Excellent advice all around.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don’t have any kids yourself.

Philip Larkin

I was watching Ted Lasso (S03E11) last night, and Mae recited this poem to Ted, as he was clearly having trouble dealing with his mommy issues. I hadn’t heard it before, and thought it was kind of great.

The Poetry Foundation has more on Philip Larkin.

You’re just so convinced that you don’t deserve anything good in your life, that you’d rather eat a bowl of shit soup and then complain about the portions. Get out of your own way, man. Cause this whole “woe is me” thing you’ve got going on is just fucking ponderous.

Rebecca Welton, Ted Lasso – La Locker Room Aux Folles (S03E09)

Good advice all round. And an excellent use of the word ponderous.

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Rereading the Guide, and was reminded of this excellent observation.