All posts filed under: journal

2023 – I am a little late to arrive

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But here I am. It is February 1st and the Chinese Lunar New year already started, too. Year of the Wood Rabbit. I want to say that I am not really an astrology person but then again: This is MY year! I was born in the year of the Wood rabbit and I feel like this is my once in a lifetime opportunity to have a really great year. Welcome to MY great year. I was thinking about what to share on my blog this year and aside from a definitely necessary focus on financial health I want to give my physical health more attention. One of my plans is to walk more and to bring YOU along every once in a while by sharing what I see on my walks. Since I live in San Francisco I figured that this might be something you, too, might enjoy. Let’s declare Bohemia alive (sorry to my friend who so rationally declared it dead) and let’s see if we can’t find a few small things to enjoy …

Progress update from a quixotic life

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We got my car un–stuck today. We were able to roll it across the car park into a better position for the scrap people to come and load it onto their truck. Hopefully I can get this done in the next day or two. The car is now the main obstacle between me and my return to Jason. The storage unit is too full. There are too many things in my friend’s house but it’s reached the point at which I will have to just do what I can and let barely good enough be good enough. It is time to get a break. This was a harrowing experience, filled with grief, disorientation and bone deep distress. It’s time to seek what remains in the ashes of life and time to look for life under the ashes. What can rise from this? All along I was aware of silver linings here and there. It’s a strategy to get through the impossible = search for something, any glimmer of good that can emerge from what appears …

Artist Progress Report of clearing the storage of the Past : Sept 27th

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1) Choosing between 2 book page sizes today. – It’s taking careful consideration of available data storage & necessity AND available print sizes with print-on-demand company. Probably going with 8×10 but I really like 8.5×11. The difference seems negligible but is significant.  1.2) I may start with page designs for 8.5×11 because they CAN be downsized. Whereas upsizing isn’t possible.  2) Currently scanning the last 3 negatives of my Art Foundation negatives. They have never been digitised and are the most irreplaceable. 3) Wrote down the steps to create the portfolio book. (This keeps the head clear) 4) Putting together the first Art Foundation portfolio pages. (Will add sketchbook notes in the future – they are now in storage) 5) THEN the most important and IMPACTFUL step:  Create digital portfolio pages of the physical portfolio I have here.  That will begin to show progress in clearing boxes. (I have 2 boxes of physical portfolios that are 50% duplicates and 90% can be discarded once I have the digital portfolio saved into the cloud & on …

Artist Progress Report of clearing the storage of the Past : Sept 26th

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Sharing my daily progress Good morning. All good here. Tired and not enough sleep but good.  I finally bit the bullet and ordered the silica packets for safer storage for my books (£30 total). Hopefully I ordered enough. 😊 Am very happy with myself. I also pooped 3x this morning and feel much better for it.  My neck / shoulder is worse again than last night. But slightly better than yesterday morning.  Sitting at the desk now to make a MOVE. – I measured the size book I would like for my portfolio. I will use that as a template size in photoshop + 10% (to give me sizing wriggle room when printing. In case the print format available is a little larger than what my ideal size is.)  I also ordered an SSDsd drive to back up just this project. I got a super-budget Chinese one. Because it will only be my 2nd back-up. For the nerds among you: The way I usually store files is: • 1x on the computer, • 1x on …

What I know / What you should know

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There is no use in having great reasons why life today is upside down and nothing works. It’s ok, the reasons are real, but we are no longer children and we need to decide today: Will we sink with these problems and challenges or will we swim against all the odds? It is easy to have opinions on what other people put out on the internet. But consider this: If your response is a billboard, is it the image of yourself that you want to hold up in the world? Change is hard. There is no way to sugar coat it: sometimes change is devastating and very lonely. Don’t give up. You can do more than you think you can. You probably also should rest more than you do. Set your ambitions higher and do the same for your boundaries. Are you over 40? Where did your dreams go? Find them. It’s not too late. Start today by making it your goal to each day do something that helps other be a better version of …

Dear Fanchon Fröhlich

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Dear Fanchon, I continue to think about you long after you have gone. Your company, art, book collection, inspiration and soirees won’t ever be forgotten. Neither will my first experience of opera and La Traviata. I wish time could, for just a day, be a-linear and allow me to skip back to June 10th 2016. I’d choose differently. I would take a taxi to the distant part of town to see you before I left. My poor choice of not saying goodbye is something that forever haunts me. I hope you knew how much you mean to me, still.

journal of personal bits and pieces

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Trying something new. This is more for personal benefit than it is for you but if you want to stay in touch with me or get to know me better and know what influences my choices then in this series you can. I came across a review of Bangkok as one of the safest cities in the world. They speak about UK market towns (sleepy towns) that are much less safe than a dark soi (back alley) in Bangkok at night.. 😊 https://youtu.be/rS2ddlzTEyY?t=755. I agree. I have been to Bangkok several times and always felt unbothered and at ease. I know how to be on alert in urban settings and I found no immediate necessity for this second nature skill during my times in Bangkok. Listening to Bangkok Pat talk to his Youtube colleague, while carrying on with knitting our chihuahua a sweater. You could argue that this is a terrible use of time. I argue that it is a meditative practice that is restorative to the nervous system and in these wild global times …