Creative Projects
Born Free
One of my sisters, Renee, often takes advantage of my editing skills. Her latest endeavor was updating the family tree on our maternal grandfather’s side as a member of The Strange Family Historical Society (SFHS). Since SFHS published its first history book over 10 years ago, they’re gathering data via an Excel worksheet to update … Continue reading
Engineered Masks
One of my roommate’s engineering friends designed some masks, which his mother sewed. With a copper wire at the top to pinch in place across the bridge of my nose, the mask fit snugly. An inner pocket held a replaceable filter in the form of a folded half piece of a mechanic’s paper towel. Once … Continue reading
Assume the Position
I know what you’re thinking, but no, it’s not that. What I’m talking about is putting oneself in the financial position to make money. Not something that I’ve thought about until the last couple of years in my professional life. Everything I’ve learned about being an entrepreneur came from reading books, attending a one-off workshop, … Continue reading
Narc, Narc…Who’s There: In the Beginning
I couldn’t believe that more than two months had passed since I’d interviewed my sister. Although I didn’t have to start at the very beginning of my learning curve when it came to setting up the USB mics, recording, transcribing the audio file, editing the file and exporting it to be embedded into this blog … Continue reading
Poetry Submissions Via Fillable Forms
Here’s another piece of my upcoming podcast puzzle: an expiring link that limits a response to 1000 characters for future listeners to submit an episode-inspired poem. Although I figured out the mechanics of providing such a link, five other challenges arose. First, I didn’t know who submitted what unless the writer included his/her name. Some … Continue reading
Renee’s Visit
Last December, my sister invited herself to the grand finale of The Austin Writers Roulette. Closing a show that I’d produced and hosted for eight years was stressful enough without entertaining a surprise out-of-town guest. She’d never watched any of the video clips of the show nor looked at any of the mostly pictorial summaries, … Continue reading
Spoken Word Audio Clips
Confessions of a Hat: Bamboo and Bones. A member of my writing group brought some of her hat collection. She thought it would be fun for us to wear them during the meeting. At the time, we were seated at a restaurant patio. In 105-degree weather. In the shade. With at least two fans blowing … Continue reading
Where to Begin
Unlike other children, I never actually had an imaginary friend. I had an imaginary talk show! Conveniently enough, showtime coincided with bath time, which, like every other enthralling prime time show, lasted at least an hour. Mind you, this live show took place when my family of five lived on an Air Force base in … Continue reading
Halloween 2019
The last time I took a tango lesson was during this year’s free day of dance. Since Halloween fell on a Thursday, I revisited my old tango school for their regular tango lineup: beginners, intermediate, followed by a practice milonga. The original plan was to do all 3, but since I’d gone to my usual … Continue reading
Watercoloring Breakthrough
May not look like much to others, but with this painting, I stumbled onto subtle blending–except for his hands. There’s usually an area or two where I just concede that the effort has defeated me. For this painting, it’s definitely the hands. The hands are so bad, one may not even notice the lips aren’t … Continue reading