One of the things I've been working on this year is to find ways to practice my professional skills during non-work times. I am, I have discovered, a writer; I should feel at least somewhat comfortable writing at any time, from any prompt. This is in some ways akin to my sense of myself as a cyclist: I ride my bike not only when it's warm and sunny and I have three hours to spare, but also when the weather is hostile, and when I'm emotionally burnt out, and when I just need to run an errand across town. Riding a bike is something I do to make my body feel a certain way; writing is something I do to develop, or express, or change my perspective on something.
To this end, late this summer I solicited the home addresses of a dozen or two paid subscribers of this newsletter and, over the course of a month or two, sent handwritten postcards to each of them. Some of these wonderful people included wonderful prompts, which I did my best to respond to; others simply asked for a note, which I conjured from whatever had my attention at the moment. Below you'll find the prompts (if applicable, in blockquotes) and my transcribed scrawlings; if you want to receive a postcard of your own, upgrade to a paid subscription today and I'll get you right into my queue ;)
Briefly discuss what got you motivated, interested in starting SOW?
I started writing because I had nothing else to do. I was lost, drifting a bit, trying to figure out what I could do with my career, my professional identity. And, I don’t know, I guess I figured I should develop my voice, my thought process, something. I also definitely wanted a platform from which to sell myself, and that aspect of my writing career has taken a couple of forms. But now, recently, I’ve felt sometimes that I actually am just putting thoughts & feelings into words, with the assumption that if I work on my self-expression then I’ll figure out the rest in time. It’s less a strategy than a leap of faith... but maybe that’s better for me at this point in my career.
Figuring it all out
I’m not sure whether it’s helped or hurt me, but I have fond memories of my grandfather telling me that he still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do when he grew up. He was, for at least a good chunk of his life, an insurance salesman, though by the time I knew him he had retired, then lost much of his savings, then gone back to work in an administrative/cultural capacity at his son-in-law’s sign-making business. I don’t believe he ever figured out parenting (who among us could say they have?), and in the end I think the highest compliment you could have given him was that there were a number of people — myself included — who found him deeply pleasant to be around.
I wonder, as I write this, whether this is a goal that I could set for myself, and if so whether it’s one that I could work towards directly. My suspicion is no: Some things come only as side effects on the way towards other goals. And perhaps the best way to be a legitimately positive member of society is to have first failed to achieve anything else at all.
Largest thing you’ve moved alone
It probably reflects my poor prioritization skills more than anything else, but a huge part of my experience building bike frames involved physically moving large pieces of equipment by myself. The first really big thing I moved was a frame jig, which was constructed of a 3’ x 5’, 1” think piece of aluminum plate, with a bunch of maybe 2” x 4” aluminum bar ribs on the back, all mounted to a rolling base, made of steel c-channel, which had a footprint roughly the size of a full sheet of plywood. I think the whole thing weighted two or three thousand pounds, and it was loaded into my pickup, disassembled, with a forklift. I unloaded and reassembled it alone, using milk crates and 2x6s to lift the big parts and hoping like hell that nothing fell on my (sneakered) toes. I would use this same method, later, on one lathe (old, light, easy) and at least three milling machines (the heaviest of which weighed over 3000 lbs).
Textile threads.
“So what is a 3-0 suture,” I asked, as the PA prepared the first of two horizontal mattress stitches. “Like, what does the ‘3-0’ part mean?”
I had been at the hospital for an hour or two at this point, and the whole experience was moving forward much easier than I had anticipated. But the numbing shots had indeed pinched a bit, and I figured it might help if I had something concrete to think about — besides the pain. His explanation was imperfect: “Well, it’s bigger than a 6-0,” he told me. I asked if it was similar to a wire’s gauge, where bigger numbers denote smaller dimensions, and in the end he agreed that it was. It turns out, though, that “3-0” is shorthand for “000,” and “6-0” is shorthand for “000000.” Both of these is smaller than a “1” suture, which was at one point the smallest one made.
Author’s choice!
“Sitting on the plane, I wondered if there were any limits to my unpreparedeness.” - Geoff Dyer, Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It, page 177.
I didn't really think about this until just now, but I think my strategy...
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