Futility Now

I know that it’s like all that I ever post here are variants of this particular image, but come on, this one is pretty cool.

And, of course, the wires:

Well, if you’re sick of those two tableaus, you’re in luck, because we went to Portland’s fabulous Rose Garden today.

That’s sort of a weak-sauce picture of Mount Hood. Here’s a better one:

Visiting a rose garden, even in the City of Roses, is a sort of your-mileage-may-vary proposition in February.

Here’s Hazel demonstrating an old adage/Jovie song.

And here are the two of us all overlit, like we’re in the Spice Girls or something.

I’m cutting my own hair these days.  It’s going alright, I spose.  A one-two punch of thrift and whimsy, two of my favorite things.  I’m certainly happier about it than this photo implies.

This weekend I made a dutch pancake that turned out especially nice.  I’ve taken to grating a generous amount of nutmeg into the butter before the pan goes into the oven, and adding sea salt and vanilla to the batter.

In a moment of excess, I sauteed blueberries in a bit of butter and cinnamon, and then threw whipped cream over the works.  Here is jmags’ helping:

It’s not pretty, I know, but it started the day out right.

Small comforts (whipped cream, for instance) seem extra important in the face of frightening cuts in my particular field, education.  It does appear that my position is secure, but the ramifications of being under funded this year and potentially for the forseeable future are disheartening.  Yes, the stimulus may end up temporarily rescuing us.  But that is not an adequate permanent solution.  I’m telling all of my little goslings to go to college — any college they can.  Now is not a good time to be fresh out of high school and entering the job market.

The best way to keep my mind off of these things is to keep my hands busy, and I’ve been doing that, too (beyond my efforts as a barber).  Another little vessel in the series:

The degree of asymmetry isn’t apparent here, otherwise it’s a good likeness.  I like the direction they are headed — I think there is a small but important refining process happening that will hopefully end with a set of coherent visual principles, principles that can then be carried out over a true series of works.

If I’m really lucky, that’s how it will go with the haircuts, too.

On the one hand, the sky was amazing today.

On the other, as you can see, the future Shops at Brooklyn Yards (so horrible) have gotten far enough along in their construction that they have lost the skeletal charm of incomplete buildings. This charm has not been replaced with charm of another kind.

Ages ago, when I still lived in New York City, I purchased a Dremel during a process that culminated in the creation of this:

What I had hoped to do was use the Dremel to slice strips off of a roll of aluminum siding and then fix them to a piece of wood to create a desk. So some siding was rolled out, and I started cutting, but the metal didn’t want to stay flat, and it managed to flex in a way that pinched the Dremel’s blade, and the thing totally shattered. After this I went back to the hardware store, where I bought the metal cutters you can see behind the bottle of German mineral water in that picture.

After this failure to use the Dremel, there was another one, during the course of which I left the tool at a friend’s, and then I skipped town. After a substantial stretch of time, it has been returned to me. Now, I didn’t really miss it whilst it was away, but having it again makes me feel like I should find something cool to do with it. We’ll see.

Plants, again and again,

I do you wrong.

I am wondering, will this ever change?

This is the third star jasmine tree that’s died on my watch.

It’s possible things may turn around.  Possible.

I keep telling myself.