doodling

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doodling

I have always been a doodler. I think I learned it from my mom. She was a great doodler when she was on the phone. She had the phone nestled between her neck and shoulder, a cigarette in her right hand, and a complimentary pencil from Stanley in her left doodling on whatever piece of paper or envelope was handy. I wish I had some of her doodles. They were really cool.

A few years ago, I got into making cards and sketching ideas in Moleskine Squared Reporter Notebooks. I had trouble finding them so I ordered a case. As most of my hobbies, I got bored after I filled a few notebooks and the rest remained collecting dust. 

My friend bought a bungalow and wanted decorating ideas. I got out a ceramic tile pattern book and got inspired to make my own. I grabbed the dusty books and started. I filled page after page of patterns. I soon filled them all up. 

Another friend (Look, I have two friends!), saw the books and told me about Zentangles. I put it in the back of my head to look at another time. I started noticing more doodling and sketching online and became inspired to do some of my own.

I started with a Field Notes Brand Memo Book with a dot grid. I love the dot grid. It gives me structure when I need it but does not scream follow me like a regular grid does. I did my first sketch while sitting at Starbucks. I drew a teapot then filled it in with doodles and patterns. It is a combination of Zentangle and drawing and I really like how it turned out. I decided to try to do one doodle per day. And in typical OCD fashion, I knew I have to fill in the previous 12 days with sketches.

The next day, I needed a place to start. As it happens, Jory Raphael at Sensible World started his own project, Year of Icons. Now I have a place to start each day. and so far it is fun and enjoyable. Though I find myself doing to same patterns and need to find ways to change it up and try new things.

I quickly filled up my Field Notes Memo Book. It only has 24 pages. I decided to switched to a larger format. Since I wanted the dot grid, my options were limited. I got a Rhodia Webnotebook in A5. The size it good and the paper is really nice.

This has turned into another 365 project I really enjoy. I am enjoying more than my Photo of the Day project. I thought about trying to do some type work, a letter each day. I got through C and quit. I didn't enjoy it. It took longer than I expected and didn't look the way I had envisioned. I want to explore type at some point.

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blogging, journaling and sharing my thoughts

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I am not a good blogger. Wait, that's not true. Posting to Project Life and Photo of the Day are easy for me. I am a visual thinker and visual communication is what I enjoy. But my Blog has been neglected. It is not that I don't have anything to say. I do have lots of thoughts and opinions. I just can't seem to get them written down. Or typed up.

I have these thoughts and stories stuck inside me distracting me. I try to get them down on "paper" and out of the swirling vortex that is my brain. Not that writing will purge the thoughts. But writing helps organize them. Instead of bits & pieces I can have cohesive ideas in a string, in paragraphs. 

I thought the blogging platform was ideal for me because I could just post bits and pieces and not worry about the big picture. But I would like these bits & pieces to make sense. At least to me. I start posts in a text editor so I can go back and refine my thoughts, add necessary links and improve the writing. But once the initial reaction is written down (typed up), it leaves my swirling mass of thoughts and I forget about it. I do not have any method of going back and completing the task. Writing is not on my to do list. 

And I am not sure why I don't think to add writing or blogging to my task list. Oh right, I don't want it to feel like a chore. Writing is not natural for me. Once we passed grammar and started working on essays, I hated English class. Getting coherent thoughts out of my head and down on paper is a chore for me. I prefer to make visual art. If I put "writing" on my to do list, I will do everything to avoid it. And it will make me feel bad every time I see it.

Still, I want to improve my writing and the best way to do that is to write. I know not everything needs to be posted or shared publicly.  In the past, I have used the blog as a venting platform. This got me in trouble from family members. But there are some stories or thoughts I would like to share. And having some time between the initial thoughts and the final draft gives some good perspective. 

I read recently that handwriting is better than typing for brain development and memory retention. Writing by hand slows down the brain process and makes you think more. A while ago, I started writing blog posts and saving them as drafts to go over them at another time. The problem is that I never went back. They remain forever as drafts and never posted. Now I am trying another process. I am writing down my thoughts in a journal with handwriting. Then I have to rethink the post as I type it in. So it will get a least one revision. Hopefully, I can make it a habit to review a second or third time and then actually post something.

My current workflow is:

•Note ideas in Drafts. 

•Sit down (almost) everyday and do some handwritten journaling. The evenings seem to be the best time for this.

•Look through my journal and spend some time typing an entry into a text editor. (I am currently using iA Writer.) Or looking for an a file that needs some editing. 

•Revise in text editor. 

•If the article is ready to post, copy and paste to my blog and collect and add any links, if necessary.

My current goal is to post one new article each week to my blog.

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first cars

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My brother, Greg, loves cars. He could tell what year a car was by the details. His first few cars were a series of used cars. He shared the old family station wagon with our older brother Steve. Greg was the first to get his own car. I remember he had a Fiat, a Ford Fairlane, an orange pick up truck and a newer blue truck. Greg's first new car was a yellow Trans Am Firebird with t-top. Greg's first stop was to take mom for a ride. After this, mom expected anyone getting a new car to take her for the first ride.

The Trans Am was stolen. Greg got a VW Sirocco to replace it with. The Trans Am was found at the airport stripped. The VW dealer lost Greg's Sirocco. They had to report it stolen. The found it and Greg got it back. Then it was stolen for real. Greg reported it to the police and was told it was already stolen. Apparently the VW dealer never reported to the police that they had found the missing vehicle.

My brother, John, bought his first car with money he saved from his paper route. It was an AMC Pacer. It was a fun little car. But he let someone else drive it and they got in a crash. Mom was so angry that he let someone else drive it. Our insurance didn't cover that.

I had to share my first car with Nancy. It was a 1972 Toyota Corona in brown. It was mostly Nancy's car until she left for college. I had to pay her $3 a week to take me to school. She also picked up some friends who paid her $5 for the ride to school. Nancy worked after school so we had to ride the bus home. Once the car was mine, I had to fill the tank. I realized what great mileage this little car got. Nancy never had to pay for her own gas!

My dad was never much of a mechanic. He didn't do his own oil changes. But on the Toyota, he replaced the muffler and even did some bondo. Nancy was driving us to school after a heavy rain. She was passing a car on the right and through a puddle. It was deeper than she expected and she got soaked. We knew there was some rust but didn't know the floor board was basically gone. Nancy was covered with muddy water from head to toe. Was a glorious day! I laughed all the way to school. She dropped us off and went home to change. I laughed all day.

After I had the car for a couple of years, it started developing a weird shake. First, it would shake if you drove over 65. Not a problem since I didn't do much interstate driving. Then it would shake if you were driving at 25 miles per hour and hit a pothole. Detroit is nothing but potholes. Our high school had a automotive shop. You could get inexpensive repairs, you only paid for parts. I took my car in to see what was the problem was. I went to pick it up and the automotive teacher approached me and told me not to drive this vehicle. The frame was rusted and it was unsafe. I drove it home and didn't drive it again.

My mom sold the car to a friend for parts. It had new tires, new exhaust and a new battery. The new owner sold it someone else who continued to drive it!

I met Nick in college. His dad used to say nice guys finish last. It was Nick's aim in life to prove his dad wrong. Nick wore a man's dress hat to class. Something that would have been considered hip today but was just odd back then. Nick had a brown Trans Am.  Nick was not a Trans Am kind of guy. He never drove it fast. And it was brown. Why would anyone want a brown Trans Am?

I borrowed Nick's car once to go see my mom in the hospital. I drove it on the freeway and let it go a little fast to help clear up its clogged workings. This fast car was masquerading as a family sedan.

Nick's car was stolen. He thought that someone was playing a trick on him. He really thought our friend, Greg, had taken it as a joke. Campus security reviewed its camera and found that it was someone else. Not anyone they could or would ever identify.

Our last semester in school, we all talked about getting new cars. Our design professor hated the talk. His family own a car dealership but he never owned a new car himself. He thought it was a waste of money. He was an odd ball. That summer was hot. Our design class met every afternoon from 1-6pm. The building was old and did not have air-conditioning. All we wanting to do was sleep the afternoon away. But he insisted that we be there. He took role call at the beginning and end of class and counted it towards your grade. He also wore polyester work clothes and never sweated.

My car during college was a 1972 Buick Centurion. It was big and bulky and guzzled leaded gas. It had A/C but would blow a fuse every time you turned it on. I only used it when it was absolutely necessary as each fuse was two or three dollars. I started looking at cars and even went to a Toyota dealer to get a trade in price on my Buick. They offered me $300. My mom paid $250 five years earlier. That evening, I was driving home from school. I was on the freeway and I saw smoke, It was coming from under the dashboard. I was in a somewhat scary neighborhood but I pulled off the freeway. I pulled into a service station, they still existed back in 1988. I made the mistake of opening the hood. The rush of oxygen made the engine catch fire. The mechanics sprung into action though I couldn't understand any of the since they were all from the middle east. The ran around and put out the fire. 

I called my dad and he came to pick me up. The mechanics looked at the car while I waited. They fixed it for less than $50. When I got home, dad told me to call Toyota and get the new car. They did not ask about the old car and I didn't offer up that there was a new problem. They gave mom the $300 who gave it to. I had my first new car, 1988 Toyota Corolla FX. It was red and a five speed and I loved it.

Studio 360 Live: Stories of Neuroscience & Memory - Studio 360

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Studio 360 is a great podcast. I really liked this episode about memory. They said that each time a memory is accessed, it is altered. This reminds me of jpeg images and each time you open one up and save it, it is changed and the image degrades.

Since we can preserve our memories in TIFF format, writing them down and sharing them is important.