I've Been Living IM Lately

It's a big week for ol' Shell-Head, as we all can't help but hear.

And it's a big week for me too. Off to the IM3 Marvel premiere last night, a panel on the 50th anniversary of IM tomorrow night, and the usual hundred other things to do.

Then this. A book I worked on with Stuart and two Jeffs comes out tomorrow. The artwork is stunning.

Staying Busy

I've been out redefining the idea of being busy lately, and it's been fun, but as usual, also kind of chaotic.

A week ago, I went to La Mano Pottery near the 23rd Street PATH and took a short hand-building class. This was with a Groupon I'd picked up recently.

I loved it! I wish I could go back and do a wheel class there or at the Jersey City ceramics studio, but the semester already began in JC, and I don't even know if I'll be in town after May anyway. I hope I get into the tuition-waiver ceramics SVA class in the fall. I never know what courses are going to run and the other times I've tried to sign up, I haven't gotten in due to either a full class or a canceled class.

I tried some wheel-throwing classes a long, long time ago at the community center in Yellow Springs, Ohio, back when I was in college. I could never center properly. But I'd never tried hand-building, and I don't have much skill with this.

The teacher gave us all flat bits of clay and showed us how to roll textures onto it.

On Me and Iron Man

You have to check out this interview I did with Hannah of Heidi's The Beat.

I've met Hannah exactly one time and not that long ago. And there at the bottom of the page, she nails me. Javins redefines the idea of being busy. And also...my students! So nice of them. I wonder who she talked to. I bet one was Maggie, since she works on The Beat.

That Time of Year

I feel sort of tired and like joining this place today. It's up by McGinley Square in Jersey City.

Hair for Spring

My friend Paola needed a hair-painting model for her Cutler Uptown class on Monday. I volunteered. Stripes for sprint! She did a lovely job. I wish she could follow me around and fix me up daily.

If Only All Skepticism Were So Easily Cured

Remember my friend Amanda? Okay, you may not. It's been a while since we last saw her in Australia.

Oops. No we didn't. Or rather, I saw her, but I didn't write up my whirlwind few days in Sydney in November of 2011. Probably because they seemed so normal and not the kind of thing people want to read on a round-the-world blog.

I'd been camping in Perth, then went along with one of those small groups in Tasmania. I caught a Virgin Australia flight up to Sydney then, and met Amanda and Doug to trade off my camping gear for my Aranui freighter ticket. The Aranui wanted me to have a paper ticket, but of course I was long gone by the time the ticket was issued. They'd sent it to Amanda in Seattle, and Amanda had brought it to me. She herself had been on the Aranui only a few months earlier, on assignment for a travel magazine. And she was happy to go camping for a night with my cheap tent.

I've seen Amanda other times of course, but you might remember her from dosa night in Jersey City.

The Only Constant

I stumbled over this photo on my computer and was sad for a moment. This was an eccentric, chaotic hardware store on Jersey Avenue—I don't think it ended well, but I was always able to get the strangest things there. Now it's a construction site full of bulldozers and dirt.

The sign was from a previous business called Sioux Meat Market, or so the old-timers say. The painter who had touched the sign up at some point thinks the sign went back to the guy who had owned the hardware store. Which explains why my friend Tracy couldn't get in touch with anyone when she was offering to buy the sign.

I'm glad it wasn't destroyed. Here's a photo someone took of the sign coming down.

More Househunting

I was up in Hamilton Heights again yesterday, checking out more HDFC coops. I have been learning about the market, but I'm not ready to buy yet. I mean, unless I saw the perfect place.

I almost did a few weeks ago, but it was expensive for somewhere needing complete renovations.

Yesterday's apartments needed gut renovations, which is fine. I'd rather find a grand old place with salvageable floors and picture rails and wood detail. But renovating is okay too.

The problem with yesterday's was they were at the back of the two buildings I looked at. You can change the walls and floors and ceilings. 

But you can't change the light.