This is a Singer 401. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Full Metal Jacket analogies aside, the 401 is an excellent machine. It has all-metal internals, comes with many stitches pre-programmed by the virtue of having an internal cam stack. It can also accept an array of swappable cams for even more stitches.

But it has some drawbacks. Despite being manufactured in the 1950's, the foot pedal (technically called the 'motor controller') is the same model that Singer used since the 1920's. It's a graduated resistor, that lowers resistance until a simple circuit is achieved at full pedal depression. The side effect of this is that when you aren't using the machine, the pedal tends to heat up. Since its resistance is blocking the current flow. Additionally, since carbon tends to build up on the disks in the resistor, older pedals tend to make the machine leap into action with not a lot of control at slower speeds.

Which is a problem.

There's a later series of machines called Touch & Sew, called Touch & Throw or Touch & Swear by afficionados. They have a more powerful two speed motor with an electronic motor controller. By a quirk of manufacture, the motor in the T & S machine is the same physical size as the one in a 401. So, with some simple mechanical skill, a bit of soldering a little fabrication and a whole lot of creative cursing, you can upgrade a 401.

We spent a fair chunk of today doing much-needed, long-overdue house care. Everything has been so hard since the last election. It has, of course, only gotten worse in the last year, even before the pandemic. We lost a close friend to an overdose on Christmas eve. Time is such a millstone now.

Otherwise, I'm disgusted with our Mayor barricading downtown. I'm horrified with how ineffectual and complacent to the point of complicit the Senate is.

I'm ashamed to admit it but I can't even tell you how much I want a cigarette. 

I've avoided thoughts today. Mostly, I did chores, poorly. Kept failing to get the glass of water I've wanted since shortly after midnight.

Mostly I looked at the things that never get put away because the things which are put away need to be culled and then put away again in a better configuration. We are white middle class hom

I ordered Ikea things in May, when my office decided we would never be going back to our offices. The accessories have arrived, but not the furniture. So everything is a bit of a mess. We're fortunate we have enough space, but being in the house 24/7 is making small things much more irritating. You know, the light you never fixed; the box you never unpacked; the neighbos who never fucking stop screaming and slamming doors.

Short fuses. I got em.

I have a dream of never voting for a prosecutor for public office (other than Cook County State's Attorney #TeamFoxx!) ever again. Kamala Harris is complicating that--not because she's some magical prosecutor, not because she gets a pass, not because her record is exceptionally good as a prosecutor. 

Kamala Harris is complicating that because, well, she's requiring me to think about what chances for advancement in a political or legal career a woman has and how much those chances narrow when that woman is not white (skinny and pretty!). Running for prosecutor? That's one of them. Or at least has become one very recently. Brennan Center talks about that shift here. 

But Brennan Center examines the change in terms of prosecutorial reform, rather than from intersectional feminism. The intersectional feminism angle is why Kamala Harris is making me think more about it.

But I don't know much about Harris' career, or her record as a DA. I know the headlines are calling her Senate record "More liberal than Bernie!"

I also know the birthers are already out in droves. That photos of her are being darkened and chosen by editors because she looks angry. I recall people saying she can't be Southeast Asiam because she doesn't even pronounce her own name right.

I know I'd rather see her one old guy from the Presidency than Mike Fucking HIV-enabling Pence.

I spent most of today randomly crying. Then working on a thing at work which I am perfectly capable of doing and sufficiently informed to do accurately but which felt insurmountable and now I am terrified to share the draft with my colleagues.

I wish I could retire. I wish that my pandemic response was retirement. But I have a couple years still before I can be rejected for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. So I have to keep working.

I did not start writing when I had the thought I wanted to write and now I have no thoughts to write. 

1,549 Coronavirus cases reported In Illinois in the past day. Another 20 people died in the past day as well, bringing the total number of deaths in the state to 7,657. We've had 167,371 deaths in the US. 

I wish I could just run to the grocery down the block and buy whatever hardy green they have and cook something random for dinner, but we minimize our trips to the store. And a trip to the store for one meal is completely off the table. 

I miss living like that. I miss cooking like that. A very large part of the reason I live in this city, in this neighborhood is in order to live like that. And now that's not safe. That's dismissive of the people who have no choice but to go to work to keep the stores open, to keep their own bills paid. I'm not going anywhere, so I'm not walking anywhere. 

In the olden days, even if I rode my bike to work (instead of taking the bus), I walked 3 miles a day, at least, just getting around. These days, I don't even manage a quarter mile. I'm stiff and sore and have aged three years from inactivity. 

notice our tattoo game here. 

Copied from a friend (an African-American woman). Hers is the first voice I'm turning to this week and I'm not going to steal too many of her posts because many of them are friends-only. This one was not, and it saids what needs saying:

Borrowing words from a friend as I’m too frustrated by all the knee jerk responses to come up with my own right now. “Before you read what the MSM tells you about this story, here’s what we know in Chicago: Cops shot a young person in Englewood. A crowd formed and marched in protest against the shooting. The cops then SHOT INTO THE CROWD. Public transportation was shut down, bridges were put up, people were trapped downtown. What did you think was going to happen? People’s lives > property. Always.”

There has been a war brewing In Englewood and Auburn-Gresham for some time now - recall the shooting at the funeral that could have been avoided given that the city was forewarned by reputable sources? Remember the recent Gold Coast shooting which was also highly predictable and warned against? When those who are supposed to serve and protect instead shoot into crowds (and into homes like Breonna Taylor’s) or commit murder (George Floyd) people get angry and retaliate using whatever power they have. Not justifying property destruction, but if you don’t care about the underlying issues communities are facing and only get mad when it gets closer to where you live and work please grab a mirror. What are you doing to create justice?

In other news, a derecho is headed for the city. Perhaps the Lake will just swallow us all.

So I have managed to get very behind on #Smaugust already. The normal process to sketch, ink, and color a single character (or dragon) takes me a pretty consistant 3 hours. I speed up in some ways, but then I get nitpicky and add complexity etc which slows me down. So the magic number these days seems to be that - 3 hours.

Doing that every day is... very tough. Especially on days when I'm working long hours for TomTom.

So to allow myself to catch up, I've dropped back to just simple sketches. I still plan to finish them later, but I want to stay current in ordetr to keep myself motivated.

I managed to get caught up last night with this new philosophy, and I thought I would share.

Above is the Quetzalcoatl - day 5. While not a dragon in the traditional sense, it was on the list, so I thought "Why not?" Also, while I feel pretty comfortable with my limited Spanish, and have always felt very comfortable with the names of obscure mythological creatures, this one just evades my brain. Every time I want to reference it, I wind up looking it up. That's just... unusual.

Day 6 - Spider Dragon. I had fun dreaming up the anatomy of this one. It uses it's spinnerets to weave 'wings' of web onto it's hind most legs. It does this to blow victims into its webs, trapping them. On the minus side, I didn't merge dragon and spider very well - it mostly just seems like a monsterous spider.

Day 7 - Crystal Dragon. Yeah, this one feels rushed even though it took me more time than some of the other 'catch up' dragons. Referenced a number of different crystals, and saw way more internet woo-woo than I would have prefered, but I feel like this is... something. Not my favorite of these drakes, that's for certain. Maybe color will improve my thoughts on it.

Day 8 - Elemental Dragon. I like this guy (gal?). I thought 'nothing thin will work with fire/lava, so everything must be blunt'. So I didn't add wings, and its face seems a bit... pug like to me. I kinda dig it. I suspect colors will really make this one significantly better.

Day 9 - Western Dragon. I sorta copped out on this one. I went with 'western' as opposed to 'eastern'. A stylistic / anatomy based theme rather than trying to do something to imply 'wild west'. The latter would have been harder, and arguably more fun, but getting caught up was my focus, and I have a bit of a plan for these later and a wild west theme wouldn't have worked as well for that.

That does it for catch up. Today's theme (Day 10) is 'Brutish'. I suspect this one will be fun to do.

Did a terrible job maintaining my bike last winter and now the rear fender is rusted through. I want to just replace it but that's wasteful and foolish. It's just so much easier. Anyway, I haven't been riding at all since the pandemic and my general stress level has been too high for much city riding since the 2016 election. I don't want to give it up, though. I planned to start faux commuting when the weather turns nice again. 

The fatigue and just general over everything ness of 2020 makes me just want to get a new bike, instead having this one fixed. There's a shop across the street that handled my routine stuff, but I feel like I should take the bike to the dealer for this work, and the travel there to leave it (and home without it) then back to get it feels insurmountable.

I am feeling very contradictory. Angry and terrified by social media of friends taking trips, meeting for dinner, recreational shopping. Then wanting to sit in my backyard with my sister, who does not live with me now that we're grown up and have lives and selves.

Tomorrow I have to meet with workmen, to let them in to work. I am already anxious and anticipate being more so when it's done. 

I had a dull, pointless weekend, in which I did very little and yet passed all those many hours. I'm hoping the week goes better. I have easy discrete tasks for work. And some easy discrete tasks at home which I'll feel better if I finish.

So it goes. Anxiety and endless thoughts at odds with each other. Getting through the Sunday somehow.