My current journal series actually started as more of a commonplace book. Commonplace books are a sort of scrapbook that usually contains notes, quotes, and other things of that nature. My journals gradually became more of a diary with occasional scrapbook type inclusions.
Last year I pulled out this old red and black notebook that I picked up in San Francisco’s Chinatown back in 2008. I had used it for notes, short diary entries, and sketches/art ideas. I never finished the book and it got packed away until I found it again in 2019. I decided I was going to fill this thing up and use it as a commonplace book and not as a regular journal. I wanted a smaller notebook to carry with me when the larger journal I use would be inconvenient. This book fit perfectly in my coat pocket. It does contain the occasional diary entry but those are all transcribed to my regular journal as time allows.
Page spread examples below:
I liked using this so much that I made a second one which I’m now I’m about two thirds the way through. Below is an Imgur album embed where you can view the first 80 or so pages of it.
Keri and I have a new project. The Benevolent Cook. The main goal of the site is to provide easy to cook vegan recipes. The project was inspired by our Whole30 experiments starting January. We’re currently in our third run-through of Whole30. We have both lost a significant amount of weight which is an awesome side perk to the program. It wasn’t our intention to lose weight but rather reset our eating habits. The biggest change for me was finally getting my meal portions under control. It doesn’t take too much food to satisfy me these days.
The Paper Journal
I have my own side project too. The Paper Journal. I’ve put this on the back burner and work on it when I can. Eventually I would like to have this be a comprehensive resource for journaling.
Speaking of Journals…
Next journal: Samma vayama. Click the image for full album.
I’m just about to finish my 21st journal and just recently finished designing and binding my next journal seen above. I’m just days away from starting it and I can barely wait!
Fall is here so Keri and I are getting ready for the colder temps ahead. That means digging up our pepper plants down at the garden to overwinter them inside the apartment. We didn’t dig them up today but rather went down to see what we had and to get our mini-greenhouse out of storage. We’ll be using that in our back (front) stairwell during the colder months.
The growing season isn’t quite over yet. I still have tomato on the vine, tons of chard, tomatillos, and peppers, and even some pineapple tomatillos. I don’t remember planting these at all but they are delicious. They taste just like pineapple DumDum lollipops and texture of a grape. My little plant only puts out a handful (see the photo above) of these at a time so they’re really only good for a quick snack.
We’re growing luffah again this year. They should be ready to harvest in November if they grow large enough. This time we plan to let them dry out on the vine if we can. While checking out the luffah I noticed a bunch of people getting ready to play a game in to the soccer field next to the garden. At first I thought it was going to be a soccer game but then I recognized the Quidditch posts in the field. Wizards! Muggles? It turns out that it was 3 different Quidditch teams including the Providence Ashwinders were playing. Each taking turns playing the other for a total of 6 games. How fun! Pics below:
No sign of Potter.
Where’s the Snitch?
Wizards in flight!
After our trip to the garden Keri and I went to Malachi’s for coffee. I’ve been getting back into writing poetry on a somewhat daily basis and have been working on a series of poems written in situ stream-of-consciousness style with little to no editing afterwards. I haven’t decided on how many I will do for this series but I’m up to 15 poems in it so far. I’m following Ginsberg’s “First Thought, Best Thought” method as a way of silencing my inner writing critic. It’s hard but I’m powering through.
Writing time at Malachi’s Cafe.
I’ve written a handful of other poems but they go through tons of editing and rewrites so those will get added to one of the other series I’m working on. On that note, I have finally put my Del Monte Blues and Other Poems book together after 20 some years of procrastinating. I’ve kept some core poems, rewrote a few, and tossed tons to make one slim 8 poem chapbook. I’ll be selling it (cheap!) in e-book form soon and will have printed chapbook sized versions as well. The printed version will be a limited print run and I’ll most likely be giving them out for free or leaving around town in various coffeehouses and little free libraries. Here’s the cover: