*twitch*

I've been feeling a lot of overwhelm and anxiety, which are at once entirely reasonable responses to the past two months, and also thoroughly unhelpful, but mindfulness and meditation only get you so far. We all have our limits. I've been watching too much TV, and playing my music, and working on the design of the new shop, which I have christened "Tinyshop," retroactively naming the current one "Microshop."

I'm not really good with houses—Honor is our "can-do" repair person, energy permitting—partly because I'm not very good at it, and practice doesn't seem to help much. Much like my difficulties in distinguishing plants, or remembering math proofs, it's just a thin area in the wide tapestry of my aptitudes. With Tinyshop, so far I'm not feeling anxious, partly because there are a billion scarier things to be anxious about, but also there's nothing hidden, no crevices for rats to be or tools to get lost. There's nothing fancy or aesthetic: as much as possible, I want it to be like the under-supervised fire-hazard barn theater we had in high school. Exposed wood everywhere, and none of it precious. Need to hang a thing? Drill a hole? Connect a whatever? Have at it. All you need is a dream and a drill.

One of the worst things about Microshop has been the difficulty of moving things around. I have small machine tools, but they still weigh about 150 lbs, and the processes of getting them aligned and mounted—technically the mill isn't and won't be "mounted," it's just been unnecessary—have involved doing things like jamming a hand into the very small clearance under the 90 lbs motor-end of the lathe, and lifting it by curling my fingers. It doesn't have safe prying possibilities. I have wanted a crane the entire time I have had Microshop, and because the roof is only 33" above the (built-in, unchangeable bench), I'm not sure what would work, if anything: things like pullies and material slack take up precious vertical space. That's just for lifting; to actually move horizontally is a bunch more gear and vertical space.

My dream, my rules. I get a crane. Turns out, for home-workshop loads you can buy some basic hardware and make an overhead X-Y crane that will cover almost the entire space. I have 13 feet of vertical space to work with. Being as all the cheap parts are from China, I've been balancing the desire to get them while they're still cheap, against the fact that it all takes up storage space I don't have.

Man. Picking windows. How many? Where do they go? I'm glad it's not getting plumbing and other stuff you need in a living space.

I am very excited. What a magnificent distraction from...all of this other stuff.

it's been a minute.

Does anyone read this? I haven't checked. Apparently I haven't written here since July? I've been trying to write in areas I can share more widely with strangers: I have a hundred different ideas for a work blog, that I've been accumulating all this time.

It's been an eventful year. I traveled so, so much. I thought it had been 5 trips, but then I counted and it was 7:

1. Washington for Wintergrass in February.
2. Oregon in June, to get J moved out of his dorm room.
3. Washington again, in July, for Fiddle Tunes.
4. Oregon in September, to get J moved in.
5. Minnesota, to see Mom & Dad & Ben.
6. Oregon in November, to visit J.
7. Minnesota in November, since Dad died.

Getting J moved out and in was pretty chill: he's quite capable, and just needed someone to drive a car who had also ever packed a dorm room in and out. We would do some work and hang out a bit, maybe have burgers, then call it a day and return to our respective introvert-caves.

We get regular reports from his program staff, and of course he's charming everyone, because he's quite charming. Recently they said he was at the community college and "chatted with some student guides," which is mind-blowing because we have never seen nor heard of him doing anything you could call "chatting."

We miss having him around, but we also know how important it is to experience who you are when away from your parents. We're many things as parents—safety, support, crutch, irritation, inconvenience—but as he slides into adulthood, we're a sort of noise that's hard to filter out. We don't say things like "we're not going to be around forever, you have to learn to fend for yourself," which is not a stellar concept to parent with, but for a dozen reasons is especially problematic with neurodiverse kids.

(We're legendary among the staff for being low-maintenance: we showed up for the interview using the same language, and having the same stuffed animals, as the program does. We don't freak out—which is a gift to our financial advisor, as well—and we raised J with a constant interest in his own voice and experience of the world. The program devotes a lot of energy to teaching parents about their kid's needs and struggles that they're not quite tuned into. With us, we swap parenting tips.)

I've been increasingly annoyed with my workshop, which is a 6' x12' enclosed cargo trailer that the previous owner tricked out for taking to racetrack days as a vendor. It's got a 24" bench running all on one side, incredibly well-built. But it's also unchangeable, and leaves me no more than 3' of space to turn around. In practice, I'm constantly losing stuff, and knocking things off hooks and piles every time I turn around. It's also got no ventilation, and climate control is a problem, certainly because it's often unpleasant to work in, but also if the temperature isn't controlled to be high enough to absorb the moisture in the air, the water will condense onto the vast number of ferrous surfaces out there, and create "flash rust," which isn't always harmful if you catch it, but it is always irritating.

I started enumerating things I wanted to do with the shop, like insulate it somehow, and get some kind of HVAC going, and maybe a port so the vacuum cleaner can stay outside, on and on, and suddenly I realized that what I actually want is a building. From our previous Planning Department adventures, we know we can't have a building, but: they make buildings on wheels now: tiny homes!

As much as there are many many (many) ordinances for structures on foundations, there are almost none for things on wheels or otherwise not permanently fixed to the ground, as long as they're 120 ft² or less. Thus my cargo trailer (72 ft²), Honor's studio retreat (about the same), or our shed (120ft² and sitting on the new concrete pad where the Terrible Garage was) are all exempt, as will be my new shop (119 ft² externally).

I'm very excited, and I'll have to show why in a later post. Unfortunately, I realized that because it's a building...it's going to take forever. Le sigh.