Royal KMM

We all, or so I hope, learned colors as we grew up. Red, Yellow, Blue as our first ones. Then we added the secondary colors, Green, Orange, and Purple. Then, well then, it gets kinda of murky. It is not a sure thing for people to know or agree on the other colors. I always had a problem with Magenta. A printer knew Magenta. Painters knew it also. But then you have tints. How many whites are there? Is that Yellow a sunshine yellow or a mustard yellow? As I get inks for my fountain pens, can you imagine it? A place on the east coast has around 700 types to choose from. As I flip back through a book, my Morning Pages, I see lots of colors. Sometimes there are four different ones in a two page spread. It is fun, and instructive, to switch pens in mid page. One of my favorite colors is called “Weathered Brick”. But to describe it, whell that is another whole problem. If you have a brick building around with aged red bricks you have got the idea of it. This is one huge reason to use a fountain pen; the colors available. And it kinda, sorta, partially, justifies having a stable of pens. You get the colors and then you get different colors and there you are, trying to match a color to a person you are writing. There are years ahead to explore this matching colors to moods and people.

Once I work out the basic colors I can move on to inks that show different colors depending on the light, its strength, its angle, the paper it is on. There are lots of things to explore.

I read today, it was from … hmm I seem to be hallucinating. Whoever it is or was sat down and had trouble coming up with thigns to say, a half page later he seemed to be doing fine. DATO – your problem was probably a cold camera. Keep it inside your jacket until you are ready to use it. I believe, I think, that will keep your film working just fine.

Ever sign a document in front of a notary public? They do appreciate a fine fountain pen. Even if they are from China, cost less than $10, and works great. It is great to be patient. Pay a bunch and your privacy to Amazon have it tomorrow. Pay a little wait a couple of weeks and you have it from China. But that is for people who want something that works, not that the ones from the higher priced one do not, they do, but for a basic, functional pen. My oh my! It enables you to have a bunch that (ahem) allows you to have extra money for inks. About the nortary public question, before my distraction, we signed today. I retired on September 15, 2017. Today we signed off on the pension, I delayed it to get a bit more, now we have a bit more. Not much, but as my wife would say “a little bit never hurts” We signed wth Oxford Blue, a deep blue. Very pretty, a keeper I think.

— MichaelRpdx :: rknm/48

It has been a shit week. I do not want to tell you about what a shit week it has been. You, I hope, do not want to hear about what a shit week it has been. You would, I hope, want to read about anything else. Now, if I could just get the thoughts of what a shit week it as been out of my brain, give thoughts room for other things to think about, that would be good, or at least passable. But nooooo, not yet it isn’t. Not yet at all. I am hoping to get something better to think about by thinking happy thoughts. Like World War II. That is something happier than my shit week. I am bringing it to mind by watching FOYLE’S WAR.

FOYLE’S WAR is a British drama, a mystery drama, set in Hastings Sussex. That would be on the south coast of the country. Close to where France was busy being run over by the Nazis and every boat they could muster ferry ferried over men to keep them from being killed or captured. It was a setting for the second episode. Now watching that was a dream boat of an evening compared to my shit week. We plan to watch more tonight. I expect to cheer up even more. Thanks to the drama.

Have I told you about my week? No? Good.

I am going to work on my night by watching some British drama. They do good stuff. Especially FOYLE’S WAR, I do not have their problems. They have some really, actual, shit weeks. We collectively do not have shit weeks. At least not yet.

~~ MichaelRpdx :: rknm/48

“Just one.” That is what I said to my wife. Just one. It was about the 1958 show “Peter Gunn”, perhaps you don’t remember the show, But, I am sure, you remember the theme song. How do you convey it on a typewritten page? I’m going to listen to it. Which version?

The original, from the soundtrack of the original? From the Qatar Philharmonic, starting with the drummer and tuba player getting us through the intro and then the rest of the brass walking onto the * stage to join them on the stage? (no redundancy here…) The Blues Brothers, lots of gruff sound there. Or Sarah Vaughn – yes there can be vocals in the piece and they are great also. Or more rock with Poison Ivy or The Venture. Yeah, if you have trouble remembering it there are plenty of choices to listen to, which I did because, well “just one.”

I had never seen Peter Gunn as a kid. It originally aired from 1958 through 1961. The plot lines were very, and I do mean very, simple. They do seem to get a bit more complex. Not by much. I said “just one” today. I was chilled. It seemed to be something to do. So we watched. And another and another and even more. Kinda like listening to the theme song. It just seemed to hook us in.

If you have a Amazon credit card, they are free to you. Enjoy.

By the way, I had earlier talked about Bordertown, a serial about a Finnish town close to Russia. We watched it to the end. And we are happy with it. A couple of low spots in it. But all in all it was satisfying with a great conclusion. Netflix.

LATIN and CURSIVE WRITING

I have asked the Facebook crowd about these subjects. Amazing responses. Does your school require cursive writing? It seems that it no longer taught. Well, not everywhere. And for people who did have it there was a large crowd that will admit to to having terrible writing. (ahem, I am working on mine. Writing with a mix of block and cursive letters.) Over 100 people have responded to that query. In the Latin world, just asked a day or two ago, 45 people have replied. It seems a majority of them did have Latin taught. Some people talking about three years in high school. A couple of them saying it was a great thing to have learned.

I am working on both subjects. Wish me luck.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm/48

I was scandalized. There she was, writing in her copy of the Riverside Shakespeare, Complete Edition. They were giant tomes. It had it all and she was writing in it. One did not do such a thing. Or so I thought. One writes outside of their books. Never in them. I had not heard of annotation in books. I still never did. Books are precious. Yet there she was, making notes about what she thought of the text. Since that time I have learned of people annotations in their books. Bring it to life. Looking at the works of other people to see what they thought of a book. Or even of what they thought of a book when they read it at an earlier time in life. I am now annotating a book I am reading. Underlines, questions, observations are all going into it. I use a pencil. It seems like one of the best uses of a pencil I have. Well, sketching is great too. Yes, very nice.

A few years ago I started to keep my Morning Journals. I did that with a pen. I could not use a pencil, stopping to sharpen it every so often, no I needed a pen. I spent some looking around. Wirecutter.com had a recommendation, a Jetstream pen. It was recommended by people who use a lot of pens and had their opinions about what makes a great pen. This one was “the best”, And even better they came with Uni-Ball refills. They are cheap. When I run out of ink, which I have done a lot of, I pop it out and a new one in and we are off to scribble more again. It seems I have purchased these things 16 times in packages from 5 to 12 refills. Gol darn, I have written more with these pens, the Jetstreams, more than any other pens out there. Love them.

That is to say, I loved them until I got hooked on fountain pens. People seem to be even more obsessed than I was. They are looking at pens in the three digit price range. OK, there are pens that cost a four digit amount. And inks! More on them in a minute, but the thing that gets to me about this group is they don’t talk about using their pens. In fairness, there are some people who use them for drawing and some that write beautiful things in beautiful script. But they are not talked about the way people talk about their pens. I have settled on a line that costs under ten dollars apiece. And these I can refill, well I have refilled with ink from a bottle. And this will keep me going for awhile, a long while. And I have to admit that writing with a fountain pen is a beautiful experience. So beautiful.

That last comment is a lot like using a typewriter. It is grand to write with one of these things, Even when I do not know what I am writing or why I am writing. I sit with my Royal or Hermes and I write and it is good.

More on this later. I need to think about this some more. But the first thoughts are out. I think about them some more and refine my thoughts.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm/48

If you have access to YouTube, mosey on over, look up Joe Van Cleve and watch his recent bit on papers to type on. He goes through his history with them and settles in a favorite. Joe also, in my views, he trys to blog the thing and get it to have viewers to comment. Well, hmmm, as I type that it seems wrong. He has his blog on YouTube (not like the Vlog Brothers but in the same way of …) that is a separately highlighted (?) titled bunch of videos. In all of them he encourages people to comment. This place would be a great place for our collective impressions about paper to type on to show up. A place to gather it up to find. Yes, just search for him by name, if you have not done so yet. There is a lot of postings on typewriters there.

Yesterday I had a procedure that had been scheduled for April. They seemed to be hot on getting all of the stuff we had set for 2020 run through. Even though I am covered by Kaiser they had me go to OHSU. They paid out some pretty pennies for that. The nurse that did it was fine and we chatted about different thing that we could during my non-sedated state for it. As she was walking me out I asked about her Covid vaccine status. She had gotten hers earlier that week. It seems they, OHSU, has already administered 6,000 shots. So Yay! they seem to be well on their way. I had to be Covid tested before the visit, because I spent the time without a mask and the nurse standing next to me. Between my negative status and her vaccinated start, we were OK.

I hope all of you have a wonderful New Year’s Eve celebration tonight. We are planning on another Happy time together, alone together. There have not been any fireworks yet – so maybe we’ll be lucky. Side note, my wife received an email from a old friend, who reported that there are no available beds in Germany. They said there were no beds available for “Covid patients and not for drunks and fireworks.”

This typing was interrupted by a call from Kaiser. I get to go back for another, well a repeat, and we chatted a bit. It seems they have dome some 2,000 doctors and are asking them to vaccinate their patents Well, if I understood her. I do understand they are training everyone on administering the vaccine. Maybe we will have enough to do it all.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

“Oh, God. I need to call them again.” My wife thought that thought or those thought every few weeks. The price of getting a Sunday New York Times delivered went back to its normal, way too high for us, price. She could call them. Say she was cancelling it. Explain the cost was too much. Be offered a “Special deal”, Take them up on it. Get a few weeks. See the price had gone up again. Repeat the process again. Until they time came that she did not want to bother with calling them and go through the process again. So she cancelled again. This time for good. No special would work this time. She cancelled.

In mid December I recalled her fondness for reading obituaries. I do not understand it or them. But she likes to read obits. I also remembered that the New York Times, Sunday edition, would publish their magazine, the last one of the year, filled with obits for all or at least a few special obits for the year. I could, I thought, pick up a Sunday New York Times and she could enjoy the obits. I, for once, thought about enjoying an obit or two. There were some untimely deaths this last year. It would be good to read what was remembered this year.

Today, the last Sunday of the year, I got up. It was twilight, dawn twilight, a favorite time of day. It was nearly 40 degrees, plenty comfortable. I thought it would be another great day for a walk. And I would get my daily walk done. So I did.

Hopefully the Sunday New York Times does the magazine of obituaries the first Sunday of a year to celebrate the deaths of the last year. They certainly were not in today’s issue. It was a good walk. Not quite two miles long and, Surprise!, I averaged 3.5 miles per hour. Which, for me, is a very fast pace. Now to maintain the pace while extending my distance. I did write about that a while ago, putting, myself on the hook. Making a promise in public. It is not something one should do. Do it first. Then talk about it later. I typically do things that way. It puts more pressure on myself to do “it”,

I will be out on the road next Sunday. On my way to Safeway. Hopefully — they will have it with the special edition of the magazine in the paper. Which, as I think about it, is the way they do it. Perhaps I was lying to myself. I needed a walk.

And I needed it.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

In the week between Christmas and New Year holidays I take the time to reflect on the year, Despite the loads of drugs, err I mean medications, it was a healthy year. Nothing to report to a doctor. The first year in years I had no visits to a hospital, planned or unplanned. Take a deep breath of relaxation today. Yay for 2020. Did I just say that? “Yay for 2020.”? Yes, despite the year from Covid and Trump it was an OK year. My health remained good, we sold my in-laws house, I do not think we had any big plans for the year after those two items. Kent bought his first house, that was a shock that did not get me to fall over. Two or three of you retired, yay you.

Yay for 2020! What good things have happened in your life? C’mon, I know there have been good things happening in you life, fess up.

I am mostly thinking about next year in the form of writing. It is not that I have not been writing. I have been keeping a Morning Pages journal for nearly five years now. I tried to quite last year. That was like quitting smoking. (I do not smoke, but you understand how people do not quit)? I look at Bullet Journaling, and nah. I had no need to keep it brief and quick. I would hate to be pule, pulle, ((side note: when I forget a work, stroke side effect, I keep trying, in different forms until it comes again)) puzzling, That is it. I would hate to puzzle over what some half line of text means. I have enough problems reading my own handwriting. Not having enough journals (Cooked, Sketch, Morning Pages, Languages, One Typed Page, …) I am mulling over adding a log book. In the sense given by ships logs. A daily listing of things done or experiencing and just have that with references to other journals. Considering. That is taking up my attention span for next year. Hopefully this typing will help me figure that out.

I am also considering upgrading my journals to more expensive paper. Right now I am keeping everything in composition books. The kind used in schools. They cost about a buck for 100 pages, 200 things to write on. No worries about wasting money on them. $1.00 vs $9.95 or $22.00 for differing sizes. Yeah, one does save a lot of money. But, But, I spend, at best, 10 minutes a page. And that is Screaming along on writing. Taking 20 minutes is not at all unusual. I used to earn a lot more than I got paid for the cost of paper. Even if the paper cost much more, more than a buck a page, I spend a lot more on the time to type or write my thoughts. Why do I want paper to be so cheap to hold my writing? Even the stuff I toss aside costs more than the paper Am I so obsessed with saving money on buying paper while spending so much more on my writing? I am going to visit a store and something to write in. Give it a whirl.

And I will address the question about how the Royal KMM gets me to type

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

Way back when, when I was a “beer journalist” I thought, one day, that I had broken my foot. I set up an appointment with my doctor, Dr Ralph Yates, and went in, After listening to my description he had me take off my shoes. At one glance he said, “You’ve got gout.” “No, it hurts too much.” “Yes, but you have gout. We can get an x-ray so you are assured, but you’ve got gout.” I limped down to the x-ray place and got one. One that showed there was nothing wrong with my bones. I had gout.

We discussed treatment. It has been nearly 20 years since then. All I remember is that of all the treatments only one made sence to me: exercise. I bought a bicycle, a Bike Friday. (Yes, the place that Kent works at today.) And I started to ride. My commute to work was five miles. This, bicycle commuting, was a path to curing gout. With commuting I no longer had a choice about to get my exercise or not. I had to go to work. I was a bicycle commuter so I had to ride. And so I did.

Talking with a brewer he volunteered to ride with me on a long ride sometime. I heard about RACC, Ride Around Clark County. They had a metric century as one option. The brewer had suggesting a half century, 50 miles, as the long ride. I countered with a metric century. He liked that, I was upping the distance.

I did that ride. And others followed, Monster Cookie, that was one that I completed. There were other rides that I completed. And many that I did not complete. But I kept plugging away at it. Then one day I rode a 60 miles to celebrate Del Schaffenberg’s birthday. Afterwards, I wished him well and left. I had a ride I was hosting. It was an Ice Cream social for Slug Velo. We went to three or four ice cream places. We did not drop anyone. That was a thing about Slug Velo rides we made sure everyone was welcome and nobody, not anybody, got dropped. I had ridden a metric century before the Slug ride. Metric Centuries had become normal, just time on the bike.

Last week I walked seven miles, a mile a day. Well I do it at two miles an hour. This is a lot like when I started bicycling. Slow, not very far. With a full year of not going to the hospital for the first time in four years I am setting goals for my walking. Get my pace up to three miles per hour. And to resume the goal I had when I went into the aortic valve replacement and stayed there for six weeks. I had a goal of a half marathon, 13.1 miles. I was up half of that quickly and then 10 miles. I was set to complete the half marathon in early October. Instead I was just being transferred to rehab location after a month in the hospital.

It is easy to see the distance goals, The aerobic conditioning is tougher I do not know how much I can increase my speed. But I have it anyway.

Those are my physical goals for 2021 On a base of a mile a day at two miles per hour.

— Michae1Rpax :: rkmm/48

Write about Producing vs Consumption
WA O Scribbles vs Handwriting
Reading differences electric vs paper
A bit of a wait
Losing/Lost memories due to a stroke
Pen wealth – I am OK with it
I used to be able to spell
Ryan Holiday review of book and ending with procrastion
Tipping the photograph with full postugue vs postcards 55 vs 35 carts per card
Procrastination in reading about procrastination
Worlds smallest alphabet only 12 charters Rotokas
4, Ways to coffee
Why I follow news,

I often complain about not having something that I can or can bring to mind something to type about. Yet all of those are notes to myself about what I can write about. They were all scribbled down as notes to myself about what I have to write about. To type about. You may recognize the one thing I did write, type about.

Holy cow, it is after 7:00? I was up and down all night.
A little delay Ehikes for chumpers, other online misc. 90/10 Biden/Trump
A rabbit hold of what might be. Trashed ballots. What? Why?
It is early – I decided to get up.
Up and puttering about. Went back to bed remembered dishes. U p again.
Yes, we are up. We are alive. The count goes on.
Well, yes I can still do it after being up awhile.
Yes, up. ready to go. Here we are in America.
Up early, after meditating in bed. Oven is preferring.
Up late, read a bit in curiocity.
Up late and then coffee, breakfast, cutting circles. Not first thing.
Deciding to write. no matter how late ti is.
Yes, awakeness ( get a synony

Holy cow, it is after 7:00? I was up and down all night.
A little delay Ehikes for chumpers, other online misc. 90/10 Biden/Trump
A rabbit hold of what might be. Trashed ballots. What? Why?
It is early – I decided to get up. ©
Up and pettering about. Went back to bed remembered dishes. U p again.
Yes, we are up. We are alive. The count goes on.
Well, yes I can still do it after being up awhile.
Yes, up. ready to go. Here we are in America.
Up early, after meditating in bed. Oven is prefeating.
Up late, read a bit in curio&gity.
Up late and then coffee, breakfast, cutting circles. Not first thing.
Deciding to write. no matter how late ti is.
Yes, awakeness ( get a synomym for that) up again, again.
Up, yes up. Weare going again again.
Up in the morning. Doing well, or so I think.
At 8em. Ready to bake back a loaf.
Quiety awake – Hey! Hey! Figured out setting on heart monitor.
Not scribbling today. Just being here.

Where those lines are the “How you feel” portions of my Morning Pages from October 31 through November 23. There is plenty more, back until April 19, 2015 through this morning.

Those are all the things that I type, or write, when I “cannot think of what to write.” Not having something to write is a strange state to be in.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm/48

Earlier this year I wrote about Anthony Madrid’s piece in the Paris Review, SIX BOOKS WE COULD AND SHOULD ALL WRITE. I thought I would come back to it and describe the xis?? gad, the six books one can and should write. On One Typed Page we are all participating in one or more of the suggested books. Certainly we are writing a book about ourselves. Whether we like that idea or not, there is a lot of people writing about themselves here. But for now, I will talk about a specific book he recommends. A Book to Burn.

This concept, A Book to Burn, comes from Li Ziu Li.  Ziu Li was a late Ming philosopher and gadfly. He wrote this book “thinking to enclose therein all his completely unacceptable views.” He named it “A Book to Burn” “implying that if you were caught with it, you would be executed.” He was caught with it, he was not executed for his heretical ideas because he commuted suicide first.

If you have, like I do, things that you do not want anyone to read, under any circumstance to read it, put it in your book to burn. In truth I do not write it down for others to find. Or I do not leave the writings around. I burn it, or put it in someplace, like a garbage bin, I put it in my mind and the do what I can to forget it. I do not want people to know about my thoughts. Never. Not at all. Not a bit of it.

Now you may have ideas that just need to be written to exorcise them from your psyche. Or perhaps they are not, to you, all that bad. But you do need to put them into some form. Typewriting is a fine place for them. Certainly much better than into a computer where some bit is stored somewhere. So type it, keep it someplace secure. And, dare I say, burn your book before someone reads it.

I will be back to this topic. For the record, the six books are:

* a book about oneself
* a book about others
* an anthology of favorites
* a book about words
* a book of lists
* a book to burn

Coming soon, or perhaps later, some commentary about these books.
Yes, I do have them on my computer.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm/48