This is a NOW page, a neat idea cooked up by the rather clever Derek Sivers.
It's a way to get an overview of what I'm slogging through focused on at the moment.
After years without contact, I was informed that someone I had a really complicated relationship with has passed. I'm only just getting past the numb shock that comes from receiving any bad news, and I'm slowly unpacking my feelings.
In continuing a recent theme of connecting with complete strangers on the internet, I've had a few lovely chats with new friends who I found by way of the FediRoulette bot.
Someone described my constantly shifting sleep schedule as "Timezone Parkour". The fact that long covid messed up so many of my rhythms is a constant point of frustration, and this adds a little delight to thinking about it.
I received an incredibly silly and surprisingly meaningful gift from one of my students. I'm leaving this as a reminder to myself that I need to write more about the pooping pooch I received by post.
I've been thinking a lot about doomscrolling and otherwise unhappy/unproductive time I waste staring at my phone. I used to have really strict habits in place about keeping this to a minimum, and I'm starting to lean back into them. There's been immediate improvements to my overall mood and desire to actually do things.
We thrive on music here in This Old Clown House. I'm currently improving that experience by setting up a "radio station" using MusicPD. While we already have some music solutions in place, one of the goals is to remove our phones from the theater entirely when we are making dedicated time to explore and playfully move our bones. I'm delighted to discover that my partners have enthusiastically supported this, and we've been taking turns curating music for each other.
The next step in this project is creating a dedicated player for the theater. It'll probably be an old pc that boots up to a simple interface, and has no other distractions available.
For years I've made jokes about one of my characters, Rhino, being a radio DJ. We've named the stream after him, and I'll likely record some silly station identification announcements once I get everything dialed in.
I've set up an RSS reader called miniflux for my fellow clowns. I finally started playing with it a few days later, and I really see the appeal. It's also got me thinking about adding an RSS feed to this site, though I'm not sure how I want to go about doing so.
I recently dug out my accordion, which I've not touched in years. It's like reconnecting with an old friend, and I'm slowly learning how to "type" on its many buttons again. One of my fellow clowns in incredibly musical, and they've joined me in making weird noises in the theater.
A fedi friend challenged me to record the Valse des Idiotes. Some of the weird noises I've been making have technically been practice for this.
The workbenches are currently covered in bits of household repair, unicycle lights, and bits of trim for the Delrita Reading Room. As soon as they are clear, I plan to get back to some more creative making.
I have a sketch for a new mask, and I hope to sit down with it and some clay soon.
I've also had an idea for a puppet! I've long associated puppetry with circus performers who have gotten injured, and as a result I've foolishly stayed away from a form of expression I adore. I think I'll be prodding at this false idea (gently) soon, and using it as an excuse to try the paper mache clay that's been itching at my brain.
We've released a new episode of our podcast!
I've been chatting with Robert Kingett, who granted me permission to create a 'zine from of his incredible short story, The Colonization of Confidence. It's one of the most powerful things I've read in a while, and it seems fitting for it to exist in some sort of edition crafted by human hands. Currently it's halfway converted into Typst's markup, and I'm slowly making decisions about how the final booklet might look.
The never-ending adventure of transforming a hundred-and-someodd year old hotel into a clown school, artists residency, and theatrical playspace.
We've made big progress on the library (aka the Delrita Reading Room) recently.
There are shelves now, and they have books on them! I've been more or less living out of cardboard boxes for the last two years, so this has provided a massive morale boost.
There's still a lot left to do in there, but it feels a room more than a construction area now. The next step will be to nail in all of the skirting/baseboards and trim which I recently painted. There will be many nails in our future.
The library bench has a temporary set of panels covering the lower storage area. We've pulled some truly lovely fabric out of storage, which was originally used on a human-sized jack in the box in the show PlayThings. We're designing custom covers out of these colorful velvet panels, which will both look fantastic and continue our reinventing bits of our history in this new place.
While most of the doors in This Old Clown House are wonderfully solid, there are a few sorry looking hollow core doors which are in various states of delamination and decay.
As they are technically "garbage" already, we've decided to turn them into canvases for murals!
Currently the door to one of the downstairs restrooms is sitting on a pair of sawhorses. We've stripped away the worst of the damaged layers, and are carefully gluing the remains back together.
Once the door returns to being a solid object, we'll use our gel plates to create a large quantity of prints using a cheery sunrise-inspired color palette. These will be torn to interesting shreds, and those will be used to collage the door's surface into something much more fun to look at than rotten wood.
One of my clown partners made some breakthroughs on juggling recently. I've been excited to wear the coach hat and encourage them to keep throwing things at me, themselves, and the floor.
My battle with trauma and Handstands is still a focus at the moment.
As renovations have continued, we've been slowly clearing boxes off the theater floor. This has created more space for eccentric movement, and I've really enjoyed exploring that.
I've also been itching to dig through some boxes to find my juggling hats.
I was interviewed about my work as a clown teacher: BoldJourney.com
After unpacking our velocipedes, we added some lights to a 20" unicycle. Video here.
Things I've either eaten, or am in the process of eating:
sounds: Sike Toki by Lectronice
words: The Mask Handbook - A Practical Guide by Toby Wilsher
words: The Who Cares Era by Dan Sinker
words: The Colonization of Confidence by Robert Kingett
experiences: Karen Montanaro's new show
It has become a tradition to watch some of the media which has entered the public domain each year. I recently enjoyed the Marx Brothers film Animal Crackers, and have plans to watch a few other things when I have a moment.
Last Updated: 2026-01-08