Grizzly Pear – written snapshots

GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

more gothicized italics! (five pack 28+comfy car and tent)

After inktober last year, I dove into gothicized italics with watercolor and gouache. I still have a pile of construction paper to scan and share.

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A light grey on black paper got pushed into a gold villain with curves and hue-saturation adjustments.

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A little capricorn—the discovery of using R’s as ligatures still sparks joy each time I see it.

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A sunset to go with the sunrise that started Inktober 52 in 2025.

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A sharp bloody cruel. I’ve really pushed for thin hairlines wherever I can amp up the contrast.

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In early spring, we added a new member to our division. The ruling pen lets you emphasize the contrast between thick and thin. Each had has its difficult letters, in this case, with the W.

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This post was almost ready to publish before I got sick at the end of September. The next few 5 packs be fresh collections from Inktober 2026, before I dive into the backlog again.

Cya next time!

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PS—Comfy Car (舒适车)

Our kids have been arranging the blankets and pillows in an oblong shape on the bed. They throw the stuffies into this comfy car for a road trip.

It’s certainly comfy. So much that I’ll take a nap while playing with them on the bed.

Yesterday evening, we added a round laundry basket as a steering wheel.

As it got fully dark, I pulled out a flashlight, and the ceiling had a lovely grid pattern from the light inside our new steering wheel.

This afternoon, we played Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas as we drove out to New York and checked out the Statue of Liberty.

It’s weird playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving, but Sunny 106.5 has already switched over to holiday fare, so the road trip must follow.

—November 2021

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PPS—Tent

What can you make with a king sized sheet, a couple of chairs, and a few big rolls of architectural printouts?

We spent much of summer making tents. Sometimes in middle of a room, sometimes connected to a closet, sometimes off a sofa.

Wherever they found a corner, they would make a little tent.

They’d get me to join them in their structures. Normally, I’d poke my head in, get claustrophobic and back out, but occasionally I would fit in one.

I even took a nap.

Not being outdoorsy, further stifled by the relentless desert heat, this indoor suburban glamping is the best we’ll do.

Even in crazy times, each today is still mundane. The limitations may be extraordinary, but life is not.

Let’s make a tent.

—January 2022

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PPPS—Practice

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16 October 2026
spiral (five pack 27+Mia+Ne Zha(x2)+Penguins)

Gothicized italics took over 2025.

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I saw how to do a spiral on youtube and had to try it!

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I spent some time playing with watercolors, in this case adding some shading to sneaker.

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This Thanksgiving came out really nice. I often wonder if I could ever repeat a nice piece. As a hobbyist, you never cross the same river twice.

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Trying a squished script with Sagittarius

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Watercolor led to gouache, and the opacity let me play with this Gator on construction paper. Unfortunately, the wrinkles on construction paper can’t be hidden like a black or white background with a curves adjustment.

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Now that I’m a year away from these pieces, it feels like a different person scripted them. For most of 2026, I’ve been focused on scribing books. Then again, I just wrapped up my pieces for Inktober.

Who knows where this calligraphy kick will go.

Cya next time!

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PS—Mia and the Migoo, Jacques-Rémy Girerd, 2008

It’s a simple story where a daughter braves an uncaring world to find her father far away. The characters aren’t complex, neither is the the plot or world building. The villain is cartoonish and the universe a bit strange.

Then again stories don’t need to all be deep. This movie works because the story is cute and the backgrounds are gorgeous.

Sometimes, that’s what counts. Make it beautiful and the rest falls in place. I haven’t revisited it since, but I remember it fondly for the impressionistic landscapes.

There’s a Studio Ghibli vibe with a young brave girl as a primary protagonist. It also reminds me of the diversity that we are blessed with in popular culture.

In my childhood, representation wasn’t really discussed because Asian Americans didn’t count. Of course this became a big deal over the past couple decades, and more agitated portions of social media still feel strongly about it.

But in this fragmented landscape of entertainment from all around the world, this a lack of representation feels less pressing.

Twenty years ago, I would have been more concerned about a lack of strong female non-princess protagonists, but that’s the majority of our fare nowadays. Of course, the good old boys club will not be as inviting. Hopefully, our animated universes is a harbinger of a more equitable world.

—November 2021

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PPS—Ne Zha, Yu Yang, 2019 and Ne Zha Reborn, Ji Zhao, 2021

I went on a Netflix spree and watched both animated Nezha films.

The first one was set in a historical fantasy where a young brat grows up into a god. The second one is set in a diesel-punk Shanghai where a young punk grows up into a god. In both cases they beat up dragons and get hot and flamey.

They’re decent examples of a maturing Chinese animation industry, but I came away quite meh on both.

I accidentally watched the Ne Zha a few weeks after seeing a review by Accented Cinema about the Ne Zha Reborn. The unfulfilled expectation of a bucolic ancient China morphing into a diesel-punk Shanghai did not help my enjoyment of the film. Then again, I wouldn’t have watched Ne Zha through without that misplaced expectation.

A month later I finally got around to watching Ne Zha Reborn. It was enjoyable, not bad but not great. Given how rarely I watch films, I want them to be great or weird. Neither was either.

Now that I’ve stuck my nose into both camps, maybe I’ll follow up their sequels, since both of them were clearly set up for wider universes.

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Almost five years later, I avoided this sunk cost pitfall for both franchises.

—January 2022

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PPPPS—Penguins of Madagascar, Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith, 2014

I came across this movie due to a podcast episode of the Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. Like most commercial dreck, it entered and exited my memory.

It was a fun movie, likely worth a watch to kill some brain cells. My 7 year old daughter thought the movie was a little too thrilling, so she told me to finish it on my own.

It’s not that scary, but she’s a little sensitive, and that fine. The big bad world will be there soon enough. No need to use something like this to harden her soul.

Then again, I would have had no objections if she wanted to finish this silly action film with me. One can do worse with children’s films.

But if this note leads you to John Green’s excellent podcast, then it was well worth it.

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Three years later, the kids discovered animation. Compared to other films, this was a standout. So was Surf’s Up (surprisingly!).

—January 2022, August 2025

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PPPPPS—Practice

—November 2025

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11 October 2026
Brutus

Last weekend, we went to a performance of Julius Caesar by the Nevada Shakespeare festival. As to be expected from other productions, it was a raucous dark tragedy.

It highlighted the conundrum of Brutus, a man in power confronted with the inequality of his time. The elites had it great, but the masses were restless, ready to give away their freedom to Julius Caesar.

Do you just roll over and join the crowd? Would killing that would-be tyrant fix the broken dynamic? Brutus chose the dagger and found the structural failure was bigger than one great man.

He should have followed Lao Tze into the wild west.

Brutus had rather be a villager
Than to repute himself a son of Rome
Under these hard conditions as this time

Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2

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Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear. Believe me for mine honor, and have respect to mine honor that you may believe. Censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him. As he was fortunate, I rejoice at it. As he was valiant, I honor him. But, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valor, and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak, for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.

Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2

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After the first showing, I blasted out the first version of this piece in time for the second showing. Knowing the flow of the play, I enjoyed the second performance even more than the night before.

After the show, I gave a copy of this piece to Rebecca, who had played Brutus. In an online world, it’s a joy to attend live performances and to share work directly.

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04 September 2026
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

We went on vacation at the end of June which led to crazy hours catching up at work, along with tackling various other tasks at work. Hopefully I will rediscover a better balance by around Labor Day.

Until then, here is Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address that I graphed on Independence Day but didn’t stich together in the computer till today.

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Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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My cursive with a flex pen isn’t great, but the only way to improve is to practice. I’m working on some other scripting projects (which had been paused with this work hiatus) so who knows when I’ll get around to practicing. Anyways, over-planning feels against the spirit of having hobby in the first place, so I’ll get to it when / if I get to it.

Cheers!

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22 August 2026
working (five pack 26+DRC+aphorisms)

A motley collection of pieces I’ve shared on social media. Since I’ve spent more time on books and less time online, there’s only a few left…unless things switch up again. We’ll see.

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Whenever I get a new tool, I start with the (super creative) word test. In this case, it was a big fat hake brush, which has raw feel perfect for some assignments.

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I taped two Pentel brushpens together to make this Laugh.

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I call my cursive “brush cursive” since I primarily use a Pentel brushpen for this hand. But really, this was cemented last summer with the use of the ruling pen like this Tension. There is a beautiful rush in using this ruling pen—now I need to learn how to use it slowly.

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white space is OK

I have a hard time letting myself use white space, it’s one of my great shortcomings as a designer.

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Last October I was playing with both gothicized italics and testing a cover for a NATO alphabet zine at the same time. I don’t know about the cover, but this script has become a rabbit hole that I’m still chasing. It’s been my default hand (along with brush cursive) whenever I whip out a piece.

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We celebrated the 4th of July by visiting a local park where folks go wild with illegal fireworks. They were going full speed when we arrived at sunset and were still shooting with gusto when we left an hour later.

It was so visceral that no one noticed the fireworks show from the casino a couple of blocks away. I can still smell the gunpowder. We’re gonna bring earplugs next time.next time.

Cya next time!

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PS—Riding a Bicycle

I was walking a group home campus for disabled clients. We’re putting up a fence they can enter and exit their houses without supervision by the nurses.

A couple of clients rode by on bicycles (with their nurses). The joy on their faces were infectious, only dampened by the barren dreariness of our facilities.

We don’t treat our wards nearly well enough, and yet they persevere. We need their strength in these times.

—November 2021

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PPS—Some aphorisms on managing a career

If the company doesn’t promote you in a couple of years, then that’s your position for the long haul.

But be careful about being promoted, they’ll get their pound of flesh for that extra status and money. (Double check an opportunity in terms hourly wage and stress.)

An architect is paid in experience and money*. (Make sure the balance is good for long term growth.)

You start a career getting good at technical stuff, then spend the second half dealing with humans.

40 hours a week keeps you from being fired. If you wanna climb, then you gotta invest more time (inside or outside the company).

Don’t just stay cause you’re comfortably miserable.

DON’T FUCK WITH HAPPY.

Be nice. It’s a small world.

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* I’ve been toying with the other side of the equation. As an employee, you offer time multiplied by skill, which results in this equation

Money + Experience = Time * Skill

This isn’t as memorable as the original aphorism, but it’s a start.

—August 2022

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PPPS—Practice

—August 2025

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PPPPS—Practice

—November 2025

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07 July 2026
mike

I was hesitant about returning to pencil so soon after kilo, but mike wanted to be sharp.

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Two months ago, a family of Hawaiians moved into the neighborhood—dad, mom, two sisters, six and three, and the little brother.

They quickly joined the kids playing in our cul-de-sac.

After school ended, mom and the kids went home for three weeks. The day before they left, the three year old girl started calling me “Uncle Mike”.

The neighborhood kids tried to correct her, “It’s Mister Justus!” but she persisted.

Soon after, we went on our own vacation and got home yesterday. That afternoon, we came out to play on the street. The dad was sitting in his garage.

“Where’s the little ones?”

“They’re not coming back.”

—June 2026

30 June 2026
ruling pens (five pack 25+four on writing)

Raw was done with a wide hake brush on 12×18 sulfite paper. I used a light grey muddy wash and pushed the color to blue in the computer.

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I love how the rough ruling pen meets the sharp flat brush on Libra.

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Jumping with Roman Capitals and popups

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I often have trouble with the letter “S”. But the rest of Squeeze came out ok.

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This Dragonfly was done on the big sheets (like “Raw” above). They’re a pain to scan!

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Cya next time!

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PS—The Writing Life, Annie Dillard, 1989

I listened to The Writing Life, after Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. It was a fortuitous mistake from conflating the authors’ names.

Dillard discusses the struggle of writing as a profession, “splitting wood by aiming for the chopping block”.

She doesn’t digress into the darkness of her soul, nor the mundane tasks of her profession, aside from the admonition to love a sentence.

It’s a great book on honing the craft. Focus on the work. Ignore the metrics. Do the art.

Her prose a breathtaking display of skill. Dillard is vivid while avoiding the sentimental. She’s a bit aphoristic, with short quips and anecdotes. Pairs great with Lamott, for self-help writing books.

—November 2021

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PPS—Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Italo Calvino, 1985

I stayed in Berkeley for a couple of years after graduating and I attended a class taught by a classmate from my creative nonfiction seminar.

Finn is not an architect—he’s a real scholar.

I thought I was well read but quickly realized otherwise when I had no idea what the class was discussing. That’s also why it was so hard to read this book. Calvino flies around the world of literature while crafting these five lectures.

But after getting into the flow, I had a hard time putting it down. I’ve reread it twice in a row and listened to the audiobook as well.

He unearths aspirations in how to write and think. He explores subjects and their anti-subjects. It’s a curated cross section of a great writer’s worldview. So much to dig into. His ideas have not gone stale in the four decades after his death.

—February 2022 (If nothing else it spurred my play with 1 sentence stories for a few weeks.)

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PPPS—Several Short Sentences About Writing, Verlyn Klinkenborg, 2013

This is now my favorite book on writing.

Strunk and White is overly prescriptive and a bit dated.

Stephen Pinker’s Sense of Style was informative but soulless.

Both Stephen King and Stephen Pressfield exhort an enormity of labor. Grindset!

Klinkenborg also demands action. But it’s tiny.

Write better sentences.

That’s it.

As an architect, I love this clarion call of high modernity.

What does the sentence want to be? Make it so.

Of course, It’s never as simple as it sounds.

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After finishing the audiobook I immediately listened to it again, and borrowed the book from the library.

I suspect this book will be a classic in my library. I might be wrong. We’ll see by the time this thing posts.

—March 2022 (Four years later, I’ve soured a little bit on this book. But it’s not Klinkeborg’s fault, it’s LinkedIn—all those posts (even before the tsunami of AI sludge) are written in this style. Techbros and their algo’s ruin everything.)

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PPPPS—Borges on Writing, 1971

I’ve been on a run about reading (or listening) about writing.

This was the most informal of the books.

As a master, Borges is be self deprecating, over a series of three Q&A Seminars (on prose, poetry, and translation) with Norman Thomas di Giovanni (his editor and translator).

It’s a masterclass in writing and holding definite opinions without taking hardline stances. Borges is charming, but there is no question who is the teacher and who is the student.

A must-read for any Borges fan and a great example in self confidence.

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It’s also a fine introduction to the blind librarian if you haven’t read him yet. Though I would recommend Labryinths first (I presume one should rather read the work than him talking about it).

—April 2022

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PPPPPS—Practice & Practice

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—August 2025

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23 June 2026
lima

I adore writing each of these letters in cursive—L, i, m, a.

But this piece wanted to be rough after trying some elegant versions.

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paper slinkies

months ago, we saw slinkies at walmart
but we have too many toys

recently he got into origami
(pulling up videos on youtube and asking me fold a piece or two)

this weekend he remembered,
we looked some videos, found a simple one

pulled out the paper cutter,
sliced up old papers

contractor sign-in sheets,
completed kenken puzzles,
general conditions of a contract,
registration instructions for the new school year

slice slice, glue,
fold, fold, fold, glue,
fold fold fold….

the 1 inch square worked OK,
but was more a string than a slinky

Again!
2 inch square

a lot more paper,
a few more folds.

not metal
not round,
still a slinky.

Took a few tries,
it walked down the stairs.

By golly!
well, once out of ten.

— May 2025

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16 June 2026
A pragmatic prevarication

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Early this year, an acquaintance asked me to graph this line from a patient who had passed. “She and her family were just lovely, and she was an intelligent woman and quite particular with her verbiage. There was a phrase that she used to say all the time and we (the hospice team) loved it”.

A pragmatic prevarication with a propensity for oratorical soneration which is too pleonastic to be expeditiously assimilated

Since privacy laws don’t apply past death, I was allowed to share this lovely line. As with all pieces, I tried a few different scripts, and a lovely text like this wanted italics with some flourishes. And as always, it’s a bit nerve-wracking as you get to the end, but that’s also the thrill of longer quotes.

Living in Vegas, I regularly use the slot machine analogy for calligraphy. Gamblers are addicted by the notion that a loss is “almost winning”. It’s the same while making these pieces. I’m rarely satisfied with a piece, so I keep trying until I run out of steam and move on to the next project. But in retrospect, I’m usually quite happy with the result.

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Since I was so busy at work, I was happy to tackle the project, but I didn’t ask for money—only for the time to do it right. After a long wait I sent these variants out and was reimbursed way more than the cost of shipping. I guess this makes this my first paid commission!

After my daughter was born, I discovered the On Taking Pictures podcast. Bill and Jeffery had a Google+ online community, where I met Tanya while tackling the weekly assignments. She’s a great photographer with over a decade of daily projects, it’s well worth checking out her IG and website.

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09 June 2026
kilo

I had a lot of fun with a pencil for graphing a graffiti style versal. The pencil lets me fly around with light lines to find the right shapes, but I can still erase or crank up the density and line weights to sculpt the shape to my liking.

Either way, it’s less stressful than ink…and with my architecture sketching background, I willing to live with the unfinished look.

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My father-in-law lost his battle with pancreatic cancer last week. He fought for three seasons until finding his rest in the early morning.

That day, I stayed at home with the kids while my wife and her mom made arrangements. They played on their computers while I listened to podcasts while working on a jigsaw puzzle that had been sprawled across the playroom mat for a month.

When she came home, we took a walk around the neighborhood school. The boy then played with our neighbors. They wanted to stroll around the school too.

So we did.

— May 2026

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02 June 2026