reepicheep's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
7Wannabe5
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Some of us tend a bit more towards up/down wave pattern in our lifecycle as opposed to steady rise and slow decline. Lifestyle experiments can be both time and $ expensive, but consider the alternative...

It's interesting to me that your practice of polyamory has proven to be a fairly resilient part of your lifestyle, even as you suffer other trials and tribulations. I've also found this to be somewhat surprisingly true. I mean, I was only kind of joking when I argued that polyamory offers the same benefit as "rule of three" in permaculture, but it has actually kind of worked for me in that way.

ffj
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Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:57 pm

Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by ffj »

Here you go:

Image

She's really dirty but works just fine. I can change the angle and I can slowly advance into the wheels with the screw advancement. I made a blade holder for the planer and jointer knives which rest on the horizontal piece on the right. I just slide the holder back and forth. Works surprisingly well.

Of course, you can also sharpen just about everything else too.

reepicheep
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by reepicheep »

@J_, TA sent me this article on building a bike-powered band-saw. It doesn't solve the hand-planing-is-brutal problem but it looks like it might help with things that are brutally hard to do by hand, like sawing a piece of lumber in half down the face for book matching purposes. I just learned this technique this week and it's a fun one, but I didn't saw my wood by hand. There's also this version.

One imagines that if one had an especially thick piece of wood that one wanted to plane, sawing it in half would be considerably better use for it than hand-planing it to thickness and losing a bunch of material.

@7Wannabe5, Hiya! I always like reading you. I think part of me imagines I might be on a path similar to yours. I've been partnered with a slutty, Toppy guy since 2018; I would say he practices polyamory and I perhaps aspire to practice polyamory, since my only other sexual partner since the beginning of 2020 (other than a metamour or two during some kind of group play date) was a one-off booty call during a difficult week with a slutty friend who is sorta-kinda an underpaid male sex worker. Truly he's phenomenal in bed, but as he's deeply involved with and co-habitating with an ex-gf of mine it's somewhat complicated to imagine anything more than an occasional just-for-fun liaison. Also, the social impacts of Covid were huge for me.

I like the freedom I have, and I think you're right that the wide space I have to roam has seemed to create a foundation of stability that was utterly lacking when I was monogamously married, but I don't seem inclined to exercise my freedom all that much lately. Twice in the last couple of years I've been on multiple dates with good, sweet, kind, respectful men who are way into me for whom I have no interest. "Could you be a little more abusive, please?" does not seem like a smart thing to say, or to look for.

@ffj, yes, we have something very similar here. The angle is set at 25 degrees and is a metal attachment, though. I just want to have ALL THE TOOLS. But I have nowhere to put them!

****

We've just wrapped up the second to last project, a wall-mounted chisel cabinet. Well, more or less finished -- I expect I'll be in this weekend to create a door pull and put another coat of shellac on the thing. We'll start final projects next week and the course ends on March 22nd. I plan to make a haxbox cooker for my final project. I'm not too fussed about the design -- many of my projects have leaned towards utilitarian and as simple as possible when we've had opportunities to make design choices, rather than just follow instructions. I definitely have more creative designs/desires in my brain, but I struggle physically with the basics of the craft and have felt constantly pressed for time, so practicality has won out over artistry.

That said, while I'm not especially good at it,* I deeply love what I'm doing here. I've spent almost every night this week in the wood shop late, not really out of necessity but just because I become so involved with what I'm doing that I want to reach a solid stopping spot before I break for the day. Twice in a row I've been in the shop until 9 PM -- after the rest of the class knocks off at 5. I don't always have a lot to show for it as I tend to make mistakes/injure myself more frequently if I'm there so late, but no one is forcing me to be there. My physical wrist/tendon challenges of the first few weeks haven't completely vanished, and the long last couple of days have definitely led to some increase tightness, but for the most part I seem to be out of the danger zone and well on my way to developing the kind of forearm strength necessary to prevent major long-term issues.

I am looking into what's next. Settling down to a quiet life in my tiny house and planting a garden/building a hand-tool wood-shop/raising goats seems to be...not in the cards right now. I still aspire to that lifestyle (I think?), and the Apocalypse-Prep "Year Off", but I'm also quite drawn to pursuing more woodworking education, and I'm not sure the school I'm at is going to be sufficient in a timely enough fashion -- mostly because the next time I can take the "Level 2" to the Level 1 class I'm currently in will be January 2024, due to a strange kink in how they schedule their courses. I'm concerned that I'm going to lose skills and physical abilities that have been hard-fought over the last 7 weeks if I have to wait that long, and acquiring the tools and space needed to continue the practice in the same timeframe seems well beyond my non-existent budget right now.

I'm looking into all kinds of possibilities, from going to open-to-the-public woodworking shops and renting time, taking a couple of weekend or week-long workshops this summer, to perhaps finding a local with a garage and a shop who I can trade services with, but the spot I've landed my house is a pretty small town, so networking is going to take some time, and renting space entails at least an hour of driving. I am signed up for the Timber Frame class up here this summer, so I'll be back for another 8 weeks, but still, there's 4ish months on either side of that class where I'm not going to have access to the kind of quality tools, materials, equipment, space, and instruction I currently do. I even sent an email to the head of the school here asking if I could volunteer in exchange for taking some of the shorter classes that vocational rehab doesn't cover. Haven't heard back yet. Doesn't seem likely. I think they need my money more than they need my grant writing experience.

One thing I'm pretty seriously considering is attendance at the Vermont School of Woodworking in the fall, maybe for their immersion program, maybe through NVU as an AA or MFA student, with whom they have an agreement. I am pretty sure I can get Voc Rehab and/or the G.I. Bill to cover all of it, and their program has many similar elements to the program I'm currently in, like an emphasis on hand tools and small class sizes. One thing I like a lot is that their students focus on just a couple of bigger projects each semester rather than several smaller ones; I met with someone in admissions today during lunch and she showed me examples of student work from first semester students. It is, on average, far more varied and creative than what we've had opportunities to do; they put a lot more emphasis on design instead of just skill-building, and they require students to take a design class along with the practical building class. While I could probably start off in their second level class, I think there's a lot to be said for getting more practice with foundational skills. They also have housing available on campus for a reasonable rate; I've really enjoyed staying in school-facilitated housing during this program and so that is definitely something I'm looking for. Being a three minute walk from the classroom helped me spend more time in the woodshop and worry less about logistical details. I find this desire somewhat ironic, since as a college student I detested my one year in student housing and moved off campus and out from under the thumb of what I perceived to be draconian rules and restrictions as soon as I could. Now, in my 30's, I'm all, "Please, give me a roommate and zero commute! Provide me a fully-furnished kitchen! I'll sign whatever you want! Take my soul!"

I think if I picked up and moved to Vermont for 2+ years I would need to find a sub-lessor for my tiny house. I am contemplating whether I might be able to find someone capable and dedicated enough to exchange some labor on the property for partial rent and a long lease -- there is so much to do there, and an able and willing hand putting in some work while I'm away would be worth something to me.

I don't love the idea of moving my entire life to the East Coast -- I think my main current relationship would likely decomplexify into something like occasional orbiting-comet-visit+once-in-a-while-OMG-Sir-I'm-so-stressed-out-phone-call, rather than connected-long-term-long-distance-partnership. I mentioned this conundrum to my mother, who informed me that if I did take a break from my partnership for awhile it would give me a good opportunity to find someone "more appropriate." I informed her that this was a highly problematic statement that I was not going to unpack for her at the present time and then changed the subject.

All the same, the man is 30ish years my senior and there is no future where we do the cohabitating/have kids/golden retriever thing, so at some point I probably need to diversify my options, even if I'm still not diversifying into Standard American Relationshipping. I genuinely don't seem to know what I want from my intimate connections right now, other than perhaps someone with a fully kitted out wood shop in their garage and maybe a nice big garden. :P

***

Financially, things have improved somewhat. I am making progress on categorizing 2+ years of transactions -- I chip away at it a little bit every week. I've set up my personal finances in Quickbooks as if I was one of my own clients and, post clean-up, hope to have a much better sense of where the hell my money is going. Almost two months of being in school and living close to school has helped cheer me up some, though -- I don't actually have an enormous spending or insufficient income problem, from what I can tell, and so it's really genuinely true that my major financial difficulties are definitely from trying to build a house while having expensive taste in furnishings and being underemployed. As long as I can resist the temptation to immediately start constructing and outfitting a woodshop, I'll probably get my non-mortgage-related debt squared away in the next year or so.

I also got an offer approved on a balance transfer, 0% interest for 15 months. While I don't love that I am playing bat-the-credit-card-debt-around, I was delighted to be approved for the offer since previous efforts to obtain something similar were largely unsuccessful late in 2022. I think I applied for too many at once during that time. So at this point the bulk of my CC debt is sitting in 0% interest cards for the next year and a half, and I expect to have what's left at 20%+ interest paid off in the next couple months. Getting out from that monthly interest payment is an emotional burden lifted.

I still poke around looking for another client or two and I think if I put some actual effort into it (perhaps after school is out) I would find something suitable to round out my current list. A smidge more income wouldn't be a bad thing; the workload I currently have has been quite manageable even with my late nights.


*Says the adult learner 7 weeks into an introductory course. :lol:

jacob
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by jacob »

reepicheep wrote:
Sat Feb 25, 2023 3:57 am
I just want to have ALL THE TOOLS. But I have nowhere to put them!
I went that way and I regret it. I've subsequently rolled it back a bit. No need to have all the bench planes from #1 to #8 in two different angles or a collection of saws. The problem is that having the best tool for the job does make it easier in the beginning, but eventually one just uses the same tool for everything. Like Tage Frid-Hansen using a framesaw for dovetails and bookmatching boards because he is good enough to saw straight in any conditions.

My woodworking has stagnated since the lockdown where it fizzled and never returned, but one of my goals is to slowly replace everything I own with homemade versions. You're certainly welcome to buy the least used parts of my collection, but that's also the exact ones that are least useful, so it wouldn't be a favor.
I travelled with Bedouin in the Western Desert of Egypt. When we got a puncture, they used tape and an old inner tube to suck air from three tyres to inflate a fourth. It was the cook who suggested the idea; maybe he was used to making food designed for a few go further. Far from expressing shame at having no pump, they told me that carrying too many tools is the sign of a weak man; it makes him lazy. The real master has no tools at all, only a limitless capacity to improvise with what is to hand. The more fields of knowledge you cover, the greater your resources for improvisation.

7Wannabe5
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

reepicheep wrote:I like the freedom I have, and I think you're right that the wide space I have to roam has seemed to create a foundation of stability that was utterly lacking when I was monogamously married, but I don't seem inclined to exercise my freedom all that much lately. Twice in the last couple of years I've been on multiple dates with good, sweet, kind, respectful men who are way into me for whom I have no interest. "Could you be a little more abusive, please?" does not seem like a smart thing to say, or to look for.
Well, you're not really looking for "abusive." You are looking for somebody(s) who can accept your need for wide boundaries of freedom for your own "striving" energy, who also exhibits some hawt "Toppy" behavior. The trick (which I am definitely not always capable of myself) is to recognize that these aren't necessarily inherent qualities, but more like relative behaviors. IOW, I believe the expressions, "A good Dom/man is hard to find" are largely self-fulfilling prophecies. Most men (not all!) have the capability of exhibiting "Toppy" behavior, but a combination of societal training and subconscious desire to treat you in a manner that their own unacknowledged vulnerable side would prefer tends to repress this. If/when you choose to exhibit strongly submissive (not passive! not doormat! not topping from the bottom! not provocative/bratty!) behavior, you will create an attractive vacuum for "good, sweet, kind, respectful man" to behave more Toppy.* If that's what you want... ;)**

*rogue reformation- the exhibition of behavior likely to make "bad" Toppy guy behave more "good" is somewhat more difficult and more likely to be at least a 3-body problem. For instance, sometimes it can't be accomplished while his mother is still alive or his "ex"-wife is still knitting him winter caps.

**this advice is strictly experimental and offered for entertainment purposes only.

ertyu
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Re: reepicheep's journal

Post by ertyu »

"looking for someone with a fully kitted out wood shop in their garage and maybe a nice big garden" is an excellent thing to put in a dating app profile imo :muscle:

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