I volunteered to do it because it made no sense for a highly paid developer to do such a menial job; also, I kind of like taking on little challenges like this, developing a new technique or learn some new tools, and seeing how quickly I can rip through them. Then it’s just a matter of putting on the headphones, pressing a few keys repetitively so the computer does most of the work, and voila.

I realized that my initial solution for this would be overly complicated, as it always is, and that the exploration process as I groped my way toward simpledom would be haphazard, as it always is. I thought “How can I use Applescript to parse the text? Should I just copy the fragments into Word and use Word’s formatting functions? Should I use a text editor with some text formatting Services?” (DevonThink makes a killer set of text-formatting services available to Mac users for free; DevonThink not required to use them.)

I spent about 5 hours over the weekend scarfing up text-formatting Applescript code, messing with text editors, messing with Automator, messing with some copied fragments that I was using as my test case, messing with Applescript in Word (which adds its own complications), and seeing possible workflows getting more complicated.

Sometime around Monday evening my brain settled down and I decided on my workflow:

1. Copy each parameter and comment into a Word file.
2. Fix the formatting of each snippet to remove the extra lines, excess ! marks, and insert tab marks judiciously to make importing into Excel easier.
3. Transform the tab-delimited text into a table using Word’s Table>Convert>Text to Table command.
4. Copy and paste the tables into Excel and format accordingly.

The intent of this workflow brings in what I’ve mentioned before, about batching similar actions together. With this workflow, I could check each line off as done and move fully to the next set of operations. I could do each set of operations more quickly and efficiently than transitioning from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 within each file.

#2 gave me the headache, of course, and is where I spent the bulk of my think time. I had on blinders as I was sure I could use some sort of Applescript in Word that would reformat everything in one go, without needing multiple passes. And because I thought it could be done, I thought I had to do it that way.

However, I had set myself a time limit for the R&D, and I had passed it. Time to drop that all-in-one solution. As I looked at the line fragments, I noticed that the bulk of the work would be done in the first line of each multi-line fragment. OK, let’s start there.

That shift brought me back to the Agile programming maxim of, “Do the simplest thing that could possibly work.” This is when I turned back to Keyboard Maestro; it’s not as powerful as QuicKeys (or my beloved Macro Express in the Windows world), but it’s quick, dependable, and does the job. In this case, I was using it as a robot typing the keyboard, but that keeps it simple.

That’s when I cobbled together my workflow for #2:

• With the text in Word, select the lines that will be reformatted.
• Run Joe Kissel’s great Clean Up Text script (scroll down the page to read about how to coy and paste his code into the Applescript editor). This script removes all spaces and tabs and removes multiple line breaks, making each fragment a unified paragraph. Kissell’s article also tells you how to assign a keystroke to a script.
• For a multi-line parameter with comments, the bulk of the delete symbols/insert tab action happens in the first line of the reformatted paragraph. So, position the cursor on the first line, and run the Keyboard Maestro macro (assigned to the F19 key) that manually moves the cursor, deletes a character, inserts a tab, etc. and then stops. Because the macro is working within Word, I added keystrokes to take advantage of Word’s keyboard-based cursor movements.
• For the remainder of the ! comment marks now studding the reformatted paragraph, select the entire document and use a simple Word find-and-replace to replace all the ! with ” “.

Hm. Well, that still looks pretty complicated, doesn’t it? But it’s faster than me burning hours to get my head deep into Applescript territory, with delimiters, variables, if-thens, and so on.

The other advantage of this workflow is that this should cover about 80% of the code I’ll have to reformat. I now have a base set of actions that I can clone and customize to handle the exceptions.

Anyway, the lesson as always: don’t overthink it. Keep it simple.

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Here’s how I structured my time and my environment to encourage me to work:

• I staked out a table in Davis Library, 7th floor. There are plenty of big tables that are hardly used, wall plugs are nearby for the MikeBook, and — most importantly — the books on the shelves are from the Asian collection, printed in Chinese and Japanese — so I’m not tempted to browse them during my breaks!
• I have MacBreakz set to annoy me every 50 minutes with some simple ergonomic exercises. In the preferences, I removed the ability to banish the window, so that I have to force myself to stand, stretch, walk, go to the bathroom — anything but sit and stare at the screen. The breaks last 10 minutes.
• During that break, I put some Genteal drops in my eyes to keep them my moist. My cataract doctor said that, when you work on a computer, you tend to not blink, which dries out your eyes, causing strain. The regular breaks to look out the window and away from the screen (MacBreakz includes eye exercises) and the wetting drops help keep my eyes healthy.
• Most important — Fred Stutzman’s Freedom app, to keep me from surfing the web when I should be working. I usually set it for 125 minutes, to really enforce that I should be working.
• For the paper, I had some clear goals defined: insert the new stats graphs, write text describing the graphs, create new stats tables as needed from my original data. Instead of floundering, I had specific tasks in mind.
• Also important: work in batch mode. When adding graphics into my Word file, insert one, got to the next page, insert one, etc. When applying the Figure style, walk through the file and apply it to each graphic. I like a lined border around each graphic, so do that action for each graphic before moving on to the next task; this enables me to run the command once and then select the next graphic, press Command+Y to repeat the previous command, and move on to the next. Trying to do all of those actions at one time for each graphic — insert graphic, format, write text, insert caption, etc. — would have meant too much fiddling and interruption for each operation. By breaking the separate tasks into separate streams, as it were, I was able to move more quickly. It also meant that when it was time to write, the figures were exquisitely formatted so that didn’t distract me.
• When writing, know when you’re creating text and when you’re editing text. That workday was dedicated to creating text and not to wordsmithing. I didn’t try to push my argument too heavily, I tried not to get too nervous when I could see some ideas not quite aligning as I’d hoped or that I hadn’t written as much as I’d hoped. The goal was to just get the words down in a rough draft, which is the hardest part of writing (at the start anyway!). I knew that the several passes through the text I still had to make would bring tweaks and additions and polish, so there was no need to get too stressed about expression and articulacy just yet.
• Others might not be able to do this, but I had a good breakfast and skipped lunch. Once I plopped myself down, unpacked my stuff, set up the computer, etc. I really didn’t want to interrupt the flow to pack up, eat, walk back, unpack, set up, and then hope I’d get back into the flow. I fueled up at the top of the day and it powered me well into the afternoon. Once I got in the flow of working on the paper, time did indeed both stand still and whiz by.

I’m now at the point where i’m trying to generate text for the last part of the paper, the discussion and conclusion, and find myself somewhat lacking for words. I’ve started with random ideas and sentences i put under those headings as I worked on other sections of the paper and so this has provided me a starting point. But the section still feels anemic.

I think the solution here is, again, to trust the process. As my favorite book on writing says, use the words you have to attract the words you want. So, let the the sections feel thin for now and as I continue sweeping through and reading and re-reading, let any other words or ideas bubble up when they’re ready.

I should say, this is also the time when it’s helpful to have another pair of eyes look at the text, so I’m trying to get a draft finished for my advisor to review so she can tell me where I’ve gone too far or not far enough.

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These are basically implementation intentions [1], as introduced to me by the Psychology Today blogger on procrastination, Dr. Timothy Pychyl [2] (who also has an extensive site devoted to his procrastination research, an affordable e-book on the topic, and scads of podcasts subscribable through iTunes).

An implementation intention basically says. “I will do behavior x when y happens so that I can achieve z.” The objective is to have your environment deliver the cue for the behavior you want to encourage. In addition to supporting your goals, implementation intentions can support something called prospective memory, which I’ll blog about someday (after putting it off for nearly a year!).

If a task I need or want to do is a one-off, or requires extra will-power to motivate myself to do it, then that’s a task I’m not likely to do. Therefore, I need to plan how to make more routine the things that I that I think will be beneficial to me. So here are some behaviors I’m trying to implement now:

• Liz always goes to bed an hour or so before I do. After I kiss her good night, I always walk past the bathroom on my way to my office. So, an obvious intention would be, “When I walk past the bathroom, floss and brush my teeth so I can have better gum health and keep the dentist far away from me.” I’m very bad about flossing regularly.
• I have my banjo lesson on Friday mornings. When I come back home, I always leave the banjo in its case until the next time I decide to practice, which may not be till Monday or Tuesday. And I leave the case sitting off to the side even though Liz gave me a banjo stand for my birthday. So, to encourage me getting my banjo out and ready to play, my new intention is: “When I get home from my lesson on Friday morning, I will remove the banjo from its case and put it on the stand so I can quickly pick up the instrument when I want to practice.” Even though removing the banjo from its case involves tiny effort, it’s just enough resistance to keep me from practicing. By making this new behavior a policy or rule, I remove the need to use emotions or will power to get the task done.
• On a related note (heh): I often practice my banjo immediately after I get home from work or school and before I pull my MacBook out of my backpack. I do this because once I have the MacBook out and plugged in, I get lost checking email, blogs, etc. With my desk clear of the computer, I have more room to set up my music, I can sit in my chair, swivel around to the banjo stand, pick up the banjer, and start plunking away. Little steps, and probably silly to someone who’s more disciplined, but the more I can clear my path of little stones like this, the easier the journey.
• A long-standing rule of mine has been to fill up the car when the gas gauge indicates there’s a quarter of a tank left. Lately, though, I’ve come close to running on fumes so I needed to change this. There’s nothing worse than being in a hurry to get to the next town and then discovering you have to divert to get some gas. My new rule now is to fill up every Friday on my way home from grocery shopping, no matter how much gas is in the tank. This lets me start off the next week with a full tank.

Now, will these intentions work every time? Maybe not. But by thinking about how to work around my natural resistance, I increase the chance that I’ll do them more often. And more often is better than not at all.

Links
[1] today.com/blog/dont-delay/201001/implementation-intentions-facilitate-action-control">http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/201001/implementation-intentions-facilitate-action-control
[2] today.com/blog/dont-delay">http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay

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I like Jonathan’s summation of the problem:

Boredom is like pain, it tells us that something is wrong and requires a change.

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And of course there’s my favorite strategy: try to identify what causes panic and avoid situations where it might arise.

Sensible (and I think a little tongue-in-cheek) advice, though I believe there is more to this issue and I fear I lack the articulateness and critical thought to tease out all the threads. Still, let’s try.

I take banjo lessons and my teacher one day asked me why I was taking a particular song at such a slow speed. “It’s the speed I’m most comfortable practicing at,” I said.

His reply was a zen slap: “Your comfort is not our concern.” He explained that if I continued practicing only at speeds that “felt good” then my improvement would proceed so slowly as to be invisible. Instead, it was better to crank up the metronome to faster-than-comfortable speeds, stress myself a little, and build up the muscles, resistance, experience, whatever, so that I could see improvement happen faster. Even if I go too fast and have to step back to a slower speed, I’d still be practicing at a more intense level than had I plodded along at “safe” speeds.

This is advice applicable to any activity where one may want to see progressive improvement: weight training, long-distance running (waves to Mark Z), scholastic work, leadership skills — deliberately putting yourself in an uncomfortable place in measured doses so that one gains the skills to operate competently with a higher or more capacity. (One key, I think, is defining the “measured doses” — you don’t go from couch potato to marathoner in a day.)

But I should note that, on days when it’s obvious that I’m feeling off or am easily irritated by my performance, my teacher backs off on that advice and will instead say, “Take it easy. Some days, you only need to go at speeds where you’re comfortable. Don’t beat yourself up.” So the wisdom, I guess, is knowing the difference between challenging oneself and abusing oneself.

With banjo, I intentionally crank up the metronome past my comfort zone and stress myself to play faster so that I can encourage my mind to confront and solve the problems I’m facing with fingering and rhythms. I know why I am putting myself through this discomfort — so I can play better. And when I practice a week later, the section that had previously given me so much trouble is now comfortably folded into my normal practice, causes less stress, and is now a building block to help me conquer more complicated material.

What’s needed here is my own willingness to confront a shortcoming. With any sort of training of this nature, a teacher or mentor is helpful. They can provide methods or rituals or processes we can employ that, over time, help us break the challenging problem down into pieces that can be easily solved, thereby reducing the discomfort and anxiety to mere questions of technique and experience. For example, only tackle four bars of a new song at a time till you feel they’re not unnatural under your fingers, then tackle the next four bars, then play all eight bars at a slow speed and then faster. Jog at an easy pace before you start sprinting. And so on. After a while, what seemed difficult or impossible is routine. One of the things my first coach noticed was that, once we get past a block or remove an unhelpful attitude or behavior, we find it hard to remember what our problem was to begin with or why we thought we had a problem at all. The new neural pathways that we’ve laid down bypass — and maybe help us forget — the pain we’d previously put ourselves through.

Now we edge from discomfort to panic. Deliberately putting oneself outside of one’s comfort zone is one thing, but life often thrusts us without warning into situations over which we have no control. In my still-young life, for example, I’ve been dumped, laid off, endured and recovered from detached retinas (both eyes), and forced to confront my moral/emotional/intellectual/human shortcomings in many other ways. I read a quote (from Alanis Morrisette, of all people) that said we’re all going to go through shit at one time or another, and we’re all going to get through it, so it doesn’t pay to worry about it. That’s useful to keep in mind, I guess, but hard to pull from memory when you’re in the throes of panic (particularly when you’re in an emergency room). It’s during the panic times — particularly times of illness — that I call on my meditation and yoga experiences to put my mind in a more helpful place that will help me endure what I’m going through, help channel my emotions so they don’t fuel panic, help improve my resiliency. Many of these situations we cannot avoid, we can only face them as well as we can. If you have someone’s hand to hold, even better.

But then, there is that class of panic that is irrational — fear of bridges, fear of elevators, fear of your thesis advisor (!). It’s not realistic to avoid bridges or elevators or your advisor all of the time. And it’s at that point that you dip into the various books and stuff I pointed to in the panic post, or enlist a therapist or counselor who can help you confront that fear or help make it go away.

Looking back on my spring, my panic was alleviated by my being surrounded by very understanding people who were able to relive me of some responsibilities that were simply more than I could handle, provide needed advice and — importantly — perspective on the situation, and generally just let me jabber as I tried to make sense of this experience. (Actually, I think making sense of something comes with time and distance from the event; when I’m in the weeds, I just want to get through it and make the pain stop).

I could have stayed in the PhD program, well outside of my comfort zone, where I was experiencing myriad panics at all sorts of levels — scholastically, logistically, with personal relationships — told myself that I’m not supposed to be comfortable, reconciled myself to living with the frustration, and just gotten on with it. Several people I know did that. But there are problems with that mindset: I didn’t know how to measure progress in any of these areas so I had no objective markers to show whether I was progressing or regressing. I didn’t have any methods — apart from brute application of time and energy — to help me get through the different types of work I was called on to do. I felt stuck in the same place and didn’t see my situation — or myself in that situation — improving.

But my biggest problem here was that I was never clear on why I was doing the PhD. And because I didn’t know why I wanted the PhD, I couldn’t understand why I had to suffer what I was suffering. If I had had a clear picture of the destination, I could have found a way to suffer through the journey.

Anyway — some more jabbering on a topic that, were I to talk about it with everyone I know, would make even me bored. Best to talk about it here where I can get it out of my system and spare the ears of my dear friends.

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His post on How to Thwart Panic struck very close to home for me as I experienced that feeling quite a bit this past spring. As he says, the mind cannot always be trusted. It has picked up habits of thought that do not serve us anymore and that we would do well to challenge.

Alex provides good basic info, but a few details to some of his points may help.

• When you feel yourself starting to panic or feel anxious, examine the thought and try to classify it based on this list of cognitive distortions. These distortions, and the idea of mentally challenging these thoughts, was popularized by David Burns’ book Feeling Good. I would say that book, and a later book by Burns, When Panic Attacks, offer terrific advice and dozens of techniques to employ that will help you get over panic, procrastination, and other mental maladies.
• When in the throes of panic, stopping to rate the discomfort on a 1-10 or 1-100 scale is a good way to take a step back and look at yourself objectively. Moving from an all-or-nothing mindset to more of a continuum mindset has been very helpful for me.
• Burns has a very good and easy technique where you draw a line down the middle of a sheet of paper, write the anxiety-producing thought on the left side, and then on the right, identify the type of cognitive distortion you’re using, and then write a logical refutation of the bad thought. The trick to this is that your refutation has to be something your brain will believe. It can’t be a cliché; it needs to make sense. So if the bad thought is, “I’ll never get this project done,” I would identify that as a magnification error (or awfullizing as Albert Ellis would call it), and then write this refutation, “I have gotten many other projects done in the past, and I will certainly get *this* project done. I may not get it done in the next 5 minutes, but I can certainly work on a piece of it right now. I’ve found that in the past, when I start working on a project, and taking action, the anxiety tends to dissipate very quickly.”

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All my little productivity obsessions and systems were all about creating my own infrastructure: my calendar, my to-do list, my inbox, my habits, all of it. If I were to look at myself and my life as if it were a business, then these are the tools I need to make sure the business runs efficiently and doesn’t fall behind. We all do it with our reminders for paying the bills, balancing the checkbook, getting the car’s oil changed, keeping receipts in a shoebox for income taxes, etc.

But these systems are not the thing itself that I want to accomplish; rather, they’re the mundane roads and bridges that help me get where I need to go.

Transitioning now to the grad-student life, I see that I’ll be an entrepreneur of a sort: I have to define my domain of interest, find interested backers and supporters (faculty to be on my committee), find funding (grants, fellowships), create a product line (articles, studies), create a network of professional contacts, etc. And this “business” needs to be supported by an infrastructure that helps me get the work done.

Reading that tweet helped me realize that what I’ve been doing this year and especially the past few months was preparing infrastructure to support me in my new life. I couldn’t have said what I was doing or why, but now I can.

So this is what I did:

• Back in March, Liz and I sat down with a spreadsheet and looked at our finances and began thinking about how to make this transition work, could we afford it, what about health insurance, professional dues, subscriptions, mortgage, car insurance, groceries, etc. I told a friend of mine at school we were doing this and she said, “That’s so grown up!”
• I bought a 23″ Dell widescreen monitor, with an external speaker, so that I had a big, bright screen where I could tile windows and not have to squint. The speaker lets me listen to my iTunes music while I work. As has been well-documented, the biggest productivity gains come from having large or multiple monitors, and I have to say it’s been the best purchase I’ve made in a long time.
• An Apple external keyboard, with the number pad, lots of function keys, etc. to trick out my 13″ BlackBook. Great key action and easier to type on than the laptop’s keyboard. (I bought this and the monitor over the no-sales-tax weekend.)
• The above purchases also meant a total re-think of my desk and office layout at home, and that arrangement is still ongoing. But still, part of the process.
• Bought a new pair of walking shoes since I’m walking a lot more now on campus and to and from the bus. (Also bought with no sales tax.)
• Speaking of the bus: I got a TTA transit card (free rides for a year, courtesy UNC’s CAP program) and a gatecard that lets me park at the American Tobacco parking deck near the Durham bus terminals. The Beauteous Liz and I made a test run of the TTA route beforehand to get a feel for how long it takes. I decided I could live with the longer ride-time since it means I now don’t have to drive through traffic, and it lets me get some last-minute reading in before class.
• I’ve been reading tons of blog posts from Cal Newport’s Study Hacks site, which I think is an essential read for students of whatever stripe. It’s geared mainly to undergraduates, but graduate students will find plenty here to help them. Cal recently turned in his dissertation — Congratulations! — and I’m adopting several of his techniques for reading, notetaking, filing, etc. as part of my systems infrastructure.
• I bought several hundredweight of Mac programs too — DevonThink and Bookends spring immediately to mind — to help me manage the various information streams flowing into my tiny head.
• I also bought a cheap telephone to keep in my office, since I’m lucky enough to have a phone jack already installed. Randy Pausch recommended in his time management lecture to make sure there’s a speakerphone option, so you can work while listening to the soothing on-hold music.

Even my silly posts on writing lit reviews and research papers document my experiments with creating repeatable processes to reduce the chaos and mechanical effort of getting through school. There will always be thinking and writing, and they will always take time and will be hard work. but I want the tools, habits, and systems to help with some of the heavy lifting so I don’t have to spend thought and energy engineering a new process every time. I’ll be using this blog as a place to document some of those terribly nerdy student things.

And I hope these tools can be adapted and re-fitted to other jobs and assignments I take on as I move through the academy’s alimentary canal.

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The essay I tore out and kept in my “Essays” folder lo these many years was by the writer Norman Lavers, now retired from teaching English and enthusiastically maintaining a site on The Robber Flies of Crowley’s Ridge, Arkansas. If you want to know all there is to know about these vicious critters, that’s the site for you.

The essay he wrote, titled “On the Simple Life,” is a fine personal essay that sweeps over the course of his life, the choices he made, and the choices he continues to make. It’s a cranky, curmudgeonly view of the modern world. He preaches about retiring early in your life and then going to work, being frugal with your time, money, and attention (“kill your TV” advice), and generally simplifying your life by letting go of the things that aren’t needed in favor of the essentials that honor you.

The reason I kept the essay, I think, was that he put into words something I’d not seen up to that point. I’ve seen it since (Stutzman mentions it in my previous post) but I’ve come back to it so much in my mind that I thought I’d put the passages here.

He compares the bombardment of TV images to the Web’s bombardment of opinion, flash, etc. You can guess his opinion.

Get off the internet. Oh, how can I? It’s got everything on it. Exactly, and you’re letting it all into your house and into your mind. Be more selective…[O]n the net, I have my privacy. You don’t, you’ve let the whole world in. You’ve let everybody in, and yet no one’s there. Virtual people have invaded your privacy. They’re god-awful boring, but you’re too mesmerized to respond by turning them off…

An essential part of getting off the web is: Don’t do e-mail. But it’s so convenient, so cheap, you will tell me. That’s the problem. ..I inveighed against e-mail in one of my classes and a girl said, “Oh, but this is how I’ve been able to keep in touch with all my friends from high school. Without e-mail I couldn’t have done it.” I was too polite, of course, to say, You should be leaving those kids behind and getting on with your life. If you wouldn’t have kept in touch without e-mail, it means you probably shouldn’t be keeping in touch now. They are getting in the way of your maturing.

If someone distant wants to get in touch with me, he’s going to have to sit down and write me a letter. It takes time, it costs the price of a stamp. He’s going to have to say something that will still be valid several days later when I receive his letter. If I’m not worth it to him, then his emailed Have a nice day! is not worth my receiving…If I had e-mail, I would have a sort of obligation to checked to see what I had each day, and 99% of it (to judge by what my friends say) would be trash, another invasion of privacy. With letters, they come in the box, you can open them when you’re ready, read them a few times, answer at your leisure, It’s a more humane rhythm. Letters can approach to literature. Can you imagine wanting to read Keats’s collected e-mail notes? E-mail is like television: you do it because it is free and easy–but in return it takes away your time, and for one good thing you get from it, you get 99 things of dross. If you are actively doing literary or scientific research, where real information is being exchanged, or if it’s part of your job, okay, yes. For communication with people, no.

Lavers’ preferred mode of engagement is to grow one’s own creative projects, having to do with art or with nature, activities that take you out of yourself and place you in a state of meditation. Hence his enthusiasm with the Robber Flies.

Yes, it’s over the top, but I like his firm this-is-how-it-is tone, which is what makes reading essays fun. Certainly, junk mail is an invasion of privacy, and one is not ever obligated to return an email immediately after it’s been received.

But I was struck by Lavers’ point about e-mail keeping alive relationships that should probably die a natural death and Fred’s point about middle-aged Facebook users reconnecting with people from their high school and college days 20 or more years before. There is the warm flush of remembering what we used to be like, and there’s a pleasing nostalgia that’s surely fine to experience now and then, if only to remind us that maybe those old days weren’t so bad. But we aren’t those people anymore, and I don’t wish to go back to that foreign country anymore. (A no-prize for whoever gets that literary reference!) And the economics of energy, time, and attention are such that we only have resources for the immediate, not the distant.

When I entered NCSU in 1979, I kept in touch with a few friends from high school (some of whom were in my freshman classes) but by my sophomore year, I was in a new world with new friends. When I left college, it took longer to separate myself from that comfortable world, but I eventually landed in Rocky Mount and started a new life there. I left in 1988 and brought no one with me from my 4 years there. If email had been around then, how long would I have stayed attuned to the local gossip, the dramas? I don’t know. Given my state of mind and emotions at the time, I would probably have kept up an unhealthy level of attachment. It was good for me that email and FB weren’t around back then.

Instead, I did (and still do) as Lavers suggested: I wrote letters. Letters to friends served as my journal, my writing practice, my meditation time. These days, with so little time available to me to get into the mindset that letter-writing demands, I send cards instead. I even send them to friends to who live nearby. There’s something just more special and personal to me when I see an envelope with a stamp and a handwritten address. I think it’s special enough to send to dear friends and I do it simply because I enjoy it. I don’t expect reciprocity or obligation–that’s not the reason to write to friends who’ve stood the test of time. One does it because of love and attachment and, I think, creative expression. Selfish reasons, ultimately, but delightful ones, as well.

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