#the inside of obsidian vs what you can see from the outside is soooo cool

[eanholt]

Thank you. You got me back into my little workshop today. I've had this obsidian cab I made for a friend before she passed (fuck cancer), and I never got a chance to make a full piece of jewelry out of it for her. I wanted to finish the project, though, and to make a thing to remember her by.

Today I used the bevel grinding jig I made earlier this summer to regrind its girdle (lesson learned: I can't eyeball a good girdle angle yet), and started on making an open backed bezel to hold it. I soldered the bezel strip, which is a nice snug fit, but then my ring for the back ended up not being a snug fit in that so it wouldn't solder right Another lesson in dry fitting and sneaking up on your line instead of just cutting to measurement, I guess. I think if I flatten it a bit it might stretch out to be a good fit for soldering. Or it'll be yet another lesson and I'll make another one.

I've had some ugh field around this hobby after a few setbacks, but this was a good thing to do with today.

And I also had a good talk with my wife about whether a board I'm looking at joining gets at what feels important to me in light of recent events, and my conclusion is that I want to do it and more.

Hey, also, all the anarchist shit aside, tomorrow I want you to make something.

I forced myself to draw something after the 2016 election. I forced myself to draw something when my mother died in 2018. I forced myself to draw something when my spouse was hospitalized for multiple organ failure in 2021.

When you are miserable, make something. Add a row to your project, bake a box cake, draw on a sheet of lined paper, write a poem on a napkin, fold an origami shirt out of a dollar bill, make your favorite recipe for dinner, but make something with your hands, something that you can hold and look at engage your senses in.

It won't fix the world, but it will change the world. You will have made something that didn't exist before. You will have impacted your reality, even in a very small way. And it is going to be something you made *after.* Something bad happened, something shook you, and you made something after, in spite of it.