it is necessary instead to sit down and kinda try and quiet that voice, and then start with considering my physical needs, kinda mentally run through the maslow's pyramid from bottom to top as if I'm dealing with a little kid throwing a tantrum. like, did we sleep last night? have we had lunch? am I lonely? should I call my aunt? do I want to finish the book I've been reading? do I want to boil chicken bones today? what's bothering me? I'll then try out a couple of things that seem likely and while they may not be The Thing it's useful to build momentum anyways.

but like, if I give it space, the answer will float upwards into view and it's usually something I've been putting off for a long-ass time.

and it'll sound So Stupid to the Talking Mind, who has important tasks that it's trying to get done, but we're going to tell that voice that the kitchen will wait while we take down the Christmas tree, fold the laundry that's been in the basket for a week, sketch the idea, call my aunt, whatever it is, and inevitably the Linchpin Task will take about half an hour, and once it's done I can feel the weight lifted off my shoulders.

Linchpin Tasks are sometimes that it's time to deal with The Emotions At The Bottom Of The Pile, which is when a pile of stuff builds up to cover whatever is at the bottom being emotionally fraught. (letters, the shirt I wore the day my grandpa died, y'know, The Emotions)

I've gotten better at identifying when those piles are starting to accrete and dealing with them before they get bad, but like, you gotta be able to identify the pile of stuff your eyeballs keep slipping off because it feels too emotionally difficult to deal with right now, and like, learning to ignore the part of the mind that wants to assign task priority levels is a counter-intuitive way to get things done.

the woke left: young and fashionable. visible tattoos. often enjoys matcha, lavender flavoring, oat milk, and cold foam. pretty decent customers.

sweet old man: drinks very sweet iced lattes, pays in cash, puts all of his change in the tip jar. sometimes orders hot coffee and i get scared that his shaky old man hands will spill it and he'll get burned but that has not yet happened and god willing never shall.

evil old man: only wants drip coffee and declares it ridiculous that any other form of coffee exists. some variants only want americanos and these variants are even scarier. watch out.

sweet old woman: might need her daughter's help to order but is very bubbly and open to trying new things. compliments baristas freely and frequently.

evil old woman: does not want coffee and only wants sweet tea or soda. will not tip even if she spends three hours in the shop repeatedly asking baristas to fetch things for her.

errand husband: either stiltedly recites an order to you or shows you the order in their texts/notes app. needs to step out of line and make a phone call if you ask any follow-up questions.

grindset girlie: always wearing scrubs, an apron, and/or a name tag. orders the exact same thing every day and knows the exact change she'll need to pay for it. her regular order is both extremely caffeinated and extremely sweet.

#mamabear: is actively wrangling two to four children while ordering. order changes repeatedly because the children cannot decide if they want a muffin or a cookie or apple juice or chocolate milk etc. for some reason these women are always wearing an article of clothing or carrying some personalized item that says "mama" on it.

schoolchildren: band of two to eight adolescents hanging out after school. extremely indecisive but generally quite polite and tip well.

amnesiac in love: grown adult who needs their partner to tell them what they like. gets asked a question about their own preferences and turns to their partner to answer for them. generally acts like a shy child looking to their guardian for behavioral cues if you try to interact with them and only wants to talk to mommy i mean their wife.

Now of course loans. To my understanding "loans" are commonly done, but miss what is hot. Loans, real loans, impose risk (though on both parties to some degree) and a beautiful struggle against the grim inevitability of a formula. With high interest rates and complex clauses (particularly on default) they are even better, and that symmetry of risk can be distilled into something beautiful. As Getty said, "If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem".

But these are the obvious financial instruments, and also somewhat boring ones. There isn't really much creativity in them.

But what about (re)insurance at favorable rates? Just think of the moral hazard and asymmetry of risk! Or imagine the classic of highly leveraged basis swaps piling up risk with insufficient margin management infrastructure! Or, somewhat related to the previous, non-consensual ownership of the basis risk of a structured product? Or how about some contract selling a share of all future earnings which is tradable and creates a fiduciary duty to whoever holds it? Or slavery in exchange for a transfer of debts? Or an endless, terrible spiral of PIK toggle notes! (And just imagine the risk to note holders!)

Happy Pride everyone! Decided to draw Anthea and Nari in modern clothes for this! (though Nari looks like a PTA dad lol, mans doesn't know fashion).

Crimson Angel Narilamb flags:

🐛 Buuuuuuuuuggggg 🐛

It’s done! One of the coolest pieces I’ve done so far!

She’s 2ftx2ft, 293 pieces, and many different reds 🖤

I fucking love doing massive pieces 🖤 can’t wait to design my next one. What should I theme it around?