May 25, 2025

I thought my character flaws were all the times I made mistakes.

Turns out my character flaw was believing I could be perfect.

February 23, 2025

Not About TETRIS

Zine made imperfectly on my typewriter reads: Have you ever played TETRIS for so long that you see falling blocks in your daydreams? This experience is so common it has a name: THE TETRIS EFFECT It's a lot like having an ear worm. A song that pops into your head repeatedly. But more fun. Back in my early 20's (when lots of kids go out partying) I hung out with theatre nerds clustered around a desktop computer taking turns playing TETRIS. I think we were all seeing TETRIS blocks in our sleep. I was one of the best. My hand eye coordination is not that great, but I do have excellent pattern recognition (thanks autism) so I am a deft hand at TETRIS on PC. Or I was. Last year, I started playing TETRIS with my kid. Not real TETRIS. A mobile version where you place tetrominoes" into a square grid. No falling bricks No time limit. You play at your own pace. It's basically TETRIS style tangrams. You might have expected I'd be a bit rusty, but my brain immediately accessed endless hours of TETRIS experience & favorite strategies. BUT when you're taking turns with a 4 year old games become somewhat chaotic; you find yourself in situations you'd never have put yourself in. it wasn't long before I realized my strategies weren't working. *Yes, there is a real name for TETRIS pieces.

Green, yellow, purple and blue TETRIS pieces fall beside the following text (as if to pile up to a game over.) But it wasn't because of my Player Two...
I was applying old rules to a new game.
Classic TETRIS requires that you play from the top down. If you make a mess it takes up valuable space and is hard work to correct.
Mess up enough and it's GAME OVER.
This new game allows you to place pieces anywhere. And rows clear both horizontally & vertically.
I was playing in one plane and suddenly there were two. IT may sound simple, but it was working against every instinct I had.
My kid, not having the baggage of traditional TETRIS, picked up on this nuance much more quick ly... putting blocks thatt were "wrong" and clearing rows.
Sometimes multiple at once.
I was determined to wrap my head around the new dimensions.
So I started playing by myself in the evening,
My score grew higher & higher as I broke through mental blocks to see new possibilities.

This new TETRIS game isn't about perfection.
It is about making the best moves you can with the blocks you have.
Mess and all.
This zine isn't about TETRIS.
February, 2025
A KINDLE CURIOSITY ZINE

—

Zine Shop

Past zine issues are available for purchase in my zine shop.

Subscribe for Monthly Zines via Snail Mail! 🐌 📬

Virtual Zines via Email

Open airmail envelope with blue and green stripes

April 13, 2024

Understanding Perfectionism
by Austin Kleon

Morgan Schafler says that perfectionists are people who “consistently notice the difference between an ideal and a reality,” and more often than not, have “a compulsion to bridge the gulf between reality and an ideal.” In her view, the perfectionist holds a kind of creative tension that contains an energy capable of creation or destruction.

June 17, 2022

Intentional Inconsistency

Holding 3 years of motherhood journals.

The very idea that inconsistency is something to practice may fly in the face of everything you’ve ever heard.

It’s certainly the antithesis of what Julia Cameron prescribes in her book The Artist’s Way.*

*I actually love this book, but her specific creative process hasn’t been a good fit for me since my kid was born.

UK edition of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron surrounded by blue art supplies: paints, pencils, pastels, thread and and brushes.

During my autism evaluation the psychologist noted that I was an “all in” person. I was drowning in commitments and my evaluator suggested I try practicing inconsistency. I was completely blind to having that choice.

My brain only sees “do” or “do not.” (I would be an excellent Jedi Master.)

Its been a very long and slow process to begin shifting this.

That’s why I call it a practice. I mean that in the same way someone has a yoga practice or a gratitude practice. Inconsistency is something I’m actively working to cultivate in my daily life.

Because of this tendency I avoid “don’t break the chain” mindset like the plague. I’ve fallen under its spell many times and its pretty ugly. I could chain 300 days and if I miss a day its all over for me.

That broken chain feels worse than starting from zero.

My best defense is to embrace inconsistency. To invite it in.

When I was journaling as a new mum I was often faced with the option to sleep or to write. And, in my maternal wisdom, I knew that Julia was wrong.

Art is important, but sleep is number one.

Here I am three years later.

I’m celebrating 916 journal pages during the first three years of motherhood. (189 of those were using a simple daily check in you can download here.)

I broke the chain many times.

I chose sleep, and baths, and yes sometimes even Stranger Things.

And I don’t regret it.

Because I was intentionally inconsistent this isn’t a failure. It’s a win. It’s me taking care of myself and my creative ecosystem.

Those 673 pages would not exist without taking this approach. (The same goes for writing my books by the way. That process was also wildly inconsistent.)

So here I am with a fist full of journal inserts (it is pretty satisfying they all match, isn’t it?)

Holding a handful of journal inserts over a seafoam bedspread. The top one is wrinkled and slightly chewed.

…one of which was nibbled by my child when they were in the human goat phase. 😂

Black and white photo of an infant chewing on my journal entry. I think this was a month or two before they started walking so almost a toddler, but not quite.

This taste for paper is part of why I found journaling time hard to come by. I’m writing more these days, but I still want to hold this practice with a loose grip.

How do you feel about consistency? Love it or hate it?

Ok, it sounds like my child has waken up grumpy from their nap so my quiet time is all used up.

Until next time,

P.S. If you resonated this blog post you may enjoy the ramble podcast I recorded on the same topic.

Originally published to Substack on Jun 17, 2022.