“Squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi. I can tell it’s gonna be a long road.” – TS

That’s a strange phrase, “like the back of my hand”. It seems like I know the front of my hands a lot better than the back. Maybe focusing on the front is a potter’s thing. We like insides just as much as outsides; a lot more than the average Jane.

Things finally seem to be going in a good direction for me. It’s been a long road. Not everything, not guaranteed. But I feel the vector gradually shifting from negative to neutral to positive. Kind of unbelievable, really.

That said, there’s always plenty of time left for me to fuck it all up. My capacity for self-sabotage seems limitless, some days. If I do — fuck it all up, that is — maybe I’ll get a tattoo. On the inside of my right forearm, in block S T O N E C A R V I N G letters; starting at the wrist and going up, left to right, to the inner elbow. It will say, “This was a terrible idea.”

Fuck it. Sometimes you’ve just gotta say, “Fuck it, let’s do this,” and kick off a one-man dance party:

I spoke too soon. _Now_ it's a party!

A post shared by Scott Cooper (@stearth) on Nov 11, 2017 at 3:14pm PST

I still haven’t cancelled my sale. But I still haven’t sent the postcard off to the printer yet, either. Usually, that’s the demarcation line. I’ve glazed and wadded the first load of pots, but I still haven’t fired anything. I was a thousand percent committed to starting early this year — my first target date was mid-October — before everything else went fractal on me. Ah well. ‘So it goes.’ What are you gonna do?

The irony is this might be the best batch of bisqueware I’ve had in a while. Maybe a long while. Ends up better brain chemistry helps in the studio, too. Who would’ve guessed? Speaking of regrets and blaming yourself for belatedly figuring out something important: by Odin’s Beard it kills me to imagine what pots I could have made, what discoveries discovered, what problems solved, if I’d started all this sooner. /Kills/ me.

But. But… No time machines. The path of regrets leads back into the dismal swamp. Sometimes you’ve just gotta drop a full power Cone of Silence down on that shit. FILDI. Just do it. Be the change you want to see. And don’t forget, Scott: water bugs.

Water bugs, and trout.

Below.