I just returned from a full seven days in Seattle—my first time visiting. I was attending CreativePro Week, a fantabulous conference I highly recommend for graphic designers. (Next year's will be held in Austin.)

Here are a few things I loved about it.

• Within my first fifteen minutes at the conference, I ran into one of my favorite former colleagues from Publix Super Markets, Inc., dynamite designer and lovely human Neal Mitchell. As you can see, we were a good distance from the office we used to work in together. Small world and all that.

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• I gave an Ignite talk (20 slides auto-advancing every 15 seconds over 5 minutes) about the history of "lorem ipsum" placeholder text and many other topics having to do with English, etymology, printing, and the like. I learned SO MUCH preparing this talk. Did you know, for example, that the man who gave Timex its name, according to his son, liked to read Time magazine and used a lot of Kleenex, so he put the two names together? (This is a slide from my presentation.)

That photo is a pretty good representation of my trip: just lovely. I'm so glad I went, and I'm looking forward to CreativePro Week 2020!

The good news is that I've been busy lately.

The bad news is that I haven't had time to do all the stuff I love to do, including writing for me. I've started a LinkedIn article called "Don't Write Like a Psychopath" that I can't wait to finish. I've been invited to write a blog for the fine folks at CreativePro.com but haven't had a chance to do it just yet. And I want to put together the Ignite talk I'm giving at CreativePro Week in June, but that's not happening just yet.

But dangit, I'm going to write a blog right now, and everything else can wait. I'm going to make this quick—and hopefully compelling and/or informative.

• I attended Crop last week in Baton Rouge, and it was FABulous. I'm so glad I went. In addition to learning from and meeting some amazing designers, I got to spend several hours in New Orleans eating a great meal at Atchafalaya and walking up and down Magazine Street.
• I've been binge-listening to My Favorite Murder, the wildly popular true-crime comedy podcast. I'm not sure I'm ready to call myself a murderino, but I may be getting there.
• I've gotten involved with a great freelancing group in Denver. We're going to host Freelance Business Week in Denver September 30–October 4, 2019, should anyone want to speak, attend, or volunteer.
• I got help from Drew Hornbein and I now have sign-up pages for two emails I send out. One is a listing of events in the Denver-Boulder area that freelancers, graphic designers, and other creative types might appreciate; the other is an email that includes the little grammar/spelling lessons I've been sharing on social media. Feel free to sign up!
• I attended the Ad Club Freelancer Fling this week, and it was a great opportunity to share my wonderful new business cards, designed by my friend Michael Reardon. Each card has a different fun word and definition on the back, including "sesquipedalian," "collywobbles," and "hornswoggle."
• I've been volunteering a lot lately, not only for the aforementioned freelancers group but for the wonderful Sister Carmen Food Bank, AIGA Colorado, and The One Club for Creativity Denver. 
• This weekend, I'm getting together with 11 of my friends from college--an event I look forward to every year.

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Those are the highlights. Consider this weblog updated!

It was just over a year ago that I blogged here about how much I love The Jackie & Laurie Show podcast, hosted by comedians Jackie Kashian and Laurie Kilmartin​. Well, my opinion hasn't changed a bit—I've listened to every single podcast episode since I posted that blog. 

Also over the past year, I've continued to work at learning Adobe Suite—Illustrator and InDesign in particular. I've taken Lynda classes (which, chances are, you can access through your public library!) as well as SkillShare classes. (If you'd like two free months of SkillShare Premium, which is terrific, you can use this link.) I certainly haven't *mastered* these complex programs, but I can honestly say that I've learned a lot and have significantly more capabilities than I used to.

So, to kill two cravings with one stone, I volunteered to typeset something for The Jackie and Laurie Show: a list of their "Comics of the Week"—female comedians they think are particularly wonderful.

Quick aside: The comedy world continues to be grossly imbalanced, gender-wise. Women comedians still get less credit and fewer opportunities, and are simply less well known than their male counterparts. Therefore,  the "Comic of the Week" is a great vehicle for improving women comedians' visibility, attendance, bookings, and success.

So about a year ago, I took all of Jackie and Laurie's Comics of the Week and used Adobe InDesign to arrange them into a shareworthy list entitled, "Laugh More in 2018." And recently, since the list of comedians had grown to 150, I laid out a new list. And here it is! Give it a good look, and then check out these great comedians. Watch their videos. Listen to their albums. And go see them live—you'll be glad you did, and so will they.

I maintain that life is merely the procrastination of death. So to me, procrastination is not inherently a bad thing.

I'm not talking about missing deadlines (bad) or letting people down (also bad). I'm talking about simply opting to put certain tasks off for a bit. Until the flames of an encroaching deadline burn a bit hotter, gifting me with greater fervor and efficiency.

From what I can tell, if we look to the Latin, procrastination technically means to put something off from one day to another, with "pro" meaning "forward" and "crastinus" meaning "of tomorrow."

But a skilled procrastinator (👋) might put something off for only a couple of hours. Or possibly a couple of days. Ideally, you put a task off until precisely the point when you have to get going on it to complete it on time (and well). If you're like me, your subconscious knows exactly—miraculously—when this moment is.

Procrastination has all sorts of judgy connotations. As Merriam-Webster puts it, "It typically implies blameworthy delay especially through laziness or apathy."

I'm here to tell you different. Done right, procrastination can increase productivity and improve quality of life.

​I began discovering this in college, when I found myself reading one assigned book to avoid reading another one. I was still getting things done, just not in the most linear way.

Today, my procrastination game is strong. I will vacuum rather than work on taxes. I will record my expenses rather than writing a brochure. I will create social media posts instead of writing a blog.

But eventually (as you can see), I will write that blog. I will meet my deadlines. I will get everything done, in good time, in the most procrastinabulous way.

Yesterday, early in the morning, my boss told me to take the day off.

My boss, of course, is me.

I decided I would do three things:

• Enjoy the wonderful weather.
• Get some exercise by taking a long walk.
• Figure out how to use the regional bus system to get to and from Denver (22 miles from my home).

Since I have a membership at the Denver Art Museum, I made that my destination. They have a fabulous exhibition of Rembrandt's prints right now. And although I'd been to it, I hadn't been able to see it all during my first visit.

​And so, using three different apps, I managed to get down to Union Station using public transportation. (Yes, I did get on the wrong bus initially, but it all worked out.) I took a nice long walk from the station to the museum. Ahhh—just what I wanted.

The museum has a studio where you can make your own prints right now—to complement the Rembrandt exhibit. Printmaking is something I've always wanted to explore, as I've found the whole process sort of mysterious and confusing. The previous time I'd been at the museum, I'd made this print using just a sheet of styrofoam and the tip of a pencil. (Hold your applause.)

Yesterday, when I returned to the museum, I ended up going straight back into the studio. Rembrandt can wait, I thought. I'm going to carve a linoleum print.

I was the first studio visitor of the day, and I got right to work. Again, I drew a simple bird surrounded by foliage. But unlike the styrofoam print, this time, I would need to carve out everything I did *not* want to make an imprint on the paper. And so began a remarkably tricky and time-consuming process of carving linoleum.

I don't think I raised my head once while I worked.

I heard mothers and small children and teenagers and senior citizens come in, make projects, and leave. I heard a tiny person demonstrate her fatigue with several tantrums. I heard a young girl talk about her tricky science project, involving planets and styrofoam spheres. I kept working.

Even though I overheard several warnings about the sharpness of the carving tools. I started to find them insufficiently sharp. Sometimes they seemed to be tearing the linoleum more than cutting it. But I persevered.

I heard people talk about getting lunch. I knew I should eat something. But I couldn't stop.

At long, long last, I felt like my carving was complete. I chose a paint color, applied it to my linoleum, and made a few prints. I hung one up to dry. I looked at the time—I'd been at it for FOUR HOURS.

It was the wonderful David Rakoff who taught me about this phenomenon of unbroken focus in a piece he did for This American Life called "Martha, My Dear." He introduced me to ​Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and the concept of "flow." Flow is that sensation that's part absorption, part determination, and part hypnosis. It's when you're exactly where you want to be, doing precisely what you want to be doing. And happily, it's how I spent my day off.

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As a freelance copywriter, I hear this career advice over and over: "You have to have a niche." To which a voice inside my head whines, "But I don't waaaaaaant to have a niche." (I can't even decide whether I want to pronounce that word "nitch" or "neesh." Please don't make me commit my entire career to one skinny vertical.)

Here's the thing. When it comes to effective advertising and marketing, it's really all the same: You are communicating with human beings. First, you identify what your target customer cares about: What do they yearn for? What are they anxious about? What hurdles do they face? You figure out how [insert product or service here] will improve this target customer's life. How will it eliminate their headaches? How will it save them time, money, or effort? And how will they know that it's the best solution, both before and after their purchase? And how can you get your message across to them in a way that resonates?

I've advertised mutual funds and wedding cakes. I've marketed private schools to discriminating families and washing machines to laundromat owners. B2B, B2C, healthcare, software, décor, travel—you name it, I've probably done it. And if I haven't, I feel certain that I could.

But recently, I do keep asking myself: What do I enjoy working on? And who do I enjoy working with? And here, I'm beginning to sense some discrimination.

With such musing, I experience a certain kind of delight: the same one I relish whenever I have my eyes examined at the optometrist's office. "Which is better," the doctor asks me as I peer through various lenses at the letters on the eye chart. "This? Or this?" "Is it better now? Or now?"

I absolutely LOVE that part of eye exams. I love considering the two competing options, occasionally asking to see them again, and then announcing my answer with confidence. And I love knowing that with every honest, accurate declaration, I am getting one step closer to a vision prescription that is going to improve my life.

Similarly, I may be narrowing my freelancing focus just a teeny bit. My interests remain broad, admittedly, but I'm beginning to ask myself the question "Which is better?" more frequently. And giving more consideration to every answer. I can't wait to see what kind of career prescription I end up with.

This morning, I was given this dollar by a stranger. There were strings attached.

I was attending a "Caffeinated Mornings" event in Boulder. The featured speaker, Norm Shearer, posed a provocative challenge. He gave 30 audience members (including me) a crisp one-dollar bill each and asked that we do as much good with that dollar as we can—and then report back to him.

He's done this many times before, so he shared a few examples: A woman who bought a bag of clothespins, wrote complimentary and kind statements on them, and surreptitiously clipped them to people (on a backpack, say). A man who invested in a balsa wood airplane and took the time to play with a neighbor-kid who seemed to get left out of his large family's activities. A woman who lent order and courtesy to her apartment complex's chaotic dirt parking lot by spray-painting parking spots (which continued to be used after the paint wore away).

So, my ideas are percolating.

I'm reminded of my friend's cousin, who, finding himself completely broke in Paris, wrote out some recipes, used his last few francs to photocopy them, sold them on the street, and began his rise out of poverty.

I'm a writer, so I wonder if there are letters I could send. Or signs I could post. My daughter had a good idea—create and disperse a list of hotlines.

My daughter also thinks it's "cheating" if I ask for ideas here. I disagree. I say that when it's a good idea you're aiming for, the more minds, the merrier.

So: Any thoughts?