Porcelain Spinner

Posted on November 3, 2024 by Nicole

Photo taken by me. From the exhibition “Mariana Castillo Deball: The Flames Leave a Feathered Mark on the Clay Spider in the Chamber of Ash and Clay.” Currently on display at the Arizona State University Art Museum.

Fun with words today. Inspired by the piece above.

Spin pot
Spider dot
Too shallow to hold a floral show.

Spin dot
Spider pot
Headless yet it knows.

Spin spindly spider
The ceramic mold cannot hold you.
The breakable hold cannot mold you.

Spin pot
Spider dot
Are you here for looks or?

Spin dot
Spider pot
Do you have a purpose forward?

Spin spindly spider
You were brought here for our amusements.
But you are so much more.

3 Things

Posted on October 18, 2024 by Nicole

What’s something most people don’t know about you?

I started drinking coffee when I was in elementary school.
I’ve actually wanted to leave Phoenix several times but thus far it’s never quite worked out for me.
I took a fancy version of shop in high school and learned how to read a schematic and built some cool stuff like a light bulb that turns on automatically in the dark. I could also tell you the amount of ohms in a transistor based on the color of the bands at the end of the transistor. I have no clue how to do any of that now.

From the Notebook

Posted on August 10, 2024 by Nicole

This weekend, I’m finishing up my final project for a post-grad certificate program I’ve been enrolled in since January of this year. I’m currently knee deep in executing Python code to create a model that will assign a database of IT support tickets into different categories. Fun stuff! So while I’m busy working in a Jupyter notebook, I thought to keep thing moving along on my blog, I’d share some work from another notebook.

*Sophomore Yr English Poetry Notebook* *ca. 1996*

My sophomore year English instructor had us put together a notebook of our work over the fall and spring semesters. I didn’t have a computer at home at the time, so I remember working on this during my lunch break in the school’s computer lab. I don’t know why I chose a cursive font but whatever! She was nice enough to package our work in a spiral bound and laminated notebook, which I still have today.

I’ll share page 6 as it contains 1) a poem about summertime 2) a limerick and 3) a haiku.

It’s not award winning work, but hey I was 16 when I wrote these. The limerick still cracks me up- which tells me my humor has not changed much since I was in high school.

Seasons Poem

The hot blazing sun.

Its rays beam down to the Earth like a laser.

The days seem to last an eternity.

Patiently I wait for cool breezes.

As I step onto the sizzling sidewalk , I wonder

Will this hellish weather ever end?

Finally, I see a yellow leaf floating to the ground

As the wind travels through the cool night air.

Note: After reading this, the yellow leaf could be from a dead tree- you know- that died from the summer heat. The cool night air indicates the shift from summer to not summer but not yet fall. So, probably late August, early September.

Limerick

There once was a kid who had a dog.

One day the dog chased after a frog.

While running down the street.

A car the dog did meet.

And got squashed because of a dumb little frog.

Haiku

The clouds move swiftly

Fluffy and round, always moving

Stretched out in the sky