The lettuce started to quiver. Not the whole bed, just a patch in the middle. Sarah set down her bucket of water and crept over to investigate.

She gasped and Blake bolted over.

Before he could take three strides, Sarah’s voice went high into the “cute” register.

“Baby bunny!”

Nibbling on their lettuce was a happy baby bunny.

“Well, this is his lettuce now,” Sarah said.

And so, the sun set and evening settled over the garden as the humans went upstairs to ready themselves for bed. Blake took his notebook to bed with him and Danielle crawled over him asking what he was writing. “Is it a story?” she asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” Blake said.

“How can you not be sure? You’re writing it!”

While this was true, Blake had intended on writing about his creative pursuits and their road blocks, potential future films, nano budget film making, AI, art, the Pope’s new statement on AI, conversations with his great friend Ben, the doctor, more AI, how his Pilot G-2 pen is performing, fishing, and perhaps dinner.

Instead, he found himself drawn to write about seeing that cute baby bunny who was eating his family’s lettuce. We, however, are going to skip that portion and the voice of the narrator is going to swiftly hand off this piece to Blake to write in his own first person.

Happy Friday everyone.

What an introduction.

While business and film and success weigh heavy on my mind this week, I would rather dive into some summer fun. Home phones, book clubs, and the “just do it” spirit.

Many of you remember the concept of being a “latch key kid” and having house keys to let yourself in after school before your parents got home from work. While I don’t want to go that far, there are a lot of great things from that era which I’d like to bring back.

We’re going to get a corded house phone and start teaching our kids how to talk on the phone. It is astounding to see kids not understand the basics of verbal communication. Say hello, ask who is calling, offer a greeting and pleasant small talk — all things we take for granted. Plus, we will have the added benefit of flexing our memories to dial phone numbers again.

How many phone numbers do you remember?

We’re also going to do a family book club and I think we are going to read Charlotte’s Web. Read a few chapters and then discuss after dinner on every Wednesday. We’re working out the details, but I’m looking forward to hearing what my child gets from the text versus what I see.

Another possible summer venture is putting together some sort of council, or board, or association. There was an “artist meetup” here in town recently and most of the members wished they had a space. I’ve recently wanted to do movie screenings with an industry professional attached to talk about a specific aspect of the film and open a Q&A. A friend of mine — who is an extremely talented writer and used to write on Chicago Fire — did something similar in the city years ago and it was great!

All that got me curious about temporary spaces and recurring or pop-up events. Maybe a pop-up gallery for a weekend, a book signing on another. Who knows?!

And to make these events sound very official, they could be presented by the “Armstrong Foundation for the Arts” which could be a 501c6 non-profit that functions as a way for me to sound legit and track expenses if I do spend anything.

Today, I’m going to ask the library how to rent a room and what’s allowed. I’ll call the owners of the vacant Hallmark building too.

You can just do things.

And some of the things I need to do includes finishing some long standing projects.

I think I’m going to limit checking my texts throughout the day once summer starts. So, write me a letter, send me an email, or call me.

Happy Friday,

Blake

*P.S. — If you want a shot at having your sci-fi short story in real, physical media, Panopticon Volume 3 submissions are due in about a month on July 1st. Email your word or text file to Panopticon2032 [at] protonmail.com