Stacking Flash

I love to mix flash. Love the reflections, the patterns, the uniqueness, it is amazing. When it came down to it, I realized the tricks of the trade failed to allow any leeway to attain flash freedom. In fact, a quick google search revealed zip, zero, jack of anything mentioning the topic. Aside from laying it all out on the desk to restack it. Well, lemme tell you when you try that with polar flash, have something worthless and breakable handy, cause you are going to throw it. The leading suggested way of tying flash in is to wrap it under the thread while folding it in half. Thus, putting a single wrap of thread in the fold of flash. That’s cool, fine and dandy (even though is has minuscule drawbacks) if you are only using one color of flash. One color is super boring, heck, one texture is worse.

Here is how to do it on the fly instead of a table that you are about to flip. This method also gives you the freedom to put the flash where you want it to go. My personal suggestion it so tie it on top of sturdy/bulky materials so the fly is not fouling up and not between the shank and the point. It is a process involving stacking the flash and folding it back over itself. Although not a true mix, it does combine when moving underwater. After it is all put together, doesn’t look much different anyhow.

Select your colors and think inside out. The first bunch you tie in will fold over to be the outside. In this example, I tied yellow and orange holo flash. You can put the most reflective flash on the inside or add an extra splash of color on the interior and use the reflective colors on the outside.

The next set in this example is the glow in the dark orange flash by Hedron. It is stiff and coarse and keeps the flash from clumping together. Leave the front hanging and only use 2 or 3 wraps per clump.

The last bunch to go in was magnum barred clear flashabou. Great stuff, but I tied it on top so that it would be in the core of this flash bundle. I didn’t want it to fully take over. You can see its effect on top here and it becomes a little overbearing.

BUT! When you fold it over it hides well in there. Depending on how much flash you use, you will have a lump. Make sure that when you use a ton of flash like this that whatever material you tie in next does not have to be tied on top and can cover the gap you create. For example; if you tie a brush in next, start in front of the bump.

 

Whatever you do and whatever combos you come up with, make sure you have fun with it! Enjoy!!!!

The Real Deal On Streamers

I don’t often think. Really. Today was a different story. I was really curious as to why fishing with streamers hasn’t taken off like it should have, it still feels like a novelty. I heard grumblings about it in the nineties; Dahlberg Divers, Clousers, Deceivers, so on and so forth. I think the Hollow Fleye was also developed in that time frame. It was a huge era for streamers (so were the 40’s), but the only source of knowledge for a guy like me was magazines. Word spread at a snail’s pace then, but all these flies made it to the masses for good reason, they worked. Sure, maybe a wayward fly ended up in a magazine due to the buddy system, but was quickly and efficiently snubbed out if it failed to perform or benefit anyone.

Here’s my thought process on why streamers haven’t gained much traction in the last five or so years. Allow me to preface, FRESHWATER.

Theory 1: I’m involved in it.

Theory 2: Social media. Hear me out, this isn’t a big ol’ glass of haterade for social media. We can use it to advance the progress if we are patient. For popularity sake, for the sake of content, we internet people have teetered on the edge of running out of material to endow upon you. More often than not, information is regurgitated and accredited to a source from whom is most popular. The problem with this is much like the problem pre social media. Whatever buddy had his article published after he heard the story from the source, without citing the source, gets all the glory. Leading to dissemination of knowledge not fully understood by the writer who is now the leader in whatever field of knowledge they do not quite grasp. This came down the pipe roughly once a month in the world of magazines. Now, this happens every single day. In order to keep your social media followers alive, they need that daily hit of info. This leads content creators to throw out untested flies claiming they do what the creator said when this person has yet to get the fly wet, but it looks pretty, so that’s good enough right?

Let us not put the blame fully on social media content creators, let us also blame fly tying companies for not dropping the expense of streamers to the market and still plays the buddy system to create designers. On the backs of these content creators, companies also pick and choose based solely upon likes or followers. Who, by the way, get there for a reason (for the most part). It’s a lot of hard work to become a viable social media person. Believe me, I’m not viable and it is still a whole lot of work.

Companies and content creators aside, streamers are really hard. They take time and effort to tie and more often than not, you have no idea what you are going to get when it hits the water. The real water, not a bathtub with 5x tippet towing it along. The bathtub gives you a good idea of what the fly wants to do, but not what it actually does when confronted with proper tippet and a sinking line (or whatever). There is only one way to figure that out and that is to fish it. On top of all the time it takes to tie and develop, there is no telling if you will catch a fish with it. Add in the technique to cast and retrieve your unique fly properly, and many people who want to get into streamers fall flat on their face and give up. The terrible part of this scenario is that streamers can be far more effective in the long run for all species if an angler puts in the time.

Truth be told, sometimes you get lucky, like I did with the Laser Yak. Even then, it is a further development of Der Helmut, which was born from a fly called the Broadway (my first true glider) combined with the Arctic Yeti. If you look at it this way, it took me 6ish years to develop the Laser Yak. That timeframe does not mesh with social media. Had I cared for cranking out content, I would have sent some real garbage into the world by teaching you guys how to tie every pattern in between that turned out to be failures.

You are probably asking yourself, why does this guy feel that it is just streamers and not typical trout flies? Trout fishing is what it is, stuff wrapped around a hook that trout eat. We have had a few hundred years to work this out. The only innovation that can come out of this time period are new materials, iridescence, texture and color tinkering. We are entering an era of realism in trout flies. Something we would not have been capable of in the 90’s due to the advent of new materials. I’m not saying that we are following art history to the T, but we are following a certain progression and our changes in the future will be subtle (but quick) shifts in style rather than innovation. Trout flies are established and it is really easy based upon the common flies in the genre to excel by sticking to a certain equation. Streamers are not so easy and we who are looking to progress the streamer genre are reinventing the wheel, leaving the industry to play catch-up.

This is where it all breaks down. Unfortunately, you can’t slap some stuff on a hook and make a streamer work like you can with most trout flies. This truth can be seen on social media. You can see what will swim and what will just spin and side roll. Break it down. Think of all of the styles of trout flies, generally (take your time, there are a lot). Heck write them down and do the same with streamer patterns. Your streamer side is going to look really chaotic because a lot of these patterns are still being developed and mixed. It is evolution in motion. Don’t forget to put a giant question mark on streamers because the places some of us are going, there is no path. If this process is fogged by people cranking out a number of untested patterns, we will have far too many people claiming that “streamers don’t work” and cutting the head off of any progress we can make by being dissuaded and spreading info falsely to others.

This needs to be fixed before it breaks. How do we do that? I’m so glad you asked! First, get into streamer fishing no matter what anyone says. You don’t have to go all in, but keeping one handy when fishing is good and you get bored of throwing a bugger to bass or nymphs to trout. You’ll get good at it, I promise. Second, tie your brains out and don’t think twice about tossing a crap pattern (save the hooks though). Learn from what you have tied and use it to understand what to or not to do for the next pattern. If it works, constantly be thinking of ways to make it better. Third, just because you tied something that looks like a pattern you have seen, doesn’t mean you can accurately replicate what that fly does. Even watching a video may not help. Open up communication with tiers. Get a couple flies from them and physically touch what they have done. It will help with understanding how much of a certain material is used and where. We are (for the most part) normal people, give us honest feedback and forget who we are. We are not infallible either. Sometimes humans are wrong, it happens. Lastly, be careful of who you listen to in the social media world. One of the best tips I can give you is when people use always and never, they just don’t know enough yet. For example, “I always catch fish on _______”. If this is true, this person hasn’t fished enough to fail.

Keep it alive my people!

 

 

 

 

 

Fly Science (Building a Better Bugger)

In 2017, a team of scientists used a transmission polariscope to measure optical retardation as a red LED passed through Prince Rupert’s Drop. Crazy, right? I pretty much copy and pasted that from wikipedia cause it had smart words. I have to get you into the science mood after all.

Prince Rupert’s Drop is quite fascinating. It is nearly bullet proof and dare I say, indestructible. But! It has an achilles heel, the tail. If the tail is broken, the entire thing literally explodes. For real, it’s cool. What does this have to do with flies? I’m really glad you asked. Basically, internal structure of a Prince Rupert’s Drop is constantly under a state of tension. The outside compressive stress is around 100,000psi. The application into fly tying is not as great as far as pressure and tension (or material for that matter), but we can take the basic principal and apply it here by applying differing tensions from the inside out.

It seems really silly to take something this complex and use it in a situation such as tying. One thing I have always been a proponent of is simplicity and bullet-proofing in fly tying. Basically, I roll with like one fly and if it can’t hold up to a hundred fish, bummer dude. In the past, I have played with epoxy and glue and things meant to travel into space. I missed basic design and found that materials that are under a constant state of tension will withstand the most abuse. Now, we can’t just start heating and cooling flies to create a bullet proof drop, but we can utilize different materials and technique to emulate those same tensions.

Enter the woolly bugger. The most destructive and most easily destroyed fly that I know of (aside from Dahlberg Divers, but that’s a different story altogether). The most major issue for the bugger is the gosh darn hackle. Scrap it. The last thing you need is a point of failure. Secondly, chenille, scrap that too. Literally anything that fails to hold tension or create it should be tossed out the window. Wire also fails to create tension as does marabou. But wait… Can we create tension with marabou!? That is rhetorical, you can’t really answer that cause it is essentially the topic of this post. Just read on…

Step 1: Start your bugger as you normally would. I use a 6/0 Veevus thread. You do not want a stranded thread in this case. Use strong round stuff. Nothing that lays flat. I wrapped a #8 hook with .025 lead free round wire. You can use lead too, but that is on you. I am not the one polluting the environment. 😉

Step 2: Marabou. I like to stack two feathers for a more fluffy tail. However, this is dangerous as it can add too much torque to the thread wrapped around the hook shank and can come undone from the back. Countermeasures are involved here.

Step 3: 6-7 wraps from the tie-in point to the eye is good, cut off the marabou and clean up the extra fuzzies with thread. Tying in the cut off ends will add rigidity to the center of the marabou and will make it harder to twist. Tie back to the original tie-in point. Your thread should be between the point of the hook and the barb. Trust me, it is important.

Step 4: (this isn’t really a step, but I have a theme going here) The top marabou should not have a stiff quill. Find one that is soft and will flex. I like to buy them in 1-ounce packs to get what I want. The quill on the left is rigid and will shatter and the fly will fall apart from the inside out. Use one like shown on the right.

Step 5: Tie your marabou in from the back toward the eye just to where your thread ramps down from the marabou underneath. This is your countermeasure. It will hold the marabou further away, opposing any torque applied to the fly. Essentially, the longer the tie in point with multiple fibers, the more torque is required to loosen it. Such is the case with Clousers, the top tie-in of bucktail always comes loose first.

Step 6: Advance your thread to the back of the bead leaving the marabou in place. Don’t you trim it! It is the entire purpose of this post!

Step 7: Twist the marabou tightly and wrap the hook with it. If the tail becomes loose, you did it wrong. Untie and put more thread tension on the tail. We are creating tension by twisting the marabou to a point that it is in a constant state of tension. Not only is it pulling against itself, but it is also pulling against the thread. It wants to be in a natural position of rest and when you force it into a position in this manner, it is always pulling on something. This act retains tension upon materials like thread that loosen by elongation. Keep in mind that you’ll want to wrap the marabou in the same direction as the thread. However, over time the materials eventually become forced into a state of rest as they will develop what looks like line memory as they stretch and set.

Step 7: Clean up the marabou and throw some flash in that tail. It matters not what flash, pick your favorite. I just use your standard dyed pearl flash for this. I just fold one strand in half to give two little flashy guys on either side by using the loop to rotate the flat to the opposing side of the hook. You’ll just cut that loop off at length and boom, done. No, not with the whole fly, but you are halfway there!

Step 8: Typically, I’ll use that piece of scrap flash to wrap the fly, but in this case we are aiming for bombproof. Any elastic material will do here. I am in love with stretch tubing for this purpose. It makes an excellent replacement to wire, especially with brittle materials like pheasant tails and peacock. Disregard how messy your fly is at this point, we are about to clean it up.

Step 9: Dub! This is just a coating for the fly, the only thing it does is add a little bulk. It is the metaphoric icing on the cake. I mix ice dub and some natural hair like goat or at least a finer dubbing material to bind the ice dub a little better. It turns out similar to laser dub, just chunkier. Try not to pile the dubbing on, just coat the fly and fill gaps. Its ok, as this fly catches fish, it catches more fish.

Step 10: Wrap the stretch tubing and make a collar to compress the materials behind the bead. It helps to center the bead and keep it from spinning.

Step 11: Touch up with a little more dub and whip finish. That is all. Now you are done. Go fish.

This fly has bagged, trout, bass, pike, musky, carp, crappie, bluegill, sunfish etc… It really does outperform its hackled brethren. I’ve caught some 3lb+ smallmouth on this too, so it can be effective for large fish as well. Go tie some!!!

 

Oh! The Smell

September and October ring in a sense of delusion here in New Mexico. The world seems as though it remains in a state of imbalance, swinging wildly out of control. As I type this, hurricane Michael is slowly reaching shore, the temperature in Augusta, Maine is 80 degrees and winter is beginning to settle in the northern rockies. The normal patterns for this time of year (except Maine, that is a bit extreme). The prediction in other places seems quite doable, but here, we get delusional.

Our first mountain snow fell while I was asleep on Monday night. The accompanying rain in our lower elevations lulled me to sleep with a feel of excitement. Rain is scarce, and like a sleeping child waking to see if mother was still there, I awoke to make sure it was still raining. For comfort. I knew from the smell, the crisp, damp freshness culminated into one thing. Snow. No matter rain or snow, the smell remains, the smell of the freeze. Instinct recognizes the smell as a time to end the growing season. It brings us an ancient and primal feeling of excitement, “the work is over”.

It is hard to beat the feeling of the first snow or frost. Waking with a thick flannel and being able to see your breath. Sitting in front of a crackling fire filled with wood cut with your own hand, it is a sigh of relief. A delusion. No matter how much I know that it will warm, I still settle in and get comfortable. It’s only a trick. The sudden, abrupt change is a reminder but not persistent. I know what is coming now, 50 degree temperature swings from morning to afternoon, 70 one day 50 the next, flooding or snow. It is expected and anticipated. For us, fall is a great big prank. For now, I will enjoy my delusion that it already is winter and enjoy a nice warm cup of hot cocoa.

Quantify and Scrutinize

Call me #triggered or whatever you like. Sometimes, things become an automatic switch flipper. Things that I feel as though I need to lash out irrationally upon. As of yet, I have not wanted to soak my computer in lantern fuel and set it ablaze, until yesterday. I mean, turning it off is a great option too… No, this is not about politics.

Yesterday, on a post in a place, there were talks of a “bobbin shootout”. For those who do not know, a bobbin is the thingy that thread is spooled onto. Getting super technical here, we in the fly tying industry have called the thing that holds the bobbin a “bobbin” for like eternity, when the reality is that it is actually a “bobbin holder” due to the lack of a technical term. All technicalities aside, bobbin holders are pretty much based on price. A $10 bobbin holder is not remotely built as well as a $30 one and the $100 type blow everything out of the water. My opinion stands that after $30, you are just paying for art. There is a certain cool factor of unique bobbin holders. Whether that means vintage or really neat and futuristic. That hand carved chunk of wood grip may not feel great, but it took a lot of work and it is a beautiful addition and show of care a company took to give you something cool. The mechanics are really simple, so long as the tip is ultra polished and it keeps a moderate amount of tension, you are in the clear. The rest is just fun.

One does not just rank the work of artisans in terms of function. I get it if you go on ranking utilitarian style bobbin holders or ones within the same price point. Comparing a $4 chunk of bent wire and tube to a $150 piece of similar idea, you lost me. We all know the answer. Heck, even at a $30 price point, none is “better” than any other. It becomes a matter of preference at this point. We want something that fits our hand and has a cool aesthetic with the features we need for our individual style. Who the heck is going to compare watches this way? Let alone, toss an Apple Watch into the mix… Announcer Voice: “And the best time-telling piece is…” (frankly, I think it is the one attached to the satellites)

This is not totally what triggered me. The fact that someone is trying to persuade others to believe there is a hierarchy in bobbin holders aside from end user opinion is absolutely ludicrous. The “best in the world” in comparison to other bobbin holders highlights the idea that one bobbin holder and the one that yields it is part of an elite few. Reality check! It is art. Plain and simple. How many times have you heard “cool bobbin (holder)” as opposed to “that looks like a well functioning bobbin (holder)”? The more we try to quantify products in this industry, the more the industry has a need to react by puking out companies like YETI. Let companies explore these little things. Let them make $100+ bobbin holders and leave them be, admire them rather than scrutinize and quantify them. Not one of those companies will ever put a $4 tip on it. Personally, I love seeing the art and designs, the craftsmanship. It shows individuality and it should reflect yours as well. Sheesh!

Launching/Jitters

It is very difficult to be in the position that I am, the “all talk” ambition that falls short of coming through. That ambitious pimple just continues to grow and irritate me and it is time to pop the pimple. Just get on with it. I will admit it is quite difficult in today’s social media style economy that really drives start-ups to be a cusp-millennial/Gen-X person. One that did not grow up with smartphones and “friends” as actual friends hold more value to me than a number. It seems in our business environment, your “friends” are also your bank account. The difficult position I find myself in is a position in which I am incapable of acquiring “friends” just by the click of a button. I always wonder who the person is and why they would want to be friends with a person like me. Furthermore, why would I want to be “friends” with them. I literally have no idea who they are and that stops me from confirming these countless numbers of people who have every ability to benefit a business.

Just recently, I watched an episode of “Black Mirror” and almost threw away ALL of my electronics. The episode was based on the ability to rate a person at any given time for any reason. The higher rated you were, the higher you stood in social class, your ability to get a high paying job, plane tickets, and what car you drove was all rooted in being highly rated. It hit WAY too close to home for me. Seeing the social media platform from a business perspective where I scoff at anything less than a 5-star rating, I have seen myself go to good lengths to recover from a single 4-star rating. We are after all, humans. This episode threw me into a spin considering interaction. How the social platform has been shifted to sell products, just like every other business. From news to politics to religion and back again, everyone is using social media as an outlet for getting themselves higher on the platform of the social elite. Internet famous. So, we watch our words and actions and we choose our friends well so that we can tiptoe around being who we really are. I will say, the person I am on social media is definitely not the real life me.

Due to my imbalance of social media skills and also my stepping away from it time to time, I have realized that gaining the traction I need to continue growth or simply momentum is a difficult task. It is the mark of a terrible magician. Now you see me, now you don’t… for an indeterminate amount of time. In those times of disappearance, things become more and more frustrating, which is exactly why I step away in the first place. Some Joe Shmoe off the street who has never tied or fished more than one day a year goes on to repeat something heard from someone who heard something else from someone. Thus, an expert on ALL subject matter. I have previously expressed this before.

In growing frustration, I have felt there is a way to go about things properly. Without trying to pinch pennies to do so. When you dive into things associated with manufacturing, you can see the utterly brutal side of the fly fishing industry. A place where flies cost pennies to produce, tying materials are fractions of pennies and things are done the way they are expressly for cost management. These moments of thought are often sidelined by my ability to process the fact that a large company and the loyal hashtags can absolutely hold down an at home manufacturer. The money they can throw around and the loyalty they have can make a guy like me appear to be the fool for being reasonable.

The elephant in the room is what holds me back. Myself. The frustrations that I have, the lack of money, all excuses to hold me back to a goal that I could easily achieve. In the words of A Perfect Circle, “Just begin”.

This process will take some time indeed. At least 3 months. I’ll keep those who want to know, in the know. As this process of blogging has turned into a personal venting space. A place for thoughts where only my fingers are the guides.

 

Trudging Through Sludge

At times, life seems to reminisce, especially when I get into the more difficult situations. The correlation to my life at this moment is akin to running the mudflats chasing carp. When I was buried knee deep at times, and friends around me as well. That silted ditch filled with wet sediment grabs onto you all the way to your knees. The struggle to free yourself pulls bones from their sockets as motions become more frantic. You are locked in and in pain. Tired from overexertion, exhausted. I could have given up. I could have let go to be consumed by coyotes and vultures, no one would know or look for me there. I’d just be a dead guy in the mud. That is not the human spirit though. The human spirit wants to live. To catch more fish, despite dangers. The escape, in the moment of panic always seems impossible. It isn’t until you assess your situation that you find clarity.

Slow. Down.

Slow down and look at your life, assess your situation, turn off the panic switch. Things will happen and you will feel it as it begins to release you, it feels great. There is still more mud ahead, but there are fish to catch. You’ll laugh about it later.

Drawing Blanks

If it wasn’t obvious by my lack of fishing oriented posts, I have obviously been slacking on the fishing and a whole lot of other things I need to do. I knew this coming back into writing on this blog. I also knew that this time would focus away from pictures onto the story or thoughts. Straying away from the typical social media quip to focus on writing.

These last couple of weeks have been frustrating. Monsoon season is in full swing. To some, the rain is just the rain and is also a day in which to mosey around the house to clean or pick up the last few days of trying to be outside. Our earth moves, the sand shifts every which way. What was once an area of trail, now a river and tomorrow it will be somewhere else entirely. The lightning strikes are close enough to put holes through the roof. To collect static electricity and connect from the inside. Enough to soil your pants.

Flies and leaders are rolling off of the vice. Things are being fixed, the internet repaired, storage rooms built, shelves put up, simple fixes to cars and the like, the garden, the shop in it’s busy season and every year around this time, I’m itching to fish. The flies keep my sanity in check for the most part. The leaders tear my hands up. They are a reminder of what will happen. Fishing will happen. My imagination runs wild, putting me in the drivers seat of a perfect day while staring down the barrel of the vice. I know the day is coming soon.

In other news, when I began writing again, I knew that I had to freshen up my skills. To hone the edges of the proverbial pencil and just write. You’ll notice a few things different about the blog now. One of those is not trying to put out gold. This post is a great example of that. Keeping people in the know. I do not wish for people to have it in their head that nothing but fishing happens in my life. Granted, much of my life IS dedicated in some fashion to fish, there is so much more that goes on. Fish have even influenced my gardening technique. Off topic…. There will be many of these non-fishing, diary/journal style posts. There will be technical posts, tips and whatnot. Heck, I might even take a shot at fiction. Who knows!? I just want to keep that edge sharp. this is how I’m doing it.

Toiling

Fingers worked to the bone, to dust. A stretched out arm divided, equally separated, neatly. Forced to commiserate, yet, never mourn. Harrowing footsteps on a path snubbed out by lightning strikes, never in the same place twice. All culminating into the visceral image of a man shattered, glass shards of equal distribution across a plane of strife.

The greatest enemy, those inner demons. Marching lockstep toward the infinite black of the mind. Never-ending armies of turmoil created by the same, motivated by the same. Dreams of happenstance and matters unrelated. Dreams of people thought of as friends. Still here locked away in a dungeon by choice, by name, unable to reach out. Dreams carried beneath the wings of wistlessness, undistracted by the horde, as a reminder to be.

Back and forth as a pendulum swings. It seems unending, relentless. The constant repetitive nature of the measurement of existence. The count grows higher, the ladder longer, the battle harder. Fight while it is still possible. Fight with fervent rage.

Take the step headlong into the abyss of the unknown. Change the course with every motion. Break the chains that restrict the motion and bind the pendulum. Express beyond the gleeful extreme, that ever increasing bar of pleasantries defined by what is seen, into reality. Struggle.

Cyclical Overthinking

As I sit this morning, I must bar all thought. A blank space, fingers moving, typing. A warm-up exercise for the day to get the fluids moving. To conjure a thought, new, fresh. It is a thing for writers to write about their writer’s block, but is it a thing to force yourself to be blocked? I’ve always stated that repetitive motion is not understanding and I hold fast to that. The complexities of understanding are to see whatever issue it is from all sides. Sounds easy enough, politics has been polarized over the years to make us believe that it is one way or the other. The only way to simplify the block is to say it is either on or off. But it is not quite that simple. To force oneself to be blocked with the intention of being blocked is the same as being blocked with the intention of not being blocked. Feel free to read that last thought again as I gather some new ones.

It is curious, thinking about thinking. The idea of where a thought comes from and how those thoughts come to light. Paradoxical really. Time traveling through predictions of future thought but being there at completion and going back to change it. The quantum superposition of thought. In our minds we carry the cognitive ability to imagine, fictitiously, any scenario. Any possibility. As infinite as it all seems, somehow we drown it out. We focus. We bear down on the thought that we are incapable and by doing so renders us incapacitated. Feel free to read the thought from the first paragraph that you reread the first time.

I find it impossible to keep up with overthinking. What started as a blank idea, free of thought has now become a buzz in which I can not type fast enough, but it is sinking in. The ideas that I can pluck are not explainable on the fly and I have hit a wall that casts aside new ideas.

I will not relate this to fly fishing.

I will not relate this to fly fishing.

I will not relate this to fly fishing.

Now, I’m trapped in the thoughts prior to this point. To more deeply think and explain the prior writings. They are already there and I promise they were not edited. It is much like linear time travel in real time. As titillating as thinking about the process of thought is to me, I feel as though it should be left there. Unchanged. Unabashed. Pure, raw thought… about thought. As ambiguous as it seems, maybe it isn’t at all. One day, I’ll wake up and write about this. Please reread from the beginning.