Had my second chain jewelry class tonight, and actually managed to finish a decent-looking bracelet. I'm considering getting the gear to keep making my own shiny objects--not that I necessarily care to wear them, but I like to give people stuff, and it'd be nice to give people something I made, except that I really don't know how to make nice things. I can make crappy furniture and stuff, but at the moment I don't know how to knit or carve or anything. So this is nice. I've wanted to learn metalworking for a long time: beyond the elemental creative nature of it, I really like fire and hammers, so it's a good fit.

The human highlight of the class was a German mechanical engineer named Volker and his American wife, both in their late 50s or so. Volker came because his wife wanted him to, but had plenty of fun, because he's an engineer. This was another fun problem for him to solve, and, from the sounds of it, to tell his wife how to do. The conversation drove me nuts at times...I don't like to imagine decades of going back and forth telling each other how to do things when you both just learned it an hour ago. You married people. I don't get it.

Really looking forward to heading up to Mendocino this weekend. I wonder what I'll bring with me to find there.