False Spring has arrived! The weather forecast through Tuesday looks so promising that my plan to go on an overnight cycling trip tomorrow night has been met with encouragement rather than bafflement from those I’ve shared it with. This won’t be a repeat of October’s Hell of the South Island ride, as Yann, Burger, and I are expected to reach the campsite well before dark.
My adventures in 2026 continue to be a series of anomalies. Today, I combined two uncharacteristic activities: ice skating and interacting with the local deaf community. I was more successful with the former, accomplishing about 30 laps around what looked like a giant planter box. When I first saw the ice rink, I got excited about the strip of ice that stuck out of the circular rink, thinking it’d join up with a second, larger rink–the adult rink. But, no, that strip led to the Zamboni garage. This rinky-dink ice rink was about 1/3 the size of a standard ice rink and teeming with deaf kids pushing around skating aids. Barely big enough to wow anyone with my mediocre ice skating skills. Even though I didn’t “find my people”, I didn’t regret going.
Even on the mainland, where there’s a much larger community of like-eared folks, my childfree status has kept me from re-integrating in the deaf community to which I once belonged. I’m also not quite old enough to get amped for Bingo nights with the deaf empty nesters. Maybe in 2046?
I have committed to attending a Heated Rivalry-themed party in March with one of my favourite deaf people, Zoée. It’s not a deaf event, but a dance party at a queer bar! I think I’ll dress like Scott Hunter when he tried to go art shopping incognito.
That reminds me, I haven’t yet shared the screen print I did over the holidays.
It’s a marriage of 10 layers of colours to create a picture of my butt:
The rest of this post explains how screen printing works. It might be a bit boring, but you’ll at least get to enjoy images of my butt in multiple steps.
Here’s the original butt picture:
Ed took this action shot of my caboose back in October when I took him and Hannah for a ride on the Galloping Goose Trail. This image wasn’t my first choice, though. I’d wanted to create a print of my favourite place in the world, Botanical Beach. The first step in making an Uncle Miles-style screen print is to posterize the selected image into 10 greyscale layers in Photoshop. From there, the colour is tweaked until you hit the combination you desire.
I abandoned the Botanical Beach photo when Miles told me that it would be too time-consuming to remove the brown that had bled into the sky, hence the backup photo of my backside.
Once I’d settled on this colour scheme, inspired by my bike’s colours, all 10 layers were converted to monochrome and printed on transparency film.
Each film was taped to a emulsion-coated screen and placed in a vacuum exposure unit. Exposure to UV light hardens the emulsion on the screen, allowing you to wash out the uncured parts (the black parts of the film).
Ironically, the printing step of screen printing is also the shortest. 90% of the screen printing process involves washing the screens. The other 8% is placing the registration tabs on the printing surface and mixing paint colours. Miles’ preferred material for printing on is 4mm thick particleboard, as it’s lightweight and doesn’t warp like paper would with 10 layers of paint.
One by one, the screens are clamped to a hinged printing board.
The screen printing board allows for some movement to align the registration marks burnt into the screen with those on a template. Once the marks are lined up, the knobs at the top of the printing board lock the screen in place. The registration tabs on each particleboard make it easy to snap fresh boards in place quickly.
Then you gotta work fast, speeding through the squeeging process before the paint dries and clogs up the screen.
I only fucked up once when I released pressure on the squeegee near the bottom. Because this happened during the third layer, my fuck-up got covered up by the subsequent 7 layers.
I did not take a picture of my goof. The above photo shows how the image appeared after two layers.
I’m delighted to say that all six prints look as if they were done by a professional, despite it being my first time. It certainly helped that I had access to the same equipment the pros use, and Miles, who also has teaching experience, helped me at every step.
I have three prints up for grabs. If you’re interested in adorning your wall with a tasteful image of my butt, get in touch!
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