Oh wow! Welcome home, kiddo! It’s so good to see you again! It’s been—what, a couple of—oh gosh, I’m crying, I’m just—I’m just so happy to see you again! Can I give you a hug? I’ve missed you so much. You look—wow, you look just like your mom. How long are you—

Oh, that’s—that’s not very long! Uh, that’s fine, that—yeah, that makes sense. Just thanks for braving the trip all the way down to sea level again. It’s so nice to have you back.

Hey look, I—I know that the reason you haven’t dared come home before is because your mom would ask you too many silly questions. I really should have supported you more, I know that now. And she was trying to work on it too! She was just so—so curious about you, you know? There’s nothing she wanted more than to know what you were seeing out there.

—Ah, yeah, I see that, sorry, it’s still so hard for me to not try to defend her. I’ve been working on that. I know I have more growing to do. I really want to repair things between us, though. And I know she would too, if she was—if she was doing better.

No, yeah, I understand that this is a lot. Sorry to just get into all of this at once. I—I just want to say that I’m sorry for all of that. And yes, I will totally respect whatever boundaries you need to set for yourself! Thanks for stopping by, it means a lot. And hey, you should take some watermelons back to Denver with you. They grow really well here.

Oh, yeah, what am I thinking, haha, you can’t fly with watermelons! Never mind. Before you go, though, could I just—could I just ask you a few questions about how you’ve been out there? I—I just have to know—

Did you ever see a snake in need of a rake? A punch clock with a minute-ly tock? A bunny in the road acting funny? An event where all your friends present? Hugs that are as snug as a bug? A room named after a swoon? Some dorks looking for a bunch of forks? A dad making everyone glad?

—Iván

→ Up Next

• Madeleine’s Creative Writing Workshop happened last night, August 3, and the theme was Nature. I was on track to send this out before it happened but I got really stuck trying to think of rhymes.
• Every Wednesday forever (including this next one, August 5) is Weekly Wednesday Worknight. $5, or free for members.
• Glint: Lost is on Tuesday, August 11. Hear from Chistof, Anjali, me, Madeleine, Mark, Allyson, Maia, Haley, Sylvia, and Mary Ann. Maybe Norton and Michelle too if we can convince them.
• The next In the Making will be on Thursday, August 20. Interested in sharing work? Sign up using Whiteboard or shoot us an email letting us know.

← July 26–August 1

Do you remember the first day of Adam’s new job? Our failed quest to get ourselves a sweet treat from Tony P’s? How you started casing a joint? The consolation donut order?

Or the 12-person book club? Meeting Ciara for the first time? How surprised Mo was to learn how the book ended, and how all of it was a surprise to Andrew?

Do you remember the afternoon visit of Mark? The sound of Eve and Matthew practicing for Love, Death & Roses in the Kissing Room? The happy hour before? How Acova rejected us and we went to Kiké’s Tacos instead? My Schrödinger’s nerves? That we ran into Chris?

The show itself? Eve and Matthew’s performance? The poetry, the standup, and the singing? The search for your phone, afterward?

The Worknight with Jacob, hosted by Alex?

Or the workday when we were gone? How afterward we sat around and kept each other company until it got dark outside?

Do you remember the last day of Madeleine’s old job? How we clapped for her? The pizza party? Our questions and her answers about what she learned from it?

The PowerPoint Party in August? With the extra AC? With Mason? Our traditional “Where the hell’ve you been?” greeting? How it was his last PowerPoint Party before moving to New York? Our many cheers for Alex and Jessica P.’s entrances and exits? The lineup of all regulars? A litany of bangers, with a benediction, and the whole room singing, with some people faithfully doing the echoes? How afterward we lingered, and considered who to ostracize? How even after that we took a trip to bartaco? That Justin and Halie hung out late? That we ended with an algorithm?

Bureaucratic Minutiae

• Norton has taken over inventory management, and also started organizing the storage room. There are 2 new boxes for Plastic Cutlery and Paper Plates & Bowls.
• Mary Ann’s Book Club rated Yesteryear 4.1 stars.
• At Worknight: Jessica S. sent an email; Ryan finished 3-5 job applications; Livvy triaged info from the hospital; Alex wrote PPP outline and processed images; Jacob completed 100 Japanese flashcards after completing his book index; and Norton assembled a lamp. Writeup by Alex
• At PowerPoint Party No. 41: Ryan taught us about great pirates, Allyson presented the first part of a series on queer history, Christof helped us appreciate Tank Girl, Beth instructed us on how to bike well, Joe analyzed The Odyssey, Lauren T. gave credit to Esther Lederberg, Dan reviewed the oddities of social media, Lauren S. lauded anesthesia, Andrew had us vote for a presentation about documentaries, Madeleine gave us a section of wilderness medicine, Emily told us about ancient practices we should consider bringing back, and Alex helped assuage Ivan’s fears about fatherhood.

• We have a time clock. Partially because, hey, we’re a Company! And mostly because we love having a physical record of (almost) everyone who’s been in the space. People punch in and out when they visit. At the end of each month, we stack up all the cards by visit count in the Fibonacci sequence. Here’s the data for July 2026:

  1 visit: 48 people
  2 visits: 3 people
  3–4 visits: 14 people
  5–7 visits: 7 people
  8–12 visits: 2 people
  13–20 visits: 7 people
  21+ visits: 1 people

  Total people: 82
  People who came more than once: 34

  Other notes:

  • There were 3 visitors in the 2 column, the lowest since September 2024 (also 3). There were 14 visitors in the 3+ column, the highest since December 2025 (also 14). There were 2 visitors in the 8+ column, the lowest since August 2024 (also 2).
  • I said June was a small month, but so was July! But that increases our “people who visited more than once” percentage: 41%, the highest since March (45%) and tied for 7th overall.
  • Yes Justin, we remember you. ♥️ Also Mark, I think yours is Mark [heart], but we keep seeing and saying “Marky”. Also both Emily’s wrote in the same color marker and added a smiley face. Also, a lot of people seemed to write with that same purple-ish marker; what’s up with that? Oh, and notice local celebrity Paul Karolyi (host of City Cast Denver) in the 1s column.
  • I feel like any visits after July 4 should count triple for Alex and Jessica P. Can’t wait to have a Vivian punch card!
  • The “Misc.” sub-column in the 1s included visitors to: Cuppa’s last days and Closing Sale, The Creative Writing Workshop, Overtime, and Mary Ann’s Book Club: Yesteryear.
  • Note, for the last time: We don’t generally record visitors to Cuppa if they are only stopping in for Cuppa. Many people came through the space that are not represented here!
  • Inevitably: incomplete and messy data.

  Writeup by Livvy

• For the sake of academic diligence, I would like to acknowledge that there is a lack of clarity regarding the whereabouts of “home”. Is home down by the bay? Or does the narrator frequent the bay, and home is elsewhere? Being an oral history, one cannot ascertain whether the phrase “down by the bay, where the watermelons grow” is meant to describe the location of home or if it simply serves as scene-setting for the current location of the protagonist, as any punctuation in modern lyrics are an interpretive choice. The one clue that home may in fact not be down by the bay is that the narrator’s mother concludes all of her questions with the refrain “down by the bay”, implying that the bay is where her child is returning from and not to (Did you see this thing in that location?). However, the mother’s manner of speaking is undoubtedly odd, and one could fairly imagine that she might append an odd detail to her odd questions. Additionally, it is strange that the narrator would begin and loop a song with what is essentially an establishing shot. Wouldn’t it make more sense for a child to be describing the place that they dare not go, instead of restating their current location? The traditional approaches to lyrical phrasing would support this interpretation. It is true that it is an odd construction, and a sharper editor might have caught that, but such grammatical grievances could be expected from a child who likely didn’t know their first draft of a song would be passed down for generations. A further complication is the highly likely possibility that the narrator themself is unreliable, or perhaps struggles with syntax. And given their reports of their mother’s manner of speaking, and one’s personal view on nature versus nurture, one could imagine that the child of an oddly-speaking mother would themselves be oddly-speaking. I share all of this to say: as with many cases of interpreting an ancient text, it falls to the interpreter to make the best choices they can given their current context. While classicists may disagree with my choices, my take on this tale is informed by the audience, and the artistic peculiarities of indie community newsletters.
• Finally, a reminder that The Company is a member-supported gathering place. If you’d like to pop in for a workday and you know one of us, reach out to schedule a time and we can let you in for free. If we don’t know you yet, reach out so we can get to know you, or come by an event and say hi.

Photos

—

This issue of Paperwork was written by Iván, and was shot by Iván, Madeleine, Livvy, Lizzie, Allyson, and Norton. Photo selection and editing by Iván and Livvy. Editorial and rhyming support was provided by Livvy. This issue, and The Company itself, was made possible by the support of our members. Speaking of which, did you ever see:

A Halie strumming on a ukulele? A Drew eating a stew? A Justin avoiding a dustin’? A Mason breaking a basin? José drinking a rosé? A Mary Ann meeting a fairy man? A Trevr pulling a trolley lever? Allyson breaking a talisman? A Lizzie getting in a tizzy? Elijah sneaking up beside ya? Michelle scowling at a seashell? A Jim stealing a limb? A Jacob endangering a bear cub? A Mark outside of a park? Sabrina hanging out at a marina? A Beth skip a movie about death? A Dani high-fiving a nanny? A Chris spitting out a diss? A Will falling down a hill? Rebeca on a trip to Mecca? Sarah in a neutral color era? An Alex writing in italics? A Jessica P. eating a yella guppy? Jessica S. with her hair all in a mess? A Ben not patching up some men? A Sam not giving a damn (about hoyas)? A Christof tearing an ISBN off? A Ryan giving up a tryin’? A Lauren T. tearing up a warranty? A Madeleine touching snakes a rattlin’? A Simon skipping a primin’? An Adam insulting a madam? A Gus flipping off a bus? Lauren S. complain about a soreness? An Earl who hasn’t given it a whirl? A Bennett running for the Senate? A Sylvia contemplating il via? A Morgan playing a pipe organ? A Joe who hasn’t seen a show? A Case who doesn’t care about an interface? A Vivian driving a blue Rivian?

Down by the bay?

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😘