vol. 2, no. 34 | Metaphorphosis!

Absence


            
        January 6, 2026
    
    
vol. 2,  no. 34 | Metaphorphosis!


            Pope Gregory means little to me, but I love any excuse for a reflection, and it was so sweet to share, with some of you, your turn of year retro-and prospective visions—to remember and imagine where we were and will be. And I’m so happy that, however you perceive or mark it, you’ve chosen to spend any of your time on this hill with us.
Here’s to becoming more things.
—Ivan
Happenings
This week:
Creative Writing Workshop, Monday, January 5
Madeleine, of Glint and PowerPoint Party and In The Making and The Moth and Poetry Slam fame, is hosting a creative writing workshop tonight (or right now, or last night, depending when I finish this)! Which will (or did) involve 90 minutes of lightly directed writing around a theme. For the inaugural workshop, the theme is (or was) Absence.
The theme will be (or was) explored through a series of prompts, and we’ll have (or have had) progressively more time to respond to each one. At the end of the night, we’ll have (or have had) the chance (though not the requirement) to share.
Note: this workshop is not (or was not) for feedback or editing—the purpose is (or was) to generate new writing.
Bring (or have brought) yourself and something to write (or have written) with.
$10, free for members
In the absence of other plans →
Weekly Wednesday Worknight, Wednesday, January 7
The Company is about combining creative work with good friendships. Make an appointment with your side project this (or any) Wednesday at a Worknight, where we oscillate between enforced, focused, quiet time and optional chatty social time.
$5, free for Company and Moonlight members
Work together →
Future Weeks:
Glint: Search, Tuesday, January 13
True, personal stories, told live, without notes. Pretty much exactly like The Moth, except without the competition, on Tuesdays instead of Fridays, and everyone knows each other (or is about to). Our next theme is “Search“.
Do you have a story of searching? Of being searched for? Being found or being lost? Investigating? Trying to find something in a book, on the internet, or in space? Can you tell us about your quest for meaning, a soulmate, or your car keys? Have you googled yourself? Do you have an interesting search history? Whatever your interpretation, we want to hear it.
Hear from Lauren T., me, Laura, Jenna, James, Livvy, Andrew, Jim, and Ryan.
We’ve got a few teller slots left, so if you’re interested in telling a story, reply and let us know.
$10, or free for tellers and members.
Let us find you here →
—
In The Making (January 22), Mary Ann’s Book Club: Atmosphere (January 26) PowerPoint Party No. 35 (February 7), Annual Performance Review (February 28)
Nostalgia
Do you remember our happy reunion, that first day with more of us back, on the day of the Old Year’s Resolution party? The relief of the hug resupplies? How when it was just the two of you at first you just yelled happily for several seconds?
Jim’s hats? The visit to the bottle shop? The quiet thinking? How an hour felt like two? How it felt like half? How Livvy manually redrew the talking and quiet and sharing time indicators? And do you remember that sharing time? That some of us read summaries, and others shared visuals? That during Rebeca’s turn we just hugged her? How Jim politely watched from a safe distance?
Do you remember that we stepped outside and saw the last drone show of the year? How we hung around after? That we dispersed, some to our own homes, and some to each other’s?
Or the day with Beth’s vision boarding? The stories of their power? How important it is to be very specific and not leave anything off? How fun the conversations were, with the chatty stories during the cutting? How it got so quiet during the pasting? The uncomfortable visit of an inquisitor? The show and tell?
The last minute First Friday Feast at Sonny’s? How there was an update to Alex’s announcement, which was a brand new announcement to Mark? That there was a surprise drop in from Dan? How Alex said “you’re all sheep to me” as he herded the group on the way back?
Do you remember the first PowerPoint Party of the year? The presentations about objects, apparel, calendars, transportation, winter activities, legacies, and coffee? That we stayed and talked in so many circles? How afterward we made a bartaco run with Nancy? That we talked about media and having bodies? That we saw the moon ring out of the windows of our cars?
Bureaucratic Minutiae
Most all of our known upcoming events (through May) have been added to the calendar and the website.
Jim has installed a new paper towel holder in the bathroom! No more wicker basket sliding off the top of the toilet, or grabbing multiple paper towels because in grabbing the first you wet the second.
As of this week, Paperwork has crossed 300 subscribers! That’s so many people to be subscribed to these! While I have no clue what our open rate is (I never turned on tracking; never will), it’s nice to think that, even if folks aren’t opening these, they’re at least not choosing to unsubscribe. (It’s less nice but probably more realistic to imagine that there’s some significant number of you that just have no control of your inbox and never unsubscribe to anything because you’ve given up all hope, and these emails are just another small drop in the firehose.) But as much as those nice thoughts are nice, it’s nicer to know that some of you do read these, because you say so, in person.
Speaking of newsletter milestones, the last issue was the very first issue in the history of Paperwork that didn’t include a single photo.
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 December 2025:
1 visit: 64 people
2 visits: 12 people
3–4 visits: 14 people
5–7 visits: 1 person
8–12 visits: 6 people
13–20 visits: 3 people
21+ visits: 0 people
Total people: 100
People who came more than once: 36
Other notes:
This is the first month since time card tracking that there are 0 cards in the 21+ column.
Exactly the same number of people were here once as last month (64).
Note: 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.
At PowerPoint Party No. 34, Simon quizzed us about birds, Summer explored a method for shape-based dressing, Christof had us looking at his shoes, Kayla reviewed her year of celebrations, Gus and Kaila taught us the lyrics to APT., Ivan read holiday vignettes, Lauren S. explained how to judge ice dance, Madeleine told us about ice resurfacing, Trevr made us memento mori, Dan pleaded with us to appropriately appreciate Mariah Carey, and Beth taught us how to make a damn fine cup of coffee.
It’s 4:54pm as I jot this note down and it seems abundantly clear to me that I will not be sending this before Madeleine’s Creative Writing Workshop begins. Livvy is still sorting time cards (which she then has to lay out, which I then have to set up a light and camera stand for, before taking the photo and then importing it and giving it a light edit, for the final photo) but she has been waylaid by a social visit from Jim. They were earlier talking about her goal to adapt a short story by Ted Chiang, but are now discussing how to get a baby from a hospital. That alone makes this timeline impossible. And I have yet to write the Nostalgia section, or caption any of the photos. Also, as it currently stands, the intro is rather minimal, which is not my typical style. In any case, Jessica has also just joined their discussion, which has become about a cyst, making it further unlikely that Livvy completes her task before the workshop.
Finally, a reminder that The Company is a member-supported gathering place, and if you know any of us, you’re welcome to pop in any time for free (outside of events). If you know that one of us is here and you’d like to come by, reach out and we can let you in.
Photos
Jim came bearing hats, germs, and masks.
Jessica S. helps select photos for Paperwork because she is less sentimental than me and therefore has an easier time cutting things down. (This also leads to her picking her favorite photos of herself.) However, she is concerned she might herself be growing more sentimental (she said her heart grew three sizes over the holidays), so we are considering seeking additional help.
Bottle crew getting back.
The Old Year’s Resolution party involved a lot of time spent looking through journals and calendars and photos to remember what happened this year.
It also involved some of us putting together written or visual summaries of our years, and sharing them with each other. Super lovely.
Our new friend Joel went hard and made most of a zine ahead of time, and then, while here, drew this wonderful rendering of our intersection.
Some people had to take off before the sharing time but this is most of the crew that remained.
For the second year in a row, Allyson made a scrapbook using photos she printed out ahead of time.
Emily was also at this last year, and reflected on her previous year’s reflection as part of this year’s reflection.
“Your parasympathetic!”
I had to get coached through opening a bottle of fizzy wine. It went much better than I expected but also I have no idea why I was the one who did it. Photo by Beth.
Beth hosted “Vision Boarding with Beth”, a vision boarding workshop with Beth! And folks got together to cut.
And to paste.
And then to share their vision boards with each other.
Get that cowboy, girl.
Lauren T. read something about her horoscope that I missed that Livvy tells me is super relevant to me.
You might think Beth is presenting her board but in fact she is just holding up Ashley’s board.
Christof’s visions for his year.
Allyson sharing with the whole room.
PowerPoint Party No. 34!
This was mostly a presentation about 3D printing but the bird quiz was a really great callback and a good example of spaced repetition.
Summer shaping our perception on our perception of shapes.
Christof’s kicks. (Do we call them kicks still? Is that cool or not cool? I should have asked him.)
Christof speaking about some of his favorite sneakers of the year.
“Most days per day” is one of the best titles for a slide I’ve seen yet.
We have only twice before this moment had a two-presenter presentation. Once was Elijah and Zack, back when PowerPoint Parties were hosted in our apartment. The occurrence and future possibility of such a thing encouraged us to create a two-person feature for our Company website to allow for such presentation to be correctly rendered with appropriate attribution and linking and display (if you have not yet seen a past PowerPoint Party event page, they are updated after to include photos and links to every person and presentation). We made use of this two-presenter feature recently (and discovered many bugs) with Marvin and Katerina at an In the Making. Gus and Kaila are the second to use the feature, but the first to use it in it’s fully functioning form. More relevant to memory, however, is that this was just so much fun.
This is us reacting to them singing APT., on repeat, on repeat, on repeat.
I read some notes from my holidays. Photo by Lizzie.
Lauren S. has once before presented on figure skating and I very much appreciated the slow (to me) reveal that this was a different presentation about different figure skating.
Madeleine’s ice is like a simile.
This presentation had significantly fewer puns than his last one.
The amount of under-appreciating we were all committing previous to this presentation is what some might consider criminal.
It turns out that Beth knows just about as much about coffee as you would expect.
Attendance data for December.
—
This issue of Paperwork was written by Ivan with additional reporting from Jessica S., and was shot by Ivan, Beth, and Lizzie. Photo selection and editing by Ivan and Jessica S. Editorial support was provided by Livvy. This issue, and The Company itself, was made possible by the support of our members, Halie, Drew J., Justin, Mason, José, Mary Ann, Trevr, Allyson, Lizzie, Elijah, Michelle, Jim, Jacob, Mark, Sabrina, Beth, Dani, Chris, Will, Marcia, Rebeca, Sarah, Alex, Jessica P., Jessica S., Mike, Ben, Sam, Liz, Christof, Ryan, Lauren, and Leah.
Do you know anyone in the Denver area who might be looking for creative community? Feel free to forward this email along to them. Everyone loves Paperwork.
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