My university still has us in the classroom, and is still being disingenuous (at the least) about what’s going on with covid on campus. I have a limited number of classes per semester I can teach online without penalty, and so I am teaching online this week. This will allow me to separate the stress inevitably attendant on a new year teaching, and the stress of trying to do so in a mask in the middle of a pandemic. So, the hell with them. I care about my students and I like talking about writing to people. That’s still true. Everything else, I am trying to shake off. Part of that, today at least, includes thinking about other things.
I am still not writing, but I needed to come up with a pitch for a grant I am applying for, so I am outlining a novel I have written zero words for. Outlining novels is for me the fun part, so this is quite a pleasant little exercise.
I am doing a lot of escaping these days. Some is shows I have watched before and love (like Person of Interest). Some is reading books I haven’t read before (like Kerry Greenstreet’s Phryne Fisher mysteries). I am knitting a long and quite ugly scarf: perhaps I will post it here, and you can buy it for charity! I am playing with my cat a lot, though not as much as she wants. I sit out on my front deck for a while every morning, while the weather is still manageable, and I write notes to myself as I drink coffee and cream. I take little steps toward the Iceland retreat this winter break. I talk to my brother, my friends, my mother.
…actually not too much to say! I have a lot of thoughts and there are a lot of scary things going on in the world, but I am going to take the evening and be nice to myself. You, too, if you can.
