Sunday, March 15, 2020

systems, routines, & structure



Whenever I am at home for a while I tend to slip into this no man's land of time.  I waste it, when I could be using it more productively. There is is much written about how wasted time is, in fact, a gift.  The pleasures of doing absolutely nothing tenfold. A nice idea, but as someone whose list of projects I can't quite get to in general dailyness, I feel guilty not taking the reigns and giving my days over to naps and Netflix.  That said, there are room for these things as well.

Faced with the very real possibility of the next few weeks being large swathes of unstructured time, it occurs to me I need a system, a schedule to my days to make the most of it.  Hopefully by May, we'll be back to the usual grind,  and actually begging for the hustle, but until then, I need some structure. There will be library things--placing requests for articles via ILL if not books, Placing what we can on reserve for faculty (though the lack of e-book editions of many of of our textbooks is deplorable.)  I have some lib guides I've been working on--devoted to zines and topics for FUTURE TENSE (feminist dystopias, queer speculative fiction) Plus some writing related projects we've been plotting on exhibits, etc that just weren't possible in the general chaos.

I can pretty much continue press ops as usual since the only thing I need to leave home for is to drop things in the mailbox down at the corner, which I feel comfortable doing. (esp since without Loyola students around, my neighborhood will not likely be jam packed with people.)  I'll need to order the usual supplies online, so as long as Amazon is still coming through and there isn't like a paper or toner shortage, we're good.)

As for creative endeavors, I have three manuscripts in various stages of assembly.  I wasn't planning on getting any of them ready to send out, esp. since FEED is still in need of a home, but I can work to get them closer to ready.  I'm set to begin something new in terms of daily writing..having nearly finished pelt and something a little more prosey I'm in the midst of. And of course, visual art stuff, of which I have plenty of supplies and new toys to play with.

And of course, judging by the dust bunnies under my dress rack, the apartment needs a good spring cleaning, so there is plenty to keep me busy. (and keep me from scrolling anxiously through Facebook for the latest horror I have no control over.)

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