The blog post I started yesterday was an anger-fueled rant about people not doing their part to stall the virus and contained a few, unbridled strings of expletives, but no one wants to read that, least of all you, dear reader, so I tucked it carefully away in my drafts folder until I am in a better mind set (maybe by 2023 or so). I'm thinking that now that I have settled in at home for a few days before the break starts officially next week less of my mental energies are focused on not, you know, getting covid, so now they've spiralled into white hot rage. I am angry at Americans. At sociopaths who refuse masks. At people too inconvenienced by the pandemic to be careful and thus put others at risk. Even, the the otherwise good-intentioned folks who have blind spots when it comes to close friends and family gatherings. It's exhausting and I'm exhausted by that anger. And now, in absence of immediate danger, I have time a bit more to think about it.
Still, ever the optimist, I ordered my new spiral sketchbook for 2021, though last year's carefully laid out and tabbed version was less serviceable and more like mocking throughout the course of the year, with it's tiny project lists, neat grids of post-its, and monthly goals laid out neatly in black ink. I carried a slimmed down version with my weekly post-it to-dos once I was back at work but sort of stopped looking at the sketchbook entirely mid-year or planning in any holistic way for the remaining months. The new sketchbook arrived yesterday, but I'm not ready to set it up for 2021 just yet, so maybe just after the new year when the taint of this one begins wearing off.
I have some library and dgp details to attend to before I am truly on vacation starting Weds. as well as mailing out this months Patreon goodies and drafting the December Paper Boat. The galley hard copy of FEED will be arriving right after Christmas so there is that to make any final changes on before I release it into the world, so it will be nice to hold it in my hands as a tangible thing after all this time.
I went to run a couple errands yesterday in the neighborhood and was amazed that the street poles had been bedecked in large red ribbons and tinsel, mostly since I inexplicalbly at moments forget its Christmas entirely somehow, though I am trying to enjoy the season. Christmas gifts have been ordered and shipped to their desired locations, and I'll wrap most of them when I get there. I will be headed to Rockford for a few days over the holiday proper to see my dad & sister, but otherwise not much is on the docket. I've accepted that this will be a sort of non-Christmas in the way summer was a non-summer and Halloween was a non-Halloween. It does take some of the festiveness out of it nevertheless.
