It's weird liminal space to be in this month, but it still feels good and like the right decision. Despite moments of occasional financial panic, I am steadily working to make things flusher and less down to the bone than they have been most of my existence as an adult. It helps to feel like, with the freelance work, a little more control (the harder I work, the more money I earn.) Maybe it's a delusion, and it's more precarious, but it feels like the opposite. Today, I spent the afternoon with about 5 cups of coffee and John Everett Millais, who i was really only familiar in in regard to his Pre-Raphelite work like Ophelia, but actually moved away from that in later work. (hilariously because family life and the need for less time-intensive work made him want to paint broader and faster.) The Somnabulist above is gorgeous and something I hadn't seen before. The lush detail is nice on the backgrounds of earlier work, but this is moodier.
The other night, I finished up the series Station Eleven, and while I still struggled to remember what happens in the novel, it was very, very good. At times, it's depictions of apocalyptic virus life made me really anxious, but I am glad I stuck with it. Case numbers have dropped slightly, probably because we are over the holiday-induced bump no doubt, but it still doesn't feel all that safe. Though these fears seemed smaller when, upon waking, I checked the news to find hostage crises and tsunami warnings for the Pacific. There are days when I think I might have a happier life if I didn't check the headlines every morning, or if I limited my time on news-heavy social sites early in the day. I want to know the news, but maybe I need to go find it further in the day. Otherwise it sets a tone and definitely impacts my mood when I should be focusing on other things.
