Wed. Aug. 2, 2023: Shake It Off
image courtesy of Jack Geoghegan via pexels.comWednesday, August 2, 2023
Last Day of the Full Moon
Pluto, Saturn, Neptune, Venus, Chiron Retrograde
Sunny and cool
We have two full moons this month! Makes August quite special, don’t you think?
Today’s Process Muse is about reading and re-reading. You can READ it here.
We have TWO serial episodes going live today, from two different serials.
One is from ANGEL HUNT:
Episode 55: The Hermit of the Library
The Library’s caretaker answers some questions.
One is from DEADLY DRAMATICS:
Episode 5: Ransacked
Nina comes home to devastation in her tiny apartment.
Yesterday’s serial episode was from LEGERDEMAIN:
Episode 107: Duke Vauxhall Makes an Entrance
Shelley’s trip to the Infirmary is delayed by Duke Vauxhall’s ceremonial entrance
Friday was a hot, humid, nasty day.
I tried to get past the upset and the chaos I’m feeling around the housing crisis. I have a few cards to play in this game, still, and I have to make sure I play them well, and at the right time. I have to be calculating rather than reactive. Mercury entered Virgo on Friday, which supports that (and stays in Virgo through the retrograde, and into early October). I also can’t talk about them publicly before I play them.
I spent more time than I planned looking something up in the Gwen Finnegan novella “Myth & Interpretation” because I was worried that it was too close to an upcoming arc in ANGEL HUNT. I ended up re-reading a good part of the novella, and enjoying being back in Gwen’s world. While some of the themes are similar to the upcoming ANGEL HUNT arc, the actual events and characters and plot points are very different, thank goodness. I wondered why I couldn’t find them in the Series Bible – and that’s because I had taken the themes and turned them into something unique that served the novella. In other words, I was doing my job.
But that put me behind where I planned to be for the morning.
I did the episode graphics for this week’s LEGERDEMAIN episodes. This week, I have to plan ahead a few weeks, as far as getting things uploaded and scheduled ahead of time, because I’m out of town for a chunk of next week.
I sat down to revise, edit, polish, upload and schedule the next four episodes of DEADLY DRAMATICS, which included fixing the episode numbering issue, and fixing some plot points that had been adjusted in earlier episodes to pay off now. I finished the third mystery arc, and started the fourth (and final) arc of the season.
Then, since I was in the groove, I wanted to keep going. I revised, edited, uploaded, polished, and scheduled four more episodes, then an additional two. I was going to do the next two, but it was the end of the day, I was getting tired, and I had to write a new Episode 100.
It was so humid in the evening, I could barely do anything except lie on the couch and look at the moon. Which is kind of a great way to spend an evening. And who knows how much longer we can enjoy it here?
I discovered that an actress I worked with (and loved working with) way back on the FLOWER DRUM SONG revival on Broadway is going to be in a show in Great Barrington for the next couple of weeks. I grabbed a ticket for this week’s Saturday matinee (after fighting with the theatre’s glitchy software), and wrote her a note. She’s got a tight turnaround between shows, and I don’t want to interfere with her dinner break, but I hope I get to say hello.
Up early on Saturday. It wasn’t all that hot, but the humidity was oppressive. My mind was mush.
I managed to get my act together and finally make it to the farmers’ market. Stocked up, so we will have some healthy meals this week. I couldn’t believe how many of the vendors remembered me after so long!
Got some regular groceries, too, and came home.
Totally out of steam in this steamy weather.
Plus, Saturday was the anniversary of my father’s death. Yes, it was in 1972. No, it doesn’t get easier, you just learn to live with it.
The cats were fur puddles. I was on the couch reading. I read Juliet Blackwell’s OFF THE WILD BRITTANY COAST, which was lovely and surprising. That it was good is no surprise; she’s a wonderful writer. But the way the plot and characters developed had lovely surprises.
The storm finally broke in the late afternoon, bringing down both the temperature and the humidity.
I cooked trout for dinner, along with small potatoes and zucchini and carrots from the market, all sauteed in plenty of butter.
Sat on the front porch after, enjoying the rain and the cool. Later on, a lovely rainbow appeared. A hopeful omen, maybe?
Heard from my friend in Beacon. I can visit her on the way back from the Archives next week.
Slept well, because it was cooler.
Up early, finished reading a book for pleasure. I wasn’t sure about it when I started it, but I kind of liked it by the end.
Answered some questions from a friend about working under pseudonyms, and some other email.
Polished and sent off the poem due Aug. 1. Either it’s what they want, or it’s not, and I’ll never know if I don’t try.
Drafted an episode of Legerdemain.
Wrote the new Episode 100 of DEADLY DRAMATICS, then revised, edited, uploaded, and polished four episodes, getting me into early July of next year. In the home stretch with the season, but this arc needs more reworking than the others, especially with things seeded that need to pay off. And I seeded something that may not pay off until Season 4.
I was behind where I wanted to be for the day, but part of me was also being passive aggressive about not cleaning the house. Why should I bust my ass to impress the new owners when all they want to do is drive us out? And it’s not like the place isn’t clean, although it can always be cleaner. The new vacuum helps a lot.
By mid-afternoon, I had to head out the door, because I wanted to stop at Target on the way to the Mount, to pick up a few things I need for the Archives next week. Which, of course, Target didn’t have IN THE DAMN STORE, and I need to see the items in person, not just buy them online. So that was a wasted trip. And then I was almost late for the poets.
But I made it, and I took a lot of pictures with my new camera. The pieces were engaging.
I was very generous in sharing my bottle of bug spray. We needed it.
Had some good conversations with some of the other poets, which was fun, over lemonade and cookies. That included a conversation about the “universal junk drawer” and a riff between several of us how there is only one actual junk drawer, and when we open the one in our individual kitchens, it’s a portal to the universal/collective unconscious junk drawer. That conversation also gave me an idea for a completely wild, out there card to play in the housing crisis situation. It would take a bit of organizing, but it would definitely make a mark. The drive home was fine. Stopped to pick up a few things at Adams Fresh Market. I hosed off all the bug spray when I got home and ordered pizza.
The almost-full moon was gorgeous.
Nice and cool at night, so I could sleep, but the stress is wearing me out.
Up early, hauled myself to the laundromat. Revised the last 14 chapters of ANGEL HUNT, and I’m much happier with them. I still have to edit the middle 60-something chapters, but that will start as soon as I finish uploading and scheduling the rest of the DEADLY DRAMATICS season (in about a week or so). Then I’ll have two full seasons up and running.
I can then start working on THE LIGHTHOUSE LADY (the second season of ANGEL HUNT) and THE VICIOUS CRITIC (the second season of DEADLY DRAMATICS). And get ahead on LEGERDEMAIN.
Put away all the laundry. Found a pair of mystery socks which turned out to be my friend’s, and I will mail them to her.
Did a drop-off/pickup at the library and activated the library grapevine about the building sale.
Revised, edited, uploaded, and polished four more DEADLY DRAMATICS episodes.
Spent the rest of the day cleaning. Most of the house was in decent shape, because we had cleaned before my friend visited. It was mostly my office and my room, and some additional scrubbing in the kitchen.
I like having everything neat and tidy, but I do resent cleaning to impress people who might try to make me homeless.
Exhausted and disheartened in the evening.
I was just about ready to pack it in over at Bluesky, but a flood of new writers and artists have entered. Jendia Gammon, Gareth Powell, Helen Wistberry, and someone with the handle of Felonious Monk have really worked hard to connect writers and artists and set up feeds, etc. So we can have actual conversations and communications away from the screamers and shitposters. With the quality of conversation and connection improving, I’ll stick around for a bit.
Up early yesterday. Baked cornbread, because it was Lammas. It turned out really well.
Did some last minute cleaning, taking the garbage out, etc., and was worn out by 10 AM. My direct downstairs neighbors are annoying at the best of times, especially the way they keep their section of the front porch and the back a trash heap. They were shouting and banging all day Monday well into the night, and I worked on compassion, since they’ve got to be stressed as hell, too. However, I was INCENSED when I went to take the garbage out, and they’d pushed trash from their side of the porch in front of OUR door.
I got the broom out and shoved it right the hell back onto their side, and swept around our door. I’m limited in what I can do, but our stoop was clean, and we have a cheerful metal door hanging and a bagua mirror and a white lace panel, so it looks festive.
We knew the walk-throughs were starting at 11, and figured they’d be here between 12 and 1.
They were not.
I didn’t dare start any work. I didn’t want to have concentration broken by their interruption, plus I was too upset to focus. I had planned to take part of the day off from writing anyway, and then go to the Clark on my other project once they had come and gone.
I sat on the couch, and tried to enjoy the gift of time. Didn’t succeed, but I tried. I started reading Rachel Pollack’s final book, A WALK IN THE FOREST OF SOULS, about tarot, and there was actually information relevant to the situation. One of those synchronicity things. So it was interesting.
They finally wandered onto the street at 4:20. I was pretty much of a rage monster by then, although I tamped it down. And of course, OF COURSE, the new slipcovers arrived at the same time they did. Heaven forbid the slipcovers arrive in time for us to get them on before the walkthrough.
I watched them meander somewhat aimlessly for a few minutes, and then marched down to the front porch, opened the door, and said, “Hi! Good to see you. I need you to walk through this apartment first, because I have to leave for class at five, and I’m not going to miss it.”
They all looked at me, surprised, and then wandered in like a row of ducks. They saw the way the current landlord and I banter with each other (he was a Greek and Roman scholar at Oxford, so sometimes we go off on weird riffs). Their eyes lit up when they came in (which worries me, in case all they see are dollar signs). They were nice to my mom. Charlotte required them to line up and pet her, which they did, and she accepted them all. Willa danced around, and they gave her attention, too.
Tessa wasn’t having it and took refuge under my bed.
They were pleasant, took a lot of photos, liked the details and the big space. Again, this worries me that they’ll jack up the rent beyond what we can handle.
But they weren’t assholes, at least not at first go. And the cats didn’t hate them.
I told them we were happy here, and we wanted to stay.
We’ll see what they do with that information.
The only card I played this round was to be pleasant, answer questions, and be direct about what I wanted and needed now (them to focus, them to do this walkthrough first, and that we wanted to stay).
We are the only ones who don’t keep all the blinds drawn and the curtains down. We have light and space and it’s clean and it smells good. Especially since I sprayed the hell out of it with room scents from Goddess Provisions.
One of the guys was looking at the built-in that’s in the office and said, “There’s so much to SEE here.”
“Every object has a story,” I said. “Every object is part of my history.”
They were impressed by the kitchen. My landlord said it was the most upgraded of the kitchens in the building. I said, “Good. Because I cook a lot.”
“You have a lot of cookbooks,” one of them said, pointing at the two bookshelf units filled with cookbooks.
“I use them all,” I said. “I cook and bake A LOT.”
One asked if he could take a picture of the bookshelves for himself, because so many cookbooks fascinated him. I said sure, and told him about my friend in California who has over 1700 cookbooks and renovated a barn to house them all.
It went better than I expected, but we could still be screwed.
I shooed them out, changed, grabbed my yoga gear and made it to class on time, activating the yoga grapevine about the building sale. My yoga teacher told me that around here, people actively help each other find new places, and, in spite of the gentrification, it’s not as developed yet, so there are still options.
It was a double class, celebrating the studio being in existence for seven years. The gentle yoga was great. The flow and restore kicked my ass, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I actually don’t hurt as much this morning as I thought I would.
Home. Chatted with the neighbor across the street. Dinner. My best friend from college asked me to read his play that he’s going to submit to a theatre, so I’ll do that this afternoon.
Did a simple, but strong ritual for Lammas.
Slept well, and woke up to 46 degrees F, which is glorious. It feels and smells like the beginning of autumn, and the light has changed, too.
On today’s agenda: catching up with everything that didn’t get done yesterday (except for the Clark), working on the program and flyer for September’s reading, putting on the new slipcovers, promoting all three serial episodes and the Process Muse, reading and commenting on my friend’s play, a trip to the post office to mail my friend’s socks and activate the post office grapevine. Because the Post Office is the happening place in this town.
Have a good one!
