Tues. Jan. 28, 2025: Multiple Pots on the Boil
image courtesy of Michael Kopp via pixabay.comTuesday, January 28, 2025
Dark Moon
Uranus, Jupiter, Mars Retrograde
Snowy and cold
Hello! Hope you had a good weekend.
If you didn’t get a chance to see it yesterday, the Community Tarot Reading for the Week is here.
Today is the last class at the yoga studio. I am sad. I am happy that the owner/teacher is following her heart, but I am sad for the rest of us.
Mark Cuban is over on Bluesky and people are acting like he’s going to be our savior billionaire. All I see him doing is instigating in posts. What is he actually doing on the ground and out in the world? Maybe he’s doing plenty, but I am skeptical.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg Philanthropy is picking up the climate change slack from That Thing’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Friday morning’s snow threw a spanner in my planned schedule, but hey, that’s what living in the Berkshires is. The weather dictates decisions.
Instagram isn’t allowing me to turn off the share with FB. So, any time I post on Insta, it goes to FB, and I can no longer toggle it off. I had already disconnected Threads, and I was, post by post, not sharing to FB, but no longer have that option. Urgh.
Got things sorted out with the ghostwriting client for onboarding. It was very simple. I’d made one simple wrong choice that had sent me off into the wrong app, I cancelled out of it, and we’re sorted. They’re very helpful. I have the materials I needed to get to work yesterday.
Wrote the book review, submitted it, and received my next assignments.
Tried not to doomscroll too much.
Wrote the first draft of “Over the Shoulder” which comes in just under 900 words. I want to layer some sensory detail into it. Ideally, it will stay under 1000 words, but it might go a little over. It’s one of the stories I plotted out in my head before I fell asleep Thursday night, and it’s doing what I want it to do. When three Federal officials come to harass Althea’s neighbor, she throws them off their game.
Hopefully, I can get it into submittable shape this week and get it out the door.
It felt good to do a full draft of something.
It snowed on and off all day, so I did not go grocery shopping, I scrounged around the cupboards and freezer, and put together a crockpot dish.
Turned around a smallish coverage. Landed a medium sized coverage that pays decently.
Windows forced an update, but at least with the new update, I can turn off Copilot (and I did). The option everyone was talking about finally showed up. Also yanked it out of the apps.
Worked on contest entries. Started reading the Christopher Durang material that’s the background for the script commission for which I want to apply. Did a bunch of admin work.
Did a revision of “Over the Shoulder.” It’s just at 1000 words, if I don’t count the title. 60 seconds after I finished the revision, a potential market landed in my inbox – provided I keep it no more than 1000 words!
Started reading the next book for review.
Friday into Saturday, I did not sleep well. I woke up at 2:30 in the morning, fretting, and could not get back to sleep.
After breakfast Saturday, I took the rolly cart and went to Big Y for the grocery shopping. Got everything back, unpacked, changed, slapped on some makeup, and headed to MASS MoCA for Community Day.
I started in Building 6 and worked my way forward. Amy Podmore’s “Audience” is rather disturbing, for all the right reasons. You can read more about that exhibit here. Steve Locke’s “The Fire Next Time” is also disturbing, and very relevant. You can read about it here. The exhibit that captivated me most, however, was Jeffrey Gibson’s “We Are Power Full Because We Are Different” and you can read about it and see better images than I took on my phone here.
I visited the Like Magic exhibit again (you can see it here), which I do on every visit since it opened, and spent some time in the temple to bless your flash drives, which I somehow had missed on previous visits.
Perhaps one of the reasons the Gibson installation felt so relevant was because of the piece I’m starting to design for a cohort exhibit into which I’ve been invited to participate in August. I want to do a piece with textiles and words. And I want to use symbolism of color, shape, and layered meaning. Thinking about how we need to communicate in the coming years under That Thing’s fascism, I look back to the story quilts and other art using symbolism on multiple levels. I want to incorporate some of that. I’m in the pondering stage, and over the next few weeks I will have to make sketches. The piece itself will take several months to construct, especially juggling everything else. But at least I have a clear idea of what I want to do, so I’m not rushing at the last minute. And the Gibson exhibit gave me some ideas on how to achieve it.
The museum was getting crowded, which is great, but I’m not a crowd person (even masked), so I left. I was, however, pleased to see people of all ages, the number of families, and the numbers of large groups of up to 10 or 20, all coming in together. As though neighborhoods decided Community Day at the museum was an excellent day out together, and I think that’s wonderful.
By then, I was tired and hurting, so I limped on home. By the time I dragged myself up the stairs and unwrapped from all my winter things, I calculated I had walked 8 miles that day. To and from the grocery store is a 3-mile round trip. To and from the museum is the same. Within the museum, I walked about two miles, especially with all the looping back I did as I considered relationships between various pieces in exhibits.
I hurt.
I haven’t walked this much since I lived in NYC.
In the afternoon, I took a two-hour nap. I’m not a napper, so this was unusual, but I was tired, and I felt more like myself. Cooked dinner, honored Virginia Woolf for her birthday and Robert Burns for Burns Night (but without the haggis), read some more in the book for review, went to bed at a reasonable time. I was worried the nap would disrupt my sleep pattern, but it did not.
Baked biscuits Sunday morning, because my mom likes them so much. American biscuits, not English ones. Did the Community Tarot reading for the week, and scheduled it to post.
I’m re-reading A MOMENT’S LIBERTY, which is a collection of diary excerpts by Virginia Woolf. Always fascinating. Read some of Jane Shore’s poetry. Worked on the preliminary design for my art show piece. I keep getting ideas that complicate it and stripping it back, but that’s what the planning stage is about.
Cleaned off the worktable in my office and set it up for the contest entries, so I can sort them as I read them into Yes, No, and Maybe piles.
Finished reading the book for review. Got about halfway through the print review copy of TAPESTRY. There are a couple of small things I want to fix before it goes to print. Nothing major, it wouldn’t change the course of the story, and most people wouldn’t notice. But I notice, and I want to make the adjustment. Read THE TELLER OF SMALL FORTUNES for pleasure, which is a sweet cozy fantasy. Made a nice dinner.
Went to check a notification from the city on Facebook. Took a look around after, and it was a hell site, similar to what Twitter devolved into. The crap that came up on my feed was revolting, and some of the lies were posted by people who know better. Blech.
Slept reasonably well into Monday. Up at the usual time, usual morning routine. Took care of some admin work; noodled with some logos for Boiler House and sent them for approval, which happened; updated the Links page on this blog.
Rewrote “Over the Shoulder.” It’s over 1000 words now, just under 1200, but now it’s almost where it needs to be. That points it to different markets, which is fine. Did some work on the anthology story.
Had to hike around on foot to do a few more errands. Quite a few of the people for whom I hung around on Meta platforms are migrating to Bluesky, so I’m feeling better about pulling back and possibly/probably deleting various accounts over the coming months.
Wrote and submitted the review. Submitted the invoice and was paid within the hour. Yay. Transferred that money to the bank. I have to pay the car inspection, the car insurance, and my web hosting by the end of the week.
Turned around a script coverage (which paid reasonably well). Worked on the background reading for the ghostwriting project. For this test, I’m jumping in to pick up the baton from material someone else originally created, and it has a setting and premise that I’m excited to work within. I’m writing up brainstorming questions/how-much-can-I -away with questions as I go, and I will have them ready by tomorrow’s deadline.
Cooked dinner and read for pleasure in the evening. Started reading a book which had been highly recommended and has a long waiting list, and it just didn’t do it for me. There’s nothing wrong with it, the writing’s fine, the premise is good, but I’m not in the mood for the genre. I have a second book by the same author in my library pile that also has a long waiting list, and I think I’ll just send them back unread. Let others actually enjoy them.
Slept well. Up early, my brain teaming with ideas for the ghostwriting project. Saw that all federal grants have been paused. That’s going to hurt a lot of colleagues, and a lot of arts organizations (among other things), as intended. It also means two of the big grants I was going to prep over the next couple of months should probably go on pause. And the commissioned play, about which I was having second thoughts, should probably go into the mix again.
Remember: what’s happening now shows that ANYTHING can be reversed. And, when you look at history, it happens. This is bad, this is rough, but if WE take action, we can make sure it’s not forever. I don’t like that so many federal employees are just acquiescing, instead of fighting as long as possible, but I also suspect things aren’t being reported properly. I’m hoping there’s a lot going on behind the scenes, and more of actions like the Inspector Generals calling out illegalities is happening. It will continue to worse until enough people grow a pair and grow a spine and change it. And Chuck Schumer’s continued posturing, after HE LET IT THIS GET THIS FAR, is just embarrassing. I’ve worked with him on many issues over the years, and this is ridiculous. Manchin and Sinema gave him cover to be ineffective; it was his JOB to bitch slap them into line, not use their antics as a fundraising tool.
On today’s agenda, try to figure out something to get the car going again, work on the anthology story, work on ANGEL HUNT, attend the last of the trilogy of workshops, finish the background materials for the ghostwriting project, and go to yoga for our final class. I have no doubt there will be tears.
It’s snowing on and off today, which means I can’t work on the car and get it to the inspection, which is a little worrisome, but one step at a time.
Have a good one!
