Done This Week

Every single day of the workweek felt like Thursday, because I've been on miscellaneous tasks that would normally be tossed in at the end of the week. So it has been the longest week in a series of near-infinitely long weeks.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written, all in one day--is that an improvement or not?

Gratitude journaling: 35 new entries

Tumblr queue: 35 posts added

Day job: 42 hours

Cooking: salmon, sauteed mushrooms--got sick on Sunday and ceased to give a damn about food beyond absolute necessity

Art: used an egg dyeing kit and cheap watercolors to make a set of galaxy-pattern hollow eggs, now strung up in my window

Gardening: added a couple more plants to the butterfly garden, which is sprouting up all over, planted one of the haworthia that's been in the house for ages

Reading: haven't quite finished it, but this week was Dira Sudis's Sell Your Body to the Night, as read by thilia

Other: took ducks into the orchard for the first time--adventure!

plague journaling

I'm subscribed to a bunch of newsletters of various sorts, almost all of which I completely fail to read. I am an obsessive subscriber, because otherwise I will lose track of things, but that doesn't mean I have the means to actually keep up. That being said. Sundays are for Orbital Operations, the newsletter from Warren Ellis. I've got a bunch archived that I still need to read, of course, but I do actually keep up with this one better than most. And I've been tuning in more since the lockdown started.

My fondness for the works of Warren Ellis is well-established. The fact that I find his frequently-dystopian worlds comforting probably says something hideous about the state of my psyche. He's exactly the sort of kind-hearted, foul-mouthed bastard I wish to be when I grow old, though, assuming any of us survive that long. And he does comforting really well.

Get some rest, eat properly, sleep when you can, and turn your phone off once in a while. Nothing wrong with shutting the rest of the world off when you need to. I'll keep an eye on it for you while you're gone.

That's part of the sign-off from last week's letter. I've been collecting little snippets from the world that have been comforting lately. They're usually pretty bleak, if I think about it, but they're all the sort of "we have survived worse, we'll manage to get through this too" sentiment. The low expectations of people who have Seen Some Shit and who are fully prepared to see some more if circumstances dictate, because the alternative is rolling over and dying.

I've mentioned that I'm having trouble disconnecting from the news cycle, even when there's nothing new and certainly nothing helpful coming out of it. Even when I know it's just upsetting me. I'm afraid if I look away, something terrible will happen and I won't be ready. I won't know far enough in advance to do...something.

So right now, the most comforting idea is that someone else will keep watch for a while. That we can take it in shifts to guard the tribe gathered around our campfires. That nothing's going to sneak past me during the vulnerable moments of sleep or emotional collapse.