Gray Days
Currently reading:
Maeve Fly by C. J. Leede
Another Country by James Baldwin
Books of Blood: Volumes One to Three by Clive Barker
Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver [ongoing]
Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962–1972 by Alejandra Pizarnik [ongoing]
Books finished this week: 0
Library updates:
I have a sinking suspicion my currently reading list is getting a wee bit out of hand . . . (See above if you don’t believe me.) My goal is to finish at least the first three before I go down to DC for the National Book Festival in a few weeks. Wish me luck.
I did, thankfully, finish rereading Rosemary’s Baby for class this week, so at least that’s off the list. And now I’m officially done with all my school reading! Do I still need to watch three more movies and do a bunch more homework? Yes! But no more school reading! Yayyyyyy.
I felt a little out of sorts this week. I think it was partly the basically nonstop rain, with the gray days piling up and making it hard for me to put on my usual get-up-and-go attitude all week. I also realized later in the week that I had likely been dealing with PMS the first half of the week, and woo boy, was my uterus trying to take me out and/or get me fired this week. I had no energy. I couldn’t focus. I may have spent most of Wednesday morning editing in my bed.
(Are you still reading this? Don’t keep reading this. Nothing exciting happens. I’m only writing this to keep up the weekly habit.)
I had some plans, but I ended up canceling or just flat-out skipping most of them this week, too, because of the aforementioned rain and exhaustion, and also because I let meteorologists put the fear of god in me. Flash flood warning? No dance class for me! I had really been looking forward to taking myself to the botanical garden on Friday afternoon, but then they, too, listened to the meteorologists and closed up at 3pm.
I’m trying not to feel bad about not doing much of anything this week, mostly by reminding myself that I did plenty this week. I did (somehow) work full-time. I did homework. I drafted a 40-page rough draft of a short story, then spent the following days desperately whittling it down to 20 pages, to make it acceptable for workshop this coming week. I was proud of that last part——I actually kind of want to edit and expand the 40-page version. I’m not sure there’s a novel there, but a novella? Sure.
I also got my very first filling yesterday morning. My mouth felt very strange when numb, but the drill just made it feel like my brain was bouncing around in my head and I was done in like ten minutes. The dentist and his assistant were also super nice and, doubly fun, book nerds. The assistant asked what I was reading in the waiting room (it was Maeve Fly, for the record)——I hope she likes extreme horror!!
Also finally rode the Staten Island ferry last night!!
Closing thoughts:
You did so much this week, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Great work!
