Fri. Feb. 4, 2022: Let’s Hope Freezing Rain Doesn’t Freeze My Brain

image courtesy of adege via pixabay.com

Friday, February 4, 2022

No Retrogrades!

Freezing rain, temperature dropping

Can you imagine? No retrogrades!

It rained all day yesterday, and now, as I type this (in the morning), it’s switching over to sleet/freezing rain and rather nasty out there. I need to dash to the mailbox at the end of the street (not going all the way to the post office) at some point to mail more bills, but that will be the extent of leaving the house today.

Yesterday was another mixed day. I finished one of the radio plays. I worked on, but didn’t finish the other, and I need to get that done, because the two have to be submitted together. And that damn well needs to happen today. As it is, I might have missed my window.

I spent too much time brainstorming on the anthology, and need to curb my time on that a bit, because it’s interfering with The Big Project and a couple of other things I have going. I need to write up my proposal, draw up a floorplan for a building that can be shared space in the anthology, and then not spend several hours every day on it until we have more parameters and deadlines.

I finished THE CHRISTIE AFFAIR. Very well-written, and gave me a lot to think about.

Worked on script coverage, but didn’t get as much done as I hoped, so I have to buckle down today, once I finish and submit the radio plays.

I also want to buy Scrivener today and get that installed. I had hoped to start learning how to use it (I think it will be helpful for The Big Project), but I’m not sure I can make the time, with everything else that needs attention.

There were a couple of communication snafus (typically as Mercury is retrograde and stationing direct). One of them is a big red flag, client-wise, and I’ll have to see if it straightens out appropriately, and make decisions from there. The other was just one of those things, and totally not about me, although, exhausted, after a 16-hour day, it was difficult not to take it that way. But it wasn’t, and I put my ego aside, and acted like a decent human being. Because we’re all stressed and struggling, and doing the best we can.

I had hoped to have a very productive week and take the weekend again, but I’m behind where I want to be on a few things, and need to use the weekend to make it up. I still had a productive week, especially when it came to my own work; now I just need to balance it with work that brings in money immediately, not a few months down the road.

Had a discussion with another writer on social media about serials. I love writing them and reading them. However, I’m not all that thrilled about a writer who simply releases chapters of a book over time and calls it a “serial.” No, you’re just charging per chapter, and I’ll wait for the damn book. Serials require a slightly different structure, within each episode, and also driving the overall narrative. Yes, they can be released as books once they’re complete (hopefully, quite a bit of time after they’re complete), but they usually need a little tweaking to smooth them out as novels.

So when a writer is on social media talking about how they’re releasing their novel as a serial, I’m not all that interested; but if they’re actually talking about writing and releasing a serial as a serial, I am.

That’s just me. Writers need to do what they want, but how it’s framed affects whether or not I’ll buy it. And if I feel lied to, I’ll just cross them off my purchase list for the future.

Anyway, the freezing rain is pounding against the windows, and I need to get as much done as possible in case the power goes out.

Have a great weekend!

Tues. Feb. 16, 2021: Die For Your Employer Day 272/MA Vaccine Distribution Fail Day 20 — Trying to Hold Steady

image courtesy of M. Maggs via pixabay.com

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Waxing Moon

Mercury Retrograde

Icy rain and fog

Busy weekend, but that’s the way it is for the foreseeable future.

Worked on the grant proposal on Friday, which comprises three 250-word pitches. Working on them was fun. Decided to wait and send out the interview requests for the article for THE WRITER today, because I’m worried it will get lost over the holiday weekend. The pitch for that had most of the information I need, so those go out today.

Got out some LOIs.

Did not do my box quota; ran out of steam by lunchtime, which is what starting work a little after 4 AM will do.

Got some good work done on GAMBIT COLONY.

Looked for the start of a draft for a play I’d hoped to finish and submit yesterday; can’t find the draft anywhere, so it’s just not going to happen this cycle.

Jumped on the signup site for vaccines for tomorrow, out in Orleans. The first time, the site glitched and switched me from the Orleans facility to the Needham facility. I had to cancel that appointment and re-apply in Orleans; by the time I got the information all put in again, all the appointments were gone.

Again, why is the Cape only getting enough doses to have one site live PER WEEK, when sites all over the state are getting as many or more doses PER DAY?

And the county is saying we should go off Cape to get vaccinated. How many people can’t? I talked to my mother’s doctor’s office about that, when I had to call to get one of her medications adjusted. Their concern (which echoes mine) is especially about the second shot, especially if I’m able to get the “companion shot.” I won’t be able to drive that far directly after getting the shot. There’s a good chance we’ll both start feeling bad within 30 minutes and have to be careful for a couple of days. A day trip to get the shot is not possible. And it’s not safe to get someone else to drive us.

Baker’s swanning around, acting like everything is great, but Cape Cod is being ignored. It’s disgusting. It’s bad enough he’s demanded non-essentials workers put their lives in danger by working on site since last May to please tourists; now he won’t even give us access to vaccines. The Feds have increased the doses steadily, but they are not being distributed within the state properly.

But at least the signup site was sorta working, and my mom is on a waitlist tomorrow. I’m sure it’s with several thousand others, but it’s better than the previous week, when the sites weren’t even live when promised.

Up early on Saturday morning to do a dump run. Five bags of garbage and as much recycling as I could stuff into the car, which still wasn’t enough. There will be another dump run this week.

Stopped at the grocery store for a few things, swung through an empty Dunkin Donuts to use a gift card someone gave us, home, decontaminated.

Then, it was time to put in some more work on the grant proposal. I fixed some log lines and a few other things. My friend and I are reading each other’s pitches and helping each other hone them, which is helpful. I do want to get it out soon, though, and not wait until the end of the week.

I need to turn my attention to the other pitch, due March 1, which needs a production budget attached. As I worked on the proposal, I realized I don’t know what things cost anymore, so that requires some research this week.

Managed to purge 13 boxes on Saturday. Tossed A LOT, which was good. Lost some books to basement damp that I need, so I found replacement copies on Alibris and orders them. Repacked a bunch of stuff. Scrubbed the basement floor, where the boxes rested for so long. I’m going to put some boards down, and then restack the freshly-sorted boxes on top of the boards, so they don’t stick to the floor and get damp again.

Found some books relevant to current projects and put them aside. I have to configure some project bins so I can keep certain books handy.

Found a ton of writing books – fun to go through them again. Tried not to get too caught up in re-reading.

Packed up some of the books in my bedroom, and now things look more chaotic instead of less. I have A LOT of books in my bedroom.

The packing/moving tape I bought sucks. Sticks to itself, but not to the boxes.

Read the book for review. It’s delightful. What a gem, what a lovely, lovely book.

Up way too early on Sunday. Worked on GAMBIT COLONY. Wrote my review. Did another pass on the grant pitches.

Felt overwhelmed and exhausted.

Purged 12 more boxes from the basement, and scrubbed the floor some more. One whole wall’s worth of double-rowed boxes is nearly done. I just have the corner boxes to finish.

The bulk of those boxes were books. I’ve been re-sorting them and repacking them. The upside is that I’ve assembled a wonderful library over the years, especially when it comes to diaries, letters, women’s history, and the arts.

The downside is that some of the boxes of books were destroyed by being in the basement for so long, and, since it’s Cape Cod, the bottom boxes disintegrated in the damp. One set of Robert Louis Stevenson, leather-bound, from 1912, might not be able to be saved. Which is my own damn fault. But I’m trying.

Most of the lost books don’t need to be replaced. But five of the ones in this weekend’s purge do, and I found replacement copies at reasonable prices online. I ordered them, and they’ve already shipped. I am sorry to lose two of the original copies – they were signed by the author and had personal meaning to me. But it’s my own damn fault for not going through things in the basement once we moved, and not getting the boxes up off the floor.

One of the most difficult things the past days has been the constant negative talk inside my own head, telling me what a failure I am.  (If one more person tells me to “take a walk” to feel better, I will scream. TAKING A WALK IS NOT SAFE HERE DUE TO COVIDIOTS). I’m trying to halt each time the negative loop starts and turn it into something positive. Because the negative just drains me, and I don’t have the time to be drained and wallow right now.

It needs to be turned into POSITVE ACTIONS.

But fighting with that inner negative loop takes a lot of energy.

I’m exhausted and in pain from the physicality of scrubbing the basement floor and moving all the boxes around, unpacking, repacking, stacking, etc. But I can’t take any time off right now. The time doesn’t exist.

Sunday night into Monday, I dreamed of a dead black snake. A disturbing dream. I panicked when I looked up the interpretation of “black snake” – which is about evil and distrust (wait, you mean I’m surrounded by Republicans? No! – Yes, that is sarcasm). But then I remembered it’s a DEAD black snake, so I looked up that interpretation, which is positive transformation.

My subconscious is telling me to hang in there. And, when I listen to that quiet inner voice, I feel on track. But when I look at exterior logistics, I panic.

The exhaustion and the headaches don’t help. But I just have to keep going on.

Monday morning, I did some more work on GAMBIT revisions. And looked at the notes a friend gave me on the proposal.

I knew there was an incoming storm, and there was some stuff at the client’s office that couldn’t be done at home. I went in extra early (to make sure no one else would be in), loaded the photos I needed onto a flash drive, packed the order that needed to be shipped, and was out of there lickety split.

On the way in there, I stopped at Target, right when they opened, to pick up a few things, like toilet paper and garbage bags. And my favorite pens. You know, the necessities.

On the way back from the office, I stopped at CVS to pick up my mom’s adjusted prescription. I felt bad for the staff – the computers ran so slowly, which was causing all kinds of backups. And then, when I used the hand sanitizer, it squirted all over me, so I looked like I’d been hosed down in sanitizer. Too funny. Swung by the post office to drop off the shipment. It was small enough to fit in the bin in the lobby.

Home, decontaminated, did client work. Got up the Monday social media posts, finished the graphic for the email blast and got it out, created a graphic for another email blast (which I hope to get out today).

Got out some LOIs.

Did not look at the grant proposal, so that I could come back at it with fresh eyes today.

Got assigned two more books for review from my editor, and already started one of them, which is very good.

Worked on contest entries. I’m on the print books in the second category now, and they’re so all over the place. It’s kind of wonderful.

Hunted for vaccine appointments. No luck. I’m so sick of Baker treating the once-a-week sign up as thought it’s Black Friday, and then standing there smirking when people can’t get appointments. He’s saying that not enough doses are coming in. While that is true to a point, there are many more doses coming in now than there were a few weeks ago. It’s the distribution that’s a problem. There are sites all over the state with open appointments. There are sites all over the states with expiring doses. There are sites all over the state where you can book an appointment weeks in advance.

EXCEPT on Cape Cod, where one site opens to book appointments once a week, if we’re lucky. And the slots fill up in ten minutes or less. Which is ridiculous. The problem is not on the federal level – they’re ramping things up as fast as they can, and increasing dosage deliveries. The problem is at the state level.

Baker’s office.

Not to mention that the county continues to have a slew of sites listed that AREN’T LIVE. That aren’t getting doses or booking appointments.  So Baker points to the site to say there are so many locations – but if none of them have doses or take appointments, it doesn’t matter. It’s not real.

I packed up some boxes of books in my bedroom yesterday afternoon, and I’m taking down the folding bookcases in the room as I empty them.

Tessa is not amused.

I did some work on GAMBIT COLONY this morning. I have another ad to design for a client later on. Have some LOIs to get out, and I’m going to send out interview requests for THE WRITER article today. I’m hoping the power stays on, so that I can do some work in the basement this afternoon, but if it doesn’t, I’ll pack more in my room. I’ll set the logs in the fireplace later this morning, so we can light it if necessary.

As I’m searching through the boxes, I’m finding the print copies of articles not available online. I’m stacking them by the scanner, so I can scan them and put them in my clip file and online portfolios.

Why has WordPress changed the font suddenly? Why is every WordPress upgrade actually a downgrade?

Have a good one, friends.

February 15, 2007

Thursday, February 15, 2007
Waning Moon
Saturn Retrograde
Mercury Retrograde
Sunny and COLD

And guess what? No hot water! Again. Are you really surprised, at this point?

I was featured on Deborah Ng’s “Pay it Forward Tuesday” this week – and too sick to visit any other blogs. So I caught up today.

My “Pay it Forward” is Mia King, who found me here via wordpress or something, and whose new book, Good Things was published about a week ago. Go, Mia! Hop over and visit her if you get the chance. Not only does her book sound terrific, she and her husband run a golfing company in Hawaii!

Visiting the other blogs on the Pay it Forward:

Kelly Boyer Sagertz: Word of Mouth has some interesting information on a variety of topics:

Eleanor Burks’s book Assaulted by Memory – the page goes directly to Amazon.com, not her site, so all I could see was that only one book is left in stock; nothing about her;

Sinclair Nicholas has an interesting Prague Blog

if you’re interested in daily life in Prague. I wanted to comment on the blog, because I enjoyed the writing, but I “wasn’t authorized.” I tried to “log in” and it wouldn’t even let me sign up/sign in/whatever. Oh, well. I’m not going through any more signing up processes. I’m tired of jumping through hoops in order to be able to give someone a compliment. Either you want people to respond to your blog, or you make it too difficult and they don’t come back.

Scott Penny has That Blog

which is pretty fun AND you can leave comments on it without having to promise your firstborn, your dog, and your kitchen utensils.

And I really enjoyed Joanne Mason’s blog, What Do You Read?

Now, back to life, writing, and the rest of it.

I’m much better. No idea what got me down – and, because my union’s so-called insurance plan is not only inadequate, but for all intents and purposes, non-existent (I swear, the guy I was forced to see must have gotten his degree from a matchbook cover, so I ended up paying out of pocket for my former doctor and then going to my acupuncturist, who fixed just about everything), it wasn’t pretty.

Those of you who’ve known me for awhile know I’m pro-union. I’ve served as a union negotiator on contract issues. However, the labor movement, in general, has failed its membership in this country since Bush was crowned President by the Supreme Court (because he sure as hell wasn’t voted in – the votes weren’t even counted).

People join unions for two reasons – to have a unified voice in receiving a FAIR day’s pay for a FAIR day’s work in reasonably safe and sanitary conditions, AND to have access to health care by being a part of a group large enough that an insurance company can actually be bothered. Their responsibility is to provide that day’s work, and the union leaders’ responsibility is to make sure the membership is paid fairly, with cost-of-living increases each year, and to make sure the health care is there.

The union leadership has done nothing but cave to Bush’s anti-labor policies for the past six years instead of holding the line. It’s not just my union, it’s a nationwide problem. Too many egos and personal agendas have taken precedence over the reason unions rose in the first place, and now “union” is equated with lazy and/or corrupt – an incorrect image the employers are eager to push, and the leadership does nothing to dissipate. We need new leadership across the board who clean up the internal messes and then present unity to those who expect everything for nothing.

My industry has prime examples – those with the least contribution to the creative process make the profit, when it should be evenly distributed amongst those who actually generate the work.

Anyway, enough about unions and healthcare.

The show is going fine, in spite of the lazy co-worker who expects to be carried (and I’m not). This person begged for the job; now this person must fulfill the responsibilities. I’m doing MY job, not TWO jobs. I have a second full-time career already. Make the choices, take the consequences, right?

The commute hasn’t been too hateful this week, so far; I’m dealing with it, back to reading on the train, etc.

The writing has gone to hell without even the hand basket – I’m way behind on all the creative work, although I’ve managed to stay on top of the business writing, pitches, follow-ups, etc., and I’m in the midst of negotiating contracts on several interesting projects. I also found some interesting new markets for some of the pieces that I worried about before I left a week and change ago. I certainly have my work cut out for me, catch-up wise, next week, on my week off between tracks. At least I managed to keep up with Circadian posts.

Artie is back, and we went to dinner at a recently opened French restaurant on Ninth Avenue between shows last night. The décor is lovely, the service excellent, the food wonderful, the presentation beautiful. All in all, a good experience.

We had a few kerfluffles in the show – a boot got caught up in one of the massive underskirts and we couldn’t find it for a quick change, so I ran down to storage and got out an old pair and got the actress on stage; two pairs of boots that look the same were accidentally switched, but I managed to get them switched back before the change – little stuff like that. For the most part, it’s been pretty calm, and there’s been enough laughter to make it fun.

I got the child’s humidifier from Target that looks like a small, round, yellow cat. The steam comes out of its ears – it’s pretty funny. My cats are fascinated by it.

I’ve got a few hours before I head back to the show tonight to try and get some stuff done out here. I need to dig out my mom’s car later because she’s got to get on the road, and I’m not going to have her do it herself.

February 19 was supposed to be a day off, but because I lost so much ground when I was sick, that’s just not going to happen. Maybe the weekend of the 24/25, I can have some time off.

Doesn’t it suck that Mercury went Retrograde on Valentine’s Day? Hope it didn’t have too much negative effect for any of you.

Will catch up on everyone’s blogs over the next few days.

Devon

February 14, 2007

Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Waning Moon
Saturn Retrograde
Mercury Retrograde
Ice storm

Just a quick word to all my friends and readers out there before I head out into the ice storm for a two show day — Happy Valentine’s Day! Each one of you holds a special place in my heart.

Devon