It has been—
[Looking at calendar]
—3 weeks since I last write here on JALC.
[Allow me to pause one more moment to turn said calendar over to February.]
Now there’s a few main reasons for my radio silence. First and most prominently, I was on deadline for a stretch. An inevitable part of life for the non-profit grants professional. Especially one as prone to procrastination and over-scheduling as I can sometimes be.
Continue reading “Time passes”
I am falling way behind in my book reviews. There’s still one book left over from 2020, as well as the 3 I’ve finished this far for different 2021 challenge prompts. So that leaves 4 titles that “need” covering. Now that I’m back to work after my end-of-year vacation, I won’t be completing books quite as quickly as I was before, which means it is hypothetically possible for me to get caught up. If I keep posting 4 or 5 nights a week and make sure that every other post is a book review, I could probably have everything back in balance before the end of January.
But here’s the unpleasant truth. I’m not sure I want to post all those book reviews. Thinking about that responsibility, the schedule and discipline needed to get caught up again—and then to stay caught up as I keep reading and blogging—it’s kinda giving this blogging hobby of mine an unpleasant taste of obligation and work.
Call me lazy, but that’s what I’m feeling.
Continue reading “Book buffet”
I’ve been a very lazy blogger this week. Took Wednesday off—the dog was all snuggly in my lap and I didn’t have the heart to displace her. And honestly, most Wednesday nights, Mr. Mezz plays D&D with his friends, so I might just plan for that to be a semi-regular night off while I dog-sit.
And then I took last night off, because…
Um…
What the hell were we doing last night?
I know we watched something on DVR together, and then I watched Grey’s Anatomy on my own. But what was it we watched together? It was more than a regular length TV show.
(This is not a great sign about my current headspace.)
Continue reading “Not really feeling it”
I’m taking a frivolity break tonight: my political posts take an embarrassingly long time to write, so I need to get something quick and low-effort up now so I can use tonight and tomorrow’s writing time crafting something that is more substantial and better researched.
Early in COVID, when everyone was opening up the vaults to various cultural programming in order to lift our collective spirits, I watched part of a Live from Lincoln Center broadcast with Annaleigh Ashford. Now I’ve had a bit of a girl-crush on Ashford since I first noticed her in Masters of Sex. After that, I learned what an incredible musical theater talent she is, from being the absolute best part of that TV remake of Rocky Horror, to Kinky Boots, to her revelatory interpretation of Dot in Sunday in the Park with George.
I didn’t watch the whole concert (episode. whatever-you-call-it.) during the spring. I’d been kicking myself over that carelessness, but preparing this quick post has brought me the happy discovery that the whole thing is still online—and not behind a subscriber paywall!
Yeah, I was gonna do this whole COVID Diaries thing, wasn’t I? If you’re a writer who knows you’re living though history, it would be a good idea to capture some of that daily history along the way, am I right? ESPECIALLY if you’re a blogger who kinda specializes in doing lightweight socio-cultural analysis.
(Here’s the place where I’d usually hit the “read more” command to put the rest of this post behind the jump.* Of course, I can’t find that command in the new editor, nor can I find a way to get back to the classic editor. 2020, why you gotta do me like this? I am seriously gonna step away for a bit to regain my composure before continuing.)
There’s a metaphor I’ve been exceedingly fond of for quite a number of years. It’s an image that helps pop the balloon of any expectation that you need to have your entire journey mapped out in detail before you’re able to progress and grow and live and all that juicy stuff.
It’s this simple truth. When you’re driving at night, it’s not like the car headlights are showing you the entire route from Point A to Point B. They’re just showing you the next step on the road. But one after the other, seeing each next step a couple hundred feet at a time—well, that’s enough to get you wherever you need to go.
So Sherri, how did that 2019 blogging experiment of yours end up?
I daresay the fact that my last post was almost-literally six months ago answers that question.
Its not that surprising. Shortly after that last post went up, I joined the RED Sisterhood team, helping support my wonderful teacher and mentor, Kristin Sweeting Morelli, in sharing her genius for women’s empowerment and women stepping into their feminine power.
Since I’m an integrous person and my primary professional responsibility is to my “9-to-5” job, I’ve only been helping Kristin out on evenings and weekends. But, when you add those evening and weekend hours on top of my 9-to-5 schedule and on top of the evening and weekend hours I sometimes(1) have to give to my non-profit job — well, it’s unsurprising I haven’t had a lot of recreational writing time.
So why am I back here?
Call it a New Year’s thing.
I don’t know if I’ve talked about it here on JALC, but there was a stretch of time during my Philly years that I became a low-grade devotee of short-form improv. All of which is a somewhat pretentious way to say I took a few classes, did a few student shows, and attended the occasional improv “playdate” with other amateurs who just wanted to keep to fun of the practice going.
But one of the reasons I’m drawn towards the more pretentious phrasing around being a “devotee” is the way in which studying improv during those few years was absolutely transformational for my life, my career, and my psychological health. This is not hyperbole: legit transformed.
So, I’ve been playing hooky from JALC for the weekend.
In large part because I’ve been binge-watching Game of Thrones before the final season premieres a few short weeks from now. This weekend got me to the end of season 6, so I should be able to knock out season 7 between now and April 14. But between all that screen time Friday night and yesterday afternoon, I wasn’t in any sort of mood to be typing on my computer last night.
Instead, I curled up in bed and read a chunk of Wolf Hall. Yes, even in a mode where I’m supposedly lightening up on my reading challenge goals, watch me tackle yet another tome of a book.
I’ve decided I want to hold off on any sort of “review” of GoT till after I’m all the way caught up, and I always wait till a book is finished before making a post here.
Given that I’m very much midstream on all the things, what is there to say here? Join me behind the jump as I figure that out…
So, with the end of another month, time to milk another post out of the ongoing process of monitoring my progress on all these reading challenges. (One, two, three.) As with January, I’m going to do a small snapshot report on where I stand in regards to my initial reading plan, and where there’s been changes.
And, in light of the new diagnosis and research project I have going on, I’m also going to be putting some thought into a change of direction for the rest of 2019.
