:: Monday 9 July 01 ::

Hot. July. Tautology, I suppose.

Long hot dreamy summer days. I will have a number of these to look forward to--44, to be exact--come Friday, once I go off appointment for six weeks. I feel a bit self-conscious even mentioning this; it feels like gloating, in the face of everyone else's common burden of year-round toil, with perhaps two weeks of vacation in an entire year. I'm on ten-month appointment, at a job that pays enough that I don't need to temp during my off time. It seems at times the greatest luxury the universe has ever dropped in my lap, and I hardly feel worthy.

I'm also, to be honest, more than a little apprehensive about it. I don't do well with lots of unstructured time, or at least I haven't historically, and I have some fear that without the daily rhythms of showing up at work, the daily contact with others that work forces me into, I'll lapse into a sort of hermetic stupor, and piss away my time on trivialities.

The plan is to write; the plan is to get a great deal of writing done, finish the dS thing that's currently at 400K and will likely end up at around 600 at least. Perhaps even make some progress on the XF/HL thing that's been on my hard drive for close to three years now. But I know that I'll need to come up with some self-imposed structure to make this actually happen, and structure is not my strong point.

I fantasize about long productive days, sitting in front of the computer with the fans going and the shades pulled tight against the blazing sun. Cool and dim and quiet. The story's waiting for me, I can feel it drifting around in my head, little scenes and snippets floating through my brain when I lie in bed in the morning. I just need to apply shoulder to wheel, and push.

And I'm bagging the guilt; hell, this'll be the first time in eleven years that I've had as much as a full week off, nothing to do, no job to go to, no academic papers to grind at. I've supported myself for thirty-five years now, usually with jobs that had little or nothing in the way of vacation. Maybe it's OK to take a break.

previous | next

fandom journals

Anna :: Aral :: Athena4 :: AuKestrel :: beth666ann :: Brighid :: Colleen :: Debchan :: Dine :: Erica :: Fluff on Top :: Gemma :: grit kitty :: Helen :: Ins :: Jane St. Clair :: Kate :: LaT :: Livia :: Maygra :: Mia :: Miriam :: Nestra :: Olwen :: Rowan :: Sheila :: Shrift :: Simplelyric :: Soo :: Pam :: Te :: Valeria :: Viedma :: Viridian :: WitchQueen :: xen :: ZorroRojo ::

other sites

Bad Hair Days :: Hissyfit :: kottke.org :: lileks :: memepool :: Mighty Big TV :: plaintive wail :: Tomato Nation

 

"I'd learned on the highway and in the circus, in the army, and at boxing gyms that even if you have a cutman in your corner to stanch the blood, it doesn't obviate the need for stamina, self-reliance, and keeping oriented to what I think of as the earth's magnetic field. You can have allies, mentors, be married, but still you're going to be alone most of your life, and if you're going to run off the rails, you had better be good company for yourself."    
--Edward Hoagland