work

Tuesday (also: not my cat)

I spent most of yesterday working on a report on the backyard deck. (Or should that be I was on the backyard deck, working on a report? I have yet to find cause to write a report about the backyard deck. But the year is young.)

Today went by pretty quickly as well. Around 4:30, I glanced at the clock and was shocked to discover it wasn’t 3:30. I ended up missing my train — by one minute — because of that, but as someone said to me on the way out the door, any day where you don’t watch the clock is a good day.

And I think today was. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a great day, but I’ve lately been getting things almost kind of accomplished, and it’s a nice feeling.

Wet Wednesday

It was a pretty good day, the cold and rainy weather notwithstanding. It doesn’t feel like the end of April, but maybe now that I’m completing projects at work that, in a better world, would have been finished in March, the seasons will start to catch up.

Well, “completing” is probably being generous, but I’m still hopeful.

The week that it was

April is a cruel-ish month. Remember when winter was a thing that ended?

It snowed on Wednesday, or maybe it was Tuesday night. We woke to find a very light dusting on the front lawn and the cars, and the train station platforms had turned to a thin but nasty sheet of ice. It was an unexpected cold snap that’s lasted all week, never again with the same kind of dramatics, with snow and ice, but it’s been a lot colder than I think any of us expected for mid-to-late April. Last Saturday, I was hanging out in the backyard in short sleeves. This morning I could see my breath and wondering if maybe I hadn’t better get a warmer jacket.

It’s been an okay kind of week otherwise. I’m finally getting accomplished things that were supposed to have been accomplished a month ago at work, so that’s good. There are still at least a couple of very big potential headaches that I’ll need to tackle again next week, but I can’t tell you how much relief I had this week when I finally handed over one of my books to production. So much relief, really, that I hope to repeat the experience again next week.

I know in some parts of the civilized world today — and even Monday — is a holiday. Not so much here, though the trains were maybe a little emptier than usual this evening. (Just a little.) I have no big plans for the Easter weekend, other than to try and enjoy it and hope the weather warms up a little.

I’m thirty-seven! I’m not old!

We didn’t get the snow that was forecast last night, unless you count a weird, light dusting I noticed around the car windows this morning, but the weather has definitely put the lie to the idea that we’ve finally entered spring. I suspect I’ll finally be able to stop wearing my winter coat by late April, but late March seems to be pretty much off the table.

It’s been an interesting week, albeit not always interesting in ways that I’d like. One of the editors I work with told me the other day that he’d had an anxiety dream about this one book, and I’m close to having a few myself. There’s some small comfort in knowing the big issues that are keeping a couple of projects from moving forward aren’t of my making, but…well, not a whole lot. Still, I think we’re further along today than we were yesterday, so there’s that at least.

Meanwhile, I had one of them birthday-type things again. It seems like I had the last one only a year ago. It’s been mostly uneventful, although I received some very nice gifts — almost exclusively books — and well-wishes, and it was a good day.

I even did some writing, which I’ve managed to do most every day for the past week and a half. And while it’s still very scatter-shot and meandering — very first-draft-y — some good ideas and forward momentum may have snuck in while I wasn’t paying attention. (They’re not wrong when they say a big part of writing is just showing up.) Today’s few pages didn’t bring any great eureka moments, and showing up isn’t always fun, but I never regret writing, only when I don’t.

Anyway, it’s been an odd sort of week, but not a bad one, even kind of good in its way.