Today is Not a Productive Day
I did not get much done today aside from making a few corrections on syllabi and clearing out a bunch of emails. In truth, today has been a pretty piss poor day even for non-work productivity. No additions to the book catalogue. No blog posts (until now). No podcast editing. No editing editing. Really, not a whole lot of anything got done. I imagine we’ll see many of these over the next few weeks, especially now that Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz (who I voted for (thankfully)), has issued a shelter-in-place order. Part of this is actually my own doing: I made a pact with myself that “home” would be a separate zone from “work” solely so I can maintain a bit of critical distance; now those two have to come together, and that’s creating…issues. Part of this is only kinda my doing: working and working and working, even when you’re doing things you actually like, can be enormously draining, and I definitely hit my burnout point several years ago when I was still in grad school.
2016: A Year in Review and Some Resolutions
In just a few short hours, 2016 will be over for anyone living in the Eastern Standard Time zone. For others, such as you lovely people basically anywhere east of me, 2016 is already over. For some of you, that’s a very good thing indeed, because 2016 has been a pretty terrible year. From political hellfire to celebrity deaths to personal disasters, so many of us have felt stifled by 2016. It wasn’t all bad, though. Some of you published books or stories, fell in love or got married or had a child, discovered something super cool, read a lot of great books, made new friends, ate great food, got a new and better job, finished college, and on and on and on. I’m right there with you. A whole lot of bad sprinkled with some wonderful things. Here’s a look at the things that happened to me in 2016: The Bad