status
And that’s three nights without sleep, but it seems the humidity finally broke this morning. I am far from full power.
ON DECK: DEPT MIDNIGHT 1 & 2 mixes to review.
INBOX: 79. Going to sweep it EOD.
LISTENING:
READING: “I still have my imagination, and in its impregnable innocence it will keep me going until the end of my days.” — MY LAST BREATH, Luis Bunuel
OUTSIDE: I have 1087 unread posts in my RSS reader.
The heatwave is finally passing. The house, however, has retained all the heat of the past week. Also, WordPress has started stretching images and I have no idea why.
Last week was tough in a number of ways, and I’m hoping this week will be easier. I would like to coast into a stress-free autumn and a quiet winter. Unlikely to happen, of course, but we’re allowed to hope a little bit. Once DEPT MIDNIGHT and a few other things happen, I’m looking forward to turning off everything but this, my main email address, my private messaging apps (for family, old friends and work) and the newsletter and going dark until spring.
This will also probably never happen, but we’re allowed to wish a little bit, too.
ON DECK: Provided the heat doesn’t mess with me too much, I can finish some scripting and start looking ahead to what’s next. But I suspect this will be a short day again, as my eyeballs are sweating.
INBOX: 70. I have some catching up to do, but I will generally be across email this week.
LISTENING:
READING: Greg Borenstein is writing his excellent newsletter again.
SHIPPING FORECAST: I’m back on the boat this week, but I do not have time to deal with whatever weird adjustments WordPress has made to the sails.
It’s Monday. America is on holiday, and I have scheduled all my emails to autopost on Tuesday. I have killer eyestrain in my left eye. I am muting my phone and going into the garden. Tomorrow, I need to get back to work – I have to constitute about a hundred pages of script from notes. So my screen time this week is work only, no notes beyond logging the music and films I have in the mail. Last night I watched a filmed production of UNCLE VANYA with Toby Jones and wonderful Richard Armitage and immediately found a blu-ray of it. Thank god for BBC Four. I so wish Pite and Young’s REVISOR was on physical media.
I will be bad at email this week.
Today I have to convert all my notes and fragments from the last several days into forty pages of script. And I’m home alone until Sunday night, so I have to run the house myself, so there will be endless interruptions, which means today will be a 13 hour day at the keyboard, which means I’m going into the mines and not coming out ’til I’m done.
Inbox is at 108 – I will batch my responses over the weekend and queue them for Tuesday in most instances, because Monday is Labor Day in the US.
I’ve been listening to Laura Cannell a lot this week, and lo and behold she just put a new record up for pre-order today. It’s a good day to go shopping on Bandcamp, because it’s Bandcamp Friday, where Bandcamp waives their revenue share:
on Bandcamp Fridays, an average of 93% of your money reaches the artist/label (after payment processor fees). When you make a purchase on any other day (as millions of you have, with more than $1 billion now paid directly to artists), an average of 82% reaches the artist/label. Every day is a good day to support artists on Bandcamp!
Although, to be honest, I buy from Bandcamp all year round, because Bandcamp would not have survived this long without people giving them their share.
How is it September already?
I’m in the mines and I’m staying there until I put an end to this goddamn script. I am that donkey.
I’ve been struggling with a script for days, one that just did not want to be written. At 5pm yesterday I decided I needed to throw out twenty pages of it as just Bad and start again. So that’s what I’m doing today. If you need me, I’ll be at my desk writing and crying.
Today’s sound space.
Yesterday, we went out to a craft fair, which turned out to be 1000x more people than I’ve been around in the last three years. Naturally, I now have a slight cold. I spent too much money and am very tired, but it was a good day.
ON DECK: Scripting! All kinds of scripting. And lots of it.
INBOX: 97, whoops. Not helped by Spark Mail for iOS developing some email rendering problems that make it impossible to read some emails. I’d rather not go back to the Gmail app, which I find rather slow, but if Spark is now starting to break, it may be time to move on again.
Anyway. I’m back at the desk and answering messages.
OUTSIDE: “We don’t need a new Twitter“
Long Bank Holiday weekend here in the old country, just as the weather cools down. My partner is home for a little while, so we’re going to take advantage of it by going out to some fairs, visiting her aged mother, hitting a farm shop or two and the like. This notebook will resume on Tuesday. The newsletter is already written and in the autoposter for Sunday morning.
ON DECK: Banging out script to create space for the next tranche of work. And hitting one of my laptops with sticks so that I can work downstairs in the evenings again – the schedule requires a return to 12 hour keyboard-work days.
INBOX: 75, a lot of those are newsletters I have to read.
LISTENING: Currently working through my listening queue on Bandcamp.
READING: Actually, shopping for a couple more long books before I (attempt to) cease book-buying for the rest of the year.
LAST WATCHED: the joy of rewatching I CLAUDIUS
OUTSIDE: Neptune’s dark spot
The electric garden shredder is here. Now I just have to find the time to unbox, assemble and use it. Maybe the weekend.
Late last night I got what seems to be some good work news, but I am Suspicious, and am waiting it out.
ON DECK: yesterday was a trashfire, so once again I am one day behind.
INBOX: 71
LISTENING: It’s gonna be the five-disc LIGETI PROJECT today.
READING: deep into TIME OF THE MAGICIANS
SLEEP: 8hrs 28mins and I finally got a decent REM and restoration score (22/25). Readiness at 55, but stress at 79. Hoping things calm down enough here that I can get back to meditation soon. Got some eyestrain.
OUTSIDE: A small culinary kitchen garden (in Canada). “It’s important that you put your kitchen garden very close to the house.” Which I can’t, as the garden faces north, and so the part of the garden closest to the house is shady for too much of the day.
ON DECK: I suspect today will be a day full of interruptions, but I’m aiming for 8 pages of script and some outlining. We’ll see. As things (hopefully) calm down around here, I’m hoping to get some thinking time back.
INBOX: 100, but a bunch of those are delivery notifications: I have tools en route.
LISTENING: UFO FOREST
SLEEP: 8hrs 30mins supposedly. Stress level at 77. Readiness score 1. When I tried to dig in to what a readiness score of 1 means, the app stopped working, so it’s possible I’m actually dead.
OUTSIDE: “Edsger Dijkstra’s One-Day Workweek.” That sounds nice.
Also, Kek-W has released a novel through Bandcamp.