My life is very busy right now. Just for once, Im going to skip over the health stuff entirely. I know I’m juggling newly hatched chicks and cannot drop them: you don’t need to know about the enar-misses and the squawks and the way my hands are scratched and pecked at. To avoid talking about being sick, then, I’m going to make a list.
Ten things I’m doing this week.
1. Researching – this is my regular research and is all about how the built worlds are described in novels. Not just any novels. Fairy tale retellings.
2. More researching. I’m giving an academic paper that involves close knowledge of Marvel movies and of Old French chansons de geste and Medieval Arthurian tales. I’m not reading and watching all these stories from scratch. This is stuff I’ve known for years, especially the chansons de geste. My first academic analysis of Old French epic legends was in 1982. (I grow old.) It’s the most fun revision ever, and it’s going to last me through until May. It’s my spare-time reading and viewing, and a really good reason to get other work done.
3. Eating. I’m finishing food up for Passover. Tonight I became so tired of it that I ordered takeaway dinner. Three hours later I got my act together again and mung beans are madly sprouting for eating in two days. That’s the last of the mung beans.
4. Preparing for Passover, the rest of it. So much work… and I have to start extra early because of not being that well. I watch my progress every day. Today’s big event was making sure I had the right birthday present for my mother and that she could have it on the right day. If I fail at everything else, as long as Mum has her birthday present and I have the right food and a clean kitchen I can manage.
5. Preparing for the UK’s National Science Fiction Convention. It’s called Conversation and everything I know about the programme so far says that even the online programme is going to be wonderful. British fan interests aren’t the same as North American fan interests (although there is overlap) which is why I love going to virtual conventions in both regions. If Australia ran a virtual convention, I would attend here, too.
6. Everything else. I have a list, and right now it’s a lost list, so ‘Everything else’ is the best I can do!