Monday morning and winter has arrived in New Orleans. It’s currently 37 degrees, with the high looking to be around 49 for the day; obviously, this is horrible and I am not sure how to manage getting through the day, as it is obviously going to require layers–but I am also not sure how the heat situation will be at the office, either. I didn’t want to escape the warmth of the bed this morning–I never want to get up to begin with; having it be nice and toasty under the covers while it is very cold outside of that makes it even worse.
God, how I hate cold weather.
I didn’t get nearly as much done over the weekend as I had needed to; so I am still somewhat behind and trying not to get overly stressed out about it. Stress is the mindkiller, to paraphrase Frank Herbert, and stress will paralyze me and not help me get everything done that needs to be done this week. The deadlines are all real, the deadlines all loom, the deadlines must be met, even if it means a lot of work, some mental exhaustion, and having to laser focus on getting everything done. There’s also a lot to get done, which means multi-tasking on top of everything else as well, which isn’t exactly one of my strongest skillsets these days–neither, for that matter, is focus–and I am going to have to muddle through it all on top of the weather being cold.
Huzzah?
I did check the weather and it’s going to get warmer later in the week; tomorrow won’t be nearly as harsh as today, thank you, Lord. That doesn’t make today any easier, of course, but still a vast improvement. My coffee is hitting me perfectly this morning; obviously I slept really well last night since I feel awake and rested this morning (if cold), and as the coffee warms and wakes me up, I am starting to feel better about getting things done. I can do it–distractions and everything–as long as I have the energy to do so. And as long as I am not too busy freezing to death to deal with anything and everything. I also have a bit of ‘holiday hangover’–in which I am now used to having extra time off every weekend and have to adjust to reality again in which I do not have extra time off every week. Heavy heaving sigh. But it’s all about adaptability, which is becoming harder and harder the older I get; I don’t want to have to keep adapting. It’s bad enough I have to relearn how to use my electronics every time there’s an operating system update.
Yesterday I was very tired most of the day; again, not sure what that was about but there seem to have been a lot more low-energy recovery days necessary than there used to be. I could be incorrect; my memory is nothing if it not spotty these days, and I am finding more and more that things I would have been willing to testify to under oath are not, in fact, actually what happened. The Saints did win, in a thriller, keeping play-off hopes alive–but this entire football season has been relatively disappointing for all of us football fans here in southeastern Louisiana, so I don’t have a lot of high hopes for the Saints the rest of this season, nor for the LSU game against Kansas State tomorrow night. We finished watching the second season of Control Z, which is a quite fun Mexican high school crime drama–which now, of course, means we have to find something else to watch tonight. I am sure there’s something, and Paul will undoubtedly be off to the gym this evening, so I’ll have some time to look for something after I get today’s allotment of writing taken care of, I hope.
And launch day also looms. Heavy sigh. I am having to take a long lunch from work tomorrow so I can go be interviewed on the radio by the the divine Susan Larson for her “The Reading Life” show on WWOZ, so that will be fun–I love Susan–and I should probably finish writing this promotional piece on Kansas crime fiction I am writing–should already be finished writing, in actuality; but you know how that goes around here. January 2022 is already off to a bang of overlapping deadlines and exhaustion and stress, so I am thinking it’s not going to be a whole lot different than 2021, from the looks of things. But once I get this book finished and turned in, and these other stories done…pretty much off the hook for deadlines. I just need to make sure I’m not forgetting any others….never an easy chore.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Happy Monday, everyone, and may your 2022 ease in much easier than mine is thus far.
Queer and Loathing in America 