Ahem.
So much for my New Year’s resolution to write in my blog everyday. I don’t think that was actually officially in my resolution list, but it was [very vaguely] implied. Sigh.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I took a full-time job at the local library and, well…Damn. How do women with children, spouse, pets, mortgage, Scouting, soccer practice, etc., do it all? Is there some kind of Superwoman drug I’m not aware of and which my doctor has refused to share with me?
So far, I’m still tweaking my schedule, but last week it looked like this:
Monday: get up at 4:15 am, write until 6:00 am. Take B. to work at 6:15. Return home, watch half an hour of TV. Get ready for work at 7:00, leave for work at 7:40 to be in library by 8. Get off work at 5:00p pm, pick up B. at hospital, get home. Dinner at 7 or so. Bed by 10 or so.
Tuesday: get up at 4:15 am, write until 6:00 am. Take B. to work at 6:15. Return home and write until 11:00. Get ready for work, leave at 11:40, be at library by noon. Get off at 5 for dinner, get B. at hospital, take him home, have fast dinner, and return to library by 6. Get off work at 9:00 pm, in bed by 10:00 pm.
Wednesday: Repeat Monday’s schedule, except at 6:30, meet contact for local vegetarian society at coffee shop for interview for upcoming article in paper. Interview lasts almost an hour and a half. At home at around 8, dinner at 8:30, bed by 10:00.
Thursday: Repeat Monday’s schedule, except during the lunch hour, I go to local community radio station to take photographs during veggie group’s half-hour monthly program to accompany article. Have quick Clif bar in car on the way back to work at 2:00 pm.
Friday: Repeat Monday’s schedule. 5:15, pick up paycheck at temporary agency.
Weekend: cook several meals to freeze for the following week. I spent nearly the entire Sunday on the couch, alternating between sleeping and half-watching a Mythbusters marathon. Lack of sleep will do that to you. Plus, the library job is way, way more physically demanding than it appears — we’re standing an average of six hours a day (only sitting down during lunch, two 15-minute breaks, and the occasional period of making phone calls informing patrons of their holds), plus all the lifting and bending and crouching — so by the time I get home, I’m completely spent.
This week I experimented with waking up at 5:00 am to give myself more time to sleep, but I find that, as it usually takes me about 15 minutes just to actually wake up, and I really only have about 35-45 minutes of decent writing, which seems pathetically short to my frazzled brain. Yeah, I know, I should be realistic about the new schedule, but the problem is that I’m stubborn. Pathologically, self-destructively stubborn. So I persist. Possibly to my detriment, but I’m determined to get this book done, and writing every f***ing day helps keep it fresh; otherwise, I return to the novel with the same feeling one would have returning home after a long absence: everything looks vaguely familiar, but it takes awhile to actually feel comfortable being there again.
On the bright side, the veggie article I wrote last week made it to the front page of today’s paper. Woo hoo! If I’d known it was going to be smack dab on the front, I would’ve taken a better photograph. Of course it also appears on the same day a letter to the editor is printed attacking me for a previous column I wrote on immigration. Lots of fun, people.
MRA