(no subject)

This morning has been rather futile. I want to do it over.

I've accomplished all kinds of necessary things. I've done my teaching prep for most of this week and I've sorted bunches of stuff that was overdue for sorting, and I've managed to make my still-not-competent finger ache from too much housework (which was not much housework at all, but I'm doing things in stages) but I haven't done anything important. By 'important' I mean 'will help me meet many deadlines, preferably instantly.' My nightmares last night were all to do with bibliographies that needed reformatting and could only be done manually. This says it all.

My way of dealing is going to have to be to meet a bunch of those deadlines today, and this to forestall more nightmares. First the next tour de bibliogrpahie, and then at least two articles (preferably three). They're lined up, like a row of ducks at the Show. The bibliography is ready, all the articles have notes taken and an approach worked out.

Alas, however, I've never tried shooting ducks at the Show. The sideshows were never my family's thing. I'm going to have to learn, for there is another line of ducks immediately behind that one, and then another again, and then one more, and if they're not finished by the weekend I will be carrying this stuff into new year, which is not what I intend to do.

It's going to be an extremely good and wonderfully sweet year. I shall make it so. The first duck is, of course, bibliographical in nature.

ETA: Duck one is nearly shot and chocolate for Conflux and other events is all sorted. The chocolate is all for other people, but I might sneak a wrapped morsel while it's in transit.

(no subject)

I've shot two ducks! My supervisor has a swag of stuff to wade through and my BiblioBuffet editor has next week's column. It's not the article I thought I was going to write, yesterday, for that article was being recalcitrant and I didn't have time to sort it. I will write that article one day, though.

I can get one more duck shot by dinner, I think, if I take a few minutes for a breather.

In other news (for today is a bit busy) chocolate has been sorted for Conflux (lots of help from my mother to make this work), presents for Rosh Hashanah are almost sorted, and the next stage of the post burglary insurance is done.

Very bad news

For those of you who haven't yet heard, a friend from Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild has just committed suicide. Andrea was the wife of Jimmy, who drowned the day before Christmas. Be gentle to Canberra writers for a little, folks, for we may need it.

I've been in this place before, and it's not a good place to be. One thing that I have learned to appreciate is those who have come close to taking their lives and have found the ability to continue. Thank you, for being you and being alive and enriching my life and reminding me that, at times like these, there are more of us who make that choice than those who make the other.

I was Jimmy's friend, and only got to know Andrea after his death. I met Andrea at the Zeppelin banquet, for she loved food and costume and speculative fiction and Jimmy (not in that order!) and so it was inevitable she would be at one of my banquets with her husband. Andrea was amazingly vibrant and intense and rich and they both deserved a long and happy life together.