Thursday, April 30, 2020

April 30

I spent most of yesterday proof reading a contract and my eyeballs are rolling around in my head...backwards.

Contracts require a particular kind of cohesion, and that requires concentration, and concentration is in short supply here.

which explains the abrupt shift now to a new topic, right?


We're at the end of April.
It's 10 days AFTER 4/20, the first date we got for how long everything would be closed.
Now it looks like May 15.

And no back to normal.

Only one thing is going to save us: art.

That's you!
I hope you're working hard!



'Solar System' quilt by Ellen Harding Baker of Cedar County, Iowa, US in 1876, used as a teaching aid for her lectures on astronomy in the small towns of her state---spotted on the Twitter feed of @WomensArt (which is saving my sanity day by day)

17 comments:

Kitty said...

Art who?

Back to my stories, which are saving me from the you-know-what. I'm rewriting several stories I've had mothballed and actually making progress.

E.M. Goldsmith said...

I love this tapestry. Art in all its forms does help at this time. As long as it doesn't involve global pandemics.

I get stressed when the target for re-opening the world keeps moving further away. I know my NY daughter is biting her fingernails over this. She is supposed to move into a new place in Brooklyn on June 1st. Neither of us can divine if that will be allowed. She does not want to come here because she worries about traveling between populous areas until there is some definitive treatment.

I hope the world opens up soon and sensibly. As for me, regardless of what the rest of the state does, it looks like the school system will operate remotely until the fall. As of yesterday, we are seeking to fully open schools for the fall semester. However, we don't know for sure if that will happen. I fear my state tried to open too soon and we may have exacerbated the situation according to "new" numbers.

Although, I don't know if I believe one word I am being told anymore. Even by the media-appointed experts with initials by their names. Not by either side. The whole thing does not add up. I think we actually got the zombies we were promised.



AJ Blythe said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
AJ Blythe said...

Dena Pawling has been helping entertain me every day for the last month. She's been doing the A to Z blogging challenge and as part of her daily posts she's included a weird website link. There have been some downright strange ones (eel slapping anyone?), but there have also been some fun weird websites (like Quick Draw).

Or if you want to, you can just press the button on the Useless Web.

Still editing when I have time in between wrangling the Barbarians.

AJ Blythe said...

Not sure what's happening with my posts. I am putting in links for Dena's blog and Quick Draw, but they are disappearing. Trying again:

Dena's blog: https://denapawling.blogspot.com
Quick Draw: https://quickdraw.withgoogle.com/#

nightsmusic said...

Beautiful!

Lennon Faris said...

Science and art rolled into one, I love it! Art for the win.

Hope everyone is hanging in there and staying safe (and sane).

Dena Pawling said...

>>I spent most of yesterday proof reading a contract and my eyeballs are rolling around in my head...backwards.

I can relate. And I have two contracts to review today. Fortunately, I picked up my new glasses BEFORE all the optometrist offices closed for pandemic. My daughter broke hers two weeks ago and no places are open to try to get them fixed. She had to order a new pair online [which I can't do] and she's walking around with tape on hers for another week.

That quilt is lovely.

And AJBlythe - glad my blog is entertaining you. The Quick Draw site was my favorite of the weird websites. That and Zoom Quilt.


Brenda said...

You’re added to favourites, Dena.
Enjoy your contracts, ladies. It sounds grim.
Brenda

Emma said...

@womensart is added to my list! as is Dena's blog.

The funny thing is that with all this "too soon to write about the pandemic", that's all my brain has been wanting to spin. I mean, what better time to commit crime, right (I write crime). So last night I gave in to the gremlins and wrote a murder story, of sorts, for my writing group, where a character uses the pandemic itself as a murder weapon. It met with approval.

I couldn't write a whole novel about it, and I won't be putting it into my WIP, but it felt good to get the thoughts out last night.

Other than that, plucking away at my nth draft and working on a weekly comic. The comic is a new thing, and it can't help but have references to the current situation.

Stay safe everyone.

Claire Bobrow said...

Fantastic quilt!

Art is definitely one of the things saving me. I'm also a fan of @WomensArt on Twitter, plus @HWarlow (Helen Warlow) and on Instagram the stunning garden photos posted by savoygardens and themontydon & all the amazing work by kidlit illustrators. There are so many beautiful things to help lift our spirits in this dark time.

Good luck with the contracts, Janet and Dena.

Craig F said...

I resonantly read Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series and this brings back all of the astrology she built up in that.

The lady was a visionary to put a satellite in an 1876 quilt.

Jennifer R. Donohue said...

I almost bought a print of this quilt yesterday! Maria Popova of Brain Pickings sells some things along those lines on Society6 (and indeed, seeing it again, maybe I will. The room that's always been intended to be my Writing Space in the house is inching towards organization and usability and needs art!)

I'm working on the 3rd novella in my series. I'm working on a short story with the prompts that I've given my writing group (and am sharing it with them as I go), and I'm working on another short story that will probably go on my Patreon after a few prerequisite editors reject it (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, and Asimov's are the places I submit first, story depending [if it's horror or dark fantasy, The Dark gets added to this list])

John Davis Frain said...

Haha. I hear 4/20 and I immediately get a different reference point. Whole different kinda virus, you might say.

Keep writing. It's helps you avoid the munchies.

Emma said...

I just came across this piece in the NY Post, and it's worth a read to see what some NY creative types are doing with their pandemic time. It's worth it for the photos alone, though the story itself is a bit goofy.

Art and seances at the Chelsea Hotel

nightsmusic said...

John Davis Frain I get it. 4/20. I live close enough to smell that date every year ;)

Craig F said...

Do we have a Waldo hiding in our midst? Someone like John Waldo Frain?