Lockdown: NaNoWriMo ends; let sleep begin

tried this brand. couldn’t really taste a difference.

Sunday night. It’s such a mood. I stayed up far too late for no good reason other than dreading the weekend’s end. I was up until past five in the morning. Yeah, I’m a doofus.

So I got up at about 9:20 to check in at work at 9:30. I had stories I was behind on and website content to put up, but I wasn’t looking forward to any of it. Then a development officer needed help formatting a proposal. She’d done all the writing; just had some trouble with pictures and text and alignment and stuff.

It’s not her fault. I have the same problems with Word and layouts. It’s just not built for that kind of thing. I must prefer InDesign, as anyone doing this kind of work prefers it, but then the DOs I work with can’t do their own editing, which means lots of back and forth as they tweak it and I follow directions. When I get a little more juice around here, I’m going to urge very strongly that we get MS Publisher for the DOs who more actively build their own proposals.

While I had it, of course I gave it a little bit of an edit.

The rest of the day was pretty much working similarly with this DO on similar proposals, three in all. It was good work, good problem-solving without having to cut open my own vein for creative thinking. Late in the day another DO sent me copy for a case statement and asked me to do my thing.

I like editing. And the people I work with seem to appreciate it. And I got to procrastinate longer on those stories I’m behind on.

After work, I rewatched some of my favorite Ted Lasso moments and did some personal writing. In the middle of it, I got an email from Reid inviting me to a Zoom call, which I normally would completely ignore but a few of my other classmates were in the same email, so I figured I’d drop in and say hi.

It was nice to see the classmate, including Reid. But the call was just an hour, which was about all I could take. We talked sports, and then I encouraged my classmate Tiger to give one of her MLM pitches. Muahaha. I figure if I don’t spend money with her maybe someone else will. I’m trying to honor everyone who’s got a side hustle.

By the time the NaNo Skype got going, everyone who was going to get across the finish line had already crossed it. A couple of us weren’t going to make it, but we gave it a token effort. Mostly we just chatted about writing. It was a good way to end it.

We also talked about continuing the sessions. Not nightly, but at least weekly. This a good indicator that we had a good month.

I wrote 383 words, not exactly pulling in at the gate, but definitely landing the plane and taxiing a good distance.

It was trash night, so I took an hour for a little bit of decluttering, mostly throwing out stuff that’s been waiting a really long time to be thrown. I did not fill the bin, but the bin was very heavy as I rolled it to the street. Decent progress for the last week of NaNo, a holiday weekend, and a sleep-deprived few days.

It was around 1:00 in the morning when I was finished cleaning up. I don’t know what I did for the next four hours but it wasn’t going to bed.

Ugh.

I got a short text from Sharon about her BF meeting my friend Jeff for his job interview. That seems to have gone well. Also texts from the panicking DO about one of the proposals. I put that fire out quickly. Sylvia sent me photo of her dual monitor setup at home. Pretty nice. Also a photo of her dinner from JitB. She hates that place and swears she’s not going back. I stuck up for it. Ha.

Julie sent me a Christmas card even though I told her not to. I texted the Julie-Suzanne-Cindy group text a thank you, then Cindy sent a photo of the card next to her cat. That doofus Julie. She didn’t send the usual family photo of everyone in red jammies. She sent a selfie of her missing a front tooth. Kind of brilliant. I opened my card and declared her the victor.

Crush Girl texted to ask if I bought anything on Cyber Monday. This led to some nice conversation about stuff she had her eye on and stuff she bought. I said I was pretty much done with my Christmas shopping except for a few things I was getting in local stores, but I dropped a ridiculous sum on Prime Day this past summer so it was okay.

Breakfast was a fresh pot of hapa rice with some canned mackerel. Very good. Lunch might have been a slice of custard pie and small bag of chips. I definitely ate those and nothing else but I’m hesitant to call it lunch because what does that make me? Dinner was a bowl of canned chili with hapa rice.

I’m pretty sure there was another slice of custard pie for dessert.

You need more connection? Leave a comment. Pandemic sucks. Don’t be alone.

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