First Published: 2023 September 3
And, like sand through an hourglass, my own hours have passed silently by. Whoops, that’s a little maudlin. Let’s try opening again.
Like the moon which rises and falls each day, waxing and waning over the course of a month, my own month was filled with intermediate highs and lows.1
August, like a summer’s day, felt so long in the moment and yet so short upon reflection.2 I gave my last few3 talks for the summer! I went to a concert!4 I went to a play!
I turned twenty five! I gave my accordion away to be repaired. I competed in a pinball tournament! I went to a friend’s thesis defense!
I wrote a few letters. I swam in a Great Lake!5 I visited my family!
Ok, so in retrospect, I suppose that I did actually do a lot. It still doesn’t feel like it, but as they6 say, c’est la vie.
Let’s see how that list compares with what I said I was excited for.
My birthday! Hey nice I did say that.
Giving five talks in state parks. I at least alluded to this!
Sharing lemon wine with friends I did! I didn’t think it was notable, though, but I suppose that it was. Once again, generally positive reviews7
Finishing my stack of letters. I also had a passive aggressive comment about getting a letter back. I not only finished the stack, I got three!8 letters back.
Starting to do open mics regularly again I think I did one or two. I don’t know if I’m in an open mic frame of mind anymore. Maybe it will come back to my life again at some point, but it certainly isn’t there now.
Staying up on all of my book clubs. I dropped one book club, and otherwise I think I did manage to do that.
Making progress on research. I did! My instrument makes plasma now, and my computational project got approved as a real thing I can devote actual energy to.9
Monetizing my story? I did not, though I did just get a review of my book that explicitly asked me to, so I guess that gets to go on this month’s?
Looking at last month’s goals:10
Finish my presentation on the Pleiades. Hey nice! I did it.
Make my home clean again. I made progress, which is like a success.
Blog more. Ummm, let me check. I blogged three more times!11
Stretch daily. I stretched seven times. That is much less than daily, especially since I know that at least two of them happened in the same day.
Sleep enough and have a sleep schedule based around waking up no later than 6. I think I did more of the former and less of the latter. I guess I don’t even know if that’s true, upon thinking. I don’t wake up to alarms, but I don’t feel well rested. Maybe I need more vitamin D.
Be more intentional about prayer. Oops! This is becoming a perennial goal that I never reach. Maybe this month!
Get further ahead on the book. In particular, I’d like to set the goal of more than four chapters a week. Well, I did not do that at all. I fell slightly behind, I think, because I was a little ahead at the start of the month and ended exactly at cue. As you might expect from the lack of blogging during a two week period, there was minimal writing of the book going on then.
Write poetry every day. I wrote some poetry, though not much at all.
Finish stack of letters, and maybe think of more people to write to? Otherwise, start journaling during my morning time? I finished the stack, though I didn’t think of anyone new, and I did not start writing in a journal. I did use my blog much more as a journal, though, so I suppose that kind of counts, right?
Write a song. Wow! A goal that I reached with no qualifiers. Not only did I write a whole song, but I even have vocal drafts12 of a few more songs.
Things that I’m excited for this month:13
Running more than five miles again!14
Swimming with friends!15
Giving my final talk in the parks for the season16 Coincidentally, this is also the final of the talk series for any speaker.
Recording a song!
Being ready for my upcoming talks.
Maybe17 give or at least hash out details for me to give my first invited talk at a college I do not attend.
Using last month’s goals, things I am excited about,18, and my goals for this year of life as inspiration, this month’s goals:19
Finish/make my talk on the eclipses. I have a lot of ideas, and I need to bang my head against the wall of learning how to animate until that wall breaks or I lose the motivation to do anything.
Make my home clean again. Listen, if I have the goal long enough, it might set in finally.
Blog more! I’m off to a terrible start, given that I’m writing this reflection on the third, but.
Stretch and exercise more. I know that it is incredibly important to my mental health that I remain physically active.20 I also know that I hate how inflexible I am generally, and especially how inflexible I am now.
As before, sleep enough, and try to prioritize sleeping earlier. I know that my best sleep happens earlier in the night. I might try experimenting with biphasic sleeping21 since I seem to remember that working for me at some point in my life.
As always, be more intentional about prayer. Once more off to a bad start, but I really do feel better when I do. I think that spending at least fifteen minutes in the chapel each day22 is not an unreasonable goal. There isn’t anything that I need to do that I can’t push fifteen minutes.
Actually get ahead on my book. I would like to be five chapters ahead and to have plotted out the rest of this arc.23
Write more poetry. Daily may not be realistic, especially since I haven’t written much this month.
Write or record a song. I have the year’s goal of recording an album. If there are twelve songs on my album24, I need to record on average a little more than a song a month25. I also want to do almost exclusively, if not actually exclusively, originals on my album.26
Write five27 things I like about myself every day28, three things I’m excited for, and ten things I’m grateful for. I keep seeing things about cultivating positivity, and I really need to do that right now.
Given these goals, the questions that I will need to answer each day:
Did I make progress on my eclipse talk(s)?
Did I fight against the entropy in my living space?
Have I been better about blogging?29
Did I stretch?
Did I exercise?
Did I prioritize sleep?
Did I wake as early as I’d hoped?
Did I spend fifteen minutes in the chapel?
Am I writing more than the bare minimum for my book?
Am I making net progress on plotting my book?
Did I write poetry?
Did I work on my album?
Did I write five things I like about myself?
Did I write three things I’m excited for?
Did I write ten things I’m grateful for?
Generally, did I cultivate joy?
And, as a day in September30, today’s responses:
I did not make progress in my talks, though last night I did realize how badly I explain them without props or images, which is like progress.
I have not, and may or may not today, honestly.
I mean, at the current rate of 1/3 days, no. I will not exceed 11 posts this month.
I’ll stretch after this post.
I swam with friends!!
Oof. I mean, in my defense, I forgot an eye mask and was camping. In my offense31, I could’ve remembered that or taken a nap at any point today.
I woke up a few times32, and got up around six thirty I think. That feels fine.
I’ll go and do so after stretching/before I go to Mass tonight.
I wrote a chapter, which is arguably more. I’ll try to at least plot out my goal for the next chapter33
I mean, in the sense that I plotted four points to hit in the last chapter and hit one, yes.
No poetry. I’ll see how I feel tonight.
I realized on the drive last night that at least one song needs to have a really driving piano beat.34 and I thought about what I might want, so kind of.
I typed, because I forgot my pen outside of my home and it’s not worth getting up to go get it right now.
Apparently ibid does not, in fact, like I always thought, mean “see above.” It instead means previous citation. I’ll keep using it my way, though since it works. Anyways, that’s a long winded way of saying ibid.
ibid.
I don’t know; I think I tried, at least a little.
Oof, that was a bit of a marathon post. Sorry.
still too needlessly poetic, but I suppose it’s good enough. No, on second thought, let’s try a third time.↩︎
Yeah, that’s great.↩︎
final reflection to come!↩︎
which I don’t think that I’ve reviewed. I may or may not.↩︎
and was beside a different one last night↩︎
I, every month, at least once↩︎
to my face at least↩︎
wow!↩︎
for those not in academia, don’t ask. For those in academia, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.↩︎
commentary removed↩︎
so 11 instead of 8. The actual goal was more words, but I did end up another 12 percent less on word count. (it occurs to me that a motivated reader could, in theory, use the word counts and percent decreases I’ve given in my musings to figure out how many words I wrote last month. If you’re the first one to do so and tell me, I’ll get you an ice cream, or something of equivalent value↩︎
read: I recorded a voicemail while driving↩︎
assume that this was written on the first, so I’ll talk about things that have happened since.↩︎
I did it on the first! I think I pr’d↩︎
did that this morning/early afternoon. (it was a long swim time↩︎
I am ninety percent sure I’ve used the program name in this blog before, but if I haven’t, this will not be the first time. I did it, in fact, last night! It went really well. Without (many) spoilers, there were like seventy people again!↩︎
depending on bureaucracy↩︎
which I retroactively added above this sentence↩︎
excluding things I’ve already done↩︎
to say nothing of my mental health.↩︎
taking a nap↩︎
from now on, at least↩︎
which as of now, I have seventy two (I think, off by one errors are quintessential to my experience as a counter) chapters left, and I’m falling behind on the (completely minimal) plot that I’ve meant to write↩︎
which feels like a reasonable number↩︎
since I, you know, didn’t record any last month↩︎
original arrangements of folk songs are maybe allowed. I’m also going to need to decide how I feel about an instrumental song with CGS (Computer generated sound). I think positive, as long as I actually put some effort into mixing, especially since that’s where almost all of the sounds are going to have to come from, since I don’t own/know how to play many of the instruments that I would like to include on the album↩︎
I initially wrote ten, but that’s insane. I’m not going to generate 280 (since it’s the third) things I like about myself. That feels a little too much. 190 seems much more reasonable.↩︎
starting now↩︎
honestly such a fun question because I can really only answer it in the positive↩︎
how is it already -ber months??↩︎
I still have no idea what the right term for this is↩︎
see: camping↩︎
and, importantly, actually follow that plotting, rather than this last chapter where I added fifteen hundred (maybe only a thousand) words about the MC’s family because of a review.↩︎
like straight 8ths, parsimonious voice leading through the chords I’m going to use in the song↩︎