I blinked, and checked my last post. August. Uh, good job. Good job. I’ve realized that I know what happens—If I don’t get any Substack notifications, I forget this place exists. That’s not entirely true, but small contributions leads to small engagement which leads to less writing, and then less engagement… and so on.
I did think about doing some recap, because it’s good for me, right?
Hang on, I need to go make a coffee. Be right back.
Okay, coffee made. It’s 8:17am and I’ve been awake since 7am. I’m trying to be better about getting up early and taking advantage of the mornings. On the whole it really helps. One reason began back in August because I knew my first classes would begin at 9am, and I wanted to be awake and actually functional by then.
Monday mornings were like being shot out of a cannon. 9am class of 40 First-years, 10am studio class of designers, 12n lecture/discussion with sophomores, and I’d be “done” by 1pm. Rinse and repeat on Wednesday. I know that schedule must look nice for non-academics, but what you don’t see is the hours of prep, grading, thinking, office hours, colleague check-ins, and answering emails that go into managing 80-90 students a semester, not including check in meetings, mentoring, fittings, tech rehearsals, shop meetings, and meetings, and did I mention meetings? Nevermind managing healthy food intake, designing professional shows, a small business, and keeping up a life outside of all of it.
So while I’m on winter break and still getting up on the early side. Sometimes I take my partner to work at his coffee shop/baking job, sometimes I just sit with the cats, drink my coffee, and stare out the window. Sometimes I still lie in bed, but the bed rotting is lessening. There’s a great Scottish word for bed rotting…brb gotta look it up.
HURKLE DURKLE.
What a delightful word. All right, you’re welcome.
Anyway, the recap.
This year I:
Designed 8 pieces: costumes for 3, set for 2, and both set and costume for 3
1 opera
3 musicals
3 plays
1 play on Zoom
Traveled to DC, MD, OK, and CO, all for work. Drove around NY state a bunch for fun, but never made it to the City.
Mentored 9 student designers
Vended at 12 Markets (I would love to say it was 1 per month, more like 12 in 6 months)
Made hundreds of earrings, prints, embroideries and random things.
I tried to adopt what I thought was a stray cat. He wasn’t. Just a neighborhood buddy.
Played a ton of trivia at a local brewery
Joined a Summer CSA and enjoyed new vegetables and flowers
Pricked my fingers on purpose 1,000,000,000 times, really once or twice per day every day. Not on purpose, add a few thousand to that, although those sewing needle sticks are far less annoying.
Lost 15 lbs and at least a dress size (still trying to figure that one out)
Worked with a few activist groups to fight the current everything and watched in horror from afar at all the goings on in DC.
Lost two good friends from DC theatre days
Read 6 actual fiction books. (I’m embarrassed to admit that, really.) But I did listen to 6,321 minutes of podcasts (at least on Spotify) and paged thru hundreds of photo, reference, non-fiction books, and articles upon articles. If you don’t live on JSTOR, who are you? Iykyk.
It’s a lot and a little? When condensed into a list, it feels small somehow…but I know it represents many hours of commitments. So let’s celebrate that.
At least it sets me up for next year in getting me into the mindset of how I want to spend my hours.
Thus far what crosses my mind is:
connect with friends, old and new on a more regular basis
spend more quality time with chosen family
put down more solid roots: volunteering, joining the co-op, etc.
read more books for fun, and less for information
make more art
have more fun
learn something new
I just realized that the sun is out! Despite the 20 degree weather, I’m going to go get some Vitamin D. Talk soon.
What do you want more or less of in the New Year?
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