I stayed in bed until after 9am, and I’m still astounded at how it feels to be RESTED.
I’m also a little concerned that this feeling is so novel.
And how quickly lunchtime arrived…
Tea: Almond Milk Matcha Latte
Life: Holiday Weekend Daze
Carnaval 14
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.
Hello! I HAVE INTERNET AT HOME AGAIN! (I’d like to thank post-scheduling for hiding the fact that I didn’t for several of those days.) It is a good thing. It makes so many other things possible!
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It is a three day holiday weekend here in the U.S., and I’m being too productive. I’ve had multiple scheduled appointments, I’ve been to a post office, I’ve reset faulty breakers six times, I’ve ordered excessive numbers of notebooks (because I fill excessive numbers of notebooks), I’ve washed laundry, I’ve attended a fantastic parade (and am awash with images from it to manage), I missed a chance to purchase a limited edition fountain pen that I didn’t know I was interested in until it sold out (oh, well – I’ll forget it ever existed shortly), I’ve performed maintenance on a Roomba which appears to have become senile, I’ve treated my hair and scalp with multiple products, I’ve criticized myself for not being more creatively productive (even though I’m always working, commuting, or performing chores), I’ve enjoyed tapas and white sangria (which I hadn’t realized exists, but of course it does), I wrote a letter with a pretty fountain pen and equally pretty ink…
The problem with holidays feeling rare is that they become so precious I feel I must USE THEM TO THEIR FULL POTENTIAL, which likely isn’t the best choice. That makes them feel like a different type of work. Goal-oriented work. The wrong kind of activity needed to recover from all the other kinds of work.
There are some cultural elements of this. My mother is still wrestling with her upbringing, which included a rather fanatical insistence on not being able to sleep late into the morning, even if you worked nights (!!), and pressure to always be doing SOMETHING. ANYTHING. A sort of haywire protestant work ethic. I may have absorbed some of that, but also live in a culture where being “busy” is proof of importance / worth in itself.
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Speaking of work, here is some context for all of those manhwa I’ve been reading from South Korea whose stories are premised on people dying from working too much:
South Korea is known for its punishing work culture, with some of the longest hours in the developed world. Despite the introduction of the 52-hour weekly work limit in 2018, overwork and exhaustion are still not uncommon. In 2023, the government proposed to increase the maximum weekly working time to 69 hours, sparking a severe backlash and eventual backdown.
–from https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/27/seoul-international-space-out-competition-south-korea.
(Yikes!)
Wish me luck as I attempt to… relax in a goal-oriented way??
Life: Happy New Year
2024… is definitely happening. Ready or not!
I had time off from work during the last week of the year, and used it to recover my health more fully (having been ill earlier in December), read, and print acrylic monotypes (a favorite art pastime!).
I don’t do new year’s resolutions – no one should wait until January of a new year to make useful life changes! – but as a concession to tradition, I’ll make a sincere effort to do a better job of using the ALT TEXT features of WordPress. (This feature helps disabled readers know what’s going on by making more information about images available to supportive tools.)
Out in the world, COVID is still spreading, my most alert friends don’t want to dine indoors, and my social circle includes several people who have had COVID two or three times (!). The data on Long COVID, and what scientists are finding as changes in the bodies of those who were exposed, is… alarming, and completely beyond the perception of my friends in Europe, somehow.
Humans continue to be… I’m looking for a euphemism for violently disagreeable, but it isn’t coming to me. There are multiple scary wars and attendant war crimes happening. It has become unpopular to say that genocide is wrong. (Sign I need to make: friends don’t let friends do war crimes!) Right wing, racist, and authoritarian parties do too well in elections. Fascism appears to be entirely too popular, though I observe that people who support it mosts don’t like the label, which is a minor concession to accepting that it is not good. (Not that semantic arguments work with fascists.)
My reading list has more books on it, but it might alarm you if I disclosed the full list, so I’ll just note that I am actively reading The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel. The title may sound provocative, unless you’ve ever taken art history in a U.S. college, in which case you noticed that only ancient Egyptians and European men have art that was considered worthy of books, and that these textbooks were all written by European men (coincidentally!). For the design degree I was pursuing, art from any other part of the world was only offered as an optional elective, implying that it didn’t really matter. This felt… wildly inaccurate. It took some nerve to call a class “Art History” when it should have been called “European Male Art History, plus some Egyptian Monuments.” [cough] So this book has a good premise, and is off to a good start. Perhaps I’ll be able to read it I have fewer 9pm meetings and people from work stop texting me on weekends to get me back online?
I have some personally disruptive events coming up, and expect my posting to be spotty, though more frequent than in 2023.
Here’s hoping 2024 is a better year for all living beings!