2024-W26 EOW Report

Highlights This Week

• I injured myself this week. And in the dumbest way possible. A combination of drugs and reaching. Being old sucks. See below for the dumb details.
• Didn’t write, didn’t really read, didn’t do much at all except work.
• Middle one graduated middle school. Oldest one got almost straight-As for grade 11. Wandered into the comic book shop. Garage Fiction group therapy. An evening with BC&C.

Project Status Dashboard

The following are ongoing fiction writing projects broken down to what stage they’re in. Legend in footnote¹.

Nothing. See below to see how I stupidly injured myself.

EOW Time Tracking

OK. Tomorrow is when I start the 3-Sentence 1st-Thing-in-the-Morning thing that Elizabeth Bear does.

• CURRENT STREAK: 0 Days
• LAST STREAK: 5 Days (June 14, 2024)
• BEST STREAK: 18 Days (May 10, 2024)

Four Thousand Weeks

I can’t be sure, but I’m fairly certain this was the reason: On Sunday night, I took my dose of CBD/THC oil so I could sleep before gym day, and that one zit on my right shoulder was bothering me again, and right before I showered, I stretched and bent my arms in an awkward way to squeeze it, and I must have reached too hard while high and pulled something but I fucked up my right shoulder and then didn’t sleep well the entire night. I had a fucked up right shoulder while I was high, and no matter what position, I couldn’t actually get any deep sleep. Monday morning, RR spends the entire sessions helping me fix it – bands, suitcase, kettlebell, massage gun, more bands – and I’m relatively OK afterwards. But the damage had been done and I go to work with insufficient sleep, and I’m fighting through the meetings, doing my best to not sleep in front of Zoom. I’m desperatingly looking for a break where I can crash. Was it Monday or Tuesday I could? Regardless, it wasn’t enough, and I’m just shattered and in pieces. Wednesday morning, the same mobility exercises. My body is literally breaking down in front of my eyes. I’m so very tired of being over forty. Needless to say, sleep is a premium now. Six and a half hours is not enough anymore, not with me burning through nine to ten hour days now. And this is why nothing was done this week. My energy levels are destroyed. I literally crashed on Wednesday evening after I gave dinner instructions to my kids. This isn’t sustainable. I know it. And I know I need to take back control and just have regular lunch breaks that are not in front of the computer or during meetings anymore.

Thursday morning, middle one’s graduated from middle school. I’m so exhausted from work, that this brief respite, this oasis of difference from the onslaught of meetings has me weeping during the national anthem. I mean, yes, I already usually have a sense of patriotism when a large group stands to sing O Canada, but being in a weakened state, this was a beautiful moment filled with gravitas or something. Of course, I was also greatly affected by my daughter’s situation – how she got a band together the last few months, how they performed several times, and how one of them is leaving for California and they’ll probably not see each other again for a long time, if ever, and there’s dramatic gravitas there too… and how all five of them will always remember those few months where they came together and was a singular unit, a rock band, and breathed as one. That’s fucking sad man. It doesn’t help that the oldest one made the whole family watch Last Summer (2022) a few months ago. All the friends you made when you were younger and never saw again. 😭

Friday evening, had dinner with BC&C, their first night out without their child. It was an honor and privilege to be a guest at this event. lol. This was an evenining that could be manifested into a literary short story of some sort. Them, in the beginning stages of parenthood. Me, a few years out from empty nesting. BC and I, friends since grade 10. There’s a lot of memory, time, how lives diverge and reunite, how we take different paths, age, etc. etc. etc.

Saturday morning brunch at Cora’s, the middle one wants the C-Chord to learn songs this summer. Wife and I encourage this of course. We pass around a piece of paper around the table after ordering and before food comes writing down songs that would make sense for them to learn and cover. It’s an eclectic list.

Book Reading

• I couldn’t wait until the X-Men: From the Ashes run started on July 10th, so I went to the shop and got UXM #700 to get my fix. I picked the variant cover that looks like a chaotic Where’s Waldo? spread, mostly because nostalgia won. I was immediately reminded of my copy of Look and Find X-Men (1992) that I bought from Scholastic Books in grade six and still have to this day. Just looked up James Janes, the illustrator. Doesn’t have much of an online profile.
• Near MID for Chakraborty’s The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi (2023). Same on David Graeber & David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything (2021). Have not touched Atonement (2001). Fiction reading in general was very low this week due to physical animal body breaking down this entire week.
• Saturday night, pulled out the Mothership RPG 1e (2024) finally and read the Players Survival Guide (PSG). Seems like a delightful system. Was tempted to roll up characters for a solo RPG even.

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