An interlude...of sorts

If I time everything just right and don't slack completely off, the virtual art show will be done on February 15, which happens to coincide with our reception at the actual gallery, halfway through the real show. I pre-blogged quite a few of the posts, for which I hope I may be forgiven, and it turns out that's a good thing; the Evil Genius has been sick since Saturday (fever, coughing, general misery), and I've been doing Mom duty on overdrive. He's on the mend, now, but still not one-hundred percent.

Meanwhile, I'm feeling a bit...bluesy. OK, so I'm usually one shade of blue or another, but I'm not talking hair or fashion right now. It's February, the month I usually try to boycott by hiding under the covers or in the closet or in a pan of fudge brownies until March rolls around. For quite a while, February was the month people died, in my life. Seriously, for a number of years someone would pass through the veil every February - once, on my birthday no less.

Hanging the show at the gallery in the month of February may not have been one of my best ideas...or maybe it was. While we were putting everything up, K and I were geeking out and giggling about the fact that we were doing a show. Cool. And even if we don't sell a dang thing (thanks a lot, crappy economy and even crappier sense of timing), it's still a positive experience.

Despite the show, I'm feeling the blues - they're seeping through the chinks in my mental armor, oozing around corners, and puddling in the recesses of my poor mind, settling in with the ease of familiarity. Sigh.

I've been trying not to let this turn into a months-long slog through the bog, but I'm slipping a bit. Sigh, again.

To help distract myself, I actually started working on an old story, doing something I am notorious for not doing - proofing and editing. S0 far it's at 195,000 words, maybe halfway through. Yeah, it's a monster. Anyway, I was thinking maybe I could break it into smaller chunks, make it a bit less unwieldy. To that end, I've been reading it, fixing small mistakes and replacing letters that mysteriously disappear from words, possibly the victims of the letter-gremlins that dwell in Bob's hard drive. I've also been looking for plot anomalies and trying to repair them. I haven't figured out how to break it up yet, but hope springs eternal...

There's a reason I don't read my own work - I'm usually too embarrassed, painfully aware of the flaws, and constantly second-guessing myself. While that's still the case, I've been enjoying my story a little bit, and even feel proud of a few passages. If you go back and read something you've written two years ago and it gives you goosebumps or makes you weepy, that's a good thing, right?

As a result of this attempt to do something resembling work, I've been staying up late again, which leaves me tired in the morning when Bird gets up, and exacerbates the depression a bit...so to alleviate that, I'll be doing some baking, and maybe after the fifteenth I'll post some more recipes. Or I may just hide under the covers in the closet with a pan of brownies and see you in March.