starting over again, again.

Let us commemorate this atypically productive day by breaking the self-defeatist, over-analytical and just-plain-lazy silence that has plagued this stillbirth of a weblog.  I can do it!  Since the January layoff that was such a textbook Blessing and Curse, my days have become hazy, amorphous, forgettable chunks of hours linked together by absurd lengths of sleep.  My notion of productivity exists on a sliding scale, and I'd say my current standards are relatively low.  I feel best when I can create a super-smooth cocktail of activities, blending the completion of mind-numbing chores and errands that require showering and putting on a bra, and dedicating some time to those pursuits that I feel enrich my brain/soul or otherwise work toward one of my many long-held, ridiculously lofty goals (my image of myself at my zenith.) Today I mixed that sucker particularly well, and I'm feeling rather proud of myself. 

Feeling good mmm hmmm:

Took my computer to a cafe 

Worked on graduate school loan application at said cafe

Located missing unemployment claim form, found last remaining stamp, mailed that sucker

Combined letter-depositing walk with visit to newly opened neighborhood vintage boutique

Downloaded the new Camera Obscura and Grizzly Bear albums on iTunes

Purchased airline tickets for myself and my sister, one way from Oakland to Boston (one way!)

Reserved rental car online for first two days in Boston (this is a first!)

Presently baking blueberry clafoutis, a custardy French dessert dish was unknown to me until roughly an hour ago

Did a little wikipedia-ing and learned a little about the origin of clafoutis. If it's made with something other than cherries, it's actually called flognarde.  And it's from the 19th century! 

Some other ongoing pleasures include: 

Looking up a recipe for wheat-germ breaded fish and executing it for tonight's dinner sensation *the above really didn't work out very well.  Once Lenny finishes watching the latest episode of Charm School on VH1, he's going to Wendy's to get a spicy chicken sandwich.  Yeah, the fish was that good.  Strangely over- and undercooked at the same time.

Watching Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel

Reading Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's "Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History" (which deals at length with Ms. Woolf's treatise to which the title of this space refers)

Knitting the "Smock-a-Rouche" scarf from the One Skein Wonders book in the very nice and soft City Tweed in Cajun (The knitting project is such a relief to my psyche.  I was really starting to believe myself incapable of every finishing anything I start, and my lack of patience and ability in the textile and fiber arts was really making me blue)

I still haven't grooved in my hoop for a week or so now, nor have I continued with my attempt at painting a somewhat fantastical portrait of Hilary F. in oils.  I was tentatively scheduled to show some new paintings (to be fair, any paintings by my hand would be "new" by default, seeing as how there must be some statute of limitations on artistic blocks.)  That, I must tell myself, is not going to happen.  Stalled due to an initial overestimation of my own talents and work ethic, much like my plans to launch an Etsy shop of my beaded jewelry.  These things are still on the Grand To Do List, though. 

Okay, first time, let's not overdo it.