Monday!

November 8, 2021 by Amy Welborn

Let’s have at it.

Writing: Well, the big news is that I finally looked at the contract for the book manuscript I thought was due on February 1 and saw….

January. 15.

I really don’t know how or why I had 2/1 in my head. No excuse. And yes, it’s only a difference of two weeks. But there’s a huge mental difference between “mid-January” and “beginning of February,” you know.

I will say that January 15 is a Saturday and that’s MLKJR weekend, so it’s not like anyone would actually look at it that day if I did turn it in on 1/15, so yes, even January 18 sounds closer to “end of January” than “right after Christmas,” so I’ll take it.

That said, the evening I made that…realization…I spent in conceptualizing (a lot had been done before with the proposal) and some orienting-research, and then wrote almost 2000 words this weekend, so I’m on my way. For me, the process of writing this type of book is like going down a slide or an incline. Climbing to the top involves thinking and planning, and then once I start the slide…it’s easy. Hope to get a basic draft done by Christmas, set it aside for a week and then pick it up for a couple of weeks of revisions.

Reading:

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen , The Landscape of Pastoral Care in 13th-Century England and various magazine articles and heated discussions about various political and cultural issues.

More on those as I finish them up.

Listening: Besides the usual piano and church repertoire (emphasis on the first movement of this for next weekend’s recital), two albums on Spotify:

Getz/Gilberto – the classic bossa nova album

Stop and Listen by Baby Face Willette – and his other albums, too.

I love some jazz Hammond organ. Very much.

Got back into walking this weekend – five miles or so each day. The first day was unaccompanied except for the outdoor performance from Opera Birmingham – their concert series called Opera Shots which pre-Covid were usually held in bars or breweries, but which have been outdoors since – this one in the expansive front yard of a manse one neighborhood over, but still in easy walking distance.

Sunday’s walk was accompanied by almost two entire episodes of In Our Time – on the Manhattan Project and the Interregnum. I’m telling you, if you’d like a decent primer on the Manhattan Project – this will do it. A good supplement to our trip to Oak Ridge a couple of months ago.

Watching: Nothing, except last night’s Curb Your Enthusiasm…which was far better than the previous week’s. The most humorous satirical through line of this season is clearly going to be Larry going to all the various streaming services to pitch his show, with a meticulously diverse team arrayed at each office to nod at the pitch for “Young Larry.”

Cooking: Made that Cottage Pie – very good! Tonight I’m some country-style ribs, probably using this recipe. Not sure what the rest of the week looks like schedule-wise, so we’ll see.

In the eating out department, we tried a new local taqueria – excellent. Evidence below.

It’s been quite interesting to observe the growth of authentic Mexican food here, via food trucks and taquerias. We moved here 13 (gulp) years ago, and I think there was one spot one went to for that type of fare – Gordo’s – now they are blessedly all over the place, and we’ve got a fantastic, huge Latin-oriented supermarket now.