Blog – Page 55 – Deborah Makarios

July 30, 2019

Grand Productivity Experiment: Phase Six… Manageable

Wombling, it turns out, is a great way to get things done when you’re tired, under the weather, or trying to fit things in around other, bigger things. Despite ongoing tiredness, I managed to get the bare necessities done and a few other things around them.

And yes, I did succumb to the temptation to browse an atlas, although I admit that I browsed the index rather than the map pages. (A quick eyes-closed stab at a random map page suggests the name Qoraqalpog’iston, which, if like me you didn’t know, is in Uzbekistan, near the border with Kazakhstan.)

Never stick a pin into an atlas. It’s a source of knowledge, not an international voodoo doll.

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July 26, 2019

How a Dream Takes Shape

I had a dream about a year and a half ago, a vivid and exciting dream, full of plot and action. I scrawled it down on waking, and then hastily typed up my scrawled notes before I forgot what they said and became unable to read them. That was the sixteenth of November, 2017 (an otherwise fairly uneventful day in world affairs).

About three months later, the dream drew me away from what I was supposed to be doing, and I started rolling the idea around, probing the ever-interesting question of What Happened Next? Why has he got that orange thing round his neck? Is that his granny? And what’s that girl with the heavy fringe glowering about?

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July 23, 2019

Grand Productivity Experiment: Phase Five… Oof.

Up with the rocket and down with the stick, as the saying goes. Well and truly up for Phase Four, and down, down, down for Phase Five. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a disaster – the house did not catch fire, nor did the kettle break – but it was definitely a wash-out.

I did get some things done, but in an absent-minded “oh yes, I’d better do this” kind of way. Anything which might have called for some enthusiasm to be worked up I just… didn’t do.

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