…though today’s running headspace has been overshadowed by an email from the London Marathon, explaining that it will now be another ten days before they make their announcement about whether their rescheduled October date is actually going ahead. A bit more patience required 🙁 I can’t wait to have some idea of what I’m actually doing with my running this autumn.
Today, however, I’m having another Monday off, which is the new planned pattern for the foreseeable future. I got my day job work for today done yesterday so that I can have a good session on Paper Mario: The Origami King and make some progress.
Back to work tomorrow. With a bit more videogaming in the evening, I hope!
I’m still cheering myself up with brightly-coloured running gear. Have developed a good collection now! These were part of today’s running outfit.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Nobuo Uematsu – ‘Town’ Nintendo – ‘Scorching Sandpaper Desert (Battle)’ The Midnight – ‘Endless Summer’ Nintendo – ‘Shroom City’
…and now for a day off, as I was slightly busier over the weekend and so I made sure to get most of today’s stuff done yesterday in order that I could have a proper day on the sofa playing videogames today. See you tomorrow!
Another photo from Geth’s lawnmowing session on Friday. Next door’s cat appears to be looking intently at the lawnmower wire here, but in actual fact it’s the patio doors beyond (not pictured), because as ever he’s desperate to get into our house.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Russ Abbot – ‘Atmosphere’ Yoko Shimomura – ‘Colony 9’ The Carpenters – ‘Top Of The World’ Duran Duran – ‘Shadows On Your Side’
…because I’m still not feeling that well. As such, I’ve decided to take it really easy with the running this week and just do short runs, then I’ll see how I feel at the weekend.
I’m still trying not to do too much brain-wise as well, as I’m a bit burnt out after the end of the game jam. However, I find that the creative part of my brain never stops whirring, so I’m constantly scribbling down notes for future games and novels and poems and blog posts, and lying awake thinking about them at night. Playing jam entries and other videogames does help, because it gives me something to concentrate on, so I’m trying to get my daily chores done ASAP at the moment so as to have a bit more gaming time.
I need to do a bit of housework tomorrow as the house badly needs it (lockdown has been bad for this as I find that when we don’t have visitors coming, I don’t prioritise cleaning) and we are going to have an ACTUAL OTHER PERSON IN OUR HOUSE ON FRIDAY OMG. It’s just the boiler technician, but I still won’t let people in the house when it’s not clean, which is why tomorrow is now a cleaning day.
Other than that, I will be trying (and hopefully succeeding) to relax again…
Back home in Edinburgh, Mum and Dad are sorting out my brother Malcolm’s old room at the moment, and have managed to unearth his Sonic the Hedgehog slippers from the ’90s. They’re still in fairly good nick and it sounds like Mum has adopted them.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Duran Duran – ‘Violence Of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)’ Duran Duran – ‘First Impression’
…and then straight into work, as it’s been one of those ‘clients are like buses’ weeks with everybody sending projects at once! I’ve been keeping an eye on my hour-by-hour time management today and making notes, as I’ve been feeling a bit frustrated recently by busywork taking up more time than it deserves. Hoping to be able to streamline things a bit over the next few weeks, as I’ve got a lot of projects to be getting on with and I want them all finished by mid-July so that I can start getting some day-long videogaming sessions in! Might as well make the most of not going anywhere for summer holidays this year 🙂
Looking forward to an evening of graphics creation, and hoping for another earlyish start tomorrow so I can get another good chunk of work done.
Geth’s new diary for academic year 2020-21 arrived today. He ordered it early so that we can start planning out CoronaYear 2: The Rescheduling. I LOVE the colour so much that I might be adding a red diary of my own to my Christmas list this year 😍
Today’s earworm playlist:
Melanie C and Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes – ‘Never Be The Same Again’ Yoko Shimomura – ‘Colony 9’ Daniel Bedingfield – ‘Gotta Get Thru This’
…because I managed a fairly long run (well, long in terms of my recent efforts!) yesterday, which I was quite pleased with.
The weekend was really good. I spent most of it curled up on the sofa working on my latest game, with Geth playing Xenoblade Chronicles in the background. Today was more weekday-like though – I had a bit of day job work to do, and quite a lot of admin to catch up with. I’ve been neglecting the ‘coronawall’, which is basically a giant display of multicoloured lists pinned up on the living room wall, keeping track of all the stuff we were meant to be doing this year that got cancelled, and what’s happening with rescheduled dates and refunds and so on. After a bit of work this afternoon, it’s now up to date as far as the Great North Run, which was announced as cancelled this morning.
I still find it strange that back in early March I was still living my busy normal life, with races and parkruns and social running groups and family visits and gigs and boardgame meetups with friends and ukulele classes, and wondering why I never had time to get anything done, and then suddenly it all just… stopped. I find it even stranger that I still feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day!
I don’t really see my own life going back to the way it was, either, even if the world does eventually. The occasional event will be nice, but this year has proven to me that I need to spend the vast majority of my time at home, just me and Geth. The improvement in my mental health over the last three months has been absolutely immeasurable, despite the situational anxiety of COVID and everything else that’s happening.
Another nice productive day tomorrow, I hope.
It was a bit misty over the weekend! The Town Moor always looks more beautiful and atmospheric in non-ideal weather, though.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Yoko Shimomura – ‘Colony 9’ Pet Shop Boys – ‘On Social Media’
…because I’d woken up too late to do it yesterday. Back to regular long run Sunday this coming weekend I hope!
I had a fairly good weekend, though a bit busier than I would have liked due to things not getting done during the week. I’m going to try extra hard to get everything done properly this week so that I can have a properly chilled weekend again.
Today has just been running and editing, and I expect tomorrow will be similar, if a little less tough on the legs!
Bluebells are to May what cherry-blossom is to April.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Ollie Wride – ‘Back To Life’ Kuana Torres Kahele, James Ford Murphy and Napua Greig-Nakasone – ‘Someone To Lava’ Traditional – ‘Bonnie Ship The Diamond’ Steve Kirk – ‘KSCUM 198.7 FM’
…because it’s the start of another busy week. I never find myself short of things to do! I’ve got a bit of editing work this week (much appreciated in the current circumstances), plus a short piece to write for a competition, and various admin and house stuff to get on with. It provides a nice structure to the week and means that the weekends feel more like weekends, rather than just random days.
I’ve been working hard to make sure that I finish all my work by 6pm every evening, which is when Mum calls for our daily catch-up. This means that I have the evenings free to do what I want (99% of the time this is playing videogames), which is something that just wasn’t possible before lockdown as I had too many commitments. I am massively less stressed as a result, which is the main instigator for me not wanting to go ‘back to normal’ when the current situation ends.
Things feel manageable at the moment, which hasn’t been the case in a long time. I hope I can work out a similar balance in the future.
I’m trying to ‘100%’ Bravely Default (as this is probably my last playthrough), which means that the game will have taken close to 150 hours by the time I’m done with it. As such, I have no qualms about using the ‘Big Pharma’ money-farming exploit, as making the in-game money by normal means would probably add another 50 hours to the game. My 3DS is very happily playing itself right now.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Revo – ‘Visitor’ Revo – ‘Ship Racing Across The Ocean’ Duran Duran – ‘White Lines’ Sailor – ‘A Glass Of Champagne’ Duran Duran – ‘Vertigo (Do The Demolition)’ Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth – ‘See You Again’ Queen – ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ FM-84 and Ollie Wride – ‘Running In The Night’ The Midnight – ‘We Move Forward’
…because I’ve still got quite a lot to do this week, and also I woke up slightly later than I would have liked. I think that for the next few weeks, long runs will be a weekend thing, with maybe a middling one squeezed in on a Wednesday if possible. This would be a return to my marathon training pattern, which is no bad thing, given that marathon training is currently scheduled to start again in just over a month.
I’m happy to report that I weighed in this morning and lost 4lbs! I’d been struggling a bit for the last few weeks, as I’ve not been getting nearly as much exercise in as I did before the lockdown (when I was marathon training and doing a lot of walking in addition), and yet my marathon training appetite has not gone away. This last week, I’ve been a lot stricter and have reduced my portions. It’s obviously working, and I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing, because I would love to be back at my target weight by the end of lockdown. I’m currently paying a reduced Slimming World fee so as to maintain access to the website – I also have the opportunity to attend group on Zoom if I want to, but I’m not sure if it’s for me, because being hard of hearing has always meant that I’ve found teleconferencing difficult in the past. (I could write a whole post about my anxieties about social distancing as a hard of hearing person – and I probably will at some point!)
It’s nice to be getting back to writing at the moment. I’ve got a small number of competitions to submit to over the next few weeks, and I’m also going to be spending May deciding which novel project I’m going to finalise over the summer, so that I can start querying agents again in the autumn. For various reasons relating to my career plans, late 2020/early 2021 is probably going to be the last substantial chunk of time for a good few years that I will be able to dedicate to writing, so I want to make the most of it.
I feel that being stricter about making sure my evenings are downtime-only has really helped with my productivity as well, because I don’t feel quite so burnt out. This is definitely something I’m going to continue with, even after lockdown has come to an end.
…and managed a similar pace to Saturday, which I was very pleased about! I feel as though my daily training since the start of the year has sped me up in what seems to be a permanent way. I’ll just keep plugging away and see what happens.
I have most definitely filled up the routine extra time afforded by the lockdown now, to the extent that I’m not sure how I’m going to go back to regular life when this is all over. I’ve written before about how it’s going to be a slow process out of lockdown for me – I won’t just be jumping back into a routine of multiple classes and groups and meetups per week, because I think I would find that overwhelming. But the thing is that I’m not sure I ever want to go back to that busy routine. All of the individual things were meant to be fun, but taken together, they made life a bit stressful. As such, I think there are things to which I won’t be returning – things I’m going to have to learn to let go of. I don’t know which things yet. The only thing I know I will definitely be going back to post-lockdown is parkrun – it’s free of charge, it’s helpful for my running improvement, and I love it to death.
In short, my big takeaway from this year is that there’s no point spending time and money on things that cause me stress, just because I feel that it’s something I SHOULD do. As such, I’ve stopped buying all the magazines I’m not getting round to reading, including breaking my decade-plus streak of buying Doctor Who Magazine (that was a wrench… but I’ve just not had time for Who fandom for a good two or three years. I haven’t even watched the most recent series yet, which would have been unthinkable when I was in my twenties). I no longer attend every vintage fair in Newcastle just because it’s on (this is something I discussed in my personal style post the other day). I stopped going to Pilates and dance classes last year – I enjoy those things, but they’re just not a priority for me any more.
Learning to let go is something I’ve always found difficult, and something I discussed a lot in my counselling sessions earlier this year. I am a consummate hoarder, not just of physical possessions but also of memories and identities and personal connections.
(If somebody de-friends me on Facebook, I hold a grudge like you would not believe – because why would we want to lose each other from our collection of contacts? Collections are to be grown, not ‘culled’! We may not have anything in common now, but we did once, and why would you want to move on from that? Why would you want to let go?)
My identity as a Doctor Who fan is one of those things I’m struggling to let go of, hence why I am trying not to think about having broken my magazine-buying streak. My identity as a goth is another. I became goth in my teens, made all my university friends and met my future husband in the goth and rock society, spent my twenties in various states of consciousness at goth clubs and gigs and festivals, and then… I last went to a scene event in August 2018. I only still wear my old goth band t-shirts and hoodies because they’re comfortable. It’s been years since I last listened to the music – I prefer ’80s pop and soundtracks and synthwave now. I got sober, and so I don’t really like spending time in pubs and clubs anymore, and I think it’ll be some time before I can brave a festival again.
‘You do still wear a lot of black, though,’ my counsellor said when I mentioned this to her. I suppose I do – some habits are hard to break, and it’s a practical colour. It’s just… I just don’t feel drawn to that particular aesthetic anymore, and while I’ve still got a lot of friends in the scene, I don’t see myself wanting to go back to the events, and I don’t think I can really call myself ‘goth’ these days, and I’m not sure I want to.
Accepting that fact requires a big shift in thinking, though. Just like accepting that these days I’m a casual Doctor Who viewer at best, and accepting that there are some old acquaintances I’m never going to see or speak to again (and that I probably won’t miss them), and accepting that I really need to chuck out those manky old Ikea cushions I’ve been hanging onto since 2002.
I’ve never yet been capable of making that big shift in thinking. But it’s becoming more and more apparent to me that it’s a necessary process.
I’m videogaming again tonight. In recent months I’ve occasionally felt a bit sheepish about mentioning that every day – like it’s a bit sad to be spending all my time videogaming, even if lockdown does provide me with the perfect excuse. But it’s what makes me happy at the moment, and that’s all that matters.
I ran on the Town Moor today for the first time since the final pre-lockdown parkrun. It felt strange, even though I’ve often done solo runs there before. While I was enjoying parkrun touristing in the months before coronavirus happened, I think that I will be back at my home parkrun on the Moor when it’s time for the great parkrun return.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Yasunori Mitsuda – ‘Where It All Began’ Nina Nesbitt – ‘Stay Out’
I went out for an absolutely beautiful run this morning…
…with perfect sunshine, and perfect energy, and so many lovely spring flowers along the way. I’m planning to do a few new and different routes this week and am really excited about my morning runs. They get me out of the house for just long enough every day that I don’t feel trapped or cooped up by the lockdown, and am perfectly content to stay inside for the rest of the time.
In all honesty, other than the general feeling of apocalyptic dread and accompanying nightmares (which I’m guessing is the case for everyone at the moment), I have been lucky enough that the current situation is working out quite well for me:
While my day job work has slowed down a bit, it hasn’t stopped completely, and I work from home anyway so haven’t had to adapt my work setup.
Obviously I was hugely disappointed a month ago when it was announced that the London Marathon was postponed, because training had been going so well. However, I’m really appreciating the more relaxed approach to running I can take at the moment, and I hope that I’ll be able to build on the work I’ve already done and run an even better time in October, presuming the new date goes ahead.
Stress-wise, I am actually benefiting hugely from life going on hold. For the last couple of years, I have felt as though I have had far too much on and have been constantly falling behind with my to-do list. I end up dreading going away on trips, because I know it will disrupt my daily routine so badly and lead to weeks of stress as I try to catch up with everything. But right now, I have nothing getting in the way: all my trips and events have been cancelled or postponed, and all my weekly classes and meetings are on hold. Every day is exactly the same, and for me, it turns out that that is exactly what I need. I am going to have to do some serious thinking about what life is going to look like for me after the lockdown is over.
I feel pretty guilty that it has taken a horrible worldwide pandemic for me to have the free time I’ve been dreaming of for years, but it has given me the impetus to reassess my priorities in life.
Tomorrow is a Wednesday, but that doesn’t really matter right now. I’ve got no middling-distance midweek run to do, no ukulele class to go to, no worries about fitting everything else in inbetween. It will be very similar to today, and that is absolutely fine by me.
Another paparazzo shot of next door’s cat exploring our garden. He’s a little confused by theshorter grass now that Geth is out mowing it regularly again.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Cast of The Lion King – ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight?’
