Pell-mell

Yowie. Today alone, I edited a paper for a client, made the season's first batch of Christmas cookies, did a ton of catch-up cleaning in the kitchen, attended a fine concert by the Sutherland Shire Choral Society (at which they performed, among other works, Houston's and my Four Christmas Carols), and did a chunk of work on my Ph.D. If I get time later tonight (and it's already nearly 9 p.m.), I also need to work on a short-script project. Trying to fit in the sound edits to a story for Outlandish Voices (one of mine, this time, believe it or not) and — oh, yeah — the cookbook project are probably going to have to wait. As will some refinement of one of the scenes in the Dancing Mice opera.

Tomorrow there is no respite. I have a full-time summer job for which I must commute to Sydney's western suburbs (and back) each day, and that includes tomorrow. Then more edits, more Ph.D. work, more writing. Maybe the sound editing. I confess that weeknight cooking has become less of a priority since the summer job started (good thing Houston and Margaret are both quite self-sufficient in the kitchen).

The Ph.D. is intensely frustrating. I'm doing a lot of reading, and it's a hydra: each article I read points to five or six others that I absolutely must follow up. And each of them, another five or six. But I'm actually not unhappy per se about that: it's the kind of work that is intensely satisfying, even while it's frustrating. Yes, I realize these two things seem contradictory. That's the way it goes around here at the moment.