Analog or digital planning for 2019?

On By Halsted M. BernardIn Foibles2 Comments

In a few weeks, I will need to stop dithering and make a decision: will I use an analog or digital planner for 2019?

When I started my current job at the library, I had a Bullet Journal system in place, which satisfied my two primary drives: recording notes and ideas by hand, because I learn and retain them better that way, and using my fabulous fountain pens and ink, because they’re so much fun.

Within a few weeks, my to-do list inflated at an alarming rate, and to keep up I switched to Todoist to track my tasks, especially relying on reminders to nudge me to do stuff on particular days at particular times. So handy!

While I think Todoist is a great app, I’ve been yearning to go back to simpler methods for months now, even as I assume more responsibilities at work. When Ryder Carroll’s book “The Bullet Journal Method” came out, I convinced myself I could do this again. Back to basics! Get rid of the bells and whistles of an app and hand-write my way to happiness.

Then one night I woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare in which I have forgotten some important due-date because my phone didn’t yell at me anymore.

How are you planning your next year, with notebooks and pens or with apps? Help me decide in the comments.

The dream and the skeptic.

On By Halsted M. BernardIn Foibles1 Comment

Last night, sleeping on the floor of my study with my hand resting under the chin of my aging cat, I had a visitation dream. You know the kind, the dreams we see in movies or read in books, during which all of the details are so vivid that it seems real, it must be real … and then we wake up.

Our other cat came to me in this dream, our beloved mackerel tabby Torgi, and head-butted my face repeatedly, just as he did while he was alive. He brushed up against me and walked over my legs and flomped down next to me, at once distracting me from my distress over Zen and reassuring me that she would be fine. That we would be fine.

When I woke, I felt his presence lingering, the distinct scent of his fur, and the space by my ribcage still felt warm. As an avowed skeptic, I started to file the experience under “Moments My Subconscious Mind Doesn’t Suck” — a thin file, indeed, by the score of nightmares I have experienced. Then I reached for the paw of my still-living cat and let the feeling of the inexplicable wash over us both.

Writing from: a quiet study in Portland, Oregon. Listening to: “When I’m Small” by Phantogram.

Treading the water of okay.

On By Halsted M. BernardIn Foibles7 Comments

By the middle of last month I had written almost 20,000 words of a disjointed speculative fiction manuscript before my momentum guttered and died. We don’t say things like “I lost NaNoWriMo,” but I certainly feel a loss whenever I do not complete what I set out to do.

November 30th turned into December 1st, and that day brought the start of Holidailies, in which online diarists and bloggers attempt to write a post each day in December. I have no idea if I am up to this challenge, or if my momentum is any less susceptible to outside forces merely by turning a calendar page, but here I am with you now.

I’ll follow the lead of my dear sharky friend and try to sum up 2018. Another friend recently asked how I was doing and I spewed a bunch of words, then immediately regretted not answering with a simple, “Okay, how’s by you?”

I am okay. I have been less okay and I have been more okay than I am right now, but still: I am okay. And the fact that I am okay is my shining accomplishment this year.

2018 was a year of treading the water of okay which irritates me because I want always to be moving forward. There were some highlights:

  • In April, FunkyPlaid and I had a stupendous holiday in Scotland, chock full of adventures and visits with dear friends. It is hard for me to write about this without tearing up a bit because it was that good.
  • FunkyPlaid and I made more time to play board games with our friends, and to extend ourselves socially a bit more. It has been more challenging than I thought it would be to make new friends here in Portland, and a few friendships I expected to be strengthened by geographic proximity … weren’t. But we are trying.
  • In May, I graduated from a nine-month leadership program in the city where I work, and I was named Employee of the Month for the city in September.

There was also serious upheaval. The local option levy for the city failed, and with it came budget cutbacks for the library. A few outstanding coworkers left for other jobs. And my darling tortie Zen, who has been my wee furry touchstone for almost twenty-two years, is in declining health.

Zooming out a bit, I don’t even have words for the daily impact of living in this deeply divided and excruciatingly atavistic country, and if I did have the words, would I be brave (or foolish) enough to share them here, where I run the risk of my family and friends being punished simply because I expressed an opinion that some online mob doesn’t like?

So I’ll wage my quiet war against ignorance, keep my head down, and be okay. That’s what I’ve got right now. I hope you’ve got more.

Writing from: a quiet study in Portland, Oregon. Listening to: “You Should See Me in a Crown” by Billie Eilish.