I’ve not posted here in an age, although thanks to the extraordinary time bend which has been the Years of Our Pandemic it simultaneously feels like yesterday when I was angsting about my manuscript. I did not make that deadline, in fact, nor did I make the one afterward. 100 Gods of Egypt finally made it to the editors in October, not June. It is even now still in edits, though now it’s in edits. We have 20 pages of bullet point lists of things to add, subtract, change, and make better. We have lists of illustrations that are being pared so we can hire someone to draw them. Color photographs are being chosen. Maps are being plotted. The book is getting done, slowly but surely.

This afternoon I recorded a podcast interview for a university professor who’s teaching a religion course, and I got to talk at length about Hathor and Sekhmet. We got so into what we were talking about that 2.5 hours flew by without even noticing. Time continues to bend: ever so short for the enjoyable things, stuck or stopped or even seeming to be sliding backwards in the not so enjoyable ones. I’ve been doing medical tests, yet again, since February to try to track down what’s going on now. It isn’t cancer this time, for which I’m grateful, but workable answers with a plan to solve them elude for now. Hopeful that bit of time bending might bend a little less a little sooner.

So much is happening and yet it feels like nothing is moving, or that I am suspended in a glass box moving at a different rate than everything outside it - and both rates of movement keep changing. Doing my best to continue to move, as that seems prudent, but also to find a way to synchronize movements. Existential motion sickness is not much fun.

50 days to go until the 100 Gods of Egypt manuscript is due. Not at all pleased with my pace or what I’ve been working on, but I’m also in the “get it written then get it right” camp. So writing happens even if I end up redlining most of it at some point. It is gratifying, and even fun, to revisit these topics after years not being able to spend as much time with them because my work carried me in other directions that were needed. It’s also hard sometimes to find that balance between loving everything about one’s work and loving nothing about it. If I could just sit at the desk and write for the rest of my life that would be amazing, but my life is not currently in such a place where that could even happen.

I’ve gotten my two vaccines as of last week. Side effects were significant, but not impossible, and I am grateful to be in the “done for now” space, though I expect we’ll be back for boosters soon enough. The pandemic continues to be terrifying, though, and as my state just entered lockdown again to try to control the variants on the rampage, I’m still home alone for now. At this point I can say I am thoroughly sick of my own company, and that’s coming from someone who enjoys being alone.

September must have gone to keep August company. At least here in Oregon, it pretty much went up in smoke.

where did August go?

Sunday evening I marked my 51st birthday quietly, after a hot day in coronavirus lockdown, and a disappointing dinner which I cooked incorrectly. Last year I had intended to celebrate this year, since I’d not had any chance to do anything nice on my 50th birthday due to being at a conference. This year, I was supposed to be in Belgium - I would’ve completed a conference on Friday, and had planned to spend a quiet Sunday with European friends and family. Now it will all have to wait until 52, if I can afford to make the trip next year and the conference is rescheduled to the same week.

We have passed 50 days of protesting the Portland Police Bureau here in the city. Now we are also contending with unwanted federal troops, who are not only brutalizing unarmed people doing nothing illegal by demonstrating in public, but are randomly grabbing people off the streets in unmarked vehicles for intimidation and arrests. This is not acceptable. We will continue to demonstrate until the feds go home and the PPB is defunded. Didn’t expect to mark the second half of my life in pandemic or martial law, but here we are?

This morning, I failed my medical tests so badly that the doctor stopped after the first two and told me to come back and try again next month. Didn’t even know that was possible! Oops.

Yesterday, I stepped down from day-to-day management responsibilities in my main job, so that I can focus on the things only I can do and delegate the rest to other people.

I expect these two situations are related, and hope to have better results in August.