Opening doors

Zigzag is complaining at me again. He’s frustrated that I seem to spend so much of my time sitting in front of the bright box on the desk, and not enough time petting him or playing with him. He’s also fussy and not sure what he wants; if I do stop, pick up a toy, pet him, or give him something as a treat, he will decide for a moment whether or not he is going to stop complaining and enjoy the thing. Then he enjoys it.

I understand your frustration, fuzzball. I’ve been doing my own complaining at life for a while, around sorting out shipments of the Ancient Egyptian Daybook (that are still going on despite my best intentions, due to a simultaneous lack of postage funds due to being over budget, and having to work to make money to get said postage funds together). I’ve raised good money via a second Kickstarter for the Daybook Planner, but I’m not touching that money – it’s for paying for art and editing, and I’d love to not be in the same pinch in a couple of months, so I am resisting the urge to take any advance off future project funds. I’ve cut back everything I can cut back. School funding doesn’t resume until September, so I’ll need to be very creative for the next several months. I can do this.

And I can do other things, too. Tomorrow morning, I’m flying back down to SoCal to do something I’ve been working at doing for nearly two decades now. I will be defending my dissertation proposal in Coptic Studies at Claremont Graduate University. Finally, after two attempts that were unable to be completed through no fault of my own, I am standing just outside another big door. Here’s to it. I’m ready to get this done. Now, if only the rest of the world cooperates and maybe we don’t all die in a nuclear conflagration brought on by governmental incompetence in the meantime…that would be fantastic.

What sorts of challenges are you meeting, out there in readerland? How are you faring with them? I wish you well.

Comments

One response to “Opening doors”

  1. tsiuda Avatar

    Short followup for my readers: I passed my qualifying exams and proposal defense, and am now ABD with my doctorate. This is incredibly exciting.

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