Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost
"Everything not saved will be lost." - Nintendo "Quit Screen" Message
So I wrote this edition of the newsletter in near it's entirety, but due to some technical issues it's decided to stay out back to finish a beer. I suppose this is my version of "my dog ate my homework" although it's actually "AWS ate my newsletter." In lieu of what I was going to write about this time, please enjoy some updates, nice artwork, and a snippet of what I recently read.
Additionally, I'm still working on a new short story (off and on), and a new essay (even more off and on). I'm hoping to finish the story before the essay - but you'll be the first to know when any of it reaches the finish line.
Updates
Class and work starts next week and I can honestly say I've never been so eager to go back to school. Having a pretty open schedule after relocating is certainly nice, but it's given me too much mental freedom to worry about things that either haven't happened yet, probably won't happen, or fixating on things that did happen. My hope is that once I get busier it'll help me adjust to my new location and speed up the timeline of "I'm adjusting quite well, thank you."
The thing about being "busy" is that it allows you to figure out what you want to do with your time pretty efficiently. If you have nothing going on, it can be easy to simply not do anything at all, even if there's a ton of things you'd like to be doing. At least for me, if my free time is more limited, I'm forced to make sacrifices for the things that truly matter to you. Oddly poetic, don't you think? Only when I'm given proper constraints do I gain the ability to look outside the box.
It's related to analysis paralysis or the paradox of choice. Too many choices can exhaust our minds and we end up not making the decisions we wanted to. In the end, I guess there's a time and place both for complete freedom and more constrained decision-making.
Recent Reading
A couple weeks ago I finished The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. It's a short and sweet beach read comprised of vignettes which tells the story of "Sophia, a six-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia's grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland."
It's profound, cozy, and vivid. I found it pretty enjoyable, if for nothing else than the occasional wisdom that really makes you think, as well as the passionately descriptive island world.
Holy Schitt
I also started watching Schitt's Creek since it's decorated with awards and seemed lighthearted and funny. Turns out it is. I'm only a handful of episodes in, but I'm enjoying it so far and will likely be in it for the long haul of it's six seasons.
As always, if you've got ideas, suggestions, or feedback, feel free to reply to this email or reach out on Twitter.
Until next time,
Z