Today I grade papers, exercise, go in to campus, teach. After teaching, I have a long time in my office until a 4:30 appt. regarding a thesis committee I'm sitting on, so hopefully I'll write, either working on revisions to the novel or the Catamaran short story (or both). I don't really have an idea for a short story yet, though...
Much of my attention right now is taken up with plans for this weekend's DesiLit rapid-fire reading (with what looks like fifteen local desi authors, which is very cool -- when I moved to Chicago, I hardly knew any), and next weekend's Indu Sundaresan visit. I'm fairly anxious about the Indu event; it's costing us a few hundred dollars to bring her in, and that's fine, as long as people actually come to her reading, or to the brunch at my place the next day. I'm not sure how many people need to come for us to consider it a worthwhile thing to do. We're still feeling this stuff out; events planning is a whole complicated thing in and of itself, and I just don't know as much about it as I would wish.
My head is taken up with little calculations like this:
- Hotel room for two nights: -$300
- Airfare donated by author: $0
- Money raised at fundraiser in Feb: +$80
- Space donated by art gallery: $0
- Chair rental: - $50
- Co-sponsorship by women's organization: +$100
- Refreshments (TJ's three-buck Chuck, cheese, crackers, paper cups and plates and napkins): $50
- Overall: -$220
- Value of event for a non-profit looking to serve public: somewhat arbitrarily set at $10/person
My brain is weird. Or this stuff is. I'm not sure.
Supplemental calculation:
- Private brunch the next day: -$5/person food costs
- Private brunch the next day: +$15/person registration
- Overall: +$10/person