Little pleasures — cutting out a new sewing pattern feels like being back in second grade, where the only thing I needed to worry about was tape and scissors. 
I’m unscheduled today — in theory, it’s stir-up Sunday, and I should be making fruitcake, but I forgot to check if I have the ingredients on hand, and I’m not sure I do, and I’m going to a Sri Lankan wedding later this week, so there will probably be fruitcake there (Sri Lankans traditionally have ‘rich cake’ topped with marzipan as wrapped up treats for guests to take away), and perhaps I will get more than my fair share since amazingly, not everyone appreciates fruitcake for the rich, decadent glory it is (when made correctly). If they don’t have it, I guess I’ll just have to make some when I get back to town.
Instead, I’m going to see if I can sew myself a sari blouse to wear to the wedding. I have a back-up outfit if that fails, so no stress, but it would be fun and satisfying to do, if I can pull it off.
First step, cutting out the pattern — it’s a different one than I did last time, with more darts but fewer pattern pieces, which I hope will keep me from geometric confusion (we will not discuss how many times I had to lay out the pieces last time to get them sewn together correctly, OR the time I sewed two together inside-out, sigh).
Nice to have an unscheduled day with no meetings! The first such day in a few weeks, and while I do, of course, have plenty I want to get done today, I intend to take full advantage of the unscheduled time to be leisurely about it all.
Yesterday was great in one sense — I really enjoyed teaching the Writing the Taboo workshop for the SLF (we’re actually going to repeat it early next year, because several people couldn’t make yesterday’s date, but were interested) and hosting a panel with three book editors (it’ll be up on our site shortly, once Darius has a chance to edit it), but it was also draining. Teaching takes a lot of energy, and even panel-moderating requires thinking pretty fast.
A friend visiting town stopped by afterwards, and Jhayne said as she was leaving that I looked tired — and that I had looked tired when she arrived. Sounds about right. I was tired enough yesterday that after she left, I gave in to mindlessness and played a video game for 3-4 hours in the evening, which was about all I had the brains left to do.
But I slept decently, I’ve had a nice breakfast of rice and curry, we’re out of milk (eep) so no tea, but we had cream, so I’m having coffee this morning instead. Feeling better.
Next step, lay out pieces on the fabric, following grain lines carefully, and pin down. Then I think I’ll try to answer a few e-mails. My reward for answering e-mails will be getting to do the next step of the sewing. Sounds good, right?