Morning, folks. I’ve got a cold, which is annoying, but not unexpected, given the petri dish that is a university campus — my kids seem fine, so I’m blaming my students this time. COVID test negative this morning — they’re not entirely reliable, alas. But it feels pretty mild, regardless — tired, sneezing, scratchy throat. Tolerable. (We’re trying to schedule our family for all the vaccines right now, but have been having trouble finding COVID vaccine at Walgreens / CVS locally — are people actually able to schedule that here? Or not yet?)
I’ve been waffling a little about whether to teach in person or not today — I think I’ll probably pivot to my being remote and Zooming in to join the class; that’s particularly easy in my fiction workshop, since I barely talk while we’re doing critiques anyway, but even in the lit. class, I think it’ll work okay. I know I have at least one immunocompromised student in each class, and I want to model good community health behavior when you have a communicable disease, even if it’s ‘just a cold.’
So the plan for today is to try to resist the urge to wander around doing things, but stay planted firmly in my bed as much as I can stand, resting up, drinking fluids, and letting my body heal. I’m trying hard to think of that as ‘work’ too, but it does mean unlearning a whole bunch of terrible American work habits.
I’ve been reading Daniel Abraham’s _Dragon’s Path_ series, on book 4 of 5 now, and it’s nicely compelling and is also sparking ideas for a novel of mine, so that seems like a good use of my in-bed time. I imagine I’ll also try to get through some backlogged e-mail, and I have a few posts I want to do about teaching the SF lit. class, and about publicity in publishing, so maybe those will show up. Or I may nap — we’ll see. I’ve set an alarm so I don’t sleep through teaching!
*****
Little pics from the last week:
• I gave up on the almost-dead plant in that planter in my office and replaced it with something alive, which makes me much more willing to spend time in that room; the almost-dead plant was depressing me
• Sometimes I have so many peppers to collect that I have to do a separate pepper morning-shirt-harvest; I planted several different kinds, and the bell peppers I think aren’t producing enough to be worthwhile, but the chili and shishito peppers we’re going through nicely, so they’ll be back, next year
• that’s Angeli Primlani, who kindly came in to talk to both of my classes about being a SF/F writer, even though my state school has no funding for me to bring in speakers to my classes — the students got a lot out of it, and if any of my other local writer friends would be willing to come by UIC on a Monday or Wednesday afternoon this semester (I teach from 3 – 6) to talk about being a writer, I would be very happy to buy you a beverage and snacks in thanks, and possibly even get dinner afterwards, if schedule permits.
Angeli knows a ton about European history — her fantasy novel, The Marlen of Prague, about Christopher Marlowe, magic, and spy craft, is based on a lot of historical research, and is delightful — I recommend the book to you (link in comments), and also note that she’d be great for doing Zoom or in-person class visits to college and high school classes.
• a board member colleague came by yesterday to work for an hour — we all spent 4.5 hrs at the board retreat on Saturday, but didn’t quite get through everything we wanted to, so we needed some extra time; I could have met with Jonathan Livingston on Zoom, but how much more fun is it to pull out random items from my fridge and make him eat them? Not pictured are the cherry tomatoes he brought from his garden, Sun Gold and Chocolate Sprinkles, both delicious — I already grow Sun Gold and love it, but think I may have to try Chocolate Sprinkles next year!
• a late rose — they’re sporadic this time of year, but every one is appreciated — Princess Alexandra of Kent
That’s all for now — back to my book. 
