Today’s Daily Stoic writing prompt:   Do I balance my life better than the balance sheet of my business?

I think I do–mainly because I have never really prioritized “advancement” in my job other than keeping current with techniques and trends.  I really do not have a burning need to move into management, which brings with it an extended slate of hours and responsibilities.   I’ve always prioritized living within my means, focusing on my life outside of work, and finding that balance of having the funds to do the things I want to do, but also not to lust after doing things that are truly beyond my means.

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Just got off of the virtual book signing by Jenny Lawton.  She’s an author I’ve been following off and on for years, and is the writer responsible for me referring to any decorative chicken, especially a large one, as “Beyoncé”.  Most of my friends know exactly what “Knock, knock, m*****f*****” means.  She’s a humourist who also deals with depression and some pretty significant chronic diseases.  Her writing is really peak snark, and she has pets named Hunter S. Tomcat and Dorothy Barker.  She was pretty much live and in person how I had imagined her.  I’d just finished up a chapter in her book talking about how she deals with editors and nearly laughed my ass off.  I suspect she’d be a trip to work with.  

Speaking of editing, yesterday we had a meeting about the Canadian Warplane Heritage anniversary book.  There’s a draft covering the first 15 years or so, and I’ll be doing an initial grammar/style run on the first chapter in the next day or two.  Happy to see this happening, with a target release date early next year.  What they have done so far is looking very promising. 

I also read a spectacular article, translated from Russian, regarding a discarded sketch for what would have been a followup opera to Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth, loosely based upon the story of the People’s Will movement in the late 19th century that successfully assassinated Tsar Alexander II and focusing on the woman that played a significant role in that.  However, the climate in the aftermath of the assasination of Kirov pretty much quashed the idea of an opera based on people killing government figures, so the theme of this particular sketch actually ended up in the 4th Symphony.  The author of the article, Olga Digonskaia, was the woman who found the sketches for the Prologue to Orango that were successfully orchestrated and premiered a couple of years.  Coincidentally, I had found the filmed performance of this work on YouTube just this morning.

 

The other big achievement today was booking a vaccine appointment for tomorrow for Dave.  Also, good things arrived in the mail and by courier today–Heat n’ Bond for the vest project, two sets of gaming dice (the ones with stars are more or less perfect), and marginalia pins from a Kickstarter, including Rocket Cat.  The next embroidery project is now underway, and I anticipate it’ll be in a spot to start sharing in the very near future.  

There are some more serious thinky thoughts around one aspect of the SCA that’s “blown up” recently–the use of “faux hands” to replicate the look of non-Roman alphabets (or, sometimes, writing that does not use alphabets at all).  The question is is whether they are insulting to other cultures, in the way “fake Chinese” typefaces (think Chinese restaurants) are now often considered.  I’m not quite ready to write about that yet;  still mulling it over in my head, but it is something I’ve done in the past, always with the belief that recreating the look of the writing that accompanied a particular illumination style was important.  More thoughts to come as I think through things.