Now...

All right, where was I?

I was in the middle of illustratoring A Bug’s Nap, the second in the universally-beloved BugVerse Chronicles, when I took that two-week break, so you might think I’d jump right back on that as soon as I could.

You might very well think that.

By the way, I must shower Marc, Stan, and Kim with unmitigated praise for moving my entire working setup — monitor, color laser printer, graphics tablet, all those cords — from my attic study to the dining room, where it completely ruins the ambience of our formal front rooms. Temporarily.

If you read my account of my break, you may have already clicked back to the blog post here of all my projects that remain unfinished; if not, click here and give them a quick once-over.

Which of the projects on that list do you think has risen to the top of the list, snapped into focus as it were in my still-foggy brain?

Lichtenbergians everywhere already know the correct answer: NONE OF THE ABOVE.

Newcomers, this is how TASK AVOIDANCE works: I avoid working on Project A by working on Project B. Sooner or later I’m going to finish something.

Of course I will finish A Bug’s Nap, and soon, but in the meantime…

Project M: This one came out of the blue, I swear. My honors thesis back at UGA was an instruction manual of all the social dances performed by the UGA Period Dance Group. (I was the chief researcher and eventual president.) I’m going to scan it, PDF it, and upload it for the good of all mankind, at least those who need to know how to dance a minuet en huit.

See that tiny little pile all the way over on the right? That’s my life.

Project N: This one is more interesting. Even before my break, I had been presented with this image of a Galton board as being an appropriate metaphor for my life, i.e., every time my little marble hit a peg, it bounced to the right, more and more towards the top end of the bell curve of comfort and achievement without my having to make much of a choice. I want to go back over my entire life and identify as many of those ‘pings’ as I can, creating a kind of personal wiki tracing all the accidents that landed me here. (Click here to play with a Galton board.)

Onward!