I've been working on Lincoln, you know. I like the idea of gambling on the "better angels of our nature"... look at how that worked out for him, though.
The editing job is involving a lot of rewriting, which is work that lights up my brain in pretty colors.
The idea is that the book will talk about Lincoln's importance to today, but it keeps dropping the ball.
I just rewrote the part where Lincoln suspends habeas corpus. The book doesn't mention that this sets the precedent of a president doing that in a time of war (so the military can arrest and hold people without showing just cause or taking them to trial), or that that the United States has been doing for the past dozen-plus years.
At the same time, I'll be scraping and repainting the windows. They are on new tracks (they go all the way up!) but still need restoration. That will be a good physical distraction, and I like to see the immediate results of such labor.
Then, as the weather cools, I'll bike some of the longer trails. And I just found out about a free bike-repair group that meets twice a month--starting this week––at a nearby bike shop.
Oh, and also I'm working on a zine about Rice Pudding! with Crow.
Good work is its own kind of win.
___________________________
Screencaps from TrekCore of the Star Trek episode "By Any Other Name". Kirk asks the crew to go on a dangerous mission, saying, "Risk is our business." That's actual dialogue. (I made up the other stuff.)
There's a kind of American glorification of risk--"Go on! Take a chance!" -- that doesn't take into account that it's called "risk" because you risk losing. Like, getting turned into a bath cube and then crushed to dust, as happens to this poor crew member.
That's not a reason not to take risks, of course, just a reminder that you might not be the Kirk in the episode. You might be a glorified extra, like Crewman No. 6 in Galaxy Quest.
Expendable.
Or, comic relief.
