I did not go and spend time today in the former banquet room of the historic Eagle Hotel. The days that I stay home are the best, timewise. This was one of these days. Commuting is a big-time hour eater, for sure.

Instead I stayed put. I first worked a bit on chapters five and six of Shelf Life, then sent them on to Christopher. He had sent me chapters three and four – I looked them over so that my subconscious might resume work on them.

Christopher liked chapter 4 but said that 3 needed quite a bit of work. So be it. I will get to this soon.

I next began work on my People’s Paper/Make a Scene article. I came up with an idea last night, as I put together a list of things to do on the project. My subconscious said to my conscious to write about Cathy, the Bright Lights Book Project artist-in-residence. I first did a draft by hand because I wasn’t sure that I had enough to say and might compensate by over editing. I did have enough to say, and so with my very rough drafts in hand I went upstairs and began typing. My current draft is well over 800 words, the limit, so I’ll let my article sit for a few days before revising it. Most importantly, I will again meet the publication’s deadline.

Next was this – yesterday, Brooke Hartman, the author, mentioned that the Alaska State Council on the Arts had available grants. She added that she’d applied for a few and gotten them.

Late afternoon, Pete went for a bicycle ride, and I attempted to forward some fliers to people that I thought would be interested in coming to the Bleeding Heart Brewery event. It didn’t go well, so I instead checked out the Alaska State Council on the Arts grants. There were a large number of grants; it looked like we’d be eligible for an organizational grant. The deadline, oh oh, was today.

I figured that I would start the grant writing process and then, when Pete got back, have him fill in the loose ends. This truly was my intention. I thought he might say no, that we didn’t have the time to do this. But no, he hopped into the fray and began looking up administrative stuff, like our nonprofit EIN number.

He made dinner tonight while I worked on the narrative section. Then after dinner, he read what I wrote and began working on the budget. It is tedious work for sure. It’s 10:00 p.m. and he’s still at it. He will make the 12:00 p.m. deadline for sure, but it’s gonna be close.

I do not know if Pete goes into the zone when working on the budget. Me, I break into hives when it appears as though I even have so much as to look at a page full of figures. Words, it’s all words all the way down.

Next: 61. 3/2/26: Heave ho