Double life

Mom and editor—today I did it all! Will woke up to eat at 4:!5, and after he went back down I headed downstairs to make tea and dive back in to work. I had a manuscript waiting for me and I spent a couple of hours editing before anyone else was awake. Then Matt left for work and I started juggling. Overall it wasn’t too bad. Alice read books for a bit until I needed to get on a long conference call, and then she got to dive into 90 minutes of Blippi. Will alternated between sleeping and wanting to sit with me and wiggle excessively on camera. He is the cutest coworker!

We took a quick walk before lunch and nap. It was beautiful outside and Alice is in love with the scooter we got her as an early Easter present. While she was sleeping I got some more work done and caught up with co-workers. Inspired by 168 Hours, I’ve decided to track my time. When I shut my work stuff down at 6:00, I had worked 9 hours, so I spent 4 hours during the day on childcare and lunch. It might seem inefficient to drag out the workday so long, but I saved an hour on commuting and would have taken the hour for lunch anyway if I had been in the office (or, more likely, worked through it). So today the kids basically extended my work day for 2 hours. Not bad! And not having to pump and being able to go for a walk with them over lunchtime are definite perks.

Tomorrow I’ll have fewer conference calls and hopefully will be able to get more some more “real” work done as a result. We have our biannual seasonal launch meeting coming up later this week and I need to get my head around all the presentations I’m responsible for. Nothing like jumping back in with both feet!

Favorite coworker!

Quarantine - Days 4, 5, 6, and beyond...

It’s definitely starting to feel like Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day around here! We wake up, play, do Camp Kindergarten, play some more, eat lunch, nap, go for a walk, eat dinner, play, go to bed. Over and over and over and over…

I had been looking forward to the weekend, but it ended up being frustrating. Having Matt home just disrupted the routine and encouraged Alice to act out and push boundaries, and I didn’t actually get more time to myself somehow. Blargh. I have started up again with my tried and true 8 minute abs workout, which is kicking my butt, and I’m doing the One Hundred Pushups Project. So hopefully I’ll come out of this at least a little more in shape than I was previously (trying to give myself a break and remember that I’m less than 12 weeks postpartum when I feel frustrated about my fitness level).

I’m starting to get really stressed about “going back” to work in less than two weeks. I just can’t imagine how I’ll balance trying to be available/working during the day and watching two very young kids. I’m confident I can do my job well and put in 40 hours a week, but a lot of those hours are going to have to be early mornings, nights, and weekends when I’m not also being a primary caregiver. I know everyone is dealing with some logistics juggling but I think I have a bit more of a challenge than most of my colleagues in terms of my kids being so young and me not having a work-from-home spouse to switch off with during the day. Whatever happens, I’ll figure it out! I have a few manuscripts incoming right after I return that I’m REALLY looking forward to editing, so that will be my focus for my nights and weekends time while I focus on communications and smaller projects that don’t require as much deep concentration during the day.

I’ve been trying to stay away from book industry news because I suspect it’s mostly terrible. I can’t even imagine what all this is doing to independent bookstores and even to B&N, which relies heavily on people walking into stores and browsing. One thing I am confident in is my company’s ability to weather this and even thrive under tough economic conditions. I wasn’t working there during the 2008 recession, but the company’s proactive response during that dark time is a big part of our culture now and we’re able to draw on that experience as we meet whatever lies ahead in the coming weeks and months. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with my colleagues and my work, and figuring out what’s next for all of us.

Reading Update:

Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner: I ended up liking this novel quite a bit! I’m interested in going back reading some of Weiner’s earlier novels, which I understand are a bit different than this one. I enjoyed getting the perspective of the main characters as they grew and matured, and to consider the different roles women play at different times in their lives and how society dictates those roles. I’m still a little unsure whether the main characters’ names (Jo and Bethie) are supposed to be an allusion to Little Women. At the beginning of the novel it seemed like they must be, as Jo was a tomboy-ish aspiring writer and Beth was a goody two-shoes type, but it never really became clear, so it may have just been a coincidence. Finished on 3/19/20.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata: I had read about this short, strange little novel on both Modern Mrs. Darcy and The SHU Box (I think) a while ago. It was weird, but a fun quick read! What I found most interesting was the idea of the convenience store (or any workplace, really) as its own little world with accepted rules, culture, and vocabulary. I definitely feel this sometimes at work, and because I really jive with the culture of my workplace it’s actually one of the things I enjoy most about my job. Maybe that makes me uncool or whatever because I’m not trying to rebel against my workplace and genuinely buy into and agree with a lot of the corporate messaging, but… I identified with the main character in some ways because of it! Finished 3/21/20.

Dead Wake by Erik Larson: Another audiobook from OverDrive that I think I’m actually going to get through! I love a good Erik Larson book. Totally gripping narrative nonfiction about the last crossing of the British passenger ship RMS Lusitania during WWI. Very much enjoying it!

“A” Is for Alibi by Sue Grafton: Somehow I’ve made it this far in life without reading any of Grafton’s famed “alphabet” Kinsey Millhone mysteries. I’m remedying that now, and looking forward to working my way through the whole series.

One good thing about being forced to stay at home is the number of art collaborations Alice and I are doing together!

My favorite book of 2020 (so far) is one you've probably never heard of

One thing I really like about working in publishing is that it gives me a lot of ammunition for cocktail party conversation. I’m an introvert and don’t have a naturally outgoing personality (those are not the same thing, by the way! I’m deeply dedicated to the true definition of the term “introvert”), and people tend to have a lot of questions about editing, publishing, etc. Since I could talk about my job all day, all night, and into the next decade, it often makes social situations easier for me to just ramble on about work. But inevitably the conversation turns to “favorite” books.

“Oh, you’re an editor? What’s your favorite book?”

Cue an entire lifetime of books read flashing before my eyes and an existential crisis as I try to select one of the many, many outstanding books I’ve read as my VERY FAVORITE EVER. I can’t do it. But, as of this writing, I do have a favorite book of 2020, it was a total shocker, and I bet you’ve never heard of it. I certainly hadn’t.

Tisha: The Wonderful Love Story of a Young Teacher in the Alaskan Wilderness by Robert Specht is a shining beautiful gem of narrative nonfiction. My mom, who has a certain talent for giving me incredible books that I would have never picked out myself, loaned it to me over the holidays. Honestly, nothing about it spoke to me—I found the title to be meaningless, the subtitle weirdly specific (I was super suspicious of a book calling itself “wonderful”), and the cover totally generic. But my mom left it on my coffee table, so I figured I better just read it fast so I could give it back to her and move on with my life. Once I started, I was underwhelmed by the first chapter or two—but just as I was considering putting it down, I got hooked and basically didn’t look up until I had devoured the whole thing.

Tisha (originally published in 1976—I read the 2018 Bantam edition) is the story of a real woman, Anne Hobbs, who left home at nineteen years old and moved to the Alaskan wilderness in 1927 to teach school. I don’t want to spoil a single second of the story, but the challenges and adventures Anne faces there are RIVETING, and the way she battles the negative forces she encounters in the isolated community is totally inspiring. There’s a point near the end of the book that’s literally a hold-onto-your-seat-can’t-catch-your-breath level of suspense and excitement. So intense and wonderful, and so not what I expected from this unassuming little book. Highly, highly recommended!