June bugs

hello solstice

The days are getting longer, which means every year around this time I become convinced I can have an entirely different life. You know, one where I go to outdoor concerts on weeknights and keep my inbox under control and know where my passport is. I have a fantasy that I somehow can become more interesting and more organized and more relaxed. June always sucks me in thinking it’s possible. It’s only June 5 and I’m already falling for it.

Here’s how it started. This week I spent an hour uploading Wynn’s family photos into our Aura digital frame, which is about as mesmerizing as it gets for me these days. I wasn’t planning to do this. I had work to do. You know, that thing that pays my bills.

Instead I somehow found myself staring at scans of relatives I’ve never met, trying to figure out whether a particular black and white photo was better with a Vivid filter or the Oscar filter. There was absolutely no deadline. Wynn wasn’t asking about the photos. If those pictures appeared today, next Tuesday, or sometime around Christmas, he would have had roughly the same reaction, which is to say, “Aw, that’s nice.”

No worries, that doesn’t matter, I’ll just treat the project with the urgency and mental load of a hostage negotiation anyway.

A few weeks ago I built an Airtable database for my business development contacts. When I say business development contacts, I should clarify that there were maybe eight people in it. Eight! A spreadsheet would have worked. A tiny little sticky note would have worked! But instead I built a database.

The cute little letter might actually belong in this category. Every Thursday night, or occasionally Friday morning, I sit down to write it. Does it matter that I have other things that need to be done, like dishes, work, or prep for a session tomorrow? No. Instead I am writing to what I assume is primarily my parents, a few friends, and whichever one of my sisters accidentally clicked on this email.

Hi.

Lovely to see you and I love writing you this letter, fr. ❤

I don’t even know if this counts as procrastination because I genuinely love doing it. It gives me energy in a way most of the things I’m “supposed to” do don’t. Like how probably tonight at 11:30 p.m. instead of closing my eyes I will be illuminated by the glow of this phone as I become a world-class bargain hunter.

The things themselves usually have a very rational explanation for why they’re such a good idea. That’s what makes them so convincing. And there is probably a connection between spending an hour organizing family photos, building a database for eight contacts, and writing this newsletter instead of preparing for tomorrow. But June makes me too relaxed to care to explore it, can’t you tell?

Anyway, the photos are uploaded now. Wynn loved them. And if you don’t hear from me next week, it’s because I’ve decided the urgent thing is building a database to track all the hobbies I don’t currently have!

Love u,

L