I have a grandma schedule and I like it that way

soft hobbies week #12

May 29, 2024

Welcome to issue #12 of Soft Hobbies, a series of creative check-ins for imperfect perfectionists around the world. New posts typically go out every Wednesday, and you can respond to this post by liking it, leaving a comment, or hitting Reply to this email. I’m Auzin, a Seattle-based writer in the fiction, poetry, and tech writing spheres. To see what else I do across the internet, go here.

Hi softies,

I haven't used a morning alarm for over three years.* One of the many benefits of working from home is more flexibility in my morning routine. This flexibility allows me to wake up naturally, when my body's internal clock combines with my entrenched anxiety and the level of daylight outside to awaken me, somewhere between 6am and 7am each day. I tend to wake up naturally around 6:30am, but if I'm a little later than that, it's not a big deal.

I'm incredibly grateful for this. Waking up to an alarm was always such a disconcerting way to start my day! I have such a strong subconscious connection to it that I still get a panicked feeling and a physical reaction of drowsiness whenever I hear someone else's iPhone alarm go off. If you're not sure how panic and drowsiness can occur at the same time, count yourself lucky.

Note, I'm only able to wake up this early with consistency because unlike most artists, I'm not a night owl. My brain stops working after 8pm, and the only cleverness I'm capable of at night is making stupid jokes in front of the TV with my boyfriend. It's with great wistfulness that I recall my former bedtime of 9pm, now swapped for 10:30 or 11pm, since I now live with someone who is less interested in having the sleep schedule of a retired person.

I always think of Ursula K. LeGuin's daily schedule, which makes me smile and feel better about not being able to embrace the romanticism of a night owl schedule.

Ursula K. LeGuin’s daily schedule. Very aspirational for me.

*I still use an alarm clock when I have to wake up exceedingly early to get to the airport, which doesn’t happen often.

Here's what I got up to this week!

3 things I'm reading:

Still on IQ84 and really impressed by the quality of the translation I'm reading. It feels very natural. Here's a beautiful passage:

“Is it possible to become friends with a butterfly?”
”It is if you first become a part of nature. You suppress your presence as a human being, stay very still, and convince yourself that you are a tree or grass or a flower. It takes time, but once the butterfly lets its guard down, you can become friends quite naturally.”
”Do you give them names?” Aomame asked, curious. “Like dogs or cats?”
The dowager gave her head a little shake. “No, I don’t give them names: they die so quickly. These people are your nameless friends for just a little while. I come here every day, say hello to the butterflies, and talk about things with them. When the time comes, though, they just quietly go off and disappear. I’m sure it means they’ve died, but I can never find their bodies. They don’t leave any trace behind. It’s as if they’ve been absorbed by the air. They’re dainty little creatures that hardly exist at all: they come out of nowhere, search quietly for a few, limited things, and disappear into nothingness again, perhaps to some other world.”

I received my (signed!) copy of 1000 Words by Jami Attenberg, just in time for 1000 Words of Summer to start this Saturday! I'm so nervous, but I've prepared all my materials and timeblocks, so I think it'll work out. Definitely going to read this for inspiration!
I just learned about this very special newsletter called Animation Obsessive and I am...obsessed with it, lol. I bookmarked about three dozen of their archive posts to read later. Well-researched, well-written, and fascinating topics – here's a great example.

3 things I'm writing:

I rented The Beacon Cinema for my birthday on Friday and am showing Pacific Rim to some of my nearest and dearest. I prepared a mini-speech for it, introducing the movie and thanking my friends for coming out :')
Scribbled a bit in my car-notebook before dance class a few days ago. I'm trying to use the downtime before obligations/appointments to write, rather than scroll. It helps to have a small moleskine in various places: desk, coffee table, car, etc.
Updated several running lists in my GDocs: writing fragments to return to later, places I want to go in my city, travel bucket lists.

Seattle is truly the city of barcades, and there are multiple in my neighborhood. Ethan and I favor Icebox because it's never too crowded and the focus is more on the games than on the alcohol. We went on Friday, they had a brand-new John Wick pinball machine and we were livinggg for it.

I started a new hollow book project. This one already looks better than the first, but I'm having a hard time cutting out the corners of the central hole cleanly. I saw a recommendation online to use a power drill to drill holes in the corners, so I'm going to try that, as soon as I figure out how to use our drill :)
Dance class has been tough but fun this week (and every week). Sunday's class was really footwork-heavy, which is something I've always struggled with when it comes to choreography. I think I did OK though. I was able to distance myself from the outcome a bit because I think this choreo is beyond the "Beginner" level of the class, so if I can't do it correctly, it doesn't matter to me as much. Also, I figured out a hack for feeling better about my body in the brightly-lit studio mirrors: wearing an oversized shirt! If I can't see it, my brain will focus on it less, and I can focus more on how I'm feeling in the moment.

Your turn! What are you reading? Writing? What does your sleep schedule look like?

Let me know, and thanks for your time.

Softly yours,

Auzin

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