I had a sort of kinda halfway goal of writing every day this year, which I managed until yesterday. Got some bad news in the evening (a relative in intensive care back home, not expected to pull through), and that messed up my concentration pretty well -- I sat down to write last night as usual but just couldn't focus on the imaginary lives of those imaginary people that suddenly seemed so trivial.

My usual response to failing at a goal is to say "Bah!" and declare that the whole enterprise was futile and a waste of effort and then give up trying, but I'm trying to be a bit more mature (in that respect, at least) and just call it a temporary lapse and move on as if it hadn't happened. (Also: I have some looming deadlines, and writing every day will make them a lot less difficult to hit.)

I've got a cold, actually my second cold of the year (with slightly different symptoms from the first cold!). Mostly just a lot of sniffling and being overtired, though I was making white bean/turkey sausage/tomato soup last night and couldn't get it to taste right, kept adding spices, etc.... until finally realizing my sense of taste was blunted unto uselessness by the cold. Fortunately I stopped before I ruined the dish completely. I ended up putting several squirts of Vietnamese hot sauce into my own bowl just so it would taste like something, even if the something it tasted like was: burning.

So, not the best start to the year, really. Fortunately I have some good friends visiting this weekend, and my friend D. will be staying with us for a week later this month, which should improve my life.