This is going to be a fairly quick post, because I want to attend a concert tonight:

I couldn’t have done that — attended a concert at night — last year. It would have meant staying in the city late, trying to find dinner before the concert, and then afterward driving another hour out to the suburbs. But this year it’s a short walk away. I’m eating dinner as I’m writing this: cream of zucchini soup that I just made on the ancient stove. I’m doing well with that stove. Whenever you move into a new place and start learning a new stove, it takes a while. So much of cooking is instinct, and I’m developing an instinct as to how long I can leave something to brown before it burns — that sort of thing. Last night, I used the oven for the first time.

This fall, I’m adjusting to living in the city again, and you know, so far it’s been rather wonderful. Oh, there are all the problems one has living in the city. It can be harder to find things than it was in the suburbs. But there are also so many advantages. For one thing, I can walk just about everywhere. And if I can’t, I take the subway. That has created one problem: I’m walking so much more now that I’m hungry all the time! I have to figure out a way to eat more, healthily. I’m working on recipes: tonight, I’m hoping to make the perfect apple crisp. (The one I made last night was almost but not quite right.)

But the biggest adjustment I need to make has to do with my work habits. I tend to be a bit of a workaholic. I couldn’t be, last year. I had a long commute each day, and I was very tired at the end of it, so I couldn’t work the way I can here, where I’m around a computer most of the time. I need to make sure that I don’t overwork myself. I also need to make sure that I leave plenty of time for writing, that I don’t spend all my time on teaching. That’s difficult, because I love teaching and it’s so demanding anyway that it’s easy to spend all my time simply doing that. But I have a novel to work on. I want to make sure that I block out at least two hours each weekday to work on it. That’s not a lot, but then, I have to much to do that I don’t know how I could find more.

I feel very strongly that this is an interim period, that this is the time during which I create the work that will take me through the rest of my life. In which I create the professional and personal life that is to be. I’m looking forward to it. I just need to make sure that I get enough food and sleep! And of course take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities in the city.