All the news that (gives me) fits

Ended up not getting to the Gerald Stern reading tonight. I've been feeling a little blah, like I'm coming down with something, and driving over three hours (about an hour and 40 minutes each way) for a 30-40 minute reading just didn't feel like the way I wanted to spend my evening. Instead I sat home and watched a Jean-Michel Cousteau special on PBS about the National Marine Sanctuaries (some gorgeous underwater photography, including coral spawning and humpback whales) and NASA TV. I am such a nerd.

Word from the Indiana Arts Commission that beginning with the 2007-08 grant cycle (for which applications will be due in February), their Individual Artist Grants are being increased from $1000 to $2000. Good news, right? Except that unless they come up with some additional funding (shyeah right), only 40 artists will get grants instead of 80-some (in FY2005 they funded 86 artists out of 199 applications). For myself, I'd rather have a better chance at a $1000 grant -- enough to cover a one-week summer workshop -- than a less-than-stellar shot at more money. Plus, you don't get your funds until something like September, which means that for a summer workshop I'd have to put it on my credit card & pay it off later when I got the grant money; I could have managed to do that with $1000, but more than that will be a stretch, and maybe not do-able. Hello, friendly credit union, can I have a loan?

Oh well. I meant to apply for this fiscal year, but was felled by the Martian Death Flu in January and didn't get the application done. I'll probably try next year anyway. $2000 might let me take two workshops in Provincetown, which would be almost unbearably cool. You know, I don't think I have ever been away from home for two whole weeks in my adult life....