So even if in general things continue to be frustrating in my life these days (in re: money, dating, etc), there's at least one good thing to rightly celebrate, that in my work life I'm currently in one of the most productive states I've ever been in as an adult. In fact, believe it or not, I'm managing to get all of the following done on a regular basis these days, without even really breaking a sweat most of the time...

--By the end of each day, handle all new emails and instant messages that have come in over the last 24 hours.

--Do a thorough read of Google News every morning, as well as a thorough scan of the 500-odd RSS feeds I subscribe to (which isn't as difficult as it sounds; once you start tracking a lot of blogs at once, in fact, you quickly realize just how much safely-skipped crap is published at most of them throughout the day).

--Read at least 100 pages each day of the various books I review at the website for my arts organization, the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography (or CCLaP).

--Watch at least one movie or old TV show each day through Netflix, for the same reason (to review it at CCLaP, that is).

--Write at least 1,500 words of original content each weekday for the CCLaP site, a hodgepodge each day made up from pieces of the following master list: a photo of the day; links to interesting random news items I've recently come across; major (thousand-word) book reviews; minor (200-word) movie reviews; and occasional personal entries, also usually around a thousand words.

--Produce two new episodes each month of the CCLaP Podcast (posted every other Monday) -- one an extended interview with a local or touring artist, the other a college-radio-style showcase of the latest indie-rock music.

--And put out a new electronic book through CCLaP Publishing every couple of months; the next, for example, will be the long-awaited best-of compilation of my old Second Life blog from 2006 and '07, In The Grid (which for those who don't know, at its height was the 13th most popular Second Life blog on the planet), coming out in about two weeks and collecting up the 60 or so most interesting articles I wrote back then.

And now of course we're finally on the cusp again of the weather in Chicago turning warm; and that means a start to the bicycling season again soon, which I'm fairly screaming in anticipation about, because I've been deliberately packing on pounds this winter so that I'd have extra energy to burn this summer, so that I can go farther and longer on my bike this year than my undernourished ass has ever been able to before, and get a substantial amount of work finally done on these customized bike maps for Google Maps and Google Earth I've been trying to create regularly for a couple of years now, but haven't been very good at actually getting done on a regular basis. And so anyway, after sitting down this weekend and mulling it all over, here below are all the things I've decided to try to add to my life in the sixteen weeks comprising May, June, July and August of this year, in addition to the things mentioned that I'm already doing:

--Go on at least one bicycle ride every day, no matter how short. On Thursdays, devote my entire morning and lunchtime hours to a major bike ride, one well-documented so I can create a detailed Google map of it that weekend. Also shoot video footage during each ride, to edit together and post to YouTube on the weekends as well. (For those who don't know, videos can be embedded into customized Google maps just as easily as still photos; it really is a remarkable little programming mini-environment, for those like me who like combining physical activities with computer code. See here for yet more thoughts I recently had on this subject over at my other personal blog, as well as a ton of screenshots of my bike maps as they actually appear in the mindblowing Google Earth 3D view.)

--On top of the weekly bike map and video, also update each day a little experiment I'm trying this year for the first time which I call a "placeblog." Basically, this was inspired by Google now publishing RSS feeds for all customized maps in their system, so that people can subscribe if they want and be notified of all new updates to that map. That plus the ability now to embed an interactive version of these maps on a web page essentially turn them into a type of blog unto themselves, if you choose to use them that way; it's just that instead of the archived blog entries being sorted by when they were written, and presented to new visitors as a list on a page, here they're plotted on a map based on where they were written, so that new visitors check out old entries based on place instead of time. I just thought htis would be an interesting thing to try, to rack up 100 or so little blog entries over the course of a summer, that all include a little photo or video plus a small write-up about something interesting in the city I came across that day while bicycling.

--And then on top of these Thursday rides, also dedicate my morning and lunchtime hours every Monday as well to bicycling to the Harold Washington library in the Loop. And the reason to do this is because of CCLaP's newest long-form essay project, of which I do around three or four a year; namely, I've decided this summer to read the complete and total ouevre of Nelson Algren, arguably the most important writer in Chicago history, one book a week for 14 weeks straight, and write brand-new essays about them all at the CCLaP website, in honor of Algren's 100th birthday this year (and in fact the entire project in general is entitled "Algren at 100"). And the Harold Washington is the only library branch in the city where you can find many of Algren's more obscure books, which is why it'll be necessary to make a trip there every week this summer to begin with; so I figure I'll just do it on my bike each week instead of train, so that I can as always shoot lots more photos and videos for my maps, and have an excuse to loiter at a downtown cafe on Mondays and do my writing that day down there, where the people-watching is just so much more fantastic than any cafe in my far-north neighborhood.

--And then finally, publish another three new books through CCLaP by the time Labor Day rolls around: first the center's newest outside original book by a local author, Sally Weigel's novella In Rainbows, coming out at the end of May; then the weirdo non-fiction book/online-project thing I've been working on all winter and spring, entitled The Wikicloud Guide to the British Empire, coming out in mid-July; and then finally in late August the book version of Algren at 100 (which by the way will be the very first book of essays I've done since opening CCLaP where I will be attempting to actually drum up some outside publicity; if you run a lit-blog or whatever and know already that you'll be interested in talking about this book of essays of mine that'll be coming in August, or at least would be willing to review it, do please drop me a line and let me know).

And that's it! Whew! So what do you think -- you think I'll actually manage to pull all this off by the end of the summer, not just the big new fun projects but while keeping on top of all my new emails each day, keeping on top of all my book-reading? I have to admit, if I do, I'll be legitimately and overwhelmingly happy with myself, and will consider this a really successful year in my life for the first time in a long, long time. And of course this is combined with the equally great news that my four years of dental work is finally coming to a close this summer -- my dentures finally come in around June 15th, and then I will finally and completely be done with all this dental work for once and for all, which I'm so looking forward to I don't know where to even start. (How long has this process been? Twitter didn't fucking exist when I had my first round of oral surgery. That's how long.) And that of course has me wanting to get out to more readings and social events this summer, which will not only help my personal life but also give me lots more content for the CCLaP Podcast; and for those who don't know, this is the year I've also decided to start going out on dates again, for the first time regularly since 2001, so that gets all wrapped up too into the plans for bicycling and the teeth and being more social, etc etc. Oh, it's all a grand tapestry, I'm tellin' ya.

I don't know -- I'm just really looking forward to this summer, if you can't tell, and really feel somehow that this is the year I finally get out of this overwhelming funk that's literally been ruling my life since September Freaking Eleventh. Maybe this is the year all of us sad, angry, pathetic Americans finally get out of our 9/11 funk, I don't know. Anyway, wish me luck in trying to get all these things done by the time Labor Day finally rolls around in early September. As always, we'll see how it goes.