It’s a gray achy kind of day, weather-wise, and a grey foggy day, brainwise, but I have taken a dose of my fancy ibuprofen+acetaminophen OTC pills (they are magic, btw, better even than prescription naproxen) and I am doing things I can get done instead of gnawing at myself over things I am not doing.
That’s the idea, anyhow.
I knew I would be wiped today after a yesterday that started 2 hours earlier than usual. It was worth losing sleep to accompany Spouseman to a car maintenance appointment & walk home w/him afterwards, but adding to an already-long ‘brar day had me dragging by the end. That’s on top of the way this week’s “Chill Drear to Sunny & Back Again” rollercoaster weather is kicking my ass.
So far so good. I got up earlier than I planned–7:30 according to my body, 8:30 according to the semi-annual clock fuckery–but it was a “I feel rested & awake & have Things to do” kind of wakeup, not the ass-dragging kind.
AND I have crossed off all but one thing I hoped to achieve. Granted, it was a short list. Laundry, Chili, Spread Clover Seed. And I don’t want to start the chili until closer to supper time. But it still feels good.
Getting in a blog post, too? EXTRA BONUS ACHIEVEMENT.
To-Do Lists are wonderful organizing tools, but days like today are why I rarely make “normal” ones with assigned priorities & firm timelines. That would be setting myself up to fail, given my inconsistent energy level & focus. Instead, I just list All The Things & then pick my way through them like it’s a smorgabord.
This week I evidently have an appetite for tactile, physical tasks. Writing has happened, as it often does when I stop putting pressure on myself, but I’m mainly indulging in Hand-intensive activities. Fingertip splits are making typing an annoyance, but otherwise my hands are staying in pretty good shape.
And wet weather sucks for me, but the garden loves it. Rainy days are good planting days, actually, and I’ve been plugging through seasonally-sensitive but generally time-forgiving tasks.
Here’s a tidy summation of Various Things I’ve done in the last week:
removed squirrel-guard wire toppers off the bulb plantings
cleared all the herb beds are clear
overseeded front & back lawn w/a red clover and grass mix. (today!)
And now I can make new lists, all about starting seedlings, shopping for patio furniture & a pergola, researching low-decibel leaf blowers, and dreaming about MOAR PRAIRIE PERENNIALS.
Inside things I’m working on:
Restocking things I have to order online, like tea & replacement storage container lids.
Baking: I’ve already done biscotti & banana muffins this week. Apple crisp might get made tonight, depending on energy level. Otherwise tomorrow.
And adding things to grocery lists for curbside pickup to minimize in-person shopping. Because yes, I’m still minimizing in-person shopping & yes, I’m still masking in public spaces, including my workplace. (The one exception being a (VERY) few restaurants w/excellent ventilation & mitigations where I’ll unmask to enjoy a meal w/a trusted friends.)
Yeah, I’m vaxxed & boosted. But I also know how to calculate risk. If and/or when the local case count & positivity rates drop below the thresholds we hit last June, I’ll enjoy wandering around stores unmasked like I did last June. But we aren’t there.
Until then, I’ll just keep making that extra set of lists.
That’s enough blathering for one post. Have a photo of Pippin being angry I emptied the humidifier in my office.
Writing a whole post of accomplishment lists has led to pondering WHY I like making “I did this” lists so much. Here’s my answer: it’s a frame adjustment.
I know, I know, “WTF frame what?” Stick with me here. Start with the idea of “progress.”
See, all our lives we’re taught–both formally and informally– to find worth in achieving goals and measuring progress, but that whole plan is fundamentally mismatched with the way life WORKS.
Progress is grounded in linear concepts of direction & endpoints. It’s all about the quantifiables.
When a task is done, it’s done. When a thing is filled, it’s full. When a goal is achieved, it’s over. There are jokes about the reward for a job well done being another job, but the system is accepted as valid.
Except it ISN’T. Reality doesn’t work that way.
Life is built on multiple, interlocking circular processes: sunrise to sunset to sunrise, winter to summer to winter again. Washed dishes get dirty, dinnertime comes around again, dust returns again, plants need tending, laundry piles up AGAIN.
No wonder people feel like we’re always failing. We’re judging ourselves by a metric that’s incompatible w/the medium.
Measuring success & satisfaction by progress is like measuring slices of bread in a loaf by weight. You can do it, but it takes some mental gymnastics.
Lists are my favorite way of somersaulting past frustration & feelings of failure. They line up my position in the endless cycle of Life Doings with the idea of “done,” and presto, I HAVE DONE THINGS.
It’s not only gymnastics, it’s kinda like a magic trick when it works.
Now I’m wondering what neat tricks other people use.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. If you want to celebrate by curling up with a cozy kissing book, may I suggest Weaving In The Ends? I wrote it, it’s all about love, but not only and not even mostly the romance hearts & flowers kind. It’s about the prickly kind of love, sibling love, family love, and formed-family love, the patient kind and the kind that makes mistakes and owns them and makes amends.
Also, there is knitting. And empaths. Available most places books & ebooks are sold. You can find it here https://bit.ly/kmhkindle along with the other books in the Restoration collection.
Sleepy cat for everyone who got this far. Until later!
It is Friday and I am taking A Rest Day. They’re hard. I love them, and I need them, but settling into Rest Mode is like dealing with new sheets or a new pair of shoes. Every single damned time I have to fuss with things and poke at them until they feel comfortable.
I don’t do rest well. It was easier–emotionally–when I had a Full-time Traditional Job providing a framework for my daily life. Even when my hours commitment and shift times changed week to week, my days off were generally predictable. Work had a defined location and set hours. I was on, or I was off, and I earned PTO I had to use.
So when I was worn down from a Big Project, I felt good about taking extra recovery time. The downtime was distinct from worktime AND it felt earned.
Side note: I know predictable week-to-week schedules are unusual in retail, but even when Borders was being turned to the Dark Side by its vampiric Corporate Hedge Fund bloodsucking board, it was still an unusual retailer. Also, store-level staff dug in their heels and FOUGHT on the days-off point every time their Inefficiency Experts inflicted Traditional Retail Bullshit on management.
Such battles came at regular turns on the company’s spiral staircase trip down to bankruptcy hell. But until near the end, stores had leeway in how they met their ever-dwindling, “needs-based” algorithm-driven hours allotment. And good managers understood changing people’s days off led to more headaches than it solved.
And when the corporate office insisted on a company-wide shift to a gobsawful scheduling tool, my store staff informed our general manager we would quit on the spot if she used it to screw with people’s days off.
(That same manager also refused to post schedules until 1-2 days before they went live. We used to debate over whether that was retaliation losing the variable days off fight, general lack of empathy, bungling incompetence, or all three)
But I digress.
I’m coming up on the 11 year anniversary of Not Working For Borders and still haven’t mastered the Art Of Not Working. I haven’t worked full-time for an outside employer since then. The external demands on my time are more fluid and mainly unpaid. If it seems like that should make things easier, welp. It didn’t.
My boundaries between “work” and “not-work” washed away, and I never properly rebuilt them.
I do not miss having a 40-70 hour per week job. I do miss the clarity. Where once I had well-defined defense against Work Ethic Conditioning guilt, something like, “I have disengaged from Employment Mode, therefore Doing Nothing isn’t laziness,” now I have only my own resources to fall back on.
(In case you’re new to this blog, I am three hyperactive otters in a hoodie masquerading as a functional human. My own executive functioning resources are, um, limited.)
Once I was unemployed, I mainly I officially & voluntarily shouldered most of our home-related responsibilities. (not the doing, that part is an equitable split but the brain-sucking Managing part of it all.) Yes, there was job hunting, but there was also the satisfaction of finishing long-delayed personal and house projects, learning about the joy of EVENINGS AND WEEKENDS, and in general, having free time.
That part was amazing at first, but it also made me antsy. Busy brain likes to be busy. Once I got the hang of a new day-to-day routine, I had too much time on my hands.
I started on Controlled Descent six months into unemployment in large part because I was BORED, about the same time I took on two small regular outside responsibilities–volunteering at the Botanic Garden and working very part-time at the local library.
Through the completion of Flight Plan two and half years later, writing felt like my primary activity, and that was a great groove. But there was still time in my days, so I added in continuing education and upped my library hours. Post-publication, things started to snowball, with professional networking, indie-authoring business distractions like marketing, conventions, and sundry other things like being a caregiver, house-hunting, renovations…and so on.
Somewhere in there the difference between weekday and weekend blurred, I lost the knack of creative thinking first and everyday necessities second, and I lost the trick of taking time OFF.
That got exhausting & frustrating. I wasn’t enjoying writing. I was exhausted. Obviously something was wrong. There was too much going on.
Also, I have significantly less stamina than I had ten years ago. Wrapping my brain around that reality was the first clue. Energy and stamina are not the same. I still have brain energy. But channeling it is more difficult because things hurt more, and I get tired faster and so on. So I cut back on how many things I was trying to do, and I started defending the creative time in my schedule.
It didn’t work. For years I tried, but I felt like a kid at the beach with a bucket, scooping up waves in defense of a sand castle. More time didn’t translate into more writing or more life enjoyment.
I pondered, and I ponderd, and pandemic gave me some time to unearth the answer.
My problem wasn’t a lack of time, but a lack of quality time coupled with a lack of rest. See, some people create to shut out the clamor of the everyday, some people get energy from creating. That isn’t me.
I can only nurse a creative spark to life when the ashes of the everyday hubbub are swept away and my brain is still & quiet.
In last year I’ve dropped not only activities, but responsibilities, clawing my way back to having less worldly stimulus so I can be BORED. (Spoiler alert: it’s working!)
Part of the quieting process is consciously scheduling myself rest days whenever I notice I am vaguely unsettled. Lack of focus & fretfulness is my early-warning system that I’m taking on Too Much.
My current peeve is that every time I think, “Hmm. I should step back and reel in my Busy Brain before it drags my body into the Deep End of Ugh-Malaise,” I get ambushed by the Work Ethic Conditioning. And when I spend my “time off” fighting The Attack Of The Giant Guilts, it isn’t so much restful.
Intellectually I know no one cares if I do nothing but eat bonbons for days at a time. (Well. I’m sure someone out on the Internets is Judging Me right this minute, but the internets hate so many things about me, what’s one more?) But for real, no one’s keeping score. Those who die with the biggest bibliographies, still dead, and all that.
There are tricks for getting around the guilt, and I’m slowly filling a bagful. One is publicly admitting I I do A Lot Of Nothing on social media. I do that so the world knows I want to feel good about it. it’s kinda like confession but with more affirmation and less penance.
And on days when I can’t convince myself, I appeal to my Generous Patron Of The Arts, who unfailingly convinces me that rest is GOOD when I’m jittery and my brain is foggy. Does he make that argument in self-defense, because his life is better if I’m happier? Possibly. I can live with that.
I spent yesterday dealing with dentistry, multiple masked-up errands, service people in the house, and an evening of online face-to-face talking. Maybe it doesn’t seem like much (and it doesn’t, to me) but it was enough to be Too Much.
Today, reading, napping, eating, and writing a blog post was just right. And tomorrow will be better.
Firstly. Biscotti baking experiment was a success. (I’ve made biscotti dozens of times. Wearing gloves was the experimental part.) They were even better for working the super-sticky dough than I’d hoped. All my recipes that read “wet hands and keep hands wet while handling dough” should be updated to read “wear nitrile gloves.” Should. But won’t be, because I’m lazy.
Pic of biscotti in progress:
Secondus: I got issued someone else’s dream Saturday night. I was at a banquet, seated at a table with only one other person — all the tables were small and widely spaced out, so I guess social distancing exists even in my subconscious–and there was a ribbon at my place setting, the kind that goes with an awards medal. My dinner companion was some guy whose children’s charity had Changed The World and when I was wondering about the medal ribbon, it turns out I was there because I’d won some award for making a video that made his charity super well known althrough I’d just made it for fun and hadn’t known what I was hyping. (Which is how I know it had to be someone else’s dream because WTAF?) Anyway, he told me about his organization, which I thought was awesome although I recall zip about it now, and we watched awards be given out by famous presenters like the Obamas and Captain Picard (Not Patrick Stewart, Jean-Luc) while people at neighboring tables were making fun of the liberals and aliens and I was wondering why they were even there if they didn’t like the awards, and then I woke up.
Thirdly:
Studio GhibliFest continued with Castle In the Sky & Nausicaa Of the Valley Of the Wind. I’d seen Nausicaa, but Paul had never seen either one. They were both wonderful and thought-provoking, and the musical scores were nostalgic trips down Electronica Lane. I was by the fox-squirrels and finally connected that long-ago viewing of Nausicaa to my unexplained love for Pokemon Eevees.\
Fourthish:
Saturday’s plans were disrupted by an impulsive drive up to the north shoe for bagels & corned beef and a good long garden walk before the ice came raining down. Lots o’ house-fussing followed. Winterdark decorations came down, and the living room couch sections were reconfigured (they are basically big, squishy, grownup Lego blocks.) Closets were cleaned, books went onto shelves, and rugs were moved around. All the changes delighted our Feline House Supervisor, who personally inspected and approved all new furniture arrangements.
FIFTH (my rant for the hour) I am watching and enjoying one of my bad fictional crime shows (NCIS, in this case) tonight, but I am reminded how much I hate the “innocent people don’t run” trope. IT IS A DANGEROUS LIE AND I LOATHE IT. Grr. Innocent people run for a million innocent reasons.
I’m getting a kick out of NCIS’s increasingly progressive scriptwriting in general, and the plot spins up right by the end, but annoyingly, they double down on the “shouldn’t have run” thread before it’s over. UGH. That trope. Just Won’t DIE. Double Ugh.
SIXY: I didn’t write yesterday or today, which means I am now 2 days behind and pushing up against a deadline, but I did do a lot of THINKING about writing, so I made progress just not on the page. IT’s been a long time since I was able to concentrate like that, so it feels good. Tomorrow is a wretchedly extra-busy day with long-delayed routine medical stuff (OH. JOY. Doctor visit during Plague Times) and extra library work, but
And I do not regret the non-writing adventures. They were wonderful recharging, restful, & energizing.
First day of the Gregorian calendar year. For me, a snow day, baking day, sleeping-in day, rest day.
New Year’s Day is not about productivity for me. Things usually get done, many things actually, usually enjoyable ones, but it’s rarely focused goal-targeted labor or anything society recognizes as Useful — not because I have a superstition about the day setting the tone for the rest of the year, no.
No, I avoid being productive on NYD because it’s a day off. Luckily, having a cat means I have help remembering days off are for relaxing now. Pippin has been sleeping like a champ all day today.
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions (pointless to give extra weight to an arbitrary annual calendar changeover date, resolutions should be meaningful and embraced whenever a need for one is identified, blahblahblah) but if I DID do them, I would resolve to pitch the word (indeed, the entire concept of productivity) into the trash bin of reality where I would burn it with the fiery destructive force of a thousand flaming suns.
Since I’ve been resolved on that point for years already, it doesn’t count against my “no New Year’s resolutions” resolution, right? (Is that a paradox, to have a resolution about not having resolutions? ANYway. It’s definitely a digression.)
After being awake until 3 AM, we rsolved to wake up whenever and successfully enticed Mister Pips into snoozing with us until nearly 11 AM. Fancy brunch was had here at home, courtesy of frozen foods purchased back when the world wasn’t so viciously contagious. There was lounging, and reading, and a long walk in the falling snow. Napping happened. Also a teeny little bit of writing, (in addition to this, I mean. Serena and Parker are walking puppies and not talking. It’s fun. And funny.)
In fits and starts between other activities I made split pea soup, no-rise bread, and baked apples. We’re now enjoying the feast with a split of Sauterne (yummy sweet French white wine) while watching Jungle Cruise. Which is much better than I expected. Perplexing and occasionally bizarre, but fun.
Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Paul Giamatti, and a bunch of other people who look vaguely familiar navigate a convoluted screenplay that has some major African Queen meets The Mummy vibes. Good actors chewing up scenery through a quip-heavy actionfest with some pleasnat surprises? Yes, thanks!
Along with everything else fun today, there is popcorn. Because this is a popcorn flick for SURE.
This one has some extra fun running gags and better than average dialogue, too. So I’m happy.
Back when my dad took my to Disneyland for my birthday, ( we lived in SoCal at the time) I would ask to go on the Jungle Cruise multiple times because I loved it. I also loved the Undersea adventure, the Pirate Island, and the Haunted Mansion. And yes, It’s A Small World.
BTW, a father who’s willing to go through It’s A Small World multiple times a visit multiple times a year is a parent who truly loves his daughters. (My younger sister used to alternate between IaSW and the Mad Hatter’s Teacups all day long on her birthday trip, or so the family story goes)
A second digression! And it’s only the first day of the year. Go, me.
My other not resolution for the year is to be Very Direct and Talkative about my projects and how proud I am of my existing books. So. Please buy my books, read my books, review my books, recommend my books if you love them–and I’ll keep writing books regardless.
