Words? Er.

[bodlon]

This has been an odd week for writing in that my actual word count has been worryingly thin. I’m sitting here at my desk feeling tense about this, just as I’ve spent most of the day feeling tense about it.

Feeling tense and not writing, I might add.

The intensity of my schedule is absolutely a factor as finding time for work AND school AND writing AND living/sleeping/filling the well takes a certain degree of effort.

I’ve also been nursing some sick rats off and on since mid December. It started with Eira and Manod having a case of the baby sniffles, then Altaïr and Ezio started wheezing and sneezing. Ezio’s been perking up, but Altaïr has needed a lot of extra nursing. His weight dropped to under 400 grams, which is a more than 20% loss in body weight for him, and he was so weak and sick he quit eating and grooming. He’s on a new antibiotic now, as well as being hand-fed other treats like baby food and oatmeal, but it’s still a bit delicate.

(Meanwhile, Eira and Manod have become well-fed, adolescent terrors.)

And so this is what happens. I’ll start with the writing and my mind will grab the nearest Other Thing and run with it. I’ve been very effective this weekend at things like grocery shopping and playing Rock Band and cleaning. The words, though? Not so much.

One of my local writer friends, Chloie, shared something in one of her workshops (I can’t remember the original source, though a quick Googling suggests that there may not just be one) that procrastination is usually a fear thing. That could well be true for me right now.

Reflecting on and watching my behavior, I spend a lot of time being surprised at how often I seem to have this Other Me whose whole role is to put things off, set things aside, forget things, etc. in an effort to stress the Conscious Me out. “Don’t attend to that,” it says. “It will consume your resources or make you feel foolish or anxious or distressed and then where will you be? Attend to this other pleasure instead.”

Easy. Sitting at my desk at 9 PM on a Sunday night with no words written this weekend, dreading the week, and feeling foolish, anxious, and distressed in spite of the things I enjoyed this weekend. I don’t regret, say, completing the Endless Setlist in Rock Band 3 yesterday. I do regret not doing more before and after, and not using today a little more effectively.

So that’s the lesson to come back to again and again. If I can be self-aware enough to hear that siren voice of the Other Me for what it is — the thing that sets me up for exactly the things I don’t want to be feeling — I will know better what will bring me more genuine satisfaction.

Namely, getting some damn writing in.

~*~

Brace yourself for an enormous barrage of links. I swear, I have all the tabs ever open right now.

- Holy shit, Egypt. Stable, serene, Egypt has been rioting now for nearly a week after Tunisia’s own revolution, and there’s unrest elsewhere, including in Saudi Arabia. This video kicked my ass. I have no idea what to think about all of this except that the world is changing in dramatic ways right now.

- A really excellent post from the ACLU on why Kelley Williams-Bolar’s conviction for sending her children to the “wrong” school in Ohio is problematic, starting with the matter itself, and including issues of racial inequality, class, socio-economic disparities, and a broken legal system.

- An essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education talks about something near and dear to my heart: the ways in which the New Atheists (and a lot of Western Philosophy when it starts talking about religion) are really only talking to monotheists. As a polytheist, and as someone who’s been operating outside of that particular narrative for the duration of my college career (which includes a minor in Philosophy), all I can say is that this is a welcome addition to the conversation. I’m not sure I’m quite ready to declare that my beliefs are an “analgesic” per se, but perhaps the answer to the social question would be to suggest the next New Atheist to come up to me and go on about how only weak minds need god delusions sign a contract never to undergo dental work with anesthesia ever again and see how that pans out.

- I’d nearly forgotten about this sexy, genderbendy Campari ad.

- The Republican plan to curb spending: cut everything. And by “everything” they mean environmental programs, health programs, community development, public transit, and pretty much anything to do with the arts, humanities, energy research, and public broadcasting. Apparently “killing jobs” is only bad if you’re providing health care. It’s totally okay if you’re destroying passenger rail, energy efficiency, and All Things Considered.

- 1940′s stunt casting for the Harry Potter films. I had forgotten, incidentally, just how freaking hot Basil Rathbone was back in the day. Unf.

- Without health reform, pre-existing conditions put up to half of the elderly and a quarter of younger Americans at risk of losing insurance.

- This batch of Torchwood S4 filming pics tells us some things about a location. Also, that marathon training Kai Owen has been doing is the answer to Andy’s snarky comments in “Adrift.” Much as I hate to say this, the copper just lost this one. If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, there’s also the S4 Dead Pool and Alun Vega waxing poetic about the new production.

- 38 years after Roe v. Wade and reproductive rights for women are still constantly under siege. The issue is so controversial that contraception may not be considered preventive care. And, as always, comprehensive sex ed (i.e. that thing that teaches people how not to get pregnant or sick) is at risk.

- Each state’s unique shame, now in convenient, brightly-colored map format. Rarely am I so grateful not to have been born in Louisiana.

- An insightful and interesting essay about how not to be a douche when confronted for making a rape joke.

- Another reason I wish I was better at ASL.

- Okay, look. It’s not that I hate the GOP, but they seem bent on doing dumbshit things like forcing twelve-year-old girls to carry pregnancies to term because they’ve got an anti-choice party line. (Trigger warning: post is about the GOP’s efforts to define rape in ways that make reproductive health services even harder for women to acquire.) Look, here’s the thing about abortion: it’s a complicated issue. On the other hand, the anti-choice movement is consistently behaving more like the so-called “culture of death” that it purports to be opposed to (as in Idaho earlier this month when a pharmacist refused to dispense anti-bleeding drugs to a Planned Parenthood patient). Taking a position because it purportedly does less harm and saves life means nothing if that position causes harm and treats existing lives as less valuable than potential ones.

- Holy crap! Dice with i, 0, 1, φ, e, and pi on Kickstarter. I am backing this so hard when I get paid that Newton himself might feel it.

- Fuck you, Arizona. I am a citizen because I was born here. So are some of my friends who are children of immigrant parents. All of us are Americans. I will not stand idly by while you try and refuse children their rights under the Constitution. Shame on you.

- Also, House of Representatives? Lay off D.C.’s marriage parity.

Right. That was a bit of a rollercoaster. Time to make some tea and try and get SOMETHING done before bed.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com