Seesawing back and forth between a "fuck it, it's 80 degrees out and life is not immediately falling in on my head in this precise and specific instant" sort of brittle calm in the moment and a broader "no, nothing is remotely okay" screaming abyss in between that. I'm not sure which of the two states to be the more concerned about, given that the latter is my baseline state anyway and probably the more realistic overall...
Back to hamsterwheeling. Lately it's more or less on the subject of how long it's been since I've managed to knuckle down and write a coherent next installment of Trevor and Jason's story, whilst still not really having a damn thing to show for other distractions, and while I do have to keep reminding myself that one whole year of that inactivity was basically 2016 fucking us over with something or other every fifteen minutes, even the excuse that that hasn't actually stopped being the case does begin to wear a bit thin by, oh, around August or so. So. New Year's Resolution for... um... let's call it "calling a mulligan on 2016" is to try to get back to any sort of head-space where I can just let myself dance write like no one's watching (because it's probably true anyway at this point) and bloody well do something with myself.
Watch the computer finally break now.
Watch the computer finally break now.
Spent a few more days on the treadmill of negative self-talk, to the point where I got physically shaky with the rage/upset a couple of times, and then I guess I must have worn it out like the Excessive Machine in Barbarella because all of a sudden it seems to have ground to a halt. For now. Cautiously optimistic that the Brainweasels have been bought off for a while by:
(Anybody out there think that there's a potential market for an updating of a zeerusty inter-war dystopia to reflect that we now know exactly how much worse it could get? I need somebody to hold my feet to the fire to get me to do this, if so, because the treadmill could start up again at any moment with the 'everything sucks and nothing's worth doing' Brainweasels' Gentlemans'-Auxiliary Chorus...)
- A, the resolution to try to sort out the semilooming healthcare-status situation as soon as I can block out the time, probably Monday at this point, and
- B, the story idea that walloped me over the back of the head on the way out to knitting last night, which turned out to be another one of those walking-into-things-muttering-for-two-hours doozies that I think I need to either be talked out of, or into, I can't quite tell yet.
(Anybody out there think that there's a potential market for an updating of a zeerusty inter-war dystopia to reflect that we now know exactly how much worse it could get? I need somebody to hold my feet to the fire to get me to do this, if so, because the treadmill could start up again at any moment with the 'everything sucks and nothing's worth doing' Brainweasels' Gentlemans'-Auxiliary Chorus...)
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Dangerously unmotivated. It's not for lack of things that I desperately need to take care of; more the generalised lack of faith that taking care of them will amount to anything, either in the short or the heat-death-of-the-universe timescales.
(At least half of that has to be the fallout from the lingering suspicion that I am not the one who screwed up regarding the change-of-address notice And Yet. It's not as if I had much ability to suspend disbelief about the probability of people actually doing their jobs before.)
Not sure what to do. I need therapy; theoretically I'm now in a position where I could obtain something resembling therapy; obtaining said therapy would involve finding the motivation to sort out at least one of the things I can't find the motivation to sort out. And that's setting aside previously-mentioned hangups about having any underlying sense of self-worth regarding the probability of receiving therapy. It's the usual Brainweasel pickle, IOW...
(At least half of that has to be the fallout from the lingering suspicion that I am not the one who screwed up regarding the change-of-address notice And Yet. It's not as if I had much ability to suspend disbelief about the probability of people actually doing their jobs before.)
Not sure what to do. I need therapy; theoretically I'm now in a position where I could obtain something resembling therapy; obtaining said therapy would involve finding the motivation to sort out at least one of the things I can't find the motivation to sort out. And that's setting aside previously-mentioned hangups about having any underlying sense of self-worth regarding the probability of receiving therapy. It's the usual Brainweasel pickle, IOW...
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Still sewing up blanket -- edges done, now I have to experiment with ways to secure the strips to one another in the middles. This may well take another year...
I've been trying all week to wrap my head around the idea of a world without David Bowie in it. The depth of my own response has caught me by surprise: I think at least half of it's coming out of that old Brainweaselly "and here nobody even notices you when you're in the room, much less would your passing be the lead news around the world", which may be an impossibly high bar but tell that to Brainweasels; but the other half is that simple shock of having a rug that's always been there pulled out from under you, because I'm very nearly the same age as his fame and I've never known a world without his influence. A well-played life, indeed.
Did I mention that the yarn shop I hang out at as 2/3 of my Alleged Social Life is closing at the end of this month? Yeah, there may be some serious emotional displacement going on here.
I've been trying all week to wrap my head around the idea of a world without David Bowie in it. The depth of my own response has caught me by surprise: I think at least half of it's coming out of that old Brainweaselly "and here nobody even notices you when you're in the room, much less would your passing be the lead news around the world", which may be an impossibly high bar but tell that to Brainweasels; but the other half is that simple shock of having a rug that's always been there pulled out from under you, because I'm very nearly the same age as his fame and I've never known a world without his influence. A well-played life, indeed.
Did I mention that the yarn shop I hang out at as 2/3 of my Alleged Social Life is closing at the end of this month? Yeah, there may be some serious emotional displacement going on here.
I keep thinking "I should post more and get some of these hamsterwheeling thoughts out", but so far nothing's really cohered into more than a vague ball of rants that mostly come down to 'other people having veto power over my existence'. Never entirely sure whether the reflex that nobody wants to hear that is Brainweasels or just realism.
Did have the tangentially related thought that Billy Elliot actually has a horrible underlying message when you get thinking about it: Thatcher wins, the miners go to hell, but at least this one special snowflake got out. Getting very tired of 'feel-good' entertainment where nobody actually stops to deconstruct the idea of society as a bucket of crabs...
Did have the tangentially related thought that Billy Elliot actually has a horrible underlying message when you get thinking about it: Thatcher wins, the miners go to hell, but at least this one special snowflake got out. Getting very tired of 'feel-good' entertainment where nobody actually stops to deconstruct the idea of society as a bucket of crabs...
OK, so, writers out there: how do you tell the difference between genuine concerns about whether a story is working properly in terms of where you mean to go with it, and Brainweasels trying to convince you that DOOM IS YOUR LOT and this idea was never going to work in the first place and there's still time to give up before anyone sees you? Because I seem to be thoroughly mired in the 3/4 Of The Way Along Slough Of Self-Doubt, here.
Again.
Again.
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The non-migratory Brainweasels have been having a nice romp in the snow. Basically it boils down to a lot of little things all aligning on "your existence is surplus to requirements so what do we care about it". I suspect that a certain amount of this is simply background Existing Whilst Female static, but after a while one does begin to get a complex about trying to deal with a world where you've realised you don't even have any expectation of getting paid for your time anymore.
It's really not helping anything that Inner Cecily has recently admitted that she meant literally eating literal babies and I can't actually find a hole to poke in her argument.
It's really not helping anything that Inner Cecily has recently admitted that she meant literally eating literal babies and I can't actually find a hole to poke in her argument.
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Huh: the weather-related-screamies are actually well below their usual defcon level for this time of the calendar year. I think it may be because the weather has been so awful already for so long that the Brainweasels have been fooled into thinking that it must nearly be spring. Note that this is not to say that I feel good, exactly, when it's dark by 5pm, but at least I've arrived at "...this too shall pass" several months ahead of schedule...
We shall see if this relative equilibrium still holds when the temperature goes below freezing again.
We shall see if this relative equilibrium still holds when the temperature goes below freezing again.
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It must be autumn, the brainweasels are returning to their winter breeding grounds all tanned and rested and looking for luuuurve. The first round off the plane have been mostly B. agencyuus, which are the ones who go on about how if I can't actually even get things that I pay for, or for that matter get paid myself for work already performed, then ipso facto I must not actually exist and would I please stop taking up more valuable people's space. They can be identified by their loud plumage and mocking quotations of calypso songs.
It's going to be a long winter.
It's going to be a long winter.
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I haven't had enough spoons lately even to address any of the do-able things that might help me to reclaim some spoons. This is, obviously, not a helpful situation. And the damn Weather is. not. helping.
In a completely unrelated I swear enquiry, does anybody happen to know offhand what culture it was that used to deal with the cold by smearing themselves with butter? Asking for a, um,Muse friend...
In a completely unrelated I swear enquiry, does anybody happen to know offhand what culture it was that used to deal with the cold by smearing themselves with butter? Asking for a, um,
Three years into the Trevor and Jason Experience (well, yesterday, but I have the flu and yesterday got sacked for cause), and I am pleased to be able to announce that final edits have been turned in and signed off on for a spinoff short, "Ffydd (faith)", to be appearing next May-ish in the anthology "Long Hidden: speculative fiction from the margins of history". The Brainweasels, having been unable to come up with any other reasons to needle me about this for the moment, have been uncharacteristically quiet, standing about with their hands in their pockets going, "...Well, we could -- no, how about..." and looking puzzled, which is a good thing. (They did manage a solid round of "you've barely been out of the house for a week YOU'RE GOING TO DIE ALONE EATEN BY CATS" last night, but when it's this cold out that's basically just static.) So, consider yourselves Notified, and write that in on your calendars or whatever so y'all can remember why I'm hiding under the bed again in a couple of months...
The Brainweasels have been brainweaseling harder and harder the closer I get to the Alleged Story being signed off on as this-is-definitely-going-to-Happen. Surprisingly, it's not so much "fear of success" I'm getting from them (...yet), so much as "you do realise something's going to find a way to pull the football away at the last moment, don't you?"; I've got so used to extreme pessimism as a way of life, mostly because it generally is my unit that the gas company needs to dig through the wall of, that to simply believe that for once in my life something might go the way it's supposed to for long enough to get to enjoy it is kind of alien as a possible mindset. It's pretty bad when things-going-not-badly-for-a-change always feels like being set up for some other shoe from somewhere...
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Once again I find myself in the position of having three, well, no, four things that I need to be doing in the very-short-term, and because of that, being able to concentrate on none of them well enough to make any progress. The Brainweasels are having a field day about that, you can imagine, and they've even helpfully started a tangential meltdown about a side-point of one of the tasks to burn up what few processor-cycles I might have managed to scrape together in a row.
How do "normal" people do any of this? I feel like I was out getting the snacks when the concept of linear time and breaking down tasks to do them in order was explained...
How do "normal" people do any of this? I feel like I was out getting the snacks when the concept of linear time and breaking down tasks to do them in order was explained...
So, altogether, the time elapsed from "BTW the gas company needs to go through your wall" to the all-clear for putting the furniture in the studio back in order so we can, y'know, work with anything in there, came out to ten days.
And y'all wonder why I have a persecution complex.
And y'all wonder why I have a persecution complex.
Now the gas company believe that they need to access our unit to attach up a pipe. I am hoping against hope that this is a miscommunication and not some operation that's going to involve jackhammering up my walls and/or floors at two days' notice, because AAAAAAGH.
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I'm pretty sure I know exactly which repeated childhood trauma is to blame for the kneejerk expectation that shopkeepers will run me out even when I have money. But it's exhausting to have to wrestle with it afresh every damn time I think about wanting to go in somewhere to buy something.
I think this is about the time of year that I need to settle in to knit under my ott-light for four or five hours a day...
I think this is about the time of year that I need to settle in to knit under my ott-light for four or five hours a day...
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"Privilege" is the presumption that things will work. Discuss.
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OK, show of hands, if your housemate says that the dryer smells like burning, do you, A, call 911, or B, try to talk them out of calling because you can't smell it? And I wonder why I have such big brainweasels...
(Everything's all right, obviously, or I wouldn't be pausing to blog about it; the firemen checked the vent and concluded that the smell was the motor burning out, which is money-we-don't-have, as always, but at least not the house burning down. So, um, yeah, at least it happened when I was home to smell it...)
The firemen took the door of the laundry-cupboard off and Weasel is already trying to fall down the back of the displaced unit.
(Everything's all right, obviously, or I wouldn't be pausing to blog about it; the firemen checked the vent and concluded that the smell was the motor burning out, which is money-we-don't-have, as always, but at least not the house burning down. So, um, yeah, at least it happened when I was home to smell it...)
The firemen took the door of the laundry-cupboard off and Weasel is already trying to fall down the back of the displaced unit.
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I have arrived at the realization that basically my problem right now is that I have too many Trust Issues to trust any ideas RE getting help for the Trust Issues. Brainweasels are perverse, man.
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