Reading a book that is.
It meandered, and so did I. I wish I’d enjoyed it more. I guess the whole point was focus, since it’s about a photographer.
Rather than close-up, everything was panned back and too much for my brain to keep straight.
But I did it. A book done. Maybe I’ll get back to reading sometime, and not just Am I The Asshole threads on Reddit.
I am having a really hard time reading books. In the past week, I’ve read six pages of a book and disliked every minute of it.
Maybe it is the book? Maybe it is me? Probably it is me. I used to go to the library each week and bring home a stack of books. I’ve been to the library twice this year, took out one book each time, and didn’t finish start either.
Can I blame my dishwasher, which is still not working and I wait for the repair person? I would like to assign blame to something. Why not that?
Perhaps I should switch to writing poetry in the style of epic poetry, but about modern day hassles.
Dishwasher repair rescheduled for next week. So I have a whole week of a’fussin and a’frettin’ about this. At least it is a broken dishwasher in summer (a nuisance) rather than a broken heat source in a Canadian winter (possible death).
If it would come in time, and not from Amazon, and not out of stock, I would get this for the front until it is repaired:
which would at least let me know that my dishwasher is as sad as me to have its E15 error and supposedly leaking even though I can’t find it leaking anywhere.
My house is generally filthy and covered in a layer of greasy dust. I have to type up some of my sour story, probably about three thousand words. I should work on fixing all the things that need to be fixed.
And instead, like always, I’m just sitting in one place and working on not having the rising panic inside me pass over the line into panic attack. At the start of COVID, I needs must‘d my way through, gave up my work space at a job, then at my house (that was for approx a year; I have my computer room back), made cloth masks at cost, wrote a short story collection (still looking for a publisher!), volunteered at a program for tweens for a year with no support from the volunteer higher ups (I found the space, I found the kids, I did all the programming, I used my own money for supplies) only to find out they had already lined up their choice for my replacement before my year was even up (their replacement is great though), got a new external work space I never even entered in order to cut down on the amount of particles flying about (and also because my job didn’t give me a computer that functioned in a timely fashion (I once timed it taking five minutes to open a PDF), so I just worked from home since I did have my computer room back), tried to follow best pedagogy for online courses (turns out best pedagogy for online courses directly conflicts with what online course-takers want: no assessments and automatic A’s), got food poisoning (which I tested every day for COVID because what if I had some sort of weird food-poisoning-atypical-COVID variant?), tried (not always successfully I will admit) to be supportive of a family member’s chronic pain condition with the extra work involved (more driving, more chores, etc.), and now we’re here, over two years later and I’m earning less than I did before for more work, have no volunteer presence in the community, have a short story collection that publishers keep telling me is great but won’t sell because short stories by unfamous people don’t sell, a filthy house, a broken dishwasher, and just panic, rising panic, all the time.
Is this burnout? An anxiety disorder?
Fingers crossed dishwasher repair person shows up today and at least fixes that one problem. Then I only have the other infinity problems to start solving.
So, well, yup. Is the result here that I should not be attempting positivity?
Someone sent me a bevy of kind words about Enid on the weekend, and so I said to myself Meghan, says I, You should use your blog for more than complaining about how no one will publish you because that is depressing. Also, maybe you should fix up your blog a bit because you put a filler template on a few months ago and then wandered off to play video games and do your paid job for a bit.
Well, my paid work is coming to an end and maybe I should do some more stuff here. Like most people, COVID burned through me quickly, then some illness issues (non-COVID) with family, then paid employment (non-writing) took up the rest of my time. My brain isn’t even mush. It’s whatever is after mush, which I guess is fungus? Mold? Dust? Maybe just a rattling sound?
I did start a screed a month-or-so ago. Basically I started writing down everything that I hate in this dimension, and what I might possibly hate in other dimensions. The screed is quite sour and made-up, but no one will believe it is made-up and I’ll get those comments again (such as with Enid, when a famous Canadian writer/radio-personality asked me “Where did you do your research?” so I told her it is a book about faeries; I made that shit up. Then there was a long pause and I couldn’t tell which one of us was less attached to reality) about how I make people I know feel bad because everyone assumes everything I write is about them.
When I get to one hundred and sixty pages in my screed, I am going to wrap it up, call it a novella, and move on. But move on to what?
Ten years ago, I was going to be a writer. Today, I am pleased with myself for remembering to eat. I went through at least one depressive episode (surprisingly before COVID) and have been just dealing with COVID-stay-afloating for the past two plus years. Another author I know talks a lot about how art is necessary for making sense of overwhelming events, but I’m not sure what I create is meant for that. Also, I’m not creating.
Blog layout may change over the next few days as I try to get back on the creating track. Or I might just go by some TSP degreaser and pretend that if I’m cleaning at least I’m not as useless as I likely actually am.