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Month: July 2020

Fail and Fail and Try Again

So…every six months like clockwork, except not, because I’m just not that regular about anything at all, I decide I want to get my stuff together. I do! I have seen the improvement in my life with every infinitesimal mote of progress I make in that direction. So I try. And I try some more. And I fail. And I fail some more, but maybe not completely… You may remember my efforts from such hits as On A Higher Level (2014), Happy New Year! Or Something (2016), Standard Operating Procedure (2016), New Year, New Filing System (2018), Organization is Good (2019), Chasing Productivity (2019)… I thought sure I had a 2020 one too, but that’s on my own blog. Just One Resolution (2020) (spoiler: I did not continue looking at my bullet journal every day.) My thinking, it seems to me, is very chaotic. Last night I went to brush my teeth and somehow ended up starting the dishwasher, and didn’t realize I hadn’t brushed my teeth until I’d been in bed for ten minutes. UGH. I guess that’s why it’s so hard to corral my brain. But whatever. I’m being kind to myself, and trying again. Here is my newest attempt at a bullet journal. Well, the start of it. I’m considering what else I want to do with it besides a weekly planner. Probably chore tracking? Habit tracking? Do I want to do that? I mean, I want to build good habits, but tracking doesn’t seem to have…

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More Fluff: Bad Poetry Project

To continue the “fluff posts” I’ve been writing for the past few months, I wanted to talk in further depth about the “bad poetry” I’ve been writing. Last time I mentioned it, I hadn’t actually started writing it yet. I’d been contemplating it, because I wanted to get back into writing poetry again without the pressure of writing perfect prose, the perfect turns of phrase, the perfect imagery. I was (and still am, to be honest) scared to write “wrong” that I wasn’t writing at all. But what is “wrong,” really? A poem is simply a feeling, imagery, an idea, put into some kind of verse (or non-verse), right? There’s really no wrong way to write it, technically. Sure, there’s rough poetry, and there’s awkward writing of beginners who need to hone their craft —like yours truly once did once upon a time—but usually it’s not “bad” per se. But calling my poetry now “bad poetry” gave me the freedom to play. I actually write at the top of every document “Bad poem” and the date. Really! Because that told me and my brain/muse that this was just pretend, I’m playing right now, it’s not a big deal, it doesn’t have to be pretty…and it set me free. Granted, these poems aren’t great literature. They probably wouldn’t win any awards. They might be publishable with some massaging. (Which I am considering). But it’s been fun, and it’s helping me keep my hand in creativity during this time when I am…

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Still Here

Did any of us think we’d be here four months in? Our local renfaire just cancelled their season. Normally it runs early June through the first weekend of August. They’d decided to delay and open mid-August, but with no improvements (and the trend going the wrong way) they finally pulled the plug. Yesterday the school district sent out an email stating they were moving the start of school back two weeks. There’s no end in sight. Oy vey. And then there’s everything else going on. It’s exhausting. I am exhausted. I am also not getting nearly as much done as I’d like to–and normally would–be doing. Logically, I understand this is Okay. I have seen the articles about how trauma works, and how this is traumatic and it is perfectly reasonable to be having a rough go of it. But good Lord. I did some research this morning about the Spanish Flu. You can’t escape the comparisons, and of course the Internet had a field day about having a pandemic 100 years after the last one (though the height of the Spanish Flu was 1918-1919, so it’s actually more than 100 years). (I actually, back in March or April–I can’t remember since that was a million years ago–I read a novel that took place during the Spanish Flu. I think they only closed the schools in the book for, like, two months or something, though.) It took over a year for everything to settle down from that, and even then,…

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Week Sixteen

Following on KD’s post from last time, here’s an update on the state of me… It’s Week Sixteen since everything shut down here. My part of the world is doing well (according to our top scientists) and a gradual reopening is underway, but our case numbers are far from zero, so I’m continuing to behave as if it isn’t. Going into places of business makes me really anxious, even though I wear a mask and am careful about hand hygiene. So no restaurant patios, minimal public transit use, and I haven’t been more than a ten-minute walk from home in I don’t know how long. As an introvert and highly sensitive person, I’m perfectly happy not going downtown to work three or four days a week – I used to crave being at home more, and the traffic noises and public transit annoyances used to wear on my nerves. (I’m very lucky in being able to ride out COVID: homeowner, my own home office, able to work remotely, no kids, so-so AC, plenty of green space in the backyard.) I’m also reasonably happy keeping in touch with friends online. (I have dear friends I’ve never met, including the other three members of Turtleduck Press.) But I haven’t been doing a good job of *actually* keeping in touch. All the suffering right now is very hard to bear, plus I miss contra dance (and contra hugs) a lot…so I’ve kind of withdrawn from peopling. Still having trouble finding words, too. I…

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First Soul

a short story in the Reaper Girl Universeby Erin Zarro                 I gazed down at the sleeping child in front of me. She lay in a bed surrounded by colorful pillows and covered by an equally colorful comforter that looked heavy and comfortable.                 She, however, looked anything but comfortable.                 She had one of those oxygen things poked up into her nostrils, an IV in one arm, and what looked like a catheter from the bag that hung down from the bedside.                 This child was sick.                 Her pale face and dull blond hair told me that she’d been in the hospital for a while.                 “She looks so peaceful, Ariana,” my mother, the infamous Grim Reaper and private investigator, Leliel Ashton, said softly.                 “But she’s dying,” I protested. “How can she be peaceful?”                 “There’s a kind of peace that comes with death. And with the reaping of the soul,” Mom said, glancing at me and holding my gaze. “This soul will need you when it’s time. You must be ready.”                 I frowned. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready, Mom.”                 She’d hammered this death stuff on me for fifteen years. It felt like the world’s biggest burden and not my life’s work.                 I loved to paint. Maybe giving life to new creation offset the fact that I was basically a death angel. The beauty in creating something from nothing felt more like my life’s work than anything.                 Mom’s jaw dropped. “You…

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