Gillian Polack's Blog, page 21
September 6, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-09-06T20:36:00
This virus is a strange one. I get a few hours of near-energy and do a bunch of things then take myself to bed to sleep it off. At least this meant the markets happened, even though I had to be rescued twice. I have everything for Rosh Hashanah except one last present, yeast, flour (and possibly saffron) and can start baking just as soon as I've slept off the worst of the virus.
I've borrowed Babylon 5 to get me through the virus, for I can rest while watching and then do work in the interstices.
And by all this you know that today I was good in patches, whereas yesterday I was pretty bad overall. Still, I've put off tomorrow's messages and am replacing them with the remnants of today's work.
Once I worked in the regular workforce where one actually got time out (complete time out) with flu.
I've borrowed Babylon 5 to get me through the virus, for I can rest while watching and then do work in the interstices.
And by all this you know that today I was good in patches, whereas yesterday I was pretty bad overall. Still, I've put off tomorrow's messages and am replacing them with the remnants of today's work.
Once I worked in the regular workforce where one actually got time out (complete time out) with flu.
September 5, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-09-05T18:09:00
Yesterday's deep emotions and high level of exhaustion were the precursor to the current virus. I'm getting through the basics, and not falling behind, but I'm also resting a vast amount and still feeling tired. This virus is sweeping Australia, so it's not one of privilege. I was being very sympathetic to people who had it, and now they're being very sympathetic to me.
September 3, 2015
Excuse me while I rant for a bit
Right now I'm dealing with a bunch of people who seem to think that I'm not capable. I can deal with one or two people who think this, because I'm used to people who confuse chronic illness for incapacity in other things, but there's a widespread idiocy that surrounds me right now. None of my close friends are guilty of this. None of the friends who regularly read and comment on my blog are guilty of this. Some of the people who are causing me angst are new to my life and some of them are acting as if they're new.
I want to make a set of rules for dealing with people who have chronic illnesses. This is my initial set of thoughts (based on recent experience):
#1 Do not assume I am stupid.
#2 Do not assume I can't make my own decisions on major and minor things without intervention from someone who is not disabled. If I ask for help or for an opinion, that's when you should offer your thoughts and opinions.
#3 Do not get me to spend all my spoons explaining things unless those explanations are important. Continuing demands for explanations are not only exhausting, they're demeaning. Match your needs for knowledge of my life with my willingness to talk: if I'm not willing, ask why before you demand more. I'm quiet about some subjects because I have very good reasons. On other subjects I'm quiet face to face, but will talk abut things here because I have insufficient spoons for the number of conversations that arose because I was willing to talk. I was waking up political (my friend Yaritji's words) because other people saw me as accessible and took over my life with their views about what I should be or how I ought to express myself. I had to be there for each and every one of them with explanations, all the time, because they didn't accept that anyone other than them had the same questions and that my capacity to answer without it damaging my life was not infinite. My life is not less important than the lives of everyone around me. I get to decide where and when I talk.
#4 Do not turn me into a client when I'm a friend. Especially don't do it without my express permission.
#5 Do not talk down to me.
#6 Do not assume that I am without flaws and will never make mistakes. I'm human and am just as capable of errors as the next human. This doesn't make me stupid or incompetent. It just means that I make mistakes from time to time, especially when stressed.
#7 Understand spoon theory. I am at a low point right now and have very few spoons. I'm measuring my time and energy out very gently. This is not always: it's just right now. I still have to earn money, celebrate Jewish New Year and a whole bunch of other daily life things. When someone simply assumes that I have unlimited energy for them (because they need it) they're limiting my capacity to do other things on days of low spoons. If you want me in your life, accept that I am a supreme font of energy and intellect, but limited by my health, which means that I have to measure my life in coffee spoons.
#8 Work is very important to me. I love it. I love my teaching and my writing and my research. Do not say "Why don't you give them up, it will be easier?" or "Why don't you put my social needs above your work?" Do not make my life decisions for me.
#9 My brain always works. I meet my work deadlines. These are constants in my life, even when everything else goes awry. These are constants: let me repeat it for it's important. My chronic illnesses however, are not constants. Spoon theory is very useful for understanding part of this except that, with me, even when I am very ill, my brain still operates. I can teach. I can think. My brain always works. It is, however, always eccentric. My intellectual life is interdisciplinary and my novels are not like other novels because of this. Pushing me into neat little holes either intellectually or physically just doesn't work. All people who have chronic illnesses are like this. All people are like this. Unique. Individual. My individuality includes an impossibly strong work ethic and a brain that cannot be switched off. Other people are different. Chronic illness is not one size fits all.
#10 If you decide not to help someone with a chronic illness when they ask, that's fine. Do not, however, assume that someone else is doing what you decided not to do. If I can't get to events because I'm not that mobile right now (because of the eye meaning I temporarily have trouble seeing incoming traffic and because I walk into things at night, mainly) then I can't: don't react to this in such a way that I feel it is my personal fault for not announcing to the whole world yet again that I'm having a tough year. This is the best way to ensure I will skip all future events where you are likely to be, because why would I want to mix with people who are happier when I put myself down in public.
To put it briefly: I am perfectly intellectually capable of all the things I always have been. My physical capacity to do things away from my desk or the classroom is inconstant, but it doesn't interfere with my work. It does interfere with the egos of others. Four people this week, in fact, which is why the list of ten. Four people this week and at least a dozen since mid-August.
Do I look as if I'm incapable of writing books? My various publishers don't think so. My students like my teaching, so why should I give it up just because I have to take a bus to class rather than walk? I read between three and five hundred books a year and yet someone who reads twenty worried about my eye and whether or not I could read. I write at least 200,000 words a year and yet someone suggests I give up writing because obviously my health gets in the way. I teach a wide range of subjects to a wide range of students and yet I'm told how I should go about things with the intimation that I shouldn't. Which aspects of this make people think I am stupid or unable to work in my chosen field? None. The people concerned are looking at my allergies and my eye and developing opinions rather than listening.
I wish people would learn to see how I walk, rather than make me walk the same way as them. And that they'd stop putting words in my mouth and then claiming that the words they've invented are causing problems.
And yes, today is a bad day.
I want to make a set of rules for dealing with people who have chronic illnesses. This is my initial set of thoughts (based on recent experience):
#1 Do not assume I am stupid.
#2 Do not assume I can't make my own decisions on major and minor things without intervention from someone who is not disabled. If I ask for help or for an opinion, that's when you should offer your thoughts and opinions.
#3 Do not get me to spend all my spoons explaining things unless those explanations are important. Continuing demands for explanations are not only exhausting, they're demeaning. Match your needs for knowledge of my life with my willingness to talk: if I'm not willing, ask why before you demand more. I'm quiet about some subjects because I have very good reasons. On other subjects I'm quiet face to face, but will talk abut things here because I have insufficient spoons for the number of conversations that arose because I was willing to talk. I was waking up political (my friend Yaritji's words) because other people saw me as accessible and took over my life with their views about what I should be or how I ought to express myself. I had to be there for each and every one of them with explanations, all the time, because they didn't accept that anyone other than them had the same questions and that my capacity to answer without it damaging my life was not infinite. My life is not less important than the lives of everyone around me. I get to decide where and when I talk.
#4 Do not turn me into a client when I'm a friend. Especially don't do it without my express permission.
#5 Do not talk down to me.
#6 Do not assume that I am without flaws and will never make mistakes. I'm human and am just as capable of errors as the next human. This doesn't make me stupid or incompetent. It just means that I make mistakes from time to time, especially when stressed.
#7 Understand spoon theory. I am at a low point right now and have very few spoons. I'm measuring my time and energy out very gently. This is not always: it's just right now. I still have to earn money, celebrate Jewish New Year and a whole bunch of other daily life things. When someone simply assumes that I have unlimited energy for them (because they need it) they're limiting my capacity to do other things on days of low spoons. If you want me in your life, accept that I am a supreme font of energy and intellect, but limited by my health, which means that I have to measure my life in coffee spoons.
#8 Work is very important to me. I love it. I love my teaching and my writing and my research. Do not say "Why don't you give them up, it will be easier?" or "Why don't you put my social needs above your work?" Do not make my life decisions for me.
#9 My brain always works. I meet my work deadlines. These are constants in my life, even when everything else goes awry. These are constants: let me repeat it for it's important. My chronic illnesses however, are not constants. Spoon theory is very useful for understanding part of this except that, with me, even when I am very ill, my brain still operates. I can teach. I can think. My brain always works. It is, however, always eccentric. My intellectual life is interdisciplinary and my novels are not like other novels because of this. Pushing me into neat little holes either intellectually or physically just doesn't work. All people who have chronic illnesses are like this. All people are like this. Unique. Individual. My individuality includes an impossibly strong work ethic and a brain that cannot be switched off. Other people are different. Chronic illness is not one size fits all.
#10 If you decide not to help someone with a chronic illness when they ask, that's fine. Do not, however, assume that someone else is doing what you decided not to do. If I can't get to events because I'm not that mobile right now (because of the eye meaning I temporarily have trouble seeing incoming traffic and because I walk into things at night, mainly) then I can't: don't react to this in such a way that I feel it is my personal fault for not announcing to the whole world yet again that I'm having a tough year. This is the best way to ensure I will skip all future events where you are likely to be, because why would I want to mix with people who are happier when I put myself down in public.
To put it briefly: I am perfectly intellectually capable of all the things I always have been. My physical capacity to do things away from my desk or the classroom is inconstant, but it doesn't interfere with my work. It does interfere with the egos of others. Four people this week, in fact, which is why the list of ten. Four people this week and at least a dozen since mid-August.
Do I look as if I'm incapable of writing books? My various publishers don't think so. My students like my teaching, so why should I give it up just because I have to take a bus to class rather than walk? I read between three and five hundred books a year and yet someone who reads twenty worried about my eye and whether or not I could read. I write at least 200,000 words a year and yet someone suggests I give up writing because obviously my health gets in the way. I teach a wide range of subjects to a wide range of students and yet I'm told how I should go about things with the intimation that I shouldn't. Which aspects of this make people think I am stupid or unable to work in my chosen field? None. The people concerned are looking at my allergies and my eye and developing opinions rather than listening.
I wish people would learn to see how I walk, rather than make me walk the same way as them. And that they'd stop putting words in my mouth and then claiming that the words they've invented are causing problems.
And yes, today is a bad day.
gillpolack @ 2015-09-03T17:10:00
My good news of the day is that the last of the tangled bits from the confused dates is sorted, and we've turned a problem into something rather special. The last week of term for my Wednesday students has been shifted to the second last week, and we're going to have an excursion to the National Portrait Gallery, with a guided tour and with me teaching and with time sitting down in the cafe, writing and eating. The week after I get to have my holiest day of the year, and then we all get two weeks off class for term holidays. Those two weeks will have a Conflux break, and otherwise will be my dedicated time for doing all the things that life has run interference with, these last two weeks.
Right now I'm doing deadline-stuff, and leaving the big stuff until that period. Thanks to a good employer and two good editors, this is possible. I can finish my paid editing and I can finish the interviews in my in-tray and I can just...be caught up. Without too much of a fuss.
It's very strange to suddenly be only two weeks away from the end of term. This term has been so busy and so fraught though, that it shouldn't surprise me. It also explains why I'm so very tired. The term has been dominated by the state of my right eye and by the woes that have surrounded people in my little world. I've spent a lot time recently worrying for friends, so I'm rather relieved they don't have to worry for me in return. It's been such a bad term for so many people.
And it will all be over, quite soon. And the High Holy Days will be upon me. And there will be honey cake. And everyone I know will have such a good and sweet year, to make up for the not-so-good sour year that most of you have endured. I have jelly babies to make this so. (I take my Doctor duties seriously - also, they were on sale and gelatine free and very suitable for offering to people who need cheering up, which is almost everyone right now. I just need to get out a brown paper bag...)
Right now I'm doing deadline-stuff, and leaving the big stuff until that period. Thanks to a good employer and two good editors, this is possible. I can finish my paid editing and I can finish the interviews in my in-tray and I can just...be caught up. Without too much of a fuss.
It's very strange to suddenly be only two weeks away from the end of term. This term has been so busy and so fraught though, that it shouldn't surprise me. It also explains why I'm so very tired. The term has been dominated by the state of my right eye and by the woes that have surrounded people in my little world. I've spent a lot time recently worrying for friends, so I'm rather relieved they don't have to worry for me in return. It's been such a bad term for so many people.
And it will all be over, quite soon. And the High Holy Days will be upon me. And there will be honey cake. And everyone I know will have such a good and sweet year, to make up for the not-so-good sour year that most of you have endured. I have jelly babies to make this so. (I take my Doctor duties seriously - also, they were on sale and gelatine free and very suitable for offering to people who need cheering up, which is almost everyone right now. I just need to get out a brown paper bag...)
September 2, 2015
Convalescence
My eyesight is improving. This means I can see less.. Not seriously., Seriously I have between 40-60% vision in my right eye now. That's a lot more than there was, and so the headaches are beginning to diminish. It's enough so that my eyes are working together in theory. In practice, my eyes are learning to work together and sometimes I see out of only one eye and sometimes I see everything in double vision, and sometimes I have the ever-changing blur from the right eye as a natural part of my total vision. Also in practice, my eyesight is very weather sensitive and I am prone to headaches and exhaustion. This is all good long term: it means my vision is not only returning, but it's going to be its own self again. Right now, however, it leaves me temperamental and dangerous to be round.
I'm just a bit over not being able to see things properly and not being able to go out. I want to walk and become fit. I want to see the Spring flowers and rejoice in the rain.
I walked home yesterday after teaching, but I cheated to do so. I'm safer walking on footpaths if I'm reading, for then everyone assumes I can't see, so I started reading Ambelin Kwaymullina's new book. I shall continue to cheat, for I am determined to not be confined to home for longer than I must. Crossing roads isn't going to be good, nor is walking through carparks, until the double vision resolves, so it's going to be a couple of weeks before I can do more, really. I can do footpaths now, however, and routes without cars.
I shall think of it as light at the end of the tunnel, rather than as lingering problems. The big news is that it suddenly looks as if my eyesight will return in all its fullness. My new great ambition is to wash dishes by sight, not just by feel!
I'm just a bit over not being able to see things properly and not being able to go out. I want to walk and become fit. I want to see the Spring flowers and rejoice in the rain.
I walked home yesterday after teaching, but I cheated to do so. I'm safer walking on footpaths if I'm reading, for then everyone assumes I can't see, so I started reading Ambelin Kwaymullina's new book. I shall continue to cheat, for I am determined to not be confined to home for longer than I must. Crossing roads isn't going to be good, nor is walking through carparks, until the double vision resolves, so it's going to be a couple of weeks before I can do more, really. I can do footpaths now, however, and routes without cars.
I shall think of it as light at the end of the tunnel, rather than as lingering problems. The big news is that it suddenly looks as if my eyesight will return in all its fullness. My new great ambition is to wash dishes by sight, not just by feel!
September 1, 2015
On time, scoria and politicians, all of which are (oddly) cheerful
Today started with a flurry, which always happens when I have a writing deadline the same day as teaching. The writing deadline was my History Girls post, which is all about time and seasons and inspired by yesterday's curious calendrical happening. You can find it here: http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/living-in-time-gillian-polack.html It was supposed to be published on 2 September and is dated 1 September because I forgot to check the UK time. This is the post exerting its inner irony.
Class today was just the least bit surreal. We were let in early, because of Pop-Up Cabinet happening elsewhere in the building. All the government bods there to support the Cabinet Meeting knew who we were and were hoping that Cabinet (ACT level, not national level, let me reassure those for whom these things are important) would drop in on us. I got to ask the usual questions and was given the usual answers. The usual answers are all variants of "I can't tell you that" and "I can't give an opinion on this." This is Canberra though, and I said "Of course you can't" and was able to determine which interpretation was the actual one and they were able to nod their heads cheerfully when I was correct, and so we were all quite fine. Nice people, too. Although it worried me just how much everyone seemed to know about me and about my class.
In the end, neither politicians nor press interrupted class. They were going to, but left it too late and were in the middle of a business session when we packed up. I'm assuming that at the end of the business session we would have been ascended upon (one can't descend up stairs, after all) and I don't know whether to be pleased or saddened that we missed out on Cabinet in Class. Three of my students got to hang out with the Chief Minister over coffee before class, though, when all the photographers were taking pictures at the downstairs cafe. My students assure me that they were the epitome of politeness.
As thanks for their good behaviour, we went a bit overtime. Word of the day turned into concept of the day as 'scoria' morphed into an analysis of volcanic activity and why Australia is a safer place to live in this regard than the Cascadia Subduction* Zone. We talked about rims of fire and Krakatoa (for one of my students is Indonesian) and all kinds of side-topics.
It's amazing how much knowledge one needs to teach creative writing. We went into the main different types of volcanic rock (although I was a bit broad, let me admit, and skipped over metamorphic rocks without anyone but me noticing), into how continents move, into why Indonesia has active volcanoes and Australia just has the potential off the Adelaide coast, over how this affects soil types and a whole lot more.
One student said at the end "I want another word. I want 'Vindaloo'."
"You're just hungry," said I. "Go get some lunch."
My big teaching feat of the day was finding a method to teach people to structure long pieces of prose when those people (for we have new students) have no experience in writing anything longer than a few sentences. The technique I taught everyone worked magically and now all my students are faced with having to write a long text. This means all my students are on the same page, even though some have been working with me for years and some just started in the last few weeks. One of the new students is very cheerful and thinks I'm delightfully funny. This was before we spent fifteen minutes on geology.
*Why does the word processing component of LJ want me to correct this to "Seduction'?
ETA: The History Girls post now has the right date. The miracles that modern blogging permit!
Class today was just the least bit surreal. We were let in early, because of Pop-Up Cabinet happening elsewhere in the building. All the government bods there to support the Cabinet Meeting knew who we were and were hoping that Cabinet (ACT level, not national level, let me reassure those for whom these things are important) would drop in on us. I got to ask the usual questions and was given the usual answers. The usual answers are all variants of "I can't tell you that" and "I can't give an opinion on this." This is Canberra though, and I said "Of course you can't" and was able to determine which interpretation was the actual one and they were able to nod their heads cheerfully when I was correct, and so we were all quite fine. Nice people, too. Although it worried me just how much everyone seemed to know about me and about my class.
In the end, neither politicians nor press interrupted class. They were going to, but left it too late and were in the middle of a business session when we packed up. I'm assuming that at the end of the business session we would have been ascended upon (one can't descend up stairs, after all) and I don't know whether to be pleased or saddened that we missed out on Cabinet in Class. Three of my students got to hang out with the Chief Minister over coffee before class, though, when all the photographers were taking pictures at the downstairs cafe. My students assure me that they were the epitome of politeness.
As thanks for their good behaviour, we went a bit overtime. Word of the day turned into concept of the day as 'scoria' morphed into an analysis of volcanic activity and why Australia is a safer place to live in this regard than the Cascadia Subduction* Zone. We talked about rims of fire and Krakatoa (for one of my students is Indonesian) and all kinds of side-topics.
It's amazing how much knowledge one needs to teach creative writing. We went into the main different types of volcanic rock (although I was a bit broad, let me admit, and skipped over metamorphic rocks without anyone but me noticing), into how continents move, into why Indonesia has active volcanoes and Australia just has the potential off the Adelaide coast, over how this affects soil types and a whole lot more.
One student said at the end "I want another word. I want 'Vindaloo'."
"You're just hungry," said I. "Go get some lunch."
My big teaching feat of the day was finding a method to teach people to structure long pieces of prose when those people (for we have new students) have no experience in writing anything longer than a few sentences. The technique I taught everyone worked magically and now all my students are faced with having to write a long text. This means all my students are on the same page, even though some have been working with me for years and some just started in the last few weeks. One of the new students is very cheerful and thinks I'm delightfully funny. This was before we spent fifteen minutes on geology.
*Why does the word processing component of LJ want me to correct this to "Seduction'?
ETA: The History Girls post now has the right date. The miracles that modern blogging permit!
gillpolack @ 2015-09-01T18:20:00
I'm having to reconfigure my next few weeks in a great hurry. I asked someone for dates of the high holy days some months ago, to sort things out with. By error, they gave me next year's. They took it from an app that I also used, which means when I checked things up very carefully, we ended up with the same results. Then I checked with my mother who came up with the same dates a third time, and they were wrong. I had to check the dates again two weeks ago, and got the same set. Every site I consulted and every set of calculations ended up with next year's dates, by mistake. I was wondering how it could be a leap year this year and not next, and it wasn't.
I rescheduled that which needed instant action, only to find that another app takes everything one day out (brings it a day earlier) presumably because it tangled the whole Jewish sunset thing.
I still can't do the first two days of Conflux, for I will have to do work I had scheduled for the week after next over that weekend, and it's too late to arrange to go to Melbourne for family (it's term time and I'm teaching). And Day of Atonement is on my last day of teaching, so I've had to ask if we can rearrange that. Still, it could have been worse.
What's funny is that the calendar I made for my mother as her gift last year is perfectly accurate.
In my whole life, I've never known so many of us to be two full weeks out! I suspect that there's an app and when one plugs in '2015' it doesn't access the secular year 2015, it accesses the Jewish year starting in 2015. This would work, if it included Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as they occur as the start of the year, but for some reason it takes the calendar right up to next year. Why do I think that? All the dates I had wee spot on for 2016... All the printed calendars are fine. All the quick queries through apps and the web were not so fine.
And my silly season starts the weekend after next. My cupboards are ready for an influx of food, thankfully, and I've already sorted presents. Everything else, however, is still to do.
I rescheduled that which needed instant action, only to find that another app takes everything one day out (brings it a day earlier) presumably because it tangled the whole Jewish sunset thing.
I still can't do the first two days of Conflux, for I will have to do work I had scheduled for the week after next over that weekend, and it's too late to arrange to go to Melbourne for family (it's term time and I'm teaching). And Day of Atonement is on my last day of teaching, so I've had to ask if we can rearrange that. Still, it could have been worse.
What's funny is that the calendar I made for my mother as her gift last year is perfectly accurate.
In my whole life, I've never known so many of us to be two full weeks out! I suspect that there's an app and when one plugs in '2015' it doesn't access the secular year 2015, it accesses the Jewish year starting in 2015. This would work, if it included Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as they occur as the start of the year, but for some reason it takes the calendar right up to next year. Why do I think that? All the dates I had wee spot on for 2016... All the printed calendars are fine. All the quick queries through apps and the web were not so fine.
And my silly season starts the weekend after next. My cupboards are ready for an influx of food, thankfully, and I've already sorted presents. Everything else, however, is still to do.
August 31, 2015
A day of small surprises, one of which may be triggering, so read with caution, please
This afternoon is all about answering emails and catching up on admin and dealing with an eye that is a bit worrying. If the ey gets more worrying I get to take myself back to hospital, but I'm hoping it will settle without this.
I do not know why this means I have a soundtrack of Jewish resistance songs from World War II. It may be because I get too many messages from the outside world about what I am supposed to be like, as someone Jewish. It may be that my internal rebel is outing. It's more likely because quite a few people on Twitter recently used pictures of Shoah victims to illustrate where the whole Border Force thing could go.
I don't object to the parallels being made of Abbott's with Hitler's early career (for they are obvious), I object to the use of the people in those photos in that way. It hurt. It hurt doubly because it was used by people who support BDS. It hurt triply because Australia has a very high number of survivors, of descendants, of people who might recognise kin in those piles of dead corpses. Those images should never be used so lightly. And so I play stirring and sad music, that reminds me that life really is complex and must follow Hillel's advice and be there for myself.
My Yiddish isn't as bad as it used to be, for I understand a surprising amount of the lyrics. I do not come from a Yiddish-speaking background (as I still have to explain far too often "English is my Jewish language"), so understanding the language at all is always a surprise to me.
While writing this post I was surprised by the telephone, too. A marketing call and the guy talked himself out of the call before I could talk him out of it. Normally I explain that this is a business number and they apologise profusely and hang up. There must be a notation somewhere, for the gentleman asked "Is this a business number?" and I said that it was and he apologised politely and hung up without any encouragement whatsoever.
Now I must return to my admin and to listening to the music.
I do not know why this means I have a soundtrack of Jewish resistance songs from World War II. It may be because I get too many messages from the outside world about what I am supposed to be like, as someone Jewish. It may be that my internal rebel is outing. It's more likely because quite a few people on Twitter recently used pictures of Shoah victims to illustrate where the whole Border Force thing could go.
I don't object to the parallels being made of Abbott's with Hitler's early career (for they are obvious), I object to the use of the people in those photos in that way. It hurt. It hurt doubly because it was used by people who support BDS. It hurt triply because Australia has a very high number of survivors, of descendants, of people who might recognise kin in those piles of dead corpses. Those images should never be used so lightly. And so I play stirring and sad music, that reminds me that life really is complex and must follow Hillel's advice and be there for myself.
My Yiddish isn't as bad as it used to be, for I understand a surprising amount of the lyrics. I do not come from a Yiddish-speaking background (as I still have to explain far too often "English is my Jewish language"), so understanding the language at all is always a surprise to me.
While writing this post I was surprised by the telephone, too. A marketing call and the guy talked himself out of the call before I could talk him out of it. Normally I explain that this is a business number and they apologise profusely and hang up. There must be a notation somewhere, for the gentleman asked "Is this a business number?" and I said that it was and he apologised politely and hung up without any encouragement whatsoever.
Now I must return to my admin and to listening to the music.
August 29, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-08-30T10:11:00
Things may get busier chez Gillian. Not more financial (for such is my life) just busier. This always happens when I fall behind on things. The more behind I am, the busier things get, and they're all new things. I like being busy, so this is only a complaint because of the finances and the health. If I had both of them sorted, my life would be pretty wonderful.
I still have my list to be finished by Monday, but it now includes yesterday's housework, for yesterday... we shall not talk about yesterday. Nothing big went wrong. It wasn't a bad day. It was just a day when nothing useful could happen. Life normally doesn't do this to me too often, but three times in a week? I think maybe I need to plan a holiday. I'm not used to holidays, so I'm not entirely certain what I shall do with one. I'll give it some thought, at least.
In the interim, I have deadlines and housework and things. And last night I slept! (I turned the heater up and it made the difference my body needed. Do not ask me, however, about electricity bills.)
What I really want to do with today is write fiction. I hate days when the fiction tells me it will write itself if I just give in to the urge and when, instead, so many other things have to be done. Life does this to annoy. I'm positive-certain it does.
I still have my list to be finished by Monday, but it now includes yesterday's housework, for yesterday... we shall not talk about yesterday. Nothing big went wrong. It wasn't a bad day. It was just a day when nothing useful could happen. Life normally doesn't do this to me too often, but three times in a week? I think maybe I need to plan a holiday. I'm not used to holidays, so I'm not entirely certain what I shall do with one. I'll give it some thought, at least.
In the interim, I have deadlines and housework and things. And last night I slept! (I turned the heater up and it made the difference my body needed. Do not ask me, however, about electricity bills.)
What I really want to do with today is write fiction. I hate days when the fiction tells me it will write itself if I just give in to the urge and when, instead, so many other things have to be done. Life does this to annoy. I'm positive-certain it does.
August 28, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-08-29T13:47:00
Last night was bad (not much sleep) but today has been redeemed: I took my morning off. It was an actual morning off work, not just time spent at the hospital or with a migraine or etc. It made such a big emotional difference that I decided I'd take until dinnertime off. To be honest, last night was bad and I only got a couple of hours of sleep, so a quiet afternoon is sensible. And I've made a list of my work in order of importance and I can finish it all by tomorrow afternoon, if I work with a clear brain and much fruit.
The fruit this week is lemonade fruit, kom fruit and custard apple, with a variety of passionfruit whose name escapes me should I run out. We're past winter, but not up to stone fruit yet. I like this season, for I like the new citrus varieties.
I also bought salad vegetables and some heritage carrots for baking.
The rest of this morning was taken up with eating market food (of the delicious, ready-made variety) and watching TV. I am a terror to watch even fantastical period drama with. I point out that no-on in the Clarke adaptation buys new books, that ink is not allowed to dry, that not everyone knows how to fold a letter and ... many small things that just didn't quite work. Overall, it's as excellent as everyone says. I love it. I just wish they had spent five minutes more thinking through things like a quill pen not working for writing in mid-air.
Actually, Strange and Norrell counts as work, because it set me thinking about what I was doing with my next novel. It's one thing to say "I want the novel to be about women." It's quite another to actually give them major agency in a historical novel of any kind. It's not the human lives that are the problem: it's our standard narratives. If I'm going to challenge those standard narratives and still feel happy with my sense of place and time, then I need to think it through rather well.
If I get paid employ of the academic variety, this will be part of what I research next. If I don't, I won't have the luxury of as much new research. I'll work on it for my own writing, if that happens, but that's all. Female characters being in novels is not the same as female characters being given major carriage of the key themes in novels. For this, Clarke is also useful. She divides her world along gender lines and her female world works affectively ie in the area generally given to women to work in novels.
And on that note, I need to return to winding up the current project. Given everything, I won't finish it next week after all, but in two months time. This is much better for a number of reasons. History and fiction writers needs wrapping up properly, after all, given I've lived with the material so very long.
The fruit this week is lemonade fruit, kom fruit and custard apple, with a variety of passionfruit whose name escapes me should I run out. We're past winter, but not up to stone fruit yet. I like this season, for I like the new citrus varieties.
I also bought salad vegetables and some heritage carrots for baking.
The rest of this morning was taken up with eating market food (of the delicious, ready-made variety) and watching TV. I am a terror to watch even fantastical period drama with. I point out that no-on in the Clarke adaptation buys new books, that ink is not allowed to dry, that not everyone knows how to fold a letter and ... many small things that just didn't quite work. Overall, it's as excellent as everyone says. I love it. I just wish they had spent five minutes more thinking through things like a quill pen not working for writing in mid-air.
Actually, Strange and Norrell counts as work, because it set me thinking about what I was doing with my next novel. It's one thing to say "I want the novel to be about women." It's quite another to actually give them major agency in a historical novel of any kind. It's not the human lives that are the problem: it's our standard narratives. If I'm going to challenge those standard narratives and still feel happy with my sense of place and time, then I need to think it through rather well.
If I get paid employ of the academic variety, this will be part of what I research next. If I don't, I won't have the luxury of as much new research. I'll work on it for my own writing, if that happens, but that's all. Female characters being in novels is not the same as female characters being given major carriage of the key themes in novels. For this, Clarke is also useful. She divides her world along gender lines and her female world works affectively ie in the area generally given to women to work in novels.
And on that note, I need to return to winding up the current project. Given everything, I won't finish it next week after all, but in two months time. This is much better for a number of reasons. History and fiction writers needs wrapping up properly, after all, given I've lived with the material so very long.
