Gillian Polack's Blog, page 25
August 2, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-08-02T23:34:00
I have eaten many, many strawberries today. The strawberry farmer had a special at her stall today. I could get 2 small punnets for $12 or 3 big ones (500g!) for $15. So I got three. One and a half kilos of strawberries. Three pounds, for those who eat their strawberries by the pound. And I was going to do all kinds of things with those strawberries, but I tasted one and before I knew it a punnet was gone.
Sunday morning, therefore, was market and watching SF with a friend. Sunday afternoon was when everything caught up with me (including strawberries) and I slept. I was going to finish Chapter Five tonight, but I realised that if I fell asleep most of Sunday afternoon, it possibly meant my body was telling me I should take the whole day off, so this evening I'm watching the first season of Leverage. Except when I'm not. The book creeps into everything, even on days off.
I'm giving myself until Wednesday night to sort out the rest of the chapters I'm in the middle of, and then until the weekend to sort them out in relation to Chapters Three and Four. By this time next week I want a far clearer draft of Chapters One to Eight. And I do things by numbers when ideas are shifting. The way writers enter the world of their novel and actually write novels changes a lot of my previous assumptions. I was relying on popular assumption (always a bad thing to do) and I now hope I'm not. But it entails checking everything else, just to make sure I follow-on and explain clearly. It's a lot of fun, but it means that I talk in terms of Chapters and dates rather than in terms of content.
For people who want news, James Shields has typeset my GUFF trip report and so there will be limited print copies available at Sasquan. Also, my new History Girl post is up. I waxed nostalgic.
And that's my Sunday.
Sunday morning, therefore, was market and watching SF with a friend. Sunday afternoon was when everything caught up with me (including strawberries) and I slept. I was going to finish Chapter Five tonight, but I realised that if I fell asleep most of Sunday afternoon, it possibly meant my body was telling me I should take the whole day off, so this evening I'm watching the first season of Leverage. Except when I'm not. The book creeps into everything, even on days off.
I'm giving myself until Wednesday night to sort out the rest of the chapters I'm in the middle of, and then until the weekend to sort them out in relation to Chapters Three and Four. By this time next week I want a far clearer draft of Chapters One to Eight. And I do things by numbers when ideas are shifting. The way writers enter the world of their novel and actually write novels changes a lot of my previous assumptions. I was relying on popular assumption (always a bad thing to do) and I now hope I'm not. But it entails checking everything else, just to make sure I follow-on and explain clearly. It's a lot of fun, but it means that I talk in terms of Chapters and dates rather than in terms of content.
For people who want news, James Shields has typeset my GUFF trip report and so there will be limited print copies available at Sasquan. Also, my new History Girl post is up. I waxed nostalgic.
And that's my Sunday.
August 1, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-08-01T17:28:00
I am all taught out, but my class was lovely. They dealt very well with tight quarters, too.
For the next few weeks my only teaching is my Wednesday class. This works well, for the next few weeks are all about finishing the book. I sorted out something last night. It felt like an epiphany at midnight, but it's reached the stage where it's so obvious I wonder why I never realised it before.
There's some deep cultural stuff about why we write novels in particular genres happening here, deep in my mind and I don't know where it's going to lead. I know where this book is going to lead, at least, because it's almost done, but I think I now understand why writers choose to skew their world view in certain ways in certain types of novels. Except now I need to go and find out if I'm right. (Please, universe, give me an academic job so that I can do this thing, for it needs another book to deal with and once this one is finished there will be no more research books without a research job.) What I've done, I think, is pull together all my earlier research in different areas and seen inevitable consequences. One of them may well be the reason why kind and good people can unintentionally write worlds which hurt people (ie where misogyny and racism are rife). And no, this has nothing to do with my current research and yes, it needs a vast amount of exploration and yes, it is linked with the 17th century stuff I'm doing and ... I want five years to explore it. It's important.
This post was brought to you by 6 hours of teaching on top of weather shifts and not much sleep. The moral of the story is "Never have an epiphany after midnight before a one day course when there is much changing weather." I'm upright mainly because I was given a lift home by a very kind person. Given my evening will be devoted to finishing Chapter Five, I suspect I may need to take a break before epiphanising further.
For the next few weeks my only teaching is my Wednesday class. This works well, for the next few weeks are all about finishing the book. I sorted out something last night. It felt like an epiphany at midnight, but it's reached the stage where it's so obvious I wonder why I never realised it before.
There's some deep cultural stuff about why we write novels in particular genres happening here, deep in my mind and I don't know where it's going to lead. I know where this book is going to lead, at least, because it's almost done, but I think I now understand why writers choose to skew their world view in certain ways in certain types of novels. Except now I need to go and find out if I'm right. (Please, universe, give me an academic job so that I can do this thing, for it needs another book to deal with and once this one is finished there will be no more research books without a research job.) What I've done, I think, is pull together all my earlier research in different areas and seen inevitable consequences. One of them may well be the reason why kind and good people can unintentionally write worlds which hurt people (ie where misogyny and racism are rife). And no, this has nothing to do with my current research and yes, it needs a vast amount of exploration and yes, it is linked with the 17th century stuff I'm doing and ... I want five years to explore it. It's important.
This post was brought to you by 6 hours of teaching on top of weather shifts and not much sleep. The moral of the story is "Never have an epiphany after midnight before a one day course when there is much changing weather." I'm upright mainly because I was given a lift home by a very kind person. Given my evening will be devoted to finishing Chapter Five, I suspect I may need to take a break before epiphanising further.
July 30, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-07-31T10:38:00
PS I have a guest blogger on my other blog this week! http://www.gillianpolack.com/waiting-a-guest-post-by-the-infinitely-patient-rj-barker/
On where I am with my history in fiction
I've done almost all my teaching prep for tomorrow. It was very interesting, because tomorrow's class is pretty much what I've been researching recently but from a writer's point of view. When I first taught this, I used the same notes for writer's and researcher's views, but now I have clearly bifurcated lines. This is one of the reasons the book is undergoing changes: I think it was originally a manual for writers (for people kept asking me for that) and now it most definitely isn't. The two don't fit in the same space anymore because my understanding has changed so very much.
And this is why writers should also engage in research if they're going to teach other writers. I am so much better as a teacher for this work. I can teach beyond my own experience, but also beyond current popular knowledge. And I know enough to break it down into digestible portions. This latter is so not as easy as it ought to be.
I calculated last time I taught this one day workshop that I was saving some writers five to ten years of research. Now, I'm doing a lot more than that. It's not only a matter of shortcuts, but of understanding so that writers can make decisions that are in line with the book they want to write. The story can come first, without as much faffing on the sidelines.
I won't be talking about theory so much, tomorrow. That's for the book. What I'll be working through is the writer's relationship with the history they need to use for the novel, and how that differs from the history they think they know and the history of historians. And I'm going to talk about actual tools for working through all this in a way that works for each writer and for quite specific novels. This includes a bit of research 101 and basic historiography, but these aren't the focus of the workshop: the focus is the narrative. I want good novels, not bad history.
Now that teaching prep is done, it's just me and my book until 5 pm, but after that I'll take some time off, so that I can keep the distinction clear between the needs of writers and the shape of what writers do.
I know there are still people out there who want me to write the manual for writers on history in fiction. I don't know if there are educational publishers who will take a short volume (or any at all - it's a very specific subject after all), and I'm not willing to spend time on a long volume for it would get in the way of my research and it would get in the way of my fiction writing. I don't have energy to chase it at this moment, anyhow. I'll teach it instead. Like tomorrow, at the ACT Writers' Centre.
And this is why writers should also engage in research if they're going to teach other writers. I am so much better as a teacher for this work. I can teach beyond my own experience, but also beyond current popular knowledge. And I know enough to break it down into digestible portions. This latter is so not as easy as it ought to be.
I calculated last time I taught this one day workshop that I was saving some writers five to ten years of research. Now, I'm doing a lot more than that. It's not only a matter of shortcuts, but of understanding so that writers can make decisions that are in line with the book they want to write. The story can come first, without as much faffing on the sidelines.
I won't be talking about theory so much, tomorrow. That's for the book. What I'll be working through is the writer's relationship with the history they need to use for the novel, and how that differs from the history they think they know and the history of historians. And I'm going to talk about actual tools for working through all this in a way that works for each writer and for quite specific novels. This includes a bit of research 101 and basic historiography, but these aren't the focus of the workshop: the focus is the narrative. I want good novels, not bad history.
Now that teaching prep is done, it's just me and my book until 5 pm, but after that I'll take some time off, so that I can keep the distinction clear between the needs of writers and the shape of what writers do.
I know there are still people out there who want me to write the manual for writers on history in fiction. I don't know if there are educational publishers who will take a short volume (or any at all - it's a very specific subject after all), and I'm not willing to spend time on a long volume for it would get in the way of my research and it would get in the way of my fiction writing. I don't have energy to chase it at this moment, anyhow. I'll teach it instead. Like tomorrow, at the ACT Writers' Centre.
July 29, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-07-30T14:58:00
Yesterday I got so much done, and today I'm paying for it. Vision is limited. I keep on being reminded of this. Still, I did a lot of work on various projects yesterday and am very pleased. And I taught. And I had coffee with a friend. And I've now seen the last season of TrueBlood.
I still need to do about four more hours of work today to maintain my momentum, but it's only mid-afternoon, so there's time for that. I have to finish with another ten pages from my desk (ie write them up and put the pages into recycling) and sort out the big changes I now need (since midnight last night, when it all changed yet again) to Chapter Five. It's quite exciting when things that looked OK on paper start to look fuzzy because the underlying argument is suddenly clear. That's all that's changing: the clarity. We'll see what happens. In the interim, it's exciting.
I'll give my eye the break it's obviously demanding and have time out and just relax the pressure and then I'll do today's work. Having had the capacity to read blocks of text for s many hours yesterday makes me feel as if I'm taking two steps back, but I'm still actually ahead of where I was two days ago.
In other news, my paper from LonCon last year has been properly expanded and will appear in Foundation towards the end of next month.
I still need to do about four more hours of work today to maintain my momentum, but it's only mid-afternoon, so there's time for that. I have to finish with another ten pages from my desk (ie write them up and put the pages into recycling) and sort out the big changes I now need (since midnight last night, when it all changed yet again) to Chapter Five. It's quite exciting when things that looked OK on paper start to look fuzzy because the underlying argument is suddenly clear. That's all that's changing: the clarity. We'll see what happens. In the interim, it's exciting.
I'll give my eye the break it's obviously demanding and have time out and just relax the pressure and then I'll do today's work. Having had the capacity to read blocks of text for s many hours yesterday makes me feel as if I'm taking two steps back, but I'm still actually ahead of where I was two days ago.
In other news, my paper from LonCon last year has been properly expanded and will appear in Foundation towards the end of next month.
July 27, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-07-28T16:00:00
My book is still rearranging itself. The second half, that is. It's beginning to make more sense and not to threaten to go beyond the word limit, but I['m starting to be uncertain of the path it follows. This is the natural thing at this stage in the process, but the limits of my eye prevent the deep immersion I generally use to resolve the apparent mess. This means I get to learn more about writing, which is a good thing.
I'll be glad when I've finished with the last of the notes. Currently I just see paper everywhere, and it's frustrating. One big idea set to think around and half of that paper can go. And then I will go through four chapters over and over and over until they're tight and make sense. And then, maybe I can write conclusions and introductions and sort out the rest of y critical apparatus. And one day I'll be writing fiction again and will be so much happier. I really like this stage of the thinking, but I don't like it that other people get to see it. I feel inadequate about all my NF, no matter how wisely published. This is why I have so much back research that's getting into print in a hurry. Years of work where I kept things to myself. I may hate other people reading it, but I do like the fact that I can get rid of paper!
Which means my next step is paper.
I'll be glad when I've finished with the last of the notes. Currently I just see paper everywhere, and it's frustrating. One big idea set to think around and half of that paper can go. And then I will go through four chapters over and over and over until they're tight and make sense. And then, maybe I can write conclusions and introductions and sort out the rest of y critical apparatus. And one day I'll be writing fiction again and will be so much happier. I really like this stage of the thinking, but I don't like it that other people get to see it. I feel inadequate about all my NF, no matter how wisely published. This is why I have so much back research that's getting into print in a hurry. Years of work where I kept things to myself. I may hate other people reading it, but I do like the fact that I can get rid of paper!
Which means my next step is paper.
gillpolack @ 2015-07-27T19:24:00
Nothing much to update. My eye is annoying, but the eyepatch helps: it gives my brain a break from all those conflicting signals. I can't overuse it, but it helps.
I'm pottering my way through things and managing to not fall behind on the big stuff. I feel rather guilty towards my friends, though. Several have said "May I drop in?" They just want to see that I'm OK, but it's actually not good for me. It means having tea and nibbles and being able to clean up before and afterwards. When friends ask "Can I take you out for a coffee?" that works beautifully, for I get to see my friends, have a break and get driven around (I had a lovely lunch at Bungendore with friends, yesterday). But when it comes down to me doing the work, it's physically difficult. Little things are big right now, and probably will be for a few more weeks.
I'm still getting the instant wishes for me being better, and I want to wear a label that says "Ask me again in a few weeks."
Anyhow, that's the bad news: I hurt a lot.
Most of my friends have worked out what to do (or not to do) and this is the easiest high hurt I've ever had to endure, but some friends still see hurt in terms of their own emotional needs and make it a little difficult. The weather is being messy, and adding insult to injury, but that's because July in Canberra is like that.
I have fresh double jonquils to cheer me up. Mum asks "Don't they smell to strong?" But that's the point, this time. The scent is tangible and it promises me a future with all my senses.
The good news is that I've caught up on form-filling-in and I've only got a few dozen pages of random notes for the book before all notes are duly entered where they have to be and I can focus on sense. I also have 2/3 of a bibliography.
My aim for tonight is to enter 2 more chapters of notes. If I were operating normally, a full first draft of this book would be done by the weekend. As it is, I'll meet my deadlines. I'll be very pleased when that happens.
And that's all of my update. Unless you want to know that I'm wearing my down dressing gown ebcause the temperature is dropping at several degrees an hour and it's cold.
I'm pottering my way through things and managing to not fall behind on the big stuff. I feel rather guilty towards my friends, though. Several have said "May I drop in?" They just want to see that I'm OK, but it's actually not good for me. It means having tea and nibbles and being able to clean up before and afterwards. When friends ask "Can I take you out for a coffee?" that works beautifully, for I get to see my friends, have a break and get driven around (I had a lovely lunch at Bungendore with friends, yesterday). But when it comes down to me doing the work, it's physically difficult. Little things are big right now, and probably will be for a few more weeks.
I'm still getting the instant wishes for me being better, and I want to wear a label that says "Ask me again in a few weeks."
Anyhow, that's the bad news: I hurt a lot.
Most of my friends have worked out what to do (or not to do) and this is the easiest high hurt I've ever had to endure, but some friends still see hurt in terms of their own emotional needs and make it a little difficult. The weather is being messy, and adding insult to injury, but that's because July in Canberra is like that.
I have fresh double jonquils to cheer me up. Mum asks "Don't they smell to strong?" But that's the point, this time. The scent is tangible and it promises me a future with all my senses.
The good news is that I've caught up on form-filling-in and I've only got a few dozen pages of random notes for the book before all notes are duly entered where they have to be and I can focus on sense. I also have 2/3 of a bibliography.
My aim for tonight is to enter 2 more chapters of notes. If I were operating normally, a full first draft of this book would be done by the weekend. As it is, I'll meet my deadlines. I'll be very pleased when that happens.
And that's all of my update. Unless you want to know that I'm wearing my down dressing gown ebcause the temperature is dropping at several degrees an hour and it's cold.
July 23, 2015
gillpolack @ 2015-07-24T12:04:00
Nothing new today except that I did a solid batch of work before the eye sulked this morning. All I need is 30% vision in that eye to be able to read solid text, it appears, which I have when I wake up (before everything gets inflamed again) so my plan for the next two weeks will be editing and writing first thing in the morning, then other things later.
The migraine is mostly gone, so I'm a much happier bunny. I'm still PMTish and moody, but I've now got a near-clean draft of 40% of Chapter Seven, which means my aim of finishing Chapters Five to Seven by the end of the month is quite achievable. I'm at the stage where I want a thousand things in the book that don't actually belong. This is the time for clean lines and logical flow. I'd need lots of thinking time right now, to clarify everything, and indeed I have such time.
My life continues odd.
The migraine is mostly gone, so I'm a much happier bunny. I'm still PMTish and moody, but I've now got a near-clean draft of 40% of Chapter Seven, which means my aim of finishing Chapters Five to Seven by the end of the month is quite achievable. I'm at the stage where I want a thousand things in the book that don't actually belong. This is the time for clean lines and logical flow. I'd need lots of thinking time right now, to clarify everything, and indeed I have such time.
My life continues odd.
gillpolack @ 2015-07-23T17:43:00
For my latest trick, I have a migraine. One of those whole body ones. This is just to let you know about it (because I can) and to apologise for anyone sending me links. It may be a few days before I check them out. It's not that I don't care, it's just that changing webpages seems to set off the migraine. It's the damnedest thing. Also, the eye itself can set it off, given the right type of light. This is brand new and very exciting and I wish it would go thank you very much.
The migraine itself is weather plus PMT plus the strange right eye. Things would definitely be easier if it would let no light through at all right now, but all the suggested eye patches are hypothetical when I can't actually go and get one and hypothetical eyepatches only help with hypothetical migraines. This is not a bad migraine, but it's very persistent and more than a bit strange. Hot water bottles and pain patches are my next step, once my daily bout of whingeing is finished.
Two thirds of this will pass in a day or so. In the meantime, I needed to think out the sequences of Chapters Five to Seven, and one really doesn't need eyes to sequence ideas.
Also, I'm becoming much better at typing reasonably accurately staring at my plain black keyboard rather than the computer screen. New skills are very handy. And it was staring at the keyboard that made me realise that letting light into the right eye is a pain trigger today. The weather will pass and one day I shall rejoice in menopause. Until then, I shall complain. A lot.
The migraine itself is weather plus PMT plus the strange right eye. Things would definitely be easier if it would let no light through at all right now, but all the suggested eye patches are hypothetical when I can't actually go and get one and hypothetical eyepatches only help with hypothetical migraines. This is not a bad migraine, but it's very persistent and more than a bit strange. Hot water bottles and pain patches are my next step, once my daily bout of whingeing is finished.
Two thirds of this will pass in a day or so. In the meantime, I needed to think out the sequences of Chapters Five to Seven, and one really doesn't need eyes to sequence ideas.
Also, I'm becoming much better at typing reasonably accurately staring at my plain black keyboard rather than the computer screen. New skills are very handy. And it was staring at the keyboard that made me realise that letting light into the right eye is a pain trigger today. The weather will pass and one day I shall rejoice in menopause. Until then, I shall complain. A lot.
July 22, 2015
Nothing except grump here, move right on
My eye is not good, but you knew that.
I've calculated which work comes first in terms of having to get things finished (for deadlines are not going to change) and the next person who tells me "I know you said you were finishing this in July, but how about we talk about it in September?" may well experience some terseness from me. I will finish a complete first draft of my book this July. I will not need four days away to work on it later in the year (that doesn't mean I don't want time to write fiction later, just not this long-standing project with tight deadlines) and ... three people today have assumed my deadlines are not actually deadlines and none of them are publishers.
Also, people keep asking if I'm better. I still can't see out of my right eye, which is not at all surprising, under the circumstances, so no, I'm not better. I will not know what's happening with the eye until the experts have seen it again and the experts want to wait until August. This means I don't know anything for at least a fortnight.
Please don't ask me if things are better. If you want to help, say "How can I help?" not "Are you better?" If you want to express sympathy, then say "I'm sorry things are not good" not "Are you better?"
I am not yet better. I won't be better magically tomorrow or the day after. I find myself wanting to explain how inaccurate that is as a question whenever anyone asks it. I do not have measles, I have a bung eye. A bung eye that won't be looked at again by experts for weeks, for very good reasons. That may or may not clear up itself in a few months. Not days. Months.
If it helps, imagine that I have a broken leg and that it's in plaster and look at the plaster in your mind's eye and think "She's wearing plaster, that quite possibly means the leg's still broken." This makes me think that if anyone has an eye patch I could borrow, I could wear that when anyone's looking and that will serve the purpose of plaster. It won't stop the people who are simply not paying attention and want me (for they are kind) better at once, but it will reduce the sheer amount of goodwill that communicates pure wishful thinking. The wishful thinking is really annoying. It suggests that I might know things when I don't and can't when dealing with the everyday is hard work. From my end, it makes things worse, no matter how sympathetically you intend it. And for the person who explained to me carefully that this is all psychosomatic, well, please don't. Blood in my eye is blood in my eye, whatever its cause. It may make you happy to do a diagnosis, but it doesn't help me. So many friends mean well and are actually not helping. The friends who are helping are magic, however.
From the tone of this post you may discover that some of my friends are being supportive in their own way and their own way generally means using my bung eye to do things I shouldn't for otherwise they worry for me. Others are being wonderful. Still others are ignoring me entirely, which is their choice, but doesn't mean that they will get the support they will inevitably want when next they get a cold. The friends who are ignoring me entirely, you see, are all the friends who want moral support when they sneeze.
A lot of my friends have more serious things wrong right now. Big stuff. Fatal and potentially fatal stuff. Emotional stuff that is life-changing and serious. This means I'm spending chunks of my day there for other people, because life is like that. July is still July and it's a hard month here.
This is why I'm so fragile right now. It's not just my eye (which is not fatal, just temporarily debilitating). It's also why I refuse to suffer idiots gladly. Those friends who don't stop and listen are simply not being good friends.
If I'm not stopping and listening to you, please tell me, for it may be that I missed reading something crucial. I do have limited capacity to read right now, and I'm in danger of missing things that count. This worries me. I hope I haven't missed anyone. I worry that I do and that people are hurting. So far this fortnight, it's 3 friends have had real things wrong every 2 days (and if we've been talking or I've sent hugs then you know you're one of them). It's very bad. And there are too many idiots around who ask me cheerfully "Are you better? How are you doing?" when they could check in here and know.
I think I shall leave non-urgent emails and just post updates here. Less burden on the eye and on the heart. Which reminds me, I have four urgent emails (work related) that need dealing with. July is a busy month and a drear month and this year, also a bad month. I will get through, thanks to my wonderfully supportive friends and I shall grump thanks to the abundance of idiots that surround me. Thank goodness for social media, which I can read with one eye and be a part of communities without the exhaustion.
This month is simply full of ...stuff. I suspect that what I need is friends to pick me up and drop me home and feed me dinner in between, for a couple of nights a week. Not going to happen. What's happening is that I'm borrowing many DVDs and so I'm not alone. That's the big thing when one is incessantly worried, I've discovered, not being alone. Not being grumpy is, alas, unachievable, and I'm sorry to inflict it on all of you.
And I have PMT, which is insult to injury.
I've calculated which work comes first in terms of having to get things finished (for deadlines are not going to change) and the next person who tells me "I know you said you were finishing this in July, but how about we talk about it in September?" may well experience some terseness from me. I will finish a complete first draft of my book this July. I will not need four days away to work on it later in the year (that doesn't mean I don't want time to write fiction later, just not this long-standing project with tight deadlines) and ... three people today have assumed my deadlines are not actually deadlines and none of them are publishers.
Also, people keep asking if I'm better. I still can't see out of my right eye, which is not at all surprising, under the circumstances, so no, I'm not better. I will not know what's happening with the eye until the experts have seen it again and the experts want to wait until August. This means I don't know anything for at least a fortnight.
Please don't ask me if things are better. If you want to help, say "How can I help?" not "Are you better?" If you want to express sympathy, then say "I'm sorry things are not good" not "Are you better?"
I am not yet better. I won't be better magically tomorrow or the day after. I find myself wanting to explain how inaccurate that is as a question whenever anyone asks it. I do not have measles, I have a bung eye. A bung eye that won't be looked at again by experts for weeks, for very good reasons. That may or may not clear up itself in a few months. Not days. Months.
If it helps, imagine that I have a broken leg and that it's in plaster and look at the plaster in your mind's eye and think "She's wearing plaster, that quite possibly means the leg's still broken." This makes me think that if anyone has an eye patch I could borrow, I could wear that when anyone's looking and that will serve the purpose of plaster. It won't stop the people who are simply not paying attention and want me (for they are kind) better at once, but it will reduce the sheer amount of goodwill that communicates pure wishful thinking. The wishful thinking is really annoying. It suggests that I might know things when I don't and can't when dealing with the everyday is hard work. From my end, it makes things worse, no matter how sympathetically you intend it. And for the person who explained to me carefully that this is all psychosomatic, well, please don't. Blood in my eye is blood in my eye, whatever its cause. It may make you happy to do a diagnosis, but it doesn't help me. So many friends mean well and are actually not helping. The friends who are helping are magic, however.
From the tone of this post you may discover that some of my friends are being supportive in their own way and their own way generally means using my bung eye to do things I shouldn't for otherwise they worry for me. Others are being wonderful. Still others are ignoring me entirely, which is their choice, but doesn't mean that they will get the support they will inevitably want when next they get a cold. The friends who are ignoring me entirely, you see, are all the friends who want moral support when they sneeze.
A lot of my friends have more serious things wrong right now. Big stuff. Fatal and potentially fatal stuff. Emotional stuff that is life-changing and serious. This means I'm spending chunks of my day there for other people, because life is like that. July is still July and it's a hard month here.
This is why I'm so fragile right now. It's not just my eye (which is not fatal, just temporarily debilitating). It's also why I refuse to suffer idiots gladly. Those friends who don't stop and listen are simply not being good friends.
If I'm not stopping and listening to you, please tell me, for it may be that I missed reading something crucial. I do have limited capacity to read right now, and I'm in danger of missing things that count. This worries me. I hope I haven't missed anyone. I worry that I do and that people are hurting. So far this fortnight, it's 3 friends have had real things wrong every 2 days (and if we've been talking or I've sent hugs then you know you're one of them). It's very bad. And there are too many idiots around who ask me cheerfully "Are you better? How are you doing?" when they could check in here and know.
I think I shall leave non-urgent emails and just post updates here. Less burden on the eye and on the heart. Which reminds me, I have four urgent emails (work related) that need dealing with. July is a busy month and a drear month and this year, also a bad month. I will get through, thanks to my wonderfully supportive friends and I shall grump thanks to the abundance of idiots that surround me. Thank goodness for social media, which I can read with one eye and be a part of communities without the exhaustion.
This month is simply full of ...stuff. I suspect that what I need is friends to pick me up and drop me home and feed me dinner in between, for a couple of nights a week. Not going to happen. What's happening is that I'm borrowing many DVDs and so I'm not alone. That's the big thing when one is incessantly worried, I've discovered, not being alone. Not being grumpy is, alas, unachievable, and I'm sorry to inflict it on all of you.
And I have PMT, which is insult to injury.
