Natalie Burg's Blog, page 8
January 23, 2014
The Jane Austen to-do list: Wait, wait, wait, something happens, wait….
When fretting about time, which often I do - whether or not I have enough time for all the tasks at hand, whether not I have enough tasks to fill the time, whether something I want or need will be found in time for a deadline or my own satisfaction - I think about Jane Austen.
In an Austen novel, every period of time - between visits, between news, between one activity and the next - is measured, not in minutes or hours, but in weeks. Weeks. From Pride & Prejudice:
In an Austen novel, every period of time - between visits, between news, between one activity and the next - is measured, not in minutes or hours, but in weeks. Weeks. From Pride & Prejudice:
January 22, 2014
The Worst Sheet: A case study in cutting the crap
There's this fitted sheet in our linen collection that just doesn't work right. It seems fine. It fits when you put it on, and then, in the middle of the night, instigated by who knows what, the corners snap up. My husband and I fall asleep in our normal, cozy bed, and wake up tangled in loose sheet with nothing but a scratchy mattress pad below us. It's the worst.
To make matters worse (yes, there is more to this story), we can never remember which fitted sheet does this to us. We have four or five sheet sets, and they're all various shades of blue, green and teal. So it's always a surprise. When we wake up that random morning, all groggy and itchy and tangled and confused, we're like, "Whelp. It's this one. This is the horrible sheet."
To make matters worse (yes, there is more to this story), we can never remember which fitted sheet does this to us. We have four or five sheet sets, and they're all various shades of blue, green and teal. So it's always a surprise. When we wake up that random morning, all groggy and itchy and tangled and confused, we're like, "Whelp. It's this one. This is the horrible sheet."
January 21, 2014
Consuming and creating, binging and balancing
Are you a consumer or a creator? No, don't answer that. It's a bad question. It's not a valid question because while a great number of people consume, but do not create, creators are consumers as well. But for some reason I find myself tempted to separate people into the two categories. I don't know why, but I'm sure the habit is somehow self-serving.
January 20, 2014
What if my brain broke? And other burning issues.
My husband is really careful about his hands. Sometimes I give him a hard time about this, but, as a guitar player, it's a valid concern. Anything that happens to his hands happens to his career. They break, it breaks. As failing to be concerned about things is probably the quality about myself that probably deserves the most concern, I've never before applied any similar reasoning to myself. Ninety percent of everything I do comes from my brain, so I don't feel especially wary around hammers.
Then, after having a particularly difficult time transitioning from the holiday fog into January productivity this year, a horrifying thought occurred to me: What if I got permanently stuck in the fog? What if my brain didn't shift back into critical thinking and creative expression mode? Anything can change the way a brain works - hormonal changes, chemical changes, injury, disease, simply aging - WHAT I IF STOP THINKING GOOD?
Then, after having a particularly difficult time transitioning from the holiday fog into January productivity this year, a horrifying thought occurred to me: What if I got permanently stuck in the fog? What if my brain didn't shift back into critical thinking and creative expression mode? Anything can change the way a brain works - hormonal changes, chemical changes, injury, disease, simply aging - WHAT I IF STOP THINKING GOOD?
January 15, 2014
Google doesn’t lie, and what it has to say about Michigan women in government is not a good truth.
While doing some web research on women in government in Michigan (yes, I was in want of more information on this topic), I Googled the same. As we all know Google suggests search terms based on the most commonly searched things, what I found was pretty depressing:
January 14, 2014
Harry Potter, feminism, and remembering we’re all still evolving
There were a number of happy things about the recent holidays for me, and among them was reading all of the Harry Potter books again, from start to finish. It took a long time, but was a delightful exercise in experiencing something old in a new way. Some books I'd read multiple times; some only once. Years separated reading each book before, just as years have changed me since my last reading of them.
January 13, 2014
Not on my list; also, editing aspirations
There are exactly four things on my 2014 Goals list. I'm not going to share them, (because why would anyone else care about my goals for myself?), but in the process of making it as concise as possible, I went through an interesting exercise. Though ruthless editing is a part of everyday life as a writer, it felt very different to be editing myself, or, at least, my aspirations for myself over the next year.
When editing a story, every single world needs to be there for a reason. If a story can survive the loss of any extra anything, it's cut. Applying that process to life goals was helpful in a way that I'm hoping will make the entire next year more efficient and clear. Here are a few of my first draft goals that I cut and the reasons I let them go:
When editing a story, every single world needs to be there for a reason. If a story can survive the loss of any extra anything, it's cut. Applying that process to life goals was helpful in a way that I'm hoping will make the entire next year more efficient and clear. Here are a few of my first draft goals that I cut and the reasons I let them go:
January 10, 2014
Making lists, erasing lists
Tis the season of lists, is it not? It begins in December with a barrage of lists summing up the year coming to a close, as well as projections for what's to come in the next. Just as that starts to peter out, we start getting the lists of goals, new habits and tasks. Lists, lists, lists! As far as the eye can see and the interwebz can access!
January 9, 2014
Living by our own cycles, on our own paths
It's 2014! Yes, I just noticed. My new year cycle is slightly different than most. As my birthday is just eight days into January, the week between December 31 and January 9 feels like bleary, suspended time. Days go by, yes. Work gets done if it must. But not until the final day of the holiday season trifecta of Christmas-New Year's Eve-birthday do I feel mentally "in" the new year. I used to feel guilty about this, but I don't anymore. It's my cycle. It's how I work. It really doesn't matter that the world moves forward in time without me for one week. 
December 11, 2013
GM has a female CEO; world’s brain falls out.
When General Motors announced that Mary Barra would be the first female CEO of a Big Three automaker this week, there was much excitement. But wait. No, there's nothing to be excited about, right? We're supposed to be not so excited, because boys and girls are the exact same so what's the big deal? No big deal.
YOU GUYS, IT'S A BIG DEAL.
Yes, men and women should be entirely interchangeable in the halls of power in global corporations, but right now (and at no point in human history preceding it) that has not been the case. Despite the fact that companies with greater female representation on their executive leadership teams have quantifiably higher ROI, the percentage of female CEO is only 14% globally (up from 9%!). Reminder, women make up more than 50% of all humans, so that's pretty abysmal.
Women in power means more diversity corporations, which means less groupthink and more sanity. It's important for young girls to have these role models, and it's important for a world that is controlled by an only slightly less homogenous class of rule makers and gatekeepers than it was a century ago.
As a woman, I appreciate that urge to pretend like it's not a big deal that Mary Barra is a woman. I know it comes from a place of political correctness and the desire to be living in a genderless power utopia. But we're not there yet. And until we are, Mary Barra's new job is exciting. Marissa Mayer is exciting. Sheryl Sandberg is exciting. And come 2016, I think we all know who else is going to be exciting. So go ahead. Express some celebratory interjections. Count this as the progress that it is. And get used to it, because as we have every right to keep it going until all things are truly equal, it looks like this party is going to be raging awhile.
YOU GUYS, IT'S A BIG DEAL.
Yes, men and women should be entirely interchangeable in the halls of power in global corporations, but right now (and at no point in human history preceding it) that has not been the case. Despite the fact that companies with greater female representation on their executive leadership teams have quantifiably higher ROI, the percentage of female CEO is only 14% globally (up from 9%!). Reminder, women make up more than 50% of all humans, so that's pretty abysmal.
Women in power means more diversity corporations, which means less groupthink and more sanity. It's important for young girls to have these role models, and it's important for a world that is controlled by an only slightly less homogenous class of rule makers and gatekeepers than it was a century ago.
As a woman, I appreciate that urge to pretend like it's not a big deal that Mary Barra is a woman. I know it comes from a place of political correctness and the desire to be living in a genderless power utopia. But we're not there yet. And until we are, Mary Barra's new job is exciting. Marissa Mayer is exciting. Sheryl Sandberg is exciting. And come 2016, I think we all know who else is going to be exciting. So go ahead. Express some celebratory interjections. Count this as the progress that it is. And get used to it, because as we have every right to keep it going until all things are truly equal, it looks like this party is going to be raging awhile.
