Day in the Life of an Idiot

 Quick administrative note before I get into the rest of it: I've changed my policy about who I'm granting access to my locked posts to. I didn't have any problem that precipitated this. So, if you are finding yourself suddenly dropped, please don't imagine it's because you did anything wrong!  I've decided for simplicity's sake that I'm only granting access to folks who subscribe to me. I'm doing this in part because I discovered that I was following a bunch of dead accounts, all of whom still had access. I just figured that while I was there, I might as well make everything consistent. The chance that I will let you back in if you ask is incredibly high. In fact, if you'd rather not subscribe but still want see my locked posts, just drop me a request. I apologize for any disruption in your service, as it were!

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Okay, so.  I can't believe it's already noon and I've accomplished next to nothing.

It's kind of been like this since last Tuesday, however?  

The specifics of this morning go like this. Shawn and I got up and were doing our usual things when we realized that we needed to get our car off the street by 7 am for the street sweeper. So, I threw some lunch together for her (I have been making bento for Shawn since we bought a fancy, double-decker bento box several years ago), and we rushed out the door without breakfast. We decided to stop at Brugger's and although we're enough of regulars there that the guys behind the counter start making my sandwiches before I order, I really need to change that order because my GERDS can no longer handle the Swiss and sausage egg sandwich. But, as I'm sure some of you can relate, 1) it feels too hard right now to ask them to change the order, and 2) honestly, the kindness of the gesture is worth the stomach upset. Like, I need small kindesses so much right now, you know? 

I got home and did some of my usual morning internetting, which no longer involves checking social media. I have largely given up being on Facebook, outside of using it as a place to post cute pictures or pictures of food I am making or have made. If you want to follow me on a social, I am at Bluesky: @lydamorehouse.bsky.social


Image: half-eaten tray of fresh, homemade hot cross buns

Then, my alarm went off reminding me to get ready to record my podcast with Ka1lban. I was also working on a new review for MangaKast, which I have not updated in well over a month, and so I didn't really notice the time go by... until it was almost a half hour past when he usualy shows up. I dropped a note to him in Discord, wondering what was up--but apparently he doesn't get notifications from that... and anyway, he hadn't been planning on recording today, anyway, unbeknowst to me. 

This is where things start to feel very abortive, you know? Like, I'm all prepped for something that just isn't happening. 

I'm a little worried that something similar is going to happen tonight as well. I'm supposed to be running a Thirsty Sword Lesbians game at 7pm for a new group that I've assembled. I am embarrassingly prepared.  Like, it's a cyberpunk setting and I made two little mini movies of "found footage" for this group (if they follow the right clues!!) This is part of what I did to occupy my time while we were waiting for the news last Tuesday night, so I mean... it wasn't like I could concentrate on anything else. 

But this morning one of my players, haddayr , emailed to say that she's feeling too sick to fully participate. She's going to try to listen in, but no garuntees. This is our very first session? Players (at least the first one to respond, anyway,) made it clear that they are willing to go ahead without her, but... given how today is going so far, I'm sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

To be perfectly clear, it would be okay if it did. I have learned from my other online groups is that it's always best to have at least two dates arranged ahead of time. So, if we have to cancel this time, we KNOW when the next session is supposed to be. It's already on the calendar. 

It's more that this has just felt very typical of almost all my days since last Tuesday. I feel very much like I can't get my feet under or, when I do, it's for something that is no longer happening or gets postponed or just doesn't work out for whatever reason. 

How are the rest of you doing?

I love living in the future. It's true that we don't hav personal jetpacks and the political landscape is some nightmare cross between 1984 and Handmaid's Tale, but I can talk to someone 7,000 miles away in real-time, via Google Hangouts.  Tell me that's not the most awesome thing!  

Yeah, so yesterday, I was able to spontaneously coordinate a chat with jiawen who is currently living in Taiwan.  It was her night time, my mid-morning.  It's really kind of amazing to think that I was able to sit on my sunporch and chat with her as though she were sitting right beside me instead of, almost literally, on the other side of the world.

I love technology.  

People who say that iThings and social media and tech are what's wrong with kids these days are full of crap.  There are downsides, of course, but I think the kinds of communities we can create vastly outweigh many of the other issues.

In completely different news, when I was making a quick grocery run with Mason after school, I got a call from my library schedule coordinator who asked if I could work at White Bear Lake today from 10 am to 2 pm. I really, really wanted to say 'no,' but, as you know, gentle reader, we're kind of strapped for cash at the moment, so I said 'yes.'  In a few minutes, I'm going to have to get up and do the dishes and get ready to go to work.  I worked last night, too, at the New Brighton branch.  I didn't mind that one so much because it was a super-short, three hour shift.  I was basically there to cover dinner breaks for people. New Brighton, when they're not being anal-retentive, can be a quiet, easy shift.  

Mason's been coming home at the usual time this past week. He's in the final push for his History Day project.  He's doing a documentary on the Kent State massacre.  It's been kind of a timely project, in a way, since he's been listening to news clips of college-age students shouting, "Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?" and I literally just heard a radio segment of the school safety walk-outs, where the high school-age kids were shouting, "Hey, hey, NRA! How many kids did you kill today?"

The more things change, eh?

Okay, well, as much as I'd like to continue to sit with the cat on my lap, I need to get up and get things in some semblance of order so that we don't all come home to a messy house.


P.S. Skipped Wednesday reading because I have finished nothing again this week, though I read a hundred pages or so of at least one non-fiction book.  

Because I was just telling a friend, "Oh, I almost NEVER get called in to work on a Friday afternoon!" What happens?  I got called in to work at Roseville.  I managed to eke an extra hour out of my boss, so I don't have to be there until 11 am, but, OMG, if we weren't broke, I would not agree to this.  I'm soooooooo tired this morning.

I blame the Wyrdsmiths.  I had such a good time last night talking to everyone.  They lift my spirits.  But, because we met last night, I wasn't home until almost 11 pm.  Around these parts, we get up at 5:45 am.

If I didn't have to rush into work today, I would write about "the lost art of conversation."  A friend of mine recently "quit the internet" (by which he actually only meant Facebook and Twitter). He did so because he was, among other things, tired of how quickly any kind of half-formed thought posted on social media will jumped on and harassed. This has sparked a conversation among my Real Life (tm) friends about what's wrong with the internet.  

I've come to a couple of conclusions.  Neither of them are particularly brilliant, but here thy are.  

1. The short form sucks.

One of the reasons you're finding me here on Dreamwidth much more than you used to, is that, recently, I've begun to appreciate long-form writing.  This is also why I pen pal.  To be fair, blogging and letter writing is NOT perfect communication. There's some back and forth, but it's often very limited by audience (my blog reaches 10s of you, my letters go to a single person,) and time (replies to my blog aren't anywhere as fast as what happens on other social media, like FB or Twitter, and, international letters still take about a week to travel back and forth.)  BUT, what I like about long form that's missing in 140 (or 240 or whatever it is now) characters/paragraphs that are allowed on social media, is the chance to really explore an idea.  I can start with a statement like "the short form sucks" and I can write several hundred words about it and maybe, even in the process of thinking through that idea in a blog, I might change my mind about my initial blanket statement.  

Maybe there are times when the short form doesn't suck. In fact, I can think of several.  On Facebook, a friend of mine was talking about how her uncles hate social media because "all people do is post pictures of their food" (a paraphrase).  Frankly, that's one of the positives about social media, IMHO.  I LIKE hearing about the minutia of people's lives. I actually DOES make me feel more connected to people.

But, that's why I would never LEAVE social media, like my friend is doing.  I find a lot of value in liking people's selfies and commenting on their delicious looking beef stew.  

That doesn't, however, mean that the initial problem my friend is facing isn't also true. I've watched several people get in trouble for asking questions about politically charged situations. A friend of mine asked, "Why is BLM disrupting Gay Pride? Isn't that attacking another minority group?" and instead of people helpfully pointing to articles that explained why BLM chose that particular Pride parade and what the gay community thought of it, people immediately assumed the worst of her, labeled her a racist, and probably insta-unfriended her.

I think SOME of this could have been mitigated in a longer form medium.  If she'd blogged that question, getting into all of her thoughts and concerns, MAYBE people wouldn't have been so quick to condemnation.  MAYBE.

2. The political climate makes it hard to want to educate evil.

Okay, my friends who have gotten shut down recently aren't evil, but there are legit Russian bots out there who are trying to disrupt our social media platforms by being trolls. There are also trolls. There are also Nazis.  This makes it really hard to not just want to, as my son would say, "Nope out."  

3. Crap, I have to go.

Right, so this is going to be an unfinished thought. I'm sure I'll return to it, but here's where I have to leave it.

Feel free to add your thoughts to this conversation, if you'd like.

If I ever want to sabotage myself, all I have to do is hit "stats" on any number of my websites. What happens when I do that is that I look at whatever the numbers are there and start either comparing myself to a more successful version of myself, or, worse, to someone else. And it can pretty much be anyone. I don't even have to torture myself with the current "it" crowd in SF. In point of fact, I've been known to send myself into a tailspin by noticing that another Tumblr-er has six comments on his/her post about their fan work going live on AO3, and look over at the pathetic one or two reblog/likes I got and think, "OH FINE, F*CK EVERYTHING. I QUIT."

Which is, of course silly, (if only for the reason that, of all the things I do, my fan work consistently gets the most love.)

This, however, is why I could never do a kickstarter/Indigogo kind of crowd funding thing for any project/potential project/life crisis of mine. I would probably be apoplectic with envy within five minutes of the thing going live. Even if I did respectably well, I'd think, "Well, you-know-who went viral in five seconds SO SINCE I DIDN'T I MUST SUCK SO MANY ROCKS--ARGH, I QUIT LIFE. BYE."

I don't know what to do about it, besides stay the [bleep] away from the dreaded 'statistics' buttons. I'm much happier just whistling on the crowded avenue, as it were. This, by the way, is my metaphor for a lot of social media. I sometimes feel every time I blog or tweet or post, I'm shouting into an extremely crowded hallway, where hundreds, even thousands, of people are passing by at any given moment. Attracting even one person's attention is really difficult. And, often, I can stress myself by looking over at other people standing in this metaphorical crowded hall and seeing the crowd they've managed to gather around them.

I was just talking about the whole social media phenomenon to a friend. The New and Improved SFWA Bulletin had a 'how to win at Social Media' type article and one of the bullet point type bits of advice was "be interesting." Yeah, see, that's not really helpful. I doubt anyone sat down to the social media of their choice and said, "My plan! BE BORING! That's sure to get retweeted!" And, similarly, there's really no quantifying 'interesting.' One person's interesting is another person's dull.

But, I'm probably boring you with that. See, that was my plan. I bet I'll get six new LJ friends now.

If I don't, I'll be sitting over here in the corner sobbing and feeling unpopular.

Speaking of articles that I'd love to read, it'd be interesting to know if anyone has done research on the correlation between depression and social media. I feel like maybe I've read somewhere that the internet (or the interwebs, as I hear you kids call it,) makes people more anxious, because they're always expected to be available, are constantly barraged by info, etc. But, I wonder if anyone has tracked this kind of comparing yourself unfavorably to others problem--or if that's just a problem of mine.

:-)

In other news Shawn had a lovely birthday on Tuesday. We went out to both breakfast and dinner which are my favorite things to do and one of my biggest presents to her was that we went shoe shopping and fabric shopping and I DIDN'T COMPLAIN, NOT EVEN ONCE, ABOUT HOW BORED I WAS. I'm such a good partner, aren't I? I bought her some actual gifts, too, but Shawn is easy in that she likes pretty shiny things like a magpie, so Mason and I went to the Tibet store and spend some bauble on some baubles.

And then I worked at Maplewood Library both Wednesday and Thursday, so it's been a busy week for me.