Author Archives: Autumn

Drawing The Line

Nothing, nothing infuriates me more than people who can’t time-manage their way out of a paper bag. Especially when a good portion of that time involves my work as well, in some fashion.

After thirty-odd years, you would think that people would know how good/bad they are at these sort of things, and allot time accordingly. But no; people appear to turn cheerful blind eyes to this particular fault, or maybe they just don’t care.

I, however, do care. A lot. And when I do work to hit a deadline of some sort, and everyone else lags behind, I get damned angry. Why? Why do I care, when my work is done? Partially because I usually end up looking bad as well; partially because I sometimes end up having to take more time out of my schedule to solve the problem thusly created, occasionally forcing me to cancel something that had been planned; but mostly because I get sick and tired of watching people make the same mistake over and over and not learning from it.

Time management. It’s tied up in procrastination and the inability to understand that other people are depending on you. And maybe the whole concept of time passing, or being able to quantify time, or whatever.

Whatever it is, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being yoked to other people in projects where people don’t understand that their work affects others. And I’m tired of snapping into being off-the-deep-end enraged about it after making an effort to be as understanding and as supportive as possible.

Writing Notes

Things I forgot to mention, which I ought to:

I wrote three-quarters of a short story on Friday, after my crisis. I’m usually in agreement with the whole “who says an artist needs to suffer in order to create?”, but lately it seems I need some sort of traumatic emotional upheaval in order to calmly sit down later on and whip something off. Word total for Friday: a very respectable 2,510.

Today, while the power was off (muttergrumblegrr) I researched and made lots of dialogue notes for that potential collaboration project. Out of the blue, I also wrote five and a half poems. (A half, because it’s not in its final draft yet.) Dedicated readers will remember my odd yearnings to be writing poetry this past spring (not that I had poems in mind, I just wanted to be engaged in the act of poetry writing). I find poetry very peaceful. Mind you, it’s also distilled emotion, which is like handling fire and ice at any time, and even more dangerous in my frustrated and fragile hands these days.

It’s even more special, because I started a new notebook. It’s Coptic-bound, with a Japanese print of a plum tree in blossom on it, and the pages are a dark ivory colour. I use my dip pen with black ink, too. Of course, it’s all to recopy the original pencil scribblings in my current notebook of ideas, complete with cross-outs and arrows indicating line rearrangements and so forth.

However — poetry. Goodness. I believe the last time I wrote poetry was around eleven years ago.

A Curse Upon Hydro And Blogger

Joy. Remember I was growling about how the power was supposed to be turned off last week, and it never was, so I wasted a whole day of work? Guess what happened this morning with no warning at all.

Blogger had a hiccup yesterday and ate not only the penultimate post on the Hogwarts quiz, but the long and involved post I did on Frida Kahlo as well.

So, to recap:

Apparently Defence Against the Dark Arts would be my best class if I attended Hogwarts. Hmm. I thought for sure it would be History of Magic.

July 6, 1907 was Frida Kahlo’s birthday, although she popularised her birthdate as July 7, 1910 to identify herself with the new Mexico born with the outbreak of the Mexican revolution.

Currently, my favourite work of Kahlo’s is her Self-Portrait, 1926; I find it quite Mona Lisa-like: mysterious, solemn, quirky, and each time that I see it I come to a different decision regarding what lies behind those eyes. Here she is.

Self-Portrait, 1926

(The original post was longer, and more articulate. Really.)

Enthusiastic Endorsement, Complete With Muppet Nods

Some of my regular readers might not click randomly on links, so I want to draw your attention to t!, a man I’ve known for thirteen years. Long ago, we bonded over Shakespeare, Star Wars, pasta, and the Muppets.

[…] The real magic was on The Muppet Show.

It wasn’t aimed at kids. At least one third of it was musical numbers. It was vaudeville, on the medium that killed vaudeville. For those who could still appreciate vaudeville. Adults. But their children knew the Muppets, so we watched Kermit in his night job, when he wasn’t reporting for Muppet News.

And we got show tunes. Stand up comedy. And awful, awful puns. Plus just about every other entertainment staple you can think of: Stuntmen, jugglers, science fiction, hospital drama, sportscasting, westerns, educational science films (?!), Grand Guignol, a piano man, a full orchestra, a modern rock band, even heckling for crying out loud, and all of it aimed over our heads like a boomerang fish.

So what happened? We raised our heads.

He’s perfected the art of debating, pushing his limits and yours to force growth, and he also happens to be one of the most intelligent people I know. And, like the Muppets, his writing refuses to make it easier; you have to raise your head. What are you waiting for? Go read Baker’s 12.

Yes, Yes, You Love Me, Thank You

Oh, honestly, people – I’m frustrated, not on my deathbed.

But thanks go out to everyone who left comments, e-mailed, or called as soon as they got off-line and tied up my phone for two and a half hours. Heartfelt thanks. Ceri even called long-distance from her writing retreat in Lower Prospect.

I’d be even happier if it would rain, damn it – really rain, indicating a low pressure front coming through, to break this dreadful humidity. Maybe I’ll head over to the secondhand bookstore around the corner this afternoon to look for the Dorothy Sayers books Ginger recommended for me – that ought to incite the heavens to hurl water at me, especially if I wear a white shirt.

Keeping things in perspective, I recently began to read Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo. And I thought I had problems with my back, and with mild chronic pain! Now I just occasionally feel guilty while I read it, knowing that in comparison, my health is far superior to what hers was.

I spent seven hours yesterday writing a 36 page take-home final exam (those who know will know), and to my stunned and utter incomprehension, I am still not done. It’s maybe only 80% complete, but after yesterday, I need a day away from it.

Breaking The Camel’s Back

Well, hasn’t this just been the worst twenty-four hours.

Migraines; vertigo as bad as I had it two summers ago; bad dreams where I cried so hard in anger and frustration that I woke up this morning with tears on my face; my right wrist swollen so badly that I can’t move it to write with a pen; the discovery that an e-mail of immense importance bounced back to me yesterday; and my computer has crashed not once, but twice this morning so far. I’m just waiting to see how the day gets even worse.

We won’t be going on the weekend group camping trip we’d been looking forward to, due to my current state of health as well as a variety of other reasons. On one hand, it’s probably a good thing; I can’t imagine the utter terror I’d feel if besieged by a migraine and severe vertigo in an unfamiliar environment. On the other hand, it was guilt-inducing because we’d promised lifts to a couple of people. Now that I’ve discovered that the e-mail of immense importance notifying people of this change in plans didn’t reach anyone yesterday, I am not only feeling incredibly angry (with no one or nothing to at which to direct my anger) but incredibly stressed because there’s nothing to do but get people down there, at least, although we can’t get them back.

I was looking forward to this, damn it. I was looking forward to seeing good friends there too.

I’ve been experiencing feelings of inadequacy in my work, as well. I can’t seem to do anything right, or anything write. I’ve re-read work and been turned off by most of it, especially the Great Canadian Novel. Ideas all seem like limp dead mice or tasteless dried-up apples. Nothing works.

I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of convincing myself that I’m better, that I’m happy, that I can make something useful of myself. Now I’m just angry.

If I could only turn that into something else. Words. Thoughts. Something productive. But I’m sick of trying to change things into other things that they aren’t.

How can I be burning out again? What can I be burning out from? Or did I never pull myself out of the original crash-and-burn, just pretending to myself that I was better?