Category: Thoughts and Reflections

This Summer

I’m going to need to find something to do soon.

This summer has been a strange one. I’m largely staying at home as I did during pandemic times, and I’ve spent a lot of time working on projects.

I’m running out of projects.

I’ve prepped my classes for Fall semester, that time of year that comes in a month and a half. I’ll win NaNo today and finish Kel and Brother Coyote in 3 days. Proofing it will take a few more days and then I’ve run out of things to do.

This is even with afternoon naps every day.

Things I could do

I could, I suppose, finish Voyageurs, which is the thing I least want to do. I feel like I’ve lost the plot on that one. Literally lost. the. plot. I don’t feel like the second half goes with the first half. I don’t want the second half to go that long. I don’t — I’m whining.

I could start a new novel. It’s not that I don’t have ideas sitting on the drawing board.

I could concentrate on short stories and poems — I wrote what I think is a solid poem the other day. I might have gotten the knack back.

I could, I suppose, just nap some more.

I do, it turns out, have about three doctors’ appointments in the next two weeks, so maybe I’ll just get the stress cardiogram, the psychiatrist visit, and the setup for my cataract surgeries dealt with.

Or have fun and talk my husband into another writers’ retreat.

The luxury of choice

Photo by Vlada Karpovich on Pexels.com

I’ve come off as very privileged right now. Think about it — most people have 9-5 jobs and maybe two weeks vacation. My husband works part time and has, at best, four-day weekends. No paid vacation. I have, more or less, a whole summer to do my internship supervision and, it turns out, enjoy free time.

This fall, I won’t have choices. I will have a solid semester with no vacation (except a couple three-day weekends and a week at Thanksgiving, so I shouldn’t complain). Semesters are pretty intense, so I will welcome the breaks. But I don’t have the flexibility I have in summer.

Still I have more freedom than most people do, and it makes up for the pretty slim pay. (Almost).

I guess today I will be grateful for my summer schedule and find a time to enjoy just being off work.

It’s the Fourth of July, and I’m wearing orange

Why I’m wearing orange

My mother told me when I was very young, “You can’t take a culture away from someone, because you don’t have anything of value to give in return.”

Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

My grandfather (paternal, mostly white) attended an Indian school, because it was the closest one to where his family lived. He said he watched the Native children get beaten for speaking their own language. This was my first contact with what has been in the news lately, the Native American and First Nations children who were murdered in the residential schools, and the shell-shocked survivors.

Now they’re in the news, with already hundreds of children’s bodies found buried. In solidarity with the Native Nations, I wear orange.

Saturday Morning

As opposed to any other day of the week

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Working at home in the summer (which consists of a lot of waiting around for things to happen and writing) makes every day blur into another. The only thing making sense of my days is my husband’s work schedule. He’s off on Mondays, works Tuesday-Thursday, off on Friday, at work every other Saturday.

Today is a Saturday when he works. Ideally, on a Saturday, I’d get rest. But I’ve been napping nearly every day, so I don’t need a restful Saturday. And I need to write 2k words for NaNo.

Today’s coffee

Today’s coffee is Wet Hull Java, roasted medium roast. We’ve been struggling to get the right grind for this bean — too fine and the extraction is sour; too coarse and it’s bitter. Today, we have it perfect.

There was another bat in the house

My husband can hear bats. This is handy for when we have bats, which is often in the summer. This one was down and behind the fake fireplace in the living room, and the little girl (Chloe, our youngest cat) was trying to smack the living daylights out of it. I’d say she was successful, because the bat crawled out of her reach like a half-drowned wreck survivor. Because Chloe had had extensive contact with a little creature that can bite you without you knowing and carry rabies, the bat will be going to Public Health to be tested for rabies.

I have a phobia of bats, but we’ve had so damned many in here that I only get them tested for rabies if they could reasonably had human or cat contact. And if I have to get rabies shots (something I think is inevitable someday given the number of bats we shepherd outside every summer), so be it.

What to do today

I have to do my NaNo writing today — so far I have written 4000 words or so toward Kel and Brother Coyote Save the World, and I estimate I have 14k or so left to write. I’m writing NaNo style, which is fast and fearlessly, and I dread the amount of editing I am going to have to do on this document. Outside of NaNo events, I write a little more slowly and thoughtfully. But this is Camp NaNo, and the mode is fast.

What are you doing this weekend?

Drop me a comment!

Cataract Surgery

I’m much too young for this

I will get cataract surgery on both my eyes next month. I didn’t think I would get the surgeries this early — I’m 57, and the average age of cataract surgery is somewhere between 65 and 70.

According to my research on the Internet, however, I’ve found out:

  • As the procedure has become safer, opthamologists don’t have to wait for cataracts to “mature” anymore.
  • Baby boomers (of which I am one) have been getting them at earlier ages
  • Some people’s professions necessitate them getting the surgery done sooner. (I’m assuming spending much of one’s day in front of a computer might be an example of this)

What should I expect during surgery?

Not much — I will be out for the surgery. But likely they will make a small incision in my eye to access the lens, break it up using some sort of ultrasound probe, and suck the former lens out. They will insert some sort of lens in my eye, which may or may not correct vision, and stitch me back up.

What will after-surgery look like?

I’ll have to wear a patch, or an eye shield, not sure which. I will probably have to wear these for a few days, especially during sleep. I won’t be able to bend down or lift things for a few days. I will have to use proprietary eye drops that my opthamologist supplies.

In other words, recovery looks a lot like recovery from other minor surgeries.

Why I’m glad to get the surgery

My right eye is cloudy despite correction and my left eye not so much (but beginning to get there.) The sight in the right eye is like someone smeared vaseline on it. My two eyes together yield a strange amalgam of sharp and blurry. It’s almost (but not quite) like seeing double.

The cataracts make it harder to do computer work and increase my eyestrain to the point that i get headaches. I don’t anticipate using my computer less, given that I work as a professor and as an author, and I compose everything on computer.

I’m glad I don’t have to suffer like my mother did, waiting until the cataracts were “ripe”, or mature. She spent years with muted colors, with struggling to do her cross-stitch and embroidery, with cursing her advancing age.

Today’s cataract surgery guidelines are much more humane, and I am thankful.

Fear of Tik Tok (or: Facing a Budding Addiction)

What marks an addiction?

A long time ago in my general psychology class, I learned that three characteristics of addiction, whether physical or emotional, were dependence, habituation, and withdrawal. Dependence means going back to the drug or behavior repeatedly, needing that “reward” (a physical sensation in the case of drugs, a psychological boost of brain chemicals for non-drug items). Habituation means getting used to the dose (psychologically or physically) and wanting more, and withdrawal means feeling tension or even physical symptoms when away from the stimulus (again psychologically or physically) From there, continuing the drug or behavior despite bad effects to one’s life, cements the addiction.

There are various psychological addictions that follow this path: gambling, television, and, as it turns out, Tik Tok.

Tik Tok?

I am dealing with the beginnings of the addiction response in my relationship with Tik Tok. Although I’ve only been there a month, and watching content for about a week, I have found myself scrolling through my For You page a few times a day.

My behavior shows:

  • Habituation, as it takes more and more content to satisfy me;
  • Withdrawal, as I feel figuratively itchy when I put the phone down.

I’m missing the dependence, the actual part where I continue despite bad effects. This is mostly because I recognize when the process is happening and break the habituation.

The almighty algorithm

Tik Tok’s “algorithm” makes the app more addictive. Although nobody but Tik Tok knows the exact algorithm, users believe that the app provides you with more content in areas where the user lingers in. In other words, if a reader watches certain content all the way through, they will get more of that content, thus boosting dependence. And since the viewer is watching more and more of the same thing, habituation develops.

What saved me

I tend to get frustrated with passive pursuits like television and Tik Tok. No amount of habituation gets past the fact that I’m not doing anything. I like making things happen, and Tik Tok isn’t going to make that happen. I get bored lately, and the content algorithm of Tik Tok doesn’t deliver new content (like educational content) to keep me occupied.

So I think I’ll put Tik Tok up on the shelf for a while and let it tick without me.

Cute Fluffy Wide-Eyed Things That Love You

What are they?

Cute Fluffy Wide-Eyed Things That Love You (henceforth to be known as Cute Fluffies) are multidimensional creatures about the size of a bocce ball but consisting of iridescent, gossamer, silky fluff. They are almost all fluff. They have googly eyes and spindly arms and legs. They weigh nearly nothing (not surprising) and they burble and coo and like to hang around with people, who they find endlessly captivating. Being from an alternative dimension, we do not see them, but sometimes we feel them in a breeze.

Their effect on humans is usually to make people act giddy with how cute they are. Those in the know can elicit this effect in other people by scooping up the invisible critters and throwing them at someone. A person hit by these little puffy creatures is usually a giggle.

Where they come from

They are, alas, a figment of my imagination. I think.

Let me explain. I have never truly grown up. Yes, I’m 57 and hold down a pretty demanding job, but I have a strong sense of play. And when I dated another person with a strong sense of play, we chanced across the Cute Fluffies, and how much fun it was to throw them at people.

The secret to throwing the Fluffies is to scoop them up, pet them, and burble at them before throwing them at people so they know that they have, in fact, been hit by a cute fluffy. It helps to pick imaginative people who will appreciate them. Many people actually giggle and feel temporarily buoyant when hit by Cute Fluffies.

Why don’t I have a picture?

Nobody has been able to photograph a Cute Fluffy.

Better Safe than Sorry

Photo by Monstera on Pexels.com

I worried for nothing

It turned out that the irritation on my lip was a chronically inflamed ingrown something. Like a really, really deep blackhead. I went through a pimple-popper procedure with my doctor digging it out with a pair of tweezers and sent on my way.

Yes, I feel a bit foolish. I worried for nothing. I suspect I’m a bit of a hypochondriac.

Yet I don’t regret going.

The area looked like a peeling mole a good part of the time, and I’ve heard that’s A Very Bad Thing. So I wasn’t going to mess with it. If the choice is between looking foolish and getting something too late, I’ll take the former. Besides, I don’t go to the doctor for every ache and pain — I’m pretty reasonable with my worries.

So now I have a big sore bump on my lip, and if it doesn’t clear up in 4-6 weeks, I go back to the doctor.

Better safe than sorry.