I’ve been married to my husband for fifteen years now (well, in a week) and I still get all like “omg!!!!” when I get to see him naked. I’m like. omg. He’s so hot. omg. He’s not wearing clothes. omg. play it cool. PLAY IT COOL.
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It still surprises me when I try to pay attention to how many “productive” hours I have in a day. It’s never as much as I expect.
Mind that when I’m being productive in a focused hour, a lot happens in that hour! My maximum writing rate in an hour is about 3,000 words, which means if I wrote one of those little Harlequin romances at that speed, it would take less than a forty hour work week (theoretically) to finish it. Those lil dudes are around 40-60,000 words. So we’re talking maybe 20 hours to draft.
Yet those 20 hours have almost never in my life happened all at once; the fastest I think I ever got out a good book from start to finish (outlining and editing inclusive) was a month, or four weeks. And that was absurd.
So much of my time isn’t spent productively, even though it always feels like I’m pregnant with my current creative projects. It’s hard to think about aught else. But a lot of that thinking happens when I’m clicking around my news feed, reading articles. Or when I’m walking somewhere. I think and plan frequently. Yet I think the main reason it feels like I work *so much* (at my peak) and can’t find more time is because it’s just really Mentally Intensive. I feel every minute so the hours seem longer than hours spent curled up in my chair with yarn. And I just can’t do that very much! It’s been hard for me to do that more than an hour at a time, these days. (I’m rebuilding stamina.)
What this is circling toward is saying I haven’t been posting feed commentary much because I bumped another hour or two of weekly productivity toward fiction. I am really determined to just *finish* all these outstanding projects I’ve got on my docket. Egregious is an ongoing passion project that I don’t mind letting sleep for weeks or months at a time. I’ve done it before.
Just kinda funny to see how an hour taken away from Egregious means, like, three fewer posts here, but only another chunk of chapter on the book.
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I have a problem with misophonia. This interesting Psyche article connects it to interoception problems, which makes so much sense. There is a lot of brain activity when “bad sounds” are bothering you. It’s very real!
It also seems like it may be connected to (or alleviated by) mirroring.
Kumar surveyed hundreds of people with misophonia and found evidence that those with more severe symptoms were more likely to say that they imitate the actions and sounds made by people producing triggering noises. Many of the participants said they often feel compelled to mimic whatever action is triggering them and that doing so brings relief, whether that’s chewing loudly or tapping their feet.
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The Southeast Asian Anarchist Library has a thought-provoking post about the colonialism of “gay pride” and queer identity labels currently being used. It’s a dense read, but the insights gave me a lot of perspective on how some of this movement has mixed impact abroad.
It seems the language of queer liberation is being applied in a way that still mostly serves to export American capitalism, and that is a *deeply* disappointing but helpful perspective to gain.
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Tor dot Com has informed me that we are getting a Highlander reboot, which I am DEFINITELY ready for. Henry Cavill feels like the inevitable casting. Is Adrian Paul still around? Oh heck a quick search says he’s only 64. We put 64-year-old men in action movies all the time. Can we have Adrian Paul?
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Ars Technica has an article talking about how fewer pollinators means that plants produce less pollen. Is it weird my first thought was like “omg it’s the way my hair produces fewer oils if I don’t use shampoo regularly.”
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I really loved Niecy Nash-Betts’s acceptance speech at the Emmy’s. (Variety) Also, on a very shallow level, holy crap she is murdering me in that dress. She looks incredible.
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Lil Nas X shouldn’t apologize for anything in regards to his J Christ track. (Variety) His expression of the Biblical stories is very pro-Jesus and anti-Satan. Like, there’s really nothing to complain about unless you don’t like a femme Black gay man being the one who is so good at Bibling.
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Balloon Juice talked to NYT Pitchbot, who is a Balloon Juice alumnus. Most of the interview is on Substack (so I didn’t read it) but I think you can get a decent sense of character and thought process from the excerpt.
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The New Yorker has my favorite article of the week: The Abortion Provider Who Became the Most Hated Woman in New York.
Restell was no mere opportunist; she genuinely believed in abortion. This much is clear from “To Married Women,” an essay-advertisement that functioned as a manifesto for her practice. “Is it not but too well known that the families of the married often increase beyond the happiness of those who give them birth would dictate?” Restell asked in one version, published in 1840. “In how many instances does the hardworking father, and more especially the mother, of a poor family remain slaves throughout their lives?” Abortion and birth control, she reasoned, were not sins but ways to cultivate health and human thriving. “Much of the suffering, misery, wretchedness, and vice existing around us can be attributable to our ignorance of the capacity granted to us for a wise end to control, in no small degree, our own destinies,” she wrote.
