The Game of Shame - ROW80 Check-In

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

Shame was the main game we played in my home, in my church, in my classrooms, on my playgrounds.  I learned that game so well.  I learned to self-shame as a way to avoid the worst of the shaming because self-shame looks like the remorse and surrender that most authority figures and bullies needed to see to believe they'd won the game. 

I've been doing a deep dive on this theme in my life for most of the past month.  I suggested in a previous post that I would share that journey here but I'm not ready to share much of what has been on my mind yet.  It is too amorphous and/or triggering.  But I can share the one story I hinted at before.  The story of an encounter between myself at age 12 with my sixth grade teacher that was suffused with shame and had a direct impact on my relationship to my writing that has me in its thrall to this day.

As I wrote a week ago Sunday:

I thought I'd already unpacked all the baggage around this incident.  I even wrote a flash fiction piece and devoted a NaNo to developing a YA novel expanding on that.  But apparently I left some seriously stinky laundry in the bag because as I started thinking about what I planned to say in the post while I was working the stuff shuffle in my room, I found myself reliving that moment in emotional technicolor and then I was weeping.  And I couldn't stop for four hours. 

The fictional piece I linked above stays fairly true to the exchange between me and my teacher.  I changed the topic of the term paper to Flannery O'Connor who became my favorite author for years after I encountered her in high school.  So at least 4 to 5 years after this incident.  I did this so I could make that play on a title of one of Flannery's stories.  Hers was Everything That Rises Must Converge and I, in my cynicism at the time wanted to argue that no, Everything that Rises Must Submerge because that had been my basic experience in my family in the school system and in my marriage.

In my family and Church, 'rising' was too closely related to 'pride' for their comfort and all signs of pride must be quashed.  Usually by shaming.  As for the school system... They just didn't have the eyes to see anyone who colored outside the lines.  So to speak.  Unless it was disruptive to others.  But when it came to a quiet-as-a-mouse girl who took home all of her textbooks the first week of the school year and had read them all cover-to-cover by her birthday mid-November and had written out all the questions and answers for every single chapter into a notebook she kept at home?  Nothing in their training prepared them for noticing anomalies like that let alone for how to respond in a way that was in the child's best interest.

The go-to programing for these young twenty-something teachers was to insist that all the rules be followed all the time by all individuals involved.  So when the teacher would patrol the class after giving a reading assignment and walk by my desk and find me with a library book open on top of my text book, he didn't even ask if I'd finished the reading assignment, he just confiscated my book and put it in his desk drawer and the rule was that I could not have it back until the due date or the end of term whichever came first.  And I would have to remember to ask for the book on the correct due date.

It didn't make any difference to him whether the book was a novel or a reference book related to the big semester-long term paper project.  He never noticed or at least never commented on the fact that many of these books were upwards of 400 pages and the NF were heavily footnoted and indexed.  In other words most of the books confiscated from me at age 12 were college level. 

This is where my sentiment of 'rising gets you squashed' came from.  I'd watched my brother, one grade behind me, get pushed back down in other ways but since he was a boy with a temper and a 'Mr. know-it-all attitude who'd started lecturing every ear in range from playmates to parents from the moment he could speak complete sentences, he didn't fly under the radar as I did and earned one creative punishment after another--as many from the bullies as from the teachers and principals. 

Until, that is, I had another encounter with a teacher in high-school.  My 10th grade typing teacher gave an inspired motivational lecture to the class about the perks of learning to type.  (If you've read the flash fiction linked above you know the irony of that) He rhapsodized on all the doors it would open and how merit and hard work was rewarded by the system and all the ways you would find it useful in your personal life.

As he spoke, I started weeping.  He noticed.  I noticed he noticed and began an intense examination of the wood grain on my desk top.  He didn't speak to me until the bell rang and the chaos of the class leaving began but then he quietly asked if I would stay and speak to him.  I did.  He asked why his words had so upset me.  Tho I'd had flashes of my own stories I did not share any of them.  I shared what I'd observed about my brother including the current crisis in which his 9th grade teacher was threatening to fail him in history.

This was because he refused to take notes in class as required and instead doodled and handed that in for a fail every week.  He was even able to explain that he was unable to listen to spoken words and write them at the same time but when he doodled he could remember everything that was said by just looking at the doodles.  But the teacher wasn't interested in that nor in the corroborating facts that he aced the tests and quizzes and wrote cogent essays, he cared only about the rules. 

My brother was stubborn and insisted they couldn't make him do what he couldn't do and if they made him repeat the class he would just fold his hands and sit in class and do none of the work for if he was going to fail anyway what was the point?  Our Mom had been up on campus for a conference with the teacher, our Dad had lectured him at the dinner table and there were angry stalemates at school and at home.

In my mind, of course, I was drawing parallels between what was happening to him and what had happened to me four years earlier.  I was now wishing I'd made a stink like he was doing.  I was wishing I'd at least told my Mom so she might have advocated for me since she was a witness that at least 3/4 of what he accused me of was untrue. But for some reason I'd internalized the shame of the failure and was too mortified to tell anyone.

That male typing teacher who was a retired Marine Corp Sargent, in an effort to prove to me that the system works if you light a fire under the right butt, pulled some strings in the school system and got my brother a full blown IQ test.  The kind administered one-on-one by a psychologist instead of the multiple choice, color-the-dot-by-your-answer test administered in Junior High.  He tested over 160 which was 30 points higher than he tested on the standard one. He'd beat me by three points on that one, I think tho I can't really trust my memory's precision.  I just remember wondering if I would also have gained 30 points by having it administered one-on-one and would I have still been just a few points behind. 

A few years after the fact, I wondered why my typing teacher did not have me tested also just based on the fact that I'd been the one to see the issue and correctly diagnose it.  Coupled with the evidence of the books he watched me carrying into class and how based on them he directed me to our school library's set of the Britannica Great Books, introducing me to its syntopicon, the index to ideas, which has become an integral part of my life and of my work on my Fruits of the Spirit storyworld.  He would point at a book sitting on my desk and say "If you're reading that, you're ready for Plato or William James or one of the other philosophers that aren't such lazy thinkers."

So here is my story unfictionalized:  In sixth grade in the late sixties we were presented with a semester length project directly after the Christmas holidays.  The Term Paper.  It was broken down into manageable tasks to be completed in order and checked over by the teacher over the course of the project.  It began with field trips to the school and the public library where we were taught all the intricacies of finding sources and recording them on bibliography slips.  How to use the card catalog to find books and how to find references to magazine articles in the Reader's Guide on our topic and then fill out the slip for the librarian to take back into the magazine and newspaper archives.  Our bibliography needed to include two of each kind of resource: encyclopedia, periodical, full length book. 

The moment I comprehended the assignment I was in love.  And since I just happened to be in the middle of a 500 page footnoted tome about Jenny Lind the singer whose popularity in her era might be comparable to Celine Dion in ours that was the topic I settled on.  The whole project from start to finish was a joy.  I loved it.  Even with Mr. T. confiscating my books as fast as I could check them out.  I just patiently waited for them to be due and took them back and checked them out again. 

Except the first book had belonged to my grandmother and so I didn't get it back until after the assignment due date.  And that was the one that created the crisis in my mind that prevented me from confronting the teacher or asking my Mom to advocate for me or even telling her what had happened.  Because I was so sure I was guilty as charged.  After all it had been a teacher accusing me and a male at that and men in authority held ten times the weight of women because of the training of the cult I was raised in.

So this was Mr T's accusation: No sixth grader can write with this sophistication so either you plagiarized or your mother or big sister wrote this for you.  The fact that it is typed just reinforces my theory.  I warned the class at the beginning not to submit a typed paper unless you typed every character yourself and you cannot convince me that a sixth grader can type with this proficiency.  If you make me prove my theory by going back to examine all your resources to find the material you copied then I will make sure you fail sixth grade and do it over again next year and spend the entire summer in summer school.

Then he handed me my paper with zero markings on it other than the c/-c grade which reflected form over content or visa versa.  I just took the paper from him silently with burning red cheeks and returned to my desk swallowed up by shame.  I had done a rapid calculation of all the existing proof against his claims and of my witnesses but there was one sticking point.  That fat book that had kindled my interest in Jenny Lind that I'd started reading during the Christmas holidays and which had spent the last couple months in his desk drawer.

I'd finished the read through but I'd not finished going back through to copy out the marked passages on my note cards.  And because I was a proficient memorizer having been started on Bible verses before I could read and memorizing chapters at a time by the time I was 9, I knew how easy it was for me to hold onto chunks of text.  And because I'd read the memoir of Helen Keller not all that long ago I also knew that she had fallen into that trap as an adult and got charged with plagiarism after using some phrases belonging to someone else as her own because she had not kept good enough notes and since I had not been able to keep good enough notes on that one book it was quite possible he would find the evidence he was so sure was there if I challenged him.

I chose silence over taking that risk.

Despite knowing that my parents could vouch for the fact I'd typed every word and that I'd been typing for several years or maybe let me bring Mom's typewriter to demonstrate, and despite the fact the evidence I had been doing the work was in the outlines and notecards and drafts in my own hand that he had signed off on over the weeks and in the existence of the books he kept in his drawer.  Which books could explain the sophistication of my writing style without being proof of plagiarism.  Despite knowing for a fact that I was not guilty of conscious copying directly from the sources without quotations, just that small chance that he would find evidence of unconscious plagiarism which would be impossible to prove was unintentional was all it took to squash me.

And apparently I am still struggling with the loss of my self-confidence with my writing that was created in me that day.  And there is still a part of me that is willing to believe in the face of evidence to the contrary that a male teacher knows the truth and mustn't be challenged.  And in my mind, formed in the sixties and seventies, all editors are male.  Could this be why I've submitted a short story only once, in my early twenties, and nothing since?

 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

• Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me. Must must must watch my posture.  No hunching over.  No leaning on elbows. But the very fact that I've hung on to this YES throughout the crisis' is PROOF that I am committed to the writing and still belong in ROW80
• Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 10 minutes per day NO for over two weeks.  (The notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.) Note: I've adjusted the goal for the duration of the round to ten minutes a day with the caveat that as long as I'm sitting with notebook and pen it counts even if I don't write anything new.
• Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 10 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. NO for over two weeks  (still hoping to make this and storydreaming  my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round as I need a substantial start on it in time to use it for Preptober and NaNo next Round.)  Note: I've adjusted the goal to 10 minutes 5 days a week with the caveat that I don't need to work into the pristine spiral notebook I bought for this project yet.  The first task is to get a feel for how that notebook needs to be organized and to figure that out I will start re-reading my files with loose scratch paper or note cards at hand to note down every 'fact' I encounter as I read: names, dates, descriptions, titles of books and chapters and stories, character quirks, symbolism associated with a character...etc.  It occurred to me that my resistance to this task was at least partially related to not wanting to make a mess in that pretty notebook.  So now I have permission to make a mess with scratch pads and note cards.  Let's see if that makes any difference.  Also there is a trick I'm playing on myself here.  I almost never do a thing for only ten minutes but if I think I must do 30 minutes I balk at starting thinking of all the ways I'm likely to get interrupted or not fulfill my expectations in some unexpected way.  I realized this has to do with not being able to visualize exactly what is expected.  But I know what it means to 'read' and 'take notes'  I've been doing it with other people's stories every day for weeks and weeks.  For most of a year in fact.
• Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins. YES  I did several things that could qualify under my new rules as described last check-in.  I have found several more 24/7 cameras on interesting or exotic locals.  Two of them in Africa but their ambience is so different they could be two different planets and I've seen animas I can't even name.  Like an 'ox' with a zebra face and horns that look like upside down elephant tusks except black.  I've also been exploring the old type of screensaver I used to storydream while watching.  They are variations on color or image in flowing motion.  Think lava lamp or kaleidoscope.  I've also gone for walks in the villa cul-de-sac with my caregiver.
• A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.)  
• I want to reengage with my blog so: Two One blog post per week besides the two check-ins. Either about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews or about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  NOPE  Note: I've adjusted my expectations here for the duration of the round.  I removed the theme of personal challenge from the options as it turns out that has been the theme of my check-in posts and those take a lot out of me and a third one would be overloading my readers as well as me.

Read more...

Artist Date for Shut-Ins - ROW80 Check-In

 

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

I know I promised a deeper dive into the theme of shame and how it relates to my relationship with my writing and my work habits in my last post--last Sunday.  And I know I then blew off the Wednesday check-in.  But in order not to let this one slide as well I had to give myself permission to dodge the shame story a bit longer.  I'm trying to keep this weekend mellow.  I've slept nearly as many hours as I've been awake since Monday afternoon which I am attributing to having been riding a stress rollercoaster for over a month with the inspection and failing it, the fall and the resulting inflammation followed by med reactions then a tooth infection and more med reactions.  It might also have had something to do with the thunder storm we had Thursday morning coupled with the heatwave on either side of it.  

So this check-in I'm featuring another of my insights that isn't so loaded with the heavy baggage. 

I've made several adjustments to the 'rules' around Julia Cameron's Artist Date.  Once again my limitations make it impossible for me to fulfill Julia Cameron's criteria.  She recommends going out alone and emphasizes the tactile and I do want to get in some tactile time but I can't go out alone so I need an Artist Date I can do by myself.  But it is also not good for me as someone on the spectrum to go from being a shut-in to going on outings that shun the social.  That is especially true for an artist who is on the spectrum as we need to be strongly encouraged to be social and if we are not careful our art will reflect the lack of social insight and even the avoidance of character interaction which is usually the heart of a story.

So I'm going to include outings with my caregiver that are not about errands or chores and visits to my Mom and sister.  I'll also include the walks with my caregiver around my villa and the monthly game day at the villa Hall.  But my newest artist date 'fudge-the-rules' is the online 24/7 cameras.  I'm finding them very creatively stimulating especially with the visual stimulation I crave and from which most of my stories are born.  It is a way for me to 'see' things that I'll never get close to in real life.

I'd never seen a wart hog before my obsessive watching of this bird and wildlife glade in Poland a week or so ago.  They feature in a lot of novels I've read over the years and now I have more than a vague notion of how different they are from the typical farm pig I've actually petted on more than one occasion.  Now I have a nearly visceral concept of how they behave in the wild.  I say 'nearly' as I do realize it is through a flat screen but I saw enough to know I don't need it any more visceral than that  I would not want to be sitting at the table with one that's for sure.

I clicked to view at first for the birds but I stayed for the random surprise visits from deer, fox, squirrel, and wart hogs.  And thunderstorms!  Sometime I leave it on just to listen to the babbling brook sound as background. 

Now it has got me thinking about all the 24/7 cameras out there overlooking all sorts of interesting scenery from wild life to city life and how useful they could be for research or just for ambience for a story.  So I'm going to count them as qualifying as an Artist Date.  

 Please share in comments any links to 24/7 cams you have found interesting.  Even traffic cams, especially in iconic cities, might be useful for this purpose.  But other wildlife scenes are really calling to me right now.

  Artist Date for Shut-Ins
24/7 Forest Glade Birdfeeder in Poland

  

 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

• Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me. Must must must watch my posture.  No hunching over.  No leaning on elbows. But the very fact that I've hung on to this YES throughout the crisis' is PROOF that I am committed to the writing and still belong in ROW80
• Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 minutes per day NO for over two weeks.  (The notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.)
• Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. NO for over two weeks  (still hoping to make this and storydreaming  my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round as I need a substantial start on it in time to use it for Preptober and NaNo next Round.)  A month ago the reason was days of pain.  The following week the reason was pain and side-effects of steroid treatment for pain.  Two weeks agi it's a tooth infection going on for over a week.  Last week it was the chaos and the work around preparing for a HUD inspection under threat of eviction if I failed again. This past week was primarily about coming down off the anxiety roller coaster with an element of build up to a thunder storm as between Monday evening and Thursday morning I slept an average of 12 hours out of each day in chunks of 3 to 6 hours.  And also my caregiver and I were working extra hard to catch up on things neglected while we focused on the inspection and preparing me for a nearly 4 day stint by myself as she'd had a 3 day weekend on the schedule for months.  I'm nearing the end of that long weekend now and I've spent more than the usual time sleeping again but in between I was reading the new David James Duncan novel, Sun House, via my Libby ap.  An event for me that I've been waiting two decades for.  Because of the font size I need the book is over 5000 screens on my ap and I must finish it in another 10 days or wait months for another turn.  I'm on track having reached screen 1500 late last night.  This book is important to my FOS storyworld theme as it features a lot of reference to the spiritual in metaphor and symbol as well as referencing many of the mystics over the centuries.  It's the kind of novel I need to take notes as I read which also slows down the progress.
• Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins. YES  In two ways.  The first was going on an outing to a nearby park and sitting in the sun and the breeze and watching small children play and birds cavort and the breeze in the leaves.  Glorious.  The second was discovering and becoming addicted to the 24/7 Forest Glade bird feeder I've embedded in this post.  Also due to my being on the autism spectrum it is crucial that I force myself into social situations otherwise my stories have a chilling deficit in character interactions.  That's why I count visiting my Mom and going to the park.  So now I can look forward to more YESes on this goal.
• A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.)  Solid yes in spite of tooth infection and feeling like I have the flu.  Definitely need to up this eventually.  But right now I need at least one easy YES to keep me in this game.  --  I do believe that having kept up this goal made all the work prepping for the inspection redo possible. I discovered I could get a lot done over time in 5-15 minutes of activity interspersed with an equal amount of rest.  As long as I kept my mind on the project during the rest periods.
• I want to reengage with my blog so: Two blog posts per week besides the two check-ins. One about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews.  The other about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  NOPE  This past week it was the extra sleep that stole my usual blogging time from me.  I'm hoping that I will have recovered from riding the stress train for a month by the end of this quiet weekend.

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Puzzle on This - ROW80 Check-In

  

  

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

Things in terms of the goals are still about where they were the last two check-ins.  Still a solid YES on the morning pages and the exercise.  But NO for all the rest.  I'm hoping that is about to change as the redo inspection with my housing on the line is tomorrow and I should be able to relax off all the efforts that have gone into making sure I pass this time.  It required a complete reorganization of  a significant area of my 400sq foot unit. 

This included all three of the areas where I would perform my daily activities: reading, writing, crafting, vid watching, Internet browsing, sorting...  And that includes all the activities associated with the GOALS except Artist Date but that requires time to prepare to go out and time to travel and time to spend enjoying the activity chosen and fitting all that time into any one day in the last two weeks has been impossible.

Well I'm going to let the photo essay below of the changes say all the rest about them for now.  But before I close I want to talk a little bit about the thing I teased at the end of last check-in.  The insight that I had about my work habits while I was stacking and unstacking and restacking 22 and 11 gallon Ziplock bags full of yarn and yarn WIP.  The insight came when I realized that I was having FUN and it reminded me of something and it took me quite a while of poking at that feeling before it came clear.  It reminded me of how I would often feel when I was in the midst of a big story WIP.

That startled me as I could not immediately see any analogy and had to sit with it for some time.  Or let my mind work with it while I worked with the jigsaw puzzle I was constructing.

Ah!  Yes!  Jigsaw puzzle.  That is what my stories used to be at a certain stage--the stage I found the most exciting and the most stimulating.  More so than the putting down of the words in rows.  But, and this is a big BUT.  The words in rows had to be there before I could move them around the arena or sandbox of the storyworld.  I used to have plenty of those pieces to move around, what happened?

Well. Advice happened.  Well meaning advice from professors, other writers, agents and editors via articles and blog posts, craft books and etc.  All of those sources explained to me that what I'd been doing for the first 20 years of my writing life was called INFO DUMP and it was BAAAAAD!  Bad as in 'You should be ashamed of yourself.'

But when I stopped info dumping I lost 99% of the words in rows that became the puzzle pieces.  I didn't stop writing altogether but I started procrastinating.  I lost the joy of it.  It felt like squeezing that last 1% of toothpaste out of the tube with slippery fingers and water dripping out of your hair into your eyes.

It was no longer any fun at all.  Why?

I had to sit with that for several days before I figured it out.  It has to do with how my brain works.  As with many on the spectrum I do not do change well at all and that includes switching channels in my brain.  And every one of the elements of fiction uses a different configuration of brain networks.  I can do pages and pages or hours and hours of nearly non stop words on the screen or page of narrative, of description, of backstory, of character sketches, of character monologues, of dialog but I could not do any two at the same time without stumbling to a standstill.

Not unless I'd already prepared the sandbox with all the elements of the elements of fiction ahead of time.  The weird thing to realize is that once I was ready to write a scene I didn't need to look at the previously written pages more than a couple of times per session, if that.  That was because by then the characters had come alive in my head in 3D technicolor and they walked onto an already intricately prepared 360 degree stage and I knew each one as intimately as I knew myself.  Maybe more intimately as I seem of late to be learning that I am a stranger to myself.

So when my living, breathing characters walked on stage and started moving and talking I felt like I was doing little more than taking dictation.  But again, I would do mostly one element at a time.  Usually I began with the POV inner monologue but only for a paragraph or two then I'd switch to action which I'd choreographed in my head like a dance and I'd get the movement in place and there might be a bit of description of people or place but not much.  Meanwhile I'd been thinking about some of the things that needed to be said before the scene ended and I would write them in a chunk or two randomly squeezed between the other chunks of elements. 

But I knew I couldn't leave it like that.  Any more than you can bunch up all the C sharp in one measure of a symphony and all the B flat in another.  So I would start making multiple passes over the scene.  Each time I would move a phrase or sentence out of a chunk of description or action and match it with the line of dialog it seemed to most enhance.

And I did all of this this way before word processors on a desk were a thing.  Cut and Paste was with real scissors and real paper and real glue or tape.  And I loved every minute of it.  Until...

Until one day I read that it was a death knell to a novel to keep rewriting scenes and fussing with them, that you needed to make that first pass thru all the scenes to the magic THE END before you started the rewrite.  But writing those scenes the way I did with random info dump chunks was also a NO NO.

Oh NO.  The shame.

So I resorted to squeezing the toothpaste dregs out of a flat tube.  Until...

Until NaNo gave permission to write messy first drafts; to info dump all over the sandbox, letting the words flow like arterial blood as fast as I could move my fingers.  But at the end of each challenge I had a messy file full of words I could not find again without wading thru dreck.  By November 31 I was in no mood for a reread of all those words I'd dumped on the page willynilly according to whatever mood I was in in the moment.  There was little order to any of it.  And few glorious scenes semi-polished to point to as the heart of the story upon which to build by plugging in the puzzle pieces.

So my intuition was onto something when I devised the idea of a storyworld bible.  I just didn't understand why the colossal mess had been created in the first place.

In the next session I want to explore the shame as there was another BIG insight yesterday afternoon when I started thinking about an incident between myself and a teacher at age 12.  I thought I'd already unpacked all the baggage around this incident.  I even wrote a flash fiction piece and devoted a NaNo to developing a YA novel expanding on that.  But apparently I left some seriously stinky laundry in the bag because as I started thinking about what I planned to say in the post while I was working the stuff shuffle in my room, I found myself reliving that moment in emotional technicolor and then I was weeping.  And I couldn't stop for four hours. 

I finally reached out to my sister Jamie via fb messenger and we chatted for over an hour and she helped me sort out that it was the shame that incident imposed on me and the shame of keeping the secret.  And now in reliving it that shame was resonating with the shame of failing my housekeeping inspection and the shame of failing to keep up my ROW80 goals.  And those are just some of the layers.

Photo Essay: The New Configuration
Stuff stowed
Inspection ready
Space functional

Looking from the kitchen down the long wall showing the now nearly 9ft desk.  With my Dell laptop set up on the couch bed where I'm now working this post.

From the back of the alcove beside the table looking directly at the long wall showing 3/4 of my desk.  This configuration is only until after tomorrow's inspection.  It is because the rolling table in the middle now is directly in front of the outlet they need access to and is easier to move away than the tray table loaded down with electronics and a file box weighing down the legs.  I much prefer the two long section of the same height to be side by side.  And I prefer to be closer to the couch and the window when working on the computer.

Looking from the front door at the L desk created by the couch and 1/2 the long desk.  The Dell laptop which is my primary writing machine will be stowed on that box under the blue tray table when I'm not working on it.  That tray table is now my bedside table at night and part of the desk during the day.  That box facing out like a shelf holds my LOC talking book machine and it's cassettes.  That was one of the things that got left on the grey shelves last week and was trapped behind the table as described in last Wednesday's checkin

From the kitchen door again looking over the beanbag/tramp now sitting where the table once stood and the table where the beanbag was tho pulled two feet away from the window instead of 3in.  The cooler and it's hose attached to the window is visible and point just right so it doesn't blow directly on me when I'm sitting beside it.  But boy does it's motor kicking on and off give me a start like a kick in the ribs. I still can't crochet, read tree books or use pen and paper on the beanbag as I won't plug in my lamp until after the inspection.  So I can only use devices on batteries and only if i'm willing to hold them as there is no place to plug them in and no place to set them down.  I can watch TV tho which I couldn't do before.  I'm standing beside the TV so it is not in the picture.  Another plus is that the couch where the beanbag has to go when I use the tramp is now three steps away to the right instead of twelves steps in an L shape.

Standing beside the beanbag looking at the spot where the closet full of yarn once stood.  It is now a mishmash of things that lost their homes.  The bottom left is the plastic 3 drawer dresser full of small crochet WIP and atop that is the LOOM I bought in 2014 and have never broke out of the box.  I still want to learn to weave and every time I handle it while shuffling it from one home to another I feel a bit sad.  Beside the dresser is a stack of 3 boxes facing out like shelves and are 4 of the 8 such containing my notebooks for note taking and morning pages and rough drafting as well as those used up or partially used from the last twenty years of such scribblings.  The other four are under the table catacorner.  They used to be side by side under the table facing out into this area and I could roll to them on my chair whenever I needed something off those shelves.  I need to pull that top one off tho for the inspection as it is blocking access to that pesky outlet.  I had it on the table but put it back for the picture op.

Looking over the swapped out craft table and back edge of beanbag at the window and cooler.  So ugly and unfunctional now.  The table and the grey shelves and the stack of yarn and WIP behind the table..  I can't get to anything behind or under the table except on that one side.  To get to anything blocked by the table I need to put the beanbag on the couch and the tramp in the kitchen and pull about 10 eleven gallon Ziploc bags out from under the table and pile them beside the couch and then move the table over where the beanbag is just to get something off the shelf.  So I probably won't.  Oh how I miss my cozy nook

Read more...

Kit and Caboodle Chaos - ROW80 Check-In

 

  

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

I'm hoping to keep this essay part short and sweet.  LOL  'Yeah, right.'  I can almost hear my husband's voice drawling.  But I'm seriously motivated to be quick.  I would rather be reading and with all the time, effort and chaos devoted to the 'let's not fail the HUD inspection again' project this week I've not had time to read since Sunday and I just got my turn on the new David James Duncan novel, Sun House which I've been waiting for for over two decades.  It is nearly 800 pages or with my font size on my 10in tablet 5000 screens.  I can't wait so hopefully that will keep me succinct tonight.

So because of the project to rearrange the beanbag alcove of my unit to make room for the cooler to be moved under the window over there so it can be plugged directly into the wall, I've not been able to add the creative components of my goals yet.  But I did maintain the exercise and morning pages and the exercise one is regularly triple the goal minimum and on one day this week waaaaaaay beyond that.

Starting Tuesday morning about 9am I began gathering up and moving all the small items around my beanbag cozy nook and moving them over to the other side of the unit.  I started with the electronics and then the crochet and then the beanbag itself and the beach towel that protects it and all the blankets, shoes, slippers, socks and pillows and stuffed critters that had accumulated on around and under it.  Some of that went in the laundry the foot wear got stowed and the pillows and critters were piled on the couch along with the beanbag which is a 4ft diameter ball when fluffed and weighs 40lb. 

Then I started dealing with all the stuff stored out of sight beside and behind and under the mini-tramp and on and under the craft table that stood between the beanbag and the other side of the unit, creating that cozy nook sense.  I did all that and any other similar work I describe below in intervals of 5-15 minutes with 5=30 minute rest breaks. 

I was hoping to clear the whole alcove floor by the time my caregiver arrived at 11:30 so that she could deep clean the floor and the accordion curtain that I've never opened since I moved my stuff in and the floor had not been swept or mopped in months.  Dust bunnies and cobwebs abounded but were out of sight.  I didn't get it all moved before there were two in the unit and two in motion inside 400sq ft when one is nearly blind..... Well, I had to slow down my efforts and point them elsewhere while she finished clearing the area and did the deep clean.

Then because we were running out of her time with me that day and she was anxious that my path be cleared and my couch/bed cleared for bedtime she wanted to put it all back together in the new configuration and I agreed but as I watched I was getting super anxious.  I realized that I hadn't got all of my regularly used items off he shelf unit and now the table was pushed up against it.  And she put the stuff back under the table in such a way the the things I need regular access to were blocked by the tramp and beanbag as soon as they were in place.

 I began to plot an hour before she left that I would take it all back apart and get my books and electronic accessories off the shelves on the far wall and move some of the craft stuff to shelves that were above the level of the table and rearrange everything with an eye to its use in the new arrangement.  I thought that might take me another six hours  It took me eleven.  She left at 5pm and I finished at 4am.  And in that time I handled repeatedly all 5 22 gallon Ziploc bags of yarn and all 16 11 gallon Ziploc bags of yarn and yarn WIP.

All of those Ziploc bags had been stored in a 'closet' made of aluminum pipes covered by a flimsy cloth that had big holes ripped in it but I would have lived with that if not for the fact it sat in front of an outlet and was one of the elements of my failure to pass the inspection.  So we'd collapsed the 'closet' and stored its pieces until my anticipated move into a 1 bedroom unit for which I'm still on a waiting list.  I will cover it's frame with a sturdier cloth like maybe a queen bed set of sheets.

The most time consuming and physically challenging part of that night was dealing with those bags of yarn and WIP.  Heavy!  I had to keep sorting them into stacks and contemplating the likelihood of needing any of the contents before the cooler is winterized October 1st after which I can put it all back the way it was or manage with the pathway between the new tramp/beanbag location and the front wall clear so I can get to the yarn now stacked under the window behind the craft table which I'd pulled flush with the front end of the shelf unit leaving a 2x4 foot space behind it.

As much as I hate the chaos and discombobulation of the whole situation, I must admit that I enjoyed that project.  It was a giant jigsaw puzzle.  I loved the stimulation of handling projects and supplies for planned projects that I hadn't laid eyes on in months.  I liked the contemplation of contingency and working with the if/then flow chart in my head as I tried configurations and eliminated them and created new ones. 

The feeling in my head reminded me of how some of the tasks in the story writing process from idea thru drafting thru editing feel.  I had some insights into my work process and realized I am often trying to force my mind into someone else's idea of the 'correct' process. And thus often not counting my time and effort towards the goals because of it.  Like with NaNo not words that aren't true scene writing as one example.  I actually designed this rounds goals as a way to avoid that issue as I knew I wasn't ready for scene writing.

This train of thought led me to some really big insights but I'm saving them for Sunday's check-in.  Partly because of how late it is but mostly because I'm still playing with the concept.  But I can say it is exciting me and if it leads to a breakthrough then everything that happened in the last month was more than worth it. 

 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

• Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me. Must must must watch my posture.  No hunching over.  No leaning on elbows. But the very fact that I've hung on to this YES throughout the crisis' is PROOF that I am committed to the writing and still belong in ROW80
• Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 minutes per day NO for over two weeks.  (The notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.)
• Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. NO for over two weeks  (still hoping to make this and storydreaming  my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round as I need a substantial start on it in time to use it for Preptober and NaNo next Round.)  Three weeks ago the reason was days of pain.  The following week the reason was pain and side-effects of steroid treatment for pain.  Last week it's a tooth infection going on for over a week now.  This week is the chaos and the work around preparing for a HUD inspection under threat of eviction if I fail again.
• Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins. NOPE  Altho I must admit to being mightly stimulated creatively by handling a whole caboodle of my creative projects in craft and writing and reading as I moved their component parts around, handling some items for the first time since I placed them in the first several months after the move in 2021.
• A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.)  Solid yes in spite of tooth infection and feeling like I have the flu.  Definitely need to up this eventually.  But right now I need at least one easy YES to keep me in this game.  -- Between Tuesday morning at 9am and Wednesday at 4am I was active 5-15 at a time with 5-30 minutes rest breaks.  I do believe that having kept up this goal made that possible.
• I want to reengage with my blog so: Two blog posts per week besides the two check-ins. One about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews.  The other about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  NOPE  (I've continued to choose reading over blogging.  I've been finishing 2 to 3 books a week so there is plenty of fodder for reviews. I think the main hurdle is my personal issue with transitions that is part of my high functioning autism.  (this Last week the main reason for NO was the tooth infection with pain and flu-like symptoms including extreme fatigue.  This week it is the chaos and time involved in the prep for the inspection.

Read more...

Of Fears and Tears and Seeming Lacks and Wretched Fever Dreams - ROW80 Check-In

  

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

Wisdom in Weeping

A friend sent me that image this morning and I teared up as I read it but quickly stifled them.  I've had a complicated relationship to crying.  I was out of control between toddlerhood and age 7 when my Mom taught me how to cry silently.  That link is to a flash fiction piece I wrote in 2007 and is entirely fiction except for the scene between mother and 7 year old daughter but even that is fictionalized. The only autobiographical part is some of the aspects of the method Abigail's mother taught her for self-stifling her bawling.

I believe now that wailing I practiced as a small child was related to the undiagnosed high functioning autism.  Those of us on the spectrum have issues with modulation of mood, voice, and behaviors.

As I encountered that image I intended to give permission to the tears today but I'm just too practiced at self-distraction.  I've been wallowing in a profound discouragement all week that might have been relieved by a brief weeping session.  But the fear of it devolving into something I loose control of....  Well.  So I read.  I watch YouTube.  I play wordle.  I rearrange the virtual shelves in my ebook libraries and fixed meta data.  I crochet.  I eat.

I also started work on this post in the late afternoon and fiddled at it off and on over the evening only getting serious just after midnight.  Hmm.  I wonder if that would work on other days for other posts: start a draft at a random time when I have five minutes to fiddle with it and then come back to it as I can.... Same principle could work on the storyworld goals...   Hmmm.  Must think on this.

Wednesday's post hinted at the source of my distress and mentioned my attempted defenses against it, including seeing it as a wake up call.  But though it helped somewhat to slow the descent into the swamp it wasn't a magic wand to whisk me completely out of it's clutches.  I have to keep reminding myself that it is completely understandable and not frivolous excuses that keeps me from fulfilling my goals. 

The short version: a moderate fall a couple days after signing up for ROW80 followed by a couple weeks of moderate pain and stiffness followed by a sudden spasm in my upper back one of the areas affected by the fall which necessitated an urgent clinic visit after which I spent five days on steroids that took the pain but left behind a mood as floppy as a fish out of water that a week after the last dose is still summersaulting. 

And as if all that was not enough, the day after the last dose of prednisone I woke with a massive infection in my gums and at least two teeth which led to an urgent care visit and an antibiotic prescription that I'm on day 5 of 10.  Both antibiotics and prednisone mess with my mood and sleep.  The infection feels almost exactly like flu without the respiratory symptoms.

So why, why, why am I still feeling like a failure?  I think that feeling is more cultural than personal.  I'm wondering if it is a Western culture issue or specifically American.  Or maybe it is the engine of capitalism.  

• It is the culture of productivity at all costs with no value assigned to health until after the medical bills for fixing a crisis.  
• It is the culture of walk it off when you injure yourself.  
• It is the culture of punch the clock even when running a fever and coughing all over your colleagues and clients.  
• It is the culture of if you can't keep up then drop out of the race.  
• It is the culture of profit over caring for self or others or earth itself.  
• It is the culture of make BIG promises but if you bite off more than you can chew then you can just choke on it while your colleagues and clients laugh you away from the table. 
• It is the culture of competition that creates a million losers for every winner and anyone showing weakness will be labeled a looser.   And most players of the game are so eager to slap that label 'looser' on themselves before anyone else can to prove they know the rules of the game and are willing to abide by them as if that is going to increase their chances of eventually earning the label 'winner' which they are not allowed to bestow upon themselves.

That is the dark place my mind has gone this week.  But looked at another way, I see the potential for a decent essay or more likely for me, a story demonstrating all those points with characters interacting.  Which in a sense is one of the themes of my storyworld.  So maybe the fact that I just saw that potential means that things are not as far gone as it feels right now.

But the health issues are not the only thing going wrong this month.  In the middle of the week on prednisone I was required to submit to an annual housekeeping inspection.  I thought it had gone well and spent last weekend celebrating that being over only to find in the mail on the day I woke with the infected teeth a notification that I had failed the inspection and I had until the 21st to rectify the issues or face eviction.  That is next Monday and we are in the middle of 90-100 degree days.

The inspection failures were:

• Blocked access to several outlets
• Too many things (usb charging cords) plugged in to power strips
• The cooler is plugged into an appliance extension cord instead of directly into the wall

 The first two are fairly easy to address but the cooler issue is not.  The cooler has a 4ft cord and the nearest outlet to the window it is mounted on is six feet away.  The only solution is a MAJOR rearrange of my unit.  My caregiver is here in the afternoons in the height of the heat and we'll have to at some point turn off the cooler for as much as an hour to switch windows. 

Then the placement of the cooler is going to be behind the beanbag chair atop the mini-tramp.  See the image near the top of my last Read-a-thon post.   Which means the cooler will be blowing directly on me if I choose to sit there during the hours it needs to be on.  And it will be hard to get to the jug the tube is draining condensation into in order to dump it at least once a day. 

All of this effort for one more month of using the cooler as the HUD rules require them to be winterized by October 1.  And as I learned last year it doesn't matter if there is a heatwave at the end of September that carries over into the early days of October.  Rules are Rules and rules have no heart.

The fever dreams referenced in the title have included dreams of eviction and of my caregiver not showing up or a sub instead, fed by the fact that my caregiver's boss is pissed at her for 'stealing their clients' because I've elected to go with her as she goes independent as I MUST have the continuity and routine.  Especially now in the midst of the crisis I just described. 

As with most on the spectrum, I do not do well with change or chaos.  And before my current caregiver the agency sent me 17 new faces in the first 12 months.  And even once we all agreed this gal was a good fit because she'd had experience with clients on the spectrum, they kept messing with the schedule even mid week without notice, taking hours from me to give to another client, leaving me sitting in high anxiety waiting for the doorbell for an extra hour or conversely having a massive startle reaction to a doorbell ringing an hour early.

I don't like confrontation either and I let the state agency on aging that dispenses the money for my care give the news to the care agency.  I'd hoped avoiding knowing how they felt about it for sure but then my caregiver had an encounter with her boss on the phone that upset her and her being upset upset me. 

Don't believe it when they say we on the spectrum have no empathy.  My caregiver and I have something very like a friendship after 16 months and 'professionalism' discourages that especially with a for profit agency making the rules for both of us.  Maybe I should have ignored the signs of her distress and not asked questions and maybe she should have waved off my questions but that in the context of a caring relationship feels really heartless.  And we are back again to the theme that whenever money or productivity is in the picture the heart gets excised.  Even when the mission of the company is 'caregiving'.

That went down in the last hour of her time with me on Friday so I went into the weekend riding an anxiety bronco.  Maybe if I hadn't already been knocked for a loop by an infection and bad med reactions I could have handled it better.  But the result was two days in which sleep was short and riddled with nightmares. 

And the phenomenon that started a year ago of waking to the sound of a phantom doorbell escalated.  The sound is so real that the first time it happened I got up and opened the front door at 4am before I realized who I was let alone where and when I was.  After that first time I always waited for a second ring for confirmation of 'real' versus dream.  In the beginning it happened once a month or so and then this summer it became at least weekly or twice weekly but this weekend it was more than once a day. 

I'm sure it is related to anxiety.

I just Googled doorbell dreams.  Apparently that is a very common question as there were about 6-8 different versions of the questions as soon as I'd typed 'what does it mean when you dream'.  There were a bunch of links to spiritual meanings or dream interpretation for psychological meanings but the one that rang the most true for me was this one: Hypnogogic Hallucinations

Eeeeek.  There is already window light.  Now I will for sure have little more than a nap before needing to be awake to prepare for my caregiver's arrival.

 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

• Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me. Must must must watch my posture.  No hunching over.  No leaning on elbows. But the very fact that I've hung on to this YES throughout the crisis' is PROOF that I am committed to the writing and still belong in ROW80
• Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 minutes per day NO for over two weeks.  (The notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.)
• Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. NO for over two weeks  (still hoping to make this and storydreaming  my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round as I need a substantial start on it in time to use it for Preptober and NaNo next Round.)  Two weeks ago the reason was days of pain.  Last week the reason was pain and side-effects of steroid treatment for pain.  This week it's a tooth infection going on for a week now.
• Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins. NOPE  
• A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.)  Solid yes in spite of tooth infection and feeling like I have the flu.  Definitely need to up this eventually.  But right now I need at least one easy YES to keep me in this game.
• I want to reengage with my blog so: Two blog posts per week besides the two check-ins. One about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews.  The other about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  NOPE  (I've continued to choose reading over blogging.  I've been finishing 2 to 3 books a week so there is plenty of fodder for reviews. I think the main hurdle is my personal issue with transitions that is part of my high functioning autism.  (this week the main reason for NO is the tooth infection with pain and flu-like symptoms including extreme fatigue.

Read more...

Wake Up Call - ROW80 check-in

  

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

With a timeline like this it is hard not to see self-sabotage or a very unserious intention and then feel like I don't belong in ROW80:

• Two weeks ago: The hiccup of excruciating pain in neck and between shoulder blades.
• Last week: "The pain that was last week's hiccup has lessened but it remains easily triggered.  The main issue since Wednesday tho has been the dose of prednisone messing with my head and bio rhythms.  15 years after menopause and I swear I just went through PMS on steroids.  HaHaHa  Pun totally intended.  For most of everyday since Wednesday I've had the mind of a butterfly in the body of a toddler n a bouncy chair who suddenly falls asleep in the middle of a giggle.  Those are the afternoons.  The evenings my body and mind calm down.  All. The. Way. Down.  All the way to Zen.  Now I'm the gecko that's watching the butterfly but has forgotten why it matters.  And sleep?  What's that?."
• This week: Tooth infection.  Feeling flu-like symptoms and then side-effects of antibiotics.

I've decided to classify that thot in the category of fever-dream.  It sounds too much like Stella my inner harpy.  She needs a chill pill and I need some self-compassion aka Grace which was meant to be my watchword for 2023.

Self-sabotage might fit in a sense that is not directly related to the writing goals.  All of the issues that developed into crisis the last two weeks are due to long term neglect of my health and the fact that my body does not bounce back or moderate consequences as easily as it did a decade ago.

Thus what has been happening can be interpreted as a wake-up call.  Lessons I might acknowledge:

• You are not a kitten on springs.  Learn fall prevention
  
• Don't wait a month after a fall to get checked out
• Don't let bad teeth fester for years because of a dentist phobia.
  
• Remember how close a pus filled tooth socket is to the brain! 
• My body is a necessary component of any goals and cannot be divorced from the writing goals requirements.  
• The body rules as it can prosper without the writing but the writing cannot prosper without the body.

 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

• Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me. Must must must watch my posture.  No hunching over.  No leaning on elbows. But the very fact that I've hung on to this YES throughout the crisis' is PROOF that I am committed to the writing and still belong in ROW80
• Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 minutes per day NO for over ten days.  (The notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.)
• Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. NO for over ten days  (still hoping to make this and storydreaming  my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round as I need a substantial start on it in time to use it for Preptober and NaNo next Round.)  Two weeks ago the reason was days of pain.  Last week the reason was pain and side-effects of steroid treatment for pain.  This week it's a tooth infection.
• Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins. NOPE  (tho since any excuse to get out of this 400sq foot unit might qualify as stimulation for creativity... there was the visit to urgent care on Tuesday.  But I don't think that is what Julia Cameron had in mind)
• A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.)  Solid yes in spite of tooth infection and feeling like I have the flu.  Definitely need to up this eventually.  But right now I need at least one easy YES to keep me in this game.
• I want to reengage with my blog so: Two blog posts per week besides the two check-ins. One about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews.  The other about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  NOPE  (I've continued to choose reading over blogging.  I've been finishing 2 to 3 books a week so there is plenty of fodder for reviews. I think the main hurdle is my personal issue with transitions that is part of my high functioning autism.  (this week the main reason for NO is the tooth infection with pain and flu-like symptoms including extreme fatigue.

Read more...

Bouncy Toddlers Chasing Butterflies - ROW80 Check-In

 

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

The pain is less but still a significant factor as it is easily triggered in unpredictable ways.  A bigger factor was how the Prednisone dose affected me.  I described it inside the goals list and now I wish I'd saved it for the essay part as the title referent is down there.  But I'm too tired to move it now.  Even if I wasn't so tired I'm pushing the limit on how long I can maintain this posture without triggering the pain again.  Both sustained typing and sustained handwriting have triggered it in the last three days.  Not nearly to the extent of the scary one last Monday but no need to tempt it.



 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

• Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES In fact I just passed a milestone by filling the first spiral notebook.  70 pages both sides.  Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me. Must must must watch my posture.  No hunching over.  No leaning on elbows.
• Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 minutes per day Not since Sunday  (Until about ten days ago, lots of storydreaming. No notebook.  I'd misplaced the one I used to use for this and was reluctant to start a new one but I think I need to be less fussy.  The notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.  I found the notebook. So.  No excuses left. Return of the pain is a legit excuse maybe?)
• Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. NOT since last Sunday (still hoping to make this and storydreaming  my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round as I need a substantial start on it in time to use it for Preptober and NaNo next Round.  The pain that was last week's hiccup has lessened but it remains easily triggered.  The main issue since Wednesday tho has been the does of prednisone messing with my head and bio rhythms.  15 years after menopause and I swear I just went through PMS on sterioids.  HaHaHa  Pun totally intended.  For most of everyday since Wednesday I've had the mind of a butterfly in the body of a toddler n a bouncy chair who suddenly falls asleep in the middle of a giggle.  Those are the afternoons.  The evenings my body and mind calm down.  All. The. Way. Down.  All the way to Zen.  Now I'm the gekko that's watching the butterfly but has forgotten why it matters.  And sleep?  What's that?.)
• Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins. NOPE 
• A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.  even wit the pain returning I was able to maintain this easy level and I think it helped moderate the pain tho when you get in the range of excruciating I'm not sure what 'moderate' might mean)
• I want to reengage with my blog so: Two blog posts per week besides the two check-ins. One about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews.  The other about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  NOPE  (I've continued to choose reading over blogging.  I've been finishing 2 to 3 books a week so there is plenty of fodder for reviews. I think the main hurdle is my personal issue with transitions (part of my high functioning autism) it is hard to change the channels in my head which translates to: hard to switch from awake to asleep and back again.  hard to switch from dry to wet and back (think swimming and showers). Forgetting to eat and then forgetting to stop eating.  Really it is any activity including topics on my mind. Except for reading NF books.  For some reason I'd rather read one chapter each in ten books in one sitting then read ten chapters in one book.  Odd that.  I wonder why switching channels is preferable in that one instance.  Is it just the fact that it is all reading and uses all the same neuropaths and I don't have to get up and move to another location but even if I happen to I can still switch to a different book without a glitch?  These are not idle questions.  This is an example of the self-reflection I've talked about in earlier posts.  Questions like these often lead to insights I can plug back into my life in another context and increase my success.  (even reading has diminished this week.  That is partly because when I manage to get into a story far enough to lose awareness of the pain I'm suddenly too sleepy to keep reading. Update: I did get my reading back Friday evening and every evening since beginning 12 hours after the Prednisone dose.  Even increased my reading speed significantly and am really going to miss that if it was an artifact of the steroid that will go the way of the mood swings now that I've had my last dose.  But between last weekend and this one I read the entire Stephen King Mr Mercedes Trilogy.  I'd planned to stretch those out over the several months before the release of his new Holly novel as Holly was a secondary character in that trilogy and in the more recent The Outsider.  The character, Holly is obviously on the spectrum tho King never names it as such but it's obvious that's what is going on with her.  Now he has given her a whole novel as POV protagonist.  I can't wait.  For obvious reasons.  I still have The Outsider tho but I'm going to wait at least a week and maybe longer to pick it up as I got behind on my Libby and Kindle NF lineups and Libby novels that have wait lists)

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Let's Call This a Hiccup - ROW80 Check-In

 

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2023

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

This week is full of hiccups.  Or maybe hiccup is just another word for life.

The only two goals I held onto a full YES for are daily morning pages and daily physical activity.  I pulled a zero on all the rest.  I wasn't even able to go into my project on the NaNo site to update my progress to reflect what I had managed to accomplish before midnight Monday so it sits untouched since the day I created it so it looks like a complete failure. 

But I know better.  I hadn't been keeping it updated because the work I was doing was with my existing paper files--notebooks and printed manuscripts and loose papers.  So I hadn't been logging onto my new Dell which is still exclusively my writing computer where the NaNo site was one of the few tabs open on my browser.  I expected to spend the same hours on Monday evening as I had been on Sundays and Wednesday's on the check-in to make the update at NaNo but I woke in pain again Monday morning and it kept ramping up. 

Then immediately after morning pages I found an email from my care provider agency stating that my caregiver had called out on a family emergency.  I was immediately in a panic because I had a doctor appointment that afternoon set two weeks earlier about the issues from the fall last month.  A few back and forths established that my caregiver would call from her phone to reschedule my appointment and eventually I learned it was now for Tuesday afternoon. 

After that I had to deal with getting through a third day in a row as a shut-in who can't safely shower while alone in the unit or use knives or the stove or oven.  I have a toaster oven, microwave and electric tea kettle that can get me far if the items going in have been prepped for me.  But I'd made a significant dent in the fresh prepped food so I was going to have to get creative with canned or frozen.

What I missed the most after two days was the shower.  It was especially hard since one of my goto for pain relief is a hot shower.  But being in pain in itself made getting in and out of the tub an unsafe task while home alone.  And forget about maneuvering around a slippery tub reaching for this and that and getting soap and water in my eyes etc.  I almost never need any help but the risk is too high to take as the moment something did happen and nobody was there within earshot I'd really be in a fix.  And Monday, one of the things that exacerbated the pain was lifting my right arm above my lower ribs.  So forget about a shampoo.

The pain had been just above moderate all day Sunday and is always above moderate when I first wake so I wasn't too surprised Monday morning to have stiffness and cricks in my neck again.  I set about my morning pages as usual and towards the end of the exercise (which was double the typical time because I kept zoning out) I raised up from the hunched position over the page where I'd been resting my elbows on the edge of the table just like when I was eight and I reached for my thermos and there was the first twinge between my shoulder blades. 

I noticed that my grip on the thermos felt odd almost illusory.  And then I lift it to my face and tilted my head back and I gasped and almost dropped it. I missed my mouth.  It slopped a bit of scalding hot coffee on my chin.  Not much but I flinched and that set reverberations thru my ribcage.  

It was so unexpected.  I'd been watching the symptoms from the fall slowly recede for ten days.  Most of what had been the worst from the first day--the bruised and skinned knee, the golf ball sized lump in my belly just below my left rib from landing on my cane handle, the wrenched wrist from having said handle ripped from my grip, the bruise on the muscle below my right elbow--all of these had dissipated to almost nothing in the last week.  The only thing that remained was the pesky neck pain which was mostly mild by afternoon but continued to create a challenge to a good night's sleep as it seemed no position conducive to sleep for me was good for a limber, pain free neck.  It was when I started noticing tingling in the fingers of my left hand that I finally agreed to make the doctor appointment.  But even that had not made a conscious appearance in nearly a week.  So this incident Monday morning took me by surprise.

The pain escalated quickly from that first attempt at raising the thermos.  My next move was to put the thermos back down and I noticed the pain had moved from my neck to a spot between my shoulder blades.  Not that it left my neck but something about motions of my head triggered the pain between my shoulder blades.  And that pain was much worse then the neck pain.  And continuous whereas the pain in my neck was only when it was in motion or in the wrong position on the pillow.  Also triggering it was a deep inhale as was sitting up straight.  And as I was about to learn, so did attempting to stand up since that entailed putting both hands on the arms of my wheeled office chair and pushing down to lift my butt out of the seat.

OH.  BOY.  BIG MISTAKE. 

I almost stumbled and shoved the chair out from under me.  I don't know how I managed to land my butt back in the seat as it rolled backwards until it rested against the couch.  I had no choice but to try again to get stood up.  My bladder rules the roost in the mornings after the input of all that coffee and water.  I knew better than to use my right arm to push up so I tried instead to use a little bit of push with my left arm.  That still hurt my back and neck but not nearly to the degree the use of the right arm did.  With the chair up against the couch it didn't roll again and I was able to lean my head out past my knees and push off gently with my left arm.  A tricky move since I could have ended up diving headfirst into the hard floor.  But it worked.

For the first time in over a week I was glad I had a doctor appointment.  Tho I was wondering how I was going to get ready for it if this was the new reality.  It wouldn't have been my first choice to return to that chair but I had not been able to check my email before I left and so I did.  And that's when I learned I was on my own for another full 24 hours.

It was a a challenge but I made it.  With the help of nsaids--naproxin for the daytime and ibuprophen for the night.  Ibuprophin always makes me sleepy unless I'm caffeinated.  Thus missing the close of NaNo Monday night.

I'd also developed another odd symptom before noon Monday that did not resolve until while I was asleep Monday night.  That was episodes of intense burping.  The burps themselves were painful but when I resisted them the pressure in my ribcage just became excruciating.  I even began to wonder if I was having a heart attack.  And I wondered if the fresh fruit I'd added to my morning yogurt cup had turned over the weekend.  But that mystery was solved by the doctor the next day.  Apparently when we are in pain we swallow the air bubbles that accumulate under our tongue.

I came out of the doctor visit with a prescription for prednisone.  But he suggested I wait until morning as it was likely to keep me awake.  And he suggested I use ice and heat and menthol gel along with nsaids until then.  An hour after I took the ibuprophen Tuesday evening I was falling asleep so I went with it.  I woke at 4am pain free and taking deep breaths again.  But I knew that after the previous two days, six hours of sleep was not enough so I lay there waiting to either fall asleep again or see light in the window. 

I slept again until almost 9 this morning.  But something startled me awake.  I don't know if I was already in pain again or if it was the startle reaction that had me pushing my whole body weight up off the bed with my right arm that triggered a new cycle.  But this morning was almost a repeat of Monday morning.  But this time I did not wait all day to take the first nsaid.  I took naproxin an hour after taking the prednisone.  I even took ibuprophen with my second thermos of coffee four hours later.

My caregiver arrived at 12:45 with the news that she had a doctor appointment at 2:30 so we did not have until 5pm but rather had less than 90 minutes to get the most important stuff done.  I'm immediately in a panic again because tomorrow is my annual HUD housekeeping inspection which we'd been preparing for for three weeks but we had not been able to do much since Friday with all the crisis going on for both of us. The big thing remaining to do was clean the oven.  But that on top of the daily chores--washing dishes and putting them away, prepping my food for the evening. sweeping and mopping the floors,  and also a deep clean of the bathroom but not until after I got a shower and shampoo.

In the time it took me to shower and shampoo and rest after with an icepack under my spine between my shoulder blades until it got warm and then get up and dress--in other words in approximately an hour and fifteen minutes she had cleaned the oven, did the dishes, wiped the counters, left the sink sparkling, swept and mopped all the floors, cleaned up the bathroom, and made a chicken salad from scratch including taking the meat off the rotisserie chicken I had her pick up for me at Safeway when she picked up the prescription the night before as there wasn't going to be time for food prep after that.

After she left, I was antsy.  I felt the anxiety about the inspection rising.  I couldn't sit still.  I kept looking around at all the clutter.  None of it the responsibility of my caregiver and none of it probably decisive in the inspection.  Just embarrassing.  I began a methodical walk around the unit starting at the back door in the kitchen.  Not much to do in there as that is more my caregiver's domain on the days she is here.  It just needed a few tweeks.  One of them was to tape up out of the way the extra length of cord on the super bright LED lamp clipped to the toaster oven shelf where it can shine on the counter below or the sink to the left.  The cord had come loose awhile back and I keep snagging items in it.  That was something I should have done weeks ago.  It felt good to see it done and know I wouldn't keep snagging my thermos, carafes and utensils on it any more.

From there I wandered around the living area where my bed/couch and office area is bounded also by the craft table which was now covered in clutter related to eating, drinking, pain management and three purses I'd been shuffling things between for weeks as every outing seemed to entail a different outfit and purses need to match right? 

My eyes fell on the back of the door which my caregiver had suggested might be frowned upon by the inspectors for being too loaded with bags and jackets on the series of hooks. Enough so it won't open all the way.   I started there.  Five minutes later three winter coats were stashed in the hall closet and a travel bag for hanging clothes that I'd brought over from Mom's and emptied months ago was rolled up and stashed under the decorative pillows along the wall on my bed.

The next area I tackled was my desk.  I described the state it was in in a previous check-in. The key was to take one item at a time and walk it to it's home and put it away.  The rule was no sitting down nor standing in one place for more than two minutes. That's because getting up out of that chair was still a pain trigger as was standing in place.  Another rule: Pick up one item at a time and identify it and whether it has a designated home or not.  If yes then put it or take it there.  If not then designate a temp home to get it out of sight.  In that way one by one, every paper, pen, pencil. fidget toy, notebook, ripped envelope, junk mail, protein bar wrapper, ear bud, dead battery that covered a 20 inch by 5 foot surface was dealt with in less than an hour.

I just hope I can remember where the temp homes are and what is in them before I need the items stashed like that.

I went next to the craft table.  Which is a table that is tall and needs bar stools to sit at but I keep the two chairs on the porch as I never use this table for sit down tasks.  It is sometimes a standing desk and sometimes a craft table but usually it too is an archeology dig of my previous several weeks.  I used the same principles and cleared off all but the items meant to live on that table.  I even sorted out all three purses and settled on the one that 'goes' with the most of my outfits for going out--the blue suede one--and I loaded it down with the usual suspects and emptied the other two and hung all three where they belonged on the back of the front door which now had room for them.

All of this I did while still in pain tho I made sure I was not exacerbating it.  It seemed even that I was noticing it less by staying engaged in this task.  Or maybe by staying in motion I was remaining more limber.  I don't know.  But the thing I noticed the most was that my anxiety had more than halved.  And I know that anxiety can create and exacerbate a pain cycle.

So did my anxiety lessen because I was doing something to address the dreaded inspection?  Or did it lessen simply because I was doing something?

I will be so glad when the inspection is over.  The notice says to expect them between 8am and 4pm.  Well if they come before 9 they will be pulling me out of bed and they will have non-verbal Joy.  And if they come after noon there will probably be a dish or three in the dishpan.  Unless I hide them in the fridge. 

I will be on my own for this too as my caregiver's doctor has ordered her off her leg for at least a day.  A bee sting Monday evening had caused swelling and pain that was increasing.  I hope she is back on Friday as we did not get this week's grocery shopping done and that has to precede the meal prep to see me through Monday afternoon.

I'm hoping for that too because I often go sit with my 90 year old mom while my caregiver is shopping for me and I haven't seen mom for two weeks now.  I put my care service on notice that I will need a sub if my regular is still not available on Friday but if it is a sub I will have to go with them as I won't send my card with someone I've known less than a month.  Which means no visit with Mom.

Well this is me, telling a story.  I set out to tell this one not sure how much detail I would go into but consciously choosing to tell it as honestly as I could after deciding that it was appropriate for a check-in because this is my life--an example of a life ROW80 claims to have been created to accommodate.

This is also the life that I need to accommodate my goals to.  And to do that I need to see it clear and learn to develop reasonable expectations as well as notice when I could be making different choices in spite of my challenges and thus can reasonably raise my expectations.

The success I am pointing to isn't in the measurable goals this time but I've decided that is OK.  At least to the extent that I am not allowed to shame myself for not measuring up.  But there is a success and it is significant.  Perseverance.

And a big plus was getting that desk uncluttered.  Now it is ready for the storyworld bible project to be spread across it.  Probably not until Friday night or Saturday tho.  I've already said how busy the next two days are but there is also the fact that the pain cycle Monday seemed to be triggered by being hunched over that desk for an hour.  I am hoping that the prednisone has kicked in by Friday or at least Saturday. 

Meanwhile I will give myself grace on the goals.  Unless there is significant improvement on the pain front I do not expect much improvement on the goals by Sunday night.  But I am open for surprises.


 ROW80 Round 3 Goals:

• Morning pages daily.  Average 40 minutes (ala Julia Cameron The Artist Way and Writing For Life) YES In fact I just passed a milestone by filling the first spiral notebook.  70 pages both sides.  Started May 20.  Probably would not have jumped into NaNo and ROW80 without having had a month of morning pages behind me.
• Storydreaming with notebook for noting ideas for characters or scenes. (ala Robert Owen Butler From Where You Dream)  30 minutes per day Not since Sunday  (Until about ten days ago, lots of storydreaming. No notebook.  I'd misplaced the one I used to use for this and was reluctant to start a new one but I think I need to be less fussy.  The notebook is the key to this goal as without it the storydreams go to the same place night dreams go an hour after waking.  I found the notebook. So.  No excuses left. Return of the pain is a legit excuse maybe?)
• Working on the Fruits of the Spirit (aka FOS) Storyworld Bible at least 30 minutes per day at least 5 days per week.  I'm sure this will expand as I get involved but I need to set a minimum for that jumpstart. NOT since Sunday (with pain level back to normal background hum and the Reverse Thon in the rearview I will make this and storydreaming the high priority for the rest of Camp NaNo.  They are the core after all.  The rest are support.  Well Camp NaNo is over in 24 hrs and i'm not going to hit the milestones I pictured nor fulfill the 11K word count I established in my Camp NaNo project specs but I'm still pleased with the start I've made and the storyword bible will continue as my ROW80 main project for the remainder of this round.  Oh I just realized that the 2x I reported last Wednesday plus the 3x I just reported add up to 5 which is actually a fulfillment of the stated goal of at least 5x a week. Return of the pain put a hiccup in this again.)
• Weekly Artist Date (ala Julia Cameron)  This is about doing something to recharge your creative battery.  I'll go into more detail in one of the check-ins. NOPE (not unless you count a doctor appointment and I sure don't)
• A minimum of 5 minutes of physical activity daily.  Either a walk outside with my caregiver or a session on my mini-tramp, or pacing the floor between front and back door. YES (may need to look at upping the expectation soon.  this is getting too easy.  even wit the pain returning I was able to maintain this easy level and I think it helped moderate the pain tho when you get in the range of excruciating I'm not sure what 'moderate' might mean)
• I want to reengage with my blog so: Two blog posts per week besides the two check-ins. One about encountering other people's stories via print, video or audio which can include formal reviews.  The other about a current fiber art WIP or about one of my personal challenges: widowhood, independent living with visual impairment and autism and issues related to health and aging among them.  NOPE  (I've continued to choose reading over blogging.  I've been finishing 2 to 3 books a week so there is plenty of fodder for reviews. I think the main hurdle is my personal issue with transitions (part of my high functioning autism) it is hard to change the channels in my head which translates to: hard to switch from awake to asleep and back again.  hard to switch from dry to wet and back (think swimming and showers). Forgetting to eat and then forgetting to stop eating.  Really it is any activity including topics on my mind. Except for reading NF books.  For some reason I'd rather read one chapter each in ten books in one sitting then read ten chapters in one book.  Odd that.  I wonder why switching channels is preferable in that one instance.  Is it just the fact that it is all reading and uses all the same neuropaths and I don't have to get up and move to another location but even if I happen to I can still switch to a different book without a glitch?  These are not idle questions.  This is an example of the self-reflection I've talked about in earlier posts.  Questions like these often lead to insights I can plug back into my life in another context and increase my success.  (even reading has diminished this week.  That is partly because when I manage to get into a story far enough to lose awareness of the pain I'm suddenly too sleepy to keep reading.)

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