Using the phone generally makes me so anxious I shake. I’m now using 5Calls, though, because daily superhero work doesn’t have to fray me at the edges so badly. So, if you have phone anxiety, like me, and also want to make a difference–again, like me!–I recommend checking it out.
The weekend was all about proof pages for Cormorant Run, hauling compost to all the garden boxes (shovelgloving saved my back, I’ll just say that much) and washing Odd Trundles since it wasn’t cold enough outside to justify letting him marinate longer.
Oh, yeah, and watching the attempted coup and concomitant constitutional crisis. We are living in interesting times, indeed. A rug-headed pig-eyed Cheeto with a Russian dictator’s hand up his rump–and a Nazi on record as wanting to destroy America running his National Security Council–is already killing people. It’s only going to accelerate from here, my friends.
I am clinging to hope by finger-and toenails. We outnumber the fascists by an order or two of magnitude. History’s gaze is upon us, and I intend to give the bitch a good show. It’s kind of funny to realize that every book I’ve ever written has been training for fighting evil, training for radical empathy, training for putting my head down and doing the goddamn work to make things better, to create a world. Often, looking at the news, I feel helpless, but then someone writes to tell me I’ve given them hope and my heart turns into a flower. Or someone writes to tell me they’re never buying my books again because of my politics, and I think, well, if you have problems with me calling a fascist a fucking fascist, I’m glad your grubby little authoritarian fingers won’t sully pages I’ve slaved over and bled for, fuckyouverymuch and goodnight.
There’s a lot of the latter going on.
So this week it’s back to the grindstone, making my calls every day, and if I get a certain number of wordage in, hitting up a yarn store. I feel the need for a pussy hat. And knitting might help keep me from imploding in a black hole of despair, too.
Use what you have, I guess. Here’s your regular daily reminder that this shit is not normal, your feelings are valid, and together we are stronger than any tiny-handed dictator.
Over and out.