to-do

function never met her

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so i’ve gradually realized that i like, can’t use to-do lists anymore, and possibly i never really truly could, but i used to have enough structure in my life to kind of bumble through them anyway. but by now i literally do not have enough brain-scaffolding left to squeeze any function out of lists, and it is absolutely just every bit as maddening as you’d think.

i can only accomplish things if i can remember them, basically, and memory aids like notes are only so useful.

So anyway I’m writing myself stories about the things I have to get done, that’s what I’m reduced to now. (The problem with lists is that you can put anything on a list, and there is an enormous disconnect between being able to list an item and being realistically able to accomplish that item, and trying to expand from lists to schedules runs into the problem that I have no realistic notion of how long anything fucking takes, and a big complicating factor in that is that I never can anticipate how much executive function and effort a task will require. Saying “make doctor’s appointment” might as well be “walk on the moon” in terms of how realistic it is for me to accomplish that. Oh, have I been evaluated for ADHD? No, put it on the list immediately after “split the atom” because it’s just as likely I’ll do that, and I have exactly as much idea how I’d go about doing either of those two tasks.)

Anyway. I have a shitload of things to acquire for the new kitchen, and tasks I could begin to do about moving in to the parts that are done, and I also have to go grocery shopping, and I suspect that it’s too much to do in one day but I’m going to try, and the way I’m going to try is by writing myself a little story about what I’m going to do today, and try to be realistic about how long things will take and what time that means it will be and thus what bodily needs and otherwise-already-scheduled things will have to happen in that time frame.

…. ok the first thing i have to do is to convince the cat not to nap on me because i super don’t have time for her to do that all morning. (Your picture was not posted)

ok lol

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after all that i didn’t actually tell myself the story of what i have to do today

you see the hubris. i was like “i have described the problem huzzah” check a thing off the list move on.

part of the thing i was describing was how lists don’t work for me. so like. in the text of that post was me explaining that i had to do a thing in order to function. and then. then! i didn’t do that thing.

ok so today what do i have to do! a lot of it i have already done on sheer momentum but now i have been stymied by something and have to regroup.

i have to load and run the dishwasher, check!

i have to put in a load of laundry, check!

i have to go over to my own house, bringing a number of items which i had for traveling but which should not wind up at dude’s mom’s house, check!

I am going to bemusedly greet the electrical inspector for the town, who was supposed to be rescheduled and not come today, and give him a little tour of the things the electrician said weren’t ready to be inspected, and he’s going to say oh yes, I see what he was going for, he’s done a lot of stuff already, isn’t this nice, well I’ll be back, have him call me when he’s done those two things he didn’t get to, everything else looks really good. This will derail me a bit, but I will persevere.

whilst at the house, i am going to cut out fabric to make my own not-quite-floorcloth to go under the microwave, since i want to put something there before i do anything else, and i hate the paltry shelf-liner offerings actually in stock anywhere in town, and i am too decision-paralysised to actually buy anything online rn. check! (finished measurements will be 26.5x23". I found enough white canvas for this, and have soaked and ironed it in accordance with the tutorial, but i am going to paint it and then sew it to an unpainted backing, which I hope will protect the shelf surface, as I don’t need this shelf to be grippy since it’s just to protect the painted surface from the microwave and whatever winds up next to it. So the backing is an old mostly-polyester sheet, somewhat pilled with wear, because i know that won’t be slippery but also won’t scratch the surface.)

I was going to then prime this canvas, but I don’t… have any primer? This is false, I know I do, but damned if I know where it would be. I have to stop by a hardware store for paint chips and polyurethane anyway, so now I guess I’ll get some primer. I don’t think I need art store primer for this at all.

i have terrible acrylic craft paints but i am not trying to do anything wildly sophisticated. in fact i’m not sure what i’m trying to do. actually i could get little sample pots of a couple of the colors i’m considering at the hardware store, paint smallish swatches on the wall, and then paint this cloth with the leftovers, LOL. That might actually be the thing to do???

Dude might be annoyed if I’m swatching without even having consulted with him but 1) i know what he likes and 2) he’s so busy rn he won’t even put his plate in the dishwasher or talk to me about what groceries to buy so like, he doesn’t have the energy to care, and anyway you can just paint right back over swatches and in fact I will do so, so whatever. Possibly the swatches will just give him something to disagree with but when you are as fatigued-in-general as he is, often that is the best way to get a decision made!

(heck what if i painted the whole shelf liner cloth a gradient between two of the adjacent swatch colors and then stenciled a doily over it in metallic gold that’d be a pretty sick shelf liner pattern)

ANYWAY the story of what else i have to do today is that i also have to go to the grocery store. so if i manage both the grocery store and the hardware store before noon i’m gonna be the fucking champion of the fucking world i tell you what. but that is my goal. i should do the hardware store first so the groceries don’t have to sit in the car and get warm but that feels contrary because the grocery store is more urgent. but no, i’m going to do the hardware store first because i am a little bitch and can do what i want. and i won’t forget the groceries after that. (famous last words, stay tuned to see if i do) (Your picture was not posted)

Writing q: do you/did you ever feel like there’s a

make things

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i've got an analogy for you.

before i started writing, i was really into baking. back then i was not only a perfectionist but an extremist. i believed that REAL baking meant using the rawest possible ingredients. the idea of store-bought puff pastry or pie crusts was appalling to me.

and every year i baked a pumpkin pie for thanksgiving. to bake the pumpkin pie, i had to go out at early o'clock in the morning on a saturday to my local farmer's market and pick out the most perfect pumpkins. and i don't know if you've ever baked pumpkin pie with real pumpkins but it takes a long damn time. and it's hard. and so i baked the pumpkins for hours and scraped out the innards and made a puree, and i roasted the seeds for a snack. and amid all that, i made the crust from scratch too.

the pie always turned out! so i kept making it that way. until one year i just wasn't up to the task, and instead swallowed my pride and bought canned pumpkin and a premade crust.

and it tasted exactly the same as the pie that took me an entire day to make. it was also much cheaper, because in our era of industry, the processed stuff has become more affordable than the raw stuff unless you grow it yourself. (and believe me, i wanted to.)

the only difference i could discern was in the texture, because canned pumpkin is pureed more than i could puree real pumpkin. canned pumpkin also has other kinds of gourds in it, but that doesn't really affect the taste. i also felt bad for not supporting my local farmers. but it was worth it to be able to bake a pie from start to finish in 90 minutes.

for so many years i had it in my head that if a process is harder, the result is better. it was that mentality that kept me in a job i hated for a long time. it's hard and i don't like it, therefore it's more serious and respectable. it was unconscionable to me to think that something fun and easy could result in something good.

when you're writing fanfiction or anything where you're relying on the audience's knowledge of something else (like tropes), you can get it in your head that it's inherently easier and therefore worse. and because it's a skill, in order to become better at it, you have to challenge yourself. to challenge yourself, you have to make it harder.

but you're making something. you're putting words on a page in formations that have never existed before. that's hard, period. you don't have to make it harder. your readers will value it regardless of the challenge you give yourself. every thanksgiving, my family just appreciated that i had baked a pie. they didn't care how i'd baked it or what ingredients i used. yes, the longer and more difficult process created a product i was more proud of than the shorter, easier process. but you can't taste pride.

this is something i have to remind myself of all the time, because my instinct is to make everything more difficult than it has to be. you're always going to be your own worst critic, in part because you're the only one who knows your own process and the blood, sweat, and tears you put into it. but ultimately, nobody cares about the pumpkins. all they want is the pie.

naryrising https://naryrising.tumblr.com/post/733812440966561792/writing-q-do-youdid-you-ever-feel-like-theres-a :

This is a really good point! I'd like to continue the baking metaphor for a moment if I may...

Think of something like a macaron or a meringue. They are light, small, fluffy little desserts. They can be eaten in one bite. They're also very hard to do well and it's easy to mess them up so that they come out cracked or brittle or soggy or just not quite right.

Meanwhile, someone can make a cake with a boxed mix and can of frosting and it can be big and impressive, but it doesn't take much skill (and probably tastes like 500 other cakes out there.)

Just because something is big or heavy or dense doesn't make it harder to do, or more worthy of appreciation. An excellently executed piece of fluff takes skill, and it's silly to denigrate something that is small and light for being small and light. A macaron isn't a layer cake, but sometimes it's perfectly satisfying. (Your picture was not posted)