Normalise being productive as the thing that rarely happens, please

I’m having one of those weeks where focusing on getting into pyjamas at 5pm on Friday is what’s kept me trucking. That’s usually the day Netflix burden us with absolute trash and the rare gem. On Monday, I switched the morning dial to Marty in the Morning. I usually listen to Morning Ireland but considering the US election dragged us all into it, current affairs and I need a break. When another story emerges, bony green skeleton hands climbing out from a swamp, I am the frantic manager who applies eye makeup at her desk and when a junior colleague comes to her with a problem says, with a sigh that could kill all the white noise in a building, “Not now. Give me fifteen minutes.” And then I put my forehead on the table. At this stage, I’m starting to wonder was I at the golf supper?

Also, I seemed to have misplaced my hot pink diary. Which was stuffed with a few documents I sort of, very much, need. Maybe I subconsciously lost it for a few weeks to make sure I could procrastinate further. I once read an article in Women’s Health magazine and it had a line, “procrastination kills”, and then lead into what stress does to the heart and how heart disease is a leading cause of death for women in various countries. The article was insane. Reading it was like someone telling you, “I had a dream last night and you died in it.” Why are you doing this to me? Good news, I found the book in a folder of notes for a project. Mediocre news, finding it didn’t see me ascending to some sort of higher consciousness.

In recent years, it’s become acceptable to respond to someone’s cry of “I’m so busy” with an iron bar swing of “we’re all busy”. That’s it, conversation closed, how dare you imply you’re distressed when I too am one of the arms pushing the wheel of capitalism. I hate that. Let people say they’re up the walls. If someone saying they’re not exactly coping as well as they usually do sets you off, I hope you know that giving them the space to complain and bemoan means you too can join in. Actually, I think when we’re on the same fuckitfuckthem page that revolution happens? I took a module in the history of criminal law and that’s the Cliff’s Notes version of what I took from the lead up to the French Revolution.

I was watching dogs in one of the parks near me - which now has three cycle paths framing and running through it, don’t talk to me - and I thought how lovely it is that dogs all acknowledge each other. I mean, sometimes they want to rip the throats out of their fellow canines, but anything’s better than indifference, I suppose.

Various links for you to ignore:

One cool thing I’m doing today? Speaking at this event about bias in women’s healthcare. One of my slides has some romance/romance-adjacent novels on it. Register at that link. It starts at 11am.

This article on ethical consumerism, why rich people being able to buy sustainably and other people not is sign of the rot, a bit about unions, how the old ways are perhaps better. “Finally, would the problem you’re trying to address with your shopping cart be better tackled by a new rule, a new regulation, a ban, an incentive, a new social program, a different way of doing things? The answer is almost always yes.”

This review of The Queen’s Gambit and this article about its production both act as a storytelling class for bildungsromans. “No traditional match plays out fully from start to finish.”

A newsletter I adore seems to have started up again. Highly recommend Griefbacon.

“Workplaces would be served better by basing their hiring and promotion decisions on competency and capability rather than confidence and charisma.” That advice to women to ‘lean in’, be more confident… it doesn’t help, and data show it.