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My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Fuck This. See You Next Week.

Folks, I tried.

In regards to my last post, I tried to slip out and find a place with power and keep going. The show must go on and shit, right?

Places are closed. Traffic is ridiculous because public transit is fucked up. People are acting like The Purge is going to start here when the sun goes down. (Hopefully it's at least the more recent ones.) And of course losing power for a few hours is inconvenient. Losing it for several days is life-disrupting.

And I live along a corridor where I could drive ten minutes in either direction and get power. I'm honestly worried about folks who are stuck and way out on their own.

Everything is taking so much longer. It's not just about power (although it is about spending an hour trying to figure out where you're going to go once they shut it off). It's about spending forty-five minutes out of a regular day making arrangements with friends in Oakland to not to lose everything in the freezer. It's about having a shower routine that takes twice as long because you're working out of your travel bag. It's about being nickeled and dimed until you sit down to write and realize you have only one and a half hours until you have to tag in at job two.

Perhaps I could have weathered this if power loss were the only thing happening. It's not. I've been building towards a table flip for a while. This week has been filled with extra nanny hours and I've been working more like 70-75 hours instead of 60 and six days a week for months. The table flip may even go back to the vacation that wasn't particularly relaxing, or perhaps even further to a strange grief-stricken few days and a loss of sleep so acute that I'm STILL working on it.

The online landscape I usually inhabit seems particularly fraught too. Is it just me or are people being a little extra mean lately? I mean of course there's the news. There's ALWAYS the news these days. But there's also friends responding to this whole days-without-power fiasco by charging in on their worried, frustrated, and upset friends to defend the poor maligned multi-billion dollar corporation with what sure looks a lot like shiny PR-firm-generated talking points. Nationally we now have an executive branch that has decided the separation of powers (upon which the framework of our government is built) is for chumps. We appear to be at one of those moments where little Chrises in history class say, "But Mister Ballard, why would they throw away democracy? It just doesn't make SENSE."

I shouldn't say that everything has gone wrong because then my computer will burst into flames and I will collapse in agony as another kidney stone rips its way out of me. But that's it. I'm done. Life can have this round.

I'm out for the weekend and I'll keep the memes coming on the Facebook page, but I renounce the end of this week. I forsake it! I excommunicate today and tomorrow from my blogging life.

Hopefully by Tuesday (Monday is a holiday and I will be on a long drive home anyway) I will have had a good night's sleep, my freezer will work, and I will be able to put in a day of writing without first spending an hour figuring out when and where I might be able to do so.

11 comments:

  1. I'm sorry you're going through this. Calling it quits on this week is completely valid. Please take measures of self-preservation. *Offers hug* I'm sorry that life is a maelstrom right now.

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  2. Perfectly okay to take a break when life is a shit-show. We'll be waiting when you get back! :)

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  3. Hey man, you run a damn impressive page. Life happens, we ALL understand that. Always choose your mental health first. Take a break, deal with your stuff. Thanks for running an awesome page!

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  4. On a lighter note, The 10th of October is Tom Cruise day in Japan. A break is for the best, Chris.

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  5. Much love to you, Chris. Your page is one of the best things on the internet. Rest, recuperate, recover, and come back when you're ready. Thank you for all you do.

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  6. "A l'impossible nul n'est tenu". I am patient.

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  7. The Universe has decided you need a little "me time". Hoping your creativity and passion rejuvenate over the long weekend. You deserve the break and reboot!

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  8. Please take the weekend away totally from social media - we'll still be there when you come back after a rest. I still follow a twitter/youtube account that are taking a break. You need to rest and I hope you do. PLUS I have no idea why I'm commenting as frustrated mum hahahaha

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  9. Just take care of yourself and know we're hugging you from behind our keyboards. We're not going anywhere.

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  10. I'm so sorry, Chris. Maybe someday, we will achieve "First World" status here in the States.

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