Category: Uncategorized

Spoon Theory

In the ME/CFS arena it’s said that we have eight spoons of energy per day. And we do careful calculations so we don’t go over the eight because, woe betide me, going over means a week or more of resting and recovery.

Pacing is never going over your eight spoons per day.

Habits and routines are godsent, for they save me from having to make decisions. And decisions come at 12 and a quarter per spoon, if it’s true that we functionally have energy for only a hundred of the pesky blighters per day.

Habits and routines mean I am on automatic, doing stuff without consciously realizing it. Which can often work well. Though not today.

Today (Wednesday 10th) I sorted Lego in the morning. Used up eighty percent of decision making energy just deciding little things like which drawer, which container? More or less unconsciously.

This all, I am assuming now (Thursday 11th) so that I wouldn’t have any energy to do my usual wishy-washy, will I—won’t I, and just go … see Centrelink, and in the usual way fail to solve the problem due to not thinking it through before starting out.

Which is exactly what happened. I had about a quarter of the paperwork needed, and the operator organized me another appointment tomorrow (Friday 12) for an in-depth thing when they will put me through the wringer.

Own fault, though my good excuse is that I was, it turned out, half sick. Today, Thursday 11, whole sick.

In the Biesboschen …

In the Biesboschen
Four hundred begettings ago,
Hunting, fishing and gathering
We people followed the narrow under-tree paths
of deer and swine.

Otter-Wijf might then have been my name.
Hung with bones, herbs and a wisert’s skin
I walked and walked and walked the cool under-tree paths
Of our home range.

— — — —

With this painting and poem I’ve tried to manifest a dream in which I had the clearest sensation that I walked through sand–making those little squeaks–in an ancient Dutch setting. Otter-wijf was my name and I wore a leather shoulder bag with dried herbs in it, and a leather wrap about my shoulders.

It was the uncanniest thing when I woke, no longer wearing the wrap or the bag when only seconds before they felt as real, as the bed-sheets a few seconds later.

Earth Fall, 21

Connecting A to B

Connecting Earth Fall to Meld is not happening. The amount of time between them is out of wack. I think now that the events in Earth Fall took place before anything in Mongrel happened.

Lol, does it seem like I’m talking as though these events are coming into being without a writer’s input? Put like that? Yes, it does. A broad band of muscular storying is growing between Earth Fall and events in Mongrel and it’s not like I planned anything much.

Mongrel was to be part one of a trilogy that in my mind I’ve already scaled back to a twosome. Time will tell. Mongrel resides in the long long tail of indie published novels marketed by Draft to Digital.com.

I had a quick read of Mongrel’s Chapter 26 the other day and thought I wouldn’t mind running my eagle editing eye over it once more. And maybe turn it into an audio file by reading it chapter by chapter into some software and publishing that chapter by chapter.

Which will necessitate taking it off Amazon if I don’t want to get a shirty email, saying I’ve been cancelled, as the biggie doesn’t allow any part of a production it’s selling to exist outside the virtual covers of the item being sold.

Making some friends over on Substack, I got a bunch of links on how to find my voice. Thank you, Aurelian Ashmore. So yeah, I’m looking into it.