Re-evaluating
Aug. 27th, 2023 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catherineldfSo far this month, I have bought a recliner (due to be delivered real soon), found that the hip shot didn't work this time so I'm still in lots of pain and need to explore other options and I finally scattered Mom's ashes at Prairie Oaks (local green burial site and only legal place in the state to scatter human remains). I put her urn in storage in the basement for future use and after 3 years of looking at it and thinking, "I should take care of that," it was both a bit sad and very freeing.
Speaking of freeing, I finally got around to reading The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson and really liked it. I have also read Marie Kondo and I think that while Kondo's book can be great for figuring our why you hang on to what you hang on to and what you can do about changing that if you want to, Magnusson's is about letting go of the unneeded and unnecessary. For the last couple of years of job instability and Jana's deteriorating health, I've been in a constant state of lowkey panic about cleaning out the house and our stuff in case I had to sell it in a hurry to pay for bills. That's still there, but what I took from Magnusson's book was that I could also view it as a life transition; I will not, after all, want to live alone in a mostly inaccessible house as I age (based on the supposition that I will either outlive Jana or she will be in some form of memory care in the not too distant future) so I can think about it as not "how will I handle the next disaster?" but as "if I am living in a different, more manageable space for Older Me, what do I want to have around me?" With that in mind, I'm continuing to work on shedding things that we're no longer using, selling what I can, giving things away on the Buy Nothing club and so forth, but also making small changes and purchases to make our daily lives more accessible for Older Us.
With that in mind, I replaced the old multi-component stereo with something that works better for me (a refurbished Bose Wave that takes up less space) and means I am actually listening to CDs regularly again which in turn means that I'm doing more writing and editing in my evenings after Jana goes to bed. I had trained my brain to write to certain pieces of music, but had let that slip over the last few years. So far, Blue Moon is growing a few hundred words a week, which is an improvement, if not quite the thousands I dreamed of. I'm also working on overhauling the Patreon novel. And working on edits for A Death at the Dionysus Club, the second Lynes and Mathey book by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold, which will be coming out in December. More creativity, more productivity, so far.
On a more somber note, people need to stop dying for a bit. So far this month, a comparatively young writer who I had hoped to work with, a friend's coworker, a friend's bestie, another friend's husband and countless relatives of friends. And that's not including two of Jana's friends and her dad, who are all in poor health and the poor local queer punk kids whose house concert venue got shot up by some homophobic assholes a few weeks ago (1 dead, multiple hospitalizations, lots of trauma). And that's just the local level. At any rate, it's a lot and next month could be a much easier one for all of us.
I'm kicking mine off with the State Fair...then getting Jana evaluated for disability (all future funding for her care depends on this). Hugs all around. i think we can use them.
Speaking of freeing, I finally got around to reading The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson and really liked it. I have also read Marie Kondo and I think that while Kondo's book can be great for figuring our why you hang on to what you hang on to and what you can do about changing that if you want to, Magnusson's is about letting go of the unneeded and unnecessary. For the last couple of years of job instability and Jana's deteriorating health, I've been in a constant state of lowkey panic about cleaning out the house and our stuff in case I had to sell it in a hurry to pay for bills. That's still there, but what I took from Magnusson's book was that I could also view it as a life transition; I will not, after all, want to live alone in a mostly inaccessible house as I age (based on the supposition that I will either outlive Jana or she will be in some form of memory care in the not too distant future) so I can think about it as not "how will I handle the next disaster?" but as "if I am living in a different, more manageable space for Older Me, what do I want to have around me?" With that in mind, I'm continuing to work on shedding things that we're no longer using, selling what I can, giving things away on the Buy Nothing club and so forth, but also making small changes and purchases to make our daily lives more accessible for Older Us.
With that in mind, I replaced the old multi-component stereo with something that works better for me (a refurbished Bose Wave that takes up less space) and means I am actually listening to CDs regularly again which in turn means that I'm doing more writing and editing in my evenings after Jana goes to bed. I had trained my brain to write to certain pieces of music, but had let that slip over the last few years. So far, Blue Moon is growing a few hundred words a week, which is an improvement, if not quite the thousands I dreamed of. I'm also working on overhauling the Patreon novel. And working on edits for A Death at the Dionysus Club, the second Lynes and Mathey book by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold, which will be coming out in December. More creativity, more productivity, so far.
On a more somber note, people need to stop dying for a bit. So far this month, a comparatively young writer who I had hoped to work with, a friend's coworker, a friend's bestie, another friend's husband and countless relatives of friends. And that's not including two of Jana's friends and her dad, who are all in poor health and the poor local queer punk kids whose house concert venue got shot up by some homophobic assholes a few weeks ago (1 dead, multiple hospitalizations, lots of trauma). And that's just the local level. At any rate, it's a lot and next month could be a much easier one for all of us.
I'm kicking mine off with the State Fair...then getting Jana evaluated for disability (all future funding for her care depends on this). Hugs all around. i think we can use them.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-28 10:23 am (UTC)The GoFundMe for the queer punk kids house concert folks got worldwide support, which is something that helps in several directions at once. They've closed the fundraiser now after raising $200,000. Also MPR did a reasonably good story about Nudieland and the local punk/DIY scene. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/08/18/for-lgbtq-people-in-minneapolis-punk-scene-mass-shooting-violated-safe-haven
I am so sorry about so much argh landing in your life.
The Swedish Death Cleaning book is awesome. It has encouraged all sorts of useful clearing out of stuff chez moi, which is why Patrick of Patrick's Cabaret whose last name I cannot remember at the moment now has a unicorn accoutrement that was going to be part of a performance piece years ago but was never used. If anyone can get some use out of it, he can. (No, it's not a horn. It's, er, NSFW. And has a tube for shooting a geyser of glitter from it, which I really hope he uses someday.) Highly recommended, that book. A bunch more of my kinky art library is going to the Carter-Johnson Library & Collection ("Never Again Landfill. Never Again Flames."), which has several satellite libraries now. Viola Johnson is the moving force behind the library, and she's already got some things from me. I think she's going to be surprised by some of what I offer her next, because one of the artists whose work I have collected sent me a photo years before I even met Vi, and it's of her. I hope it makes her smile.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-28 10:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-29 02:13 am (UTC)Thanks! Same to you . Tonight's surreal experience - talking end of life planning for J's father with her family. He's in failing health and by gum, do I know a lot about that.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-29 05:54 am (UTC)Yeah, gonna sell the photos that I can sell. I'll have to check recent sales (if there are any I can find listed), and see if what I've got can make the $5K threshold for Heritage Auctions. (I think it's $5K aggregate; if it's 5K each, I don't have anything that makes the cut, in photography at least. Ask me after I get the comics ready to list, though; I do have one that might change that. Maybe. I'm not a professional grader, though, so we shall see.)
Expertise you kinda wish you hadn't needed to develop sounds like a really awful Jeopardy! category. Dang. I hope things ease up for you.