Pretty much what it says on the tin: things that I have been thinking about this week. All shallow things. Politics is not really “thinkable”; right now it’s mostly choppy angry emotions and distress.
But! It has been SOOOO LONG since I hit the blog that hey, it’s rolled out entirely new ways to make entries. I can’t remember when my last post was–I could look back and find out, but I don’t see the point. It was early pandemic or pre-pandemic or before I lost all sense of time and place because all I have done for the past couple of years is slowly reach burnout.
Spiders: I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about spiders, because I have a resident jumping spider. Harmless, kind of cute, remarkably social and fearless for a creature the size of my pinky nail. It’s taken up residence in my upstairs bathroom, which, yeah, not ideal, but again…. harmless. It’s fascinating though to really contemplate because that spider tends to perambulate the entirety of the top floor daily. For me, it’s about fifteen steps (I have a small house), but for a spider? The damn thing is doing a marathon every single day and at speeds that would make humans weep if we calculated relative speed. Plus, I have to wonder, what does it think about us, the humans? We’re mountains that move. The size differential is so enormous I can’t even contemplate it. I’m like…200% bigger than it. Yet it comes out to greet me and wave its forelegs. The other day, I was walking past the bathroom, and it hitched a lift on my foot as I walked. Then happily hopped off once I reached the study. We’re… what? Moving mountains, weirdo giant transports? So very strange. Animals are weird enough all on their own and then you start thinking about them in interaction with other creatures and it’s a whole new ballgame of weird and wonderful.
Talking buttons for pets. Wow, I have been obsessing about these things. Do they work, do the dogs actually use them to communicate their basic thoughts or is it just a series of learned behaviors…. And while I’m contemplating that, my brain runs into the nightmare scenario of well, what if they do use them to communicate? What if we get sick of the “chatter” and just take the buttons away? I can’t…. that seems like a bad thing to do. Here you go, dog, learn to communicate in this way, but hey, the batteries are dead, or you’re talking too much, or I keep tripping over these buttons–let me just get rid of them? Maybe it’s because of politics, maybe it’s because of the book I am STILL revising, but taking away someone’s or something’s voice just strikes me as a moral atrocity. So… I’m not getting those buttons? But is that really any better? Or is it just dodging the issue?
Once I wrote an sf story about a woman whose brain was implanted into a dog (because of reasons) while she and her team members were exploring an alien planet. By the time she figured out how to process her new senses, and recognize a danger to them all (DOGI smells water!), they had gotten out of the habit of listening to her–primarily because her only method of communication was pretty much talking buttons. Nightmares.
World-building. I am at the danger point in the new book (not the book under revision) where the world-building starts to have contradictions. I kind of love this stage because to me, trying to figure out ways that these contradictory things can all be true makes the world feel more real to me, rather than a cut-out template where all magic is XYZ. I like a little mess in my magic, even if it slows the writing down.
Burnout! I ran away from my day jobs. I have given myself a carefully budgeted sabbatical. Naturally, the big cat promptly developed diabetes. Of course he did. But he’s doing better, and I’m doing better even if my sabbatical is not going to be the full three months I had originally intended. I wish that UBI was an actual thing in this country.
Saw a super sad bumper sticker the other day. Red truck with a tiny printed sticker that said, simply, I miss my dog. Nearly sent me into tears. Because yes, their lives are short and even though mine are healthy, I, too, at some point in the not-so-far future will miss my dog. There are dogs I still miss. And the damn pandemic has pretty much trained me to look forward and only see loss. I am working on that. Generally, the pandemic has made me goosey about making plans (why bother, they’re only going to get disrupted!) and about being hopeful (I’ll only be disappointed. Seriously, every single time I managed to be genuinely happy in the past two years, something rose up and smacked me down HARD.) or optimistic.
But in the meantime, there are good books to read. Good books to write! And adorable pets. Who are not dead yet.
lane robins 