#WednesdayWisdom

#WednesdayWisdom: However you get it done, it’s getting done.

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It’s a sunny day, it’s warm, and suddenly everything is full of green. Real spring, completely present.

That’s not bad.

I’m in one of those moods where there are many things to get done, and I have to decide the best order to them, which could, itself, become the task if I let it. It’s a fun way to go, the feeling of getting something done while not actually doing anything.

If you’re very liberal in your definition of fun.

These are the kinds of days where I find it harder to stay to what I’m doing, I feel like flitting around. Don’t get me wrong, you can cross off tasks either way, and depending on what it is and how inclined I am to focus on it, sometimes flitting is the best bet.

Caffeine may or may not play a role. Let’s be honest.

And we’re always honest.

So I suppose that’s today’s wisdom: however you get it done, it’s getting done. It can be a beautiful, clear ribbon of productivity, or it can a dendrite maze of increments, but as long as you’re moving forward, it counts.

Even holding where you are can count, when it takes what you have to do it.

Anyway, that’s it for me today, have a great Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: The saying’s “indulge a cold,” right?!

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It’s chilly today, and gray, and my personal game of Allergies or Cold? has been resolved. It’s a cold.

Symptoms are about the same as yesterday, and I would think if they were allergies they would have improved by now. I am also tired, which, granted, isn’t a ironclad proof in this day and age, but it seems hinty.

So my wisdom for the day is to take it easy when your body tells you to take it easy, and that is precisely what I’m going to do. We have such a culture of “fighting through it” or “working through it” but I’m not going to feel better faster if I pretend my runny nose and sneezing aren’t bothering me at all, ignoring them like you would a pesky sibling in the back of the car.

Couldn’t really ignore them either, anyway.

I am off to maybe slightly wallow a little, definitely rest a little, and maybe be less vertical because it seems to be better that way.

I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday, and should the need arise, listen to yourself.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: Heads just get crowded sometimes.

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It looked like it was going to rain and then it cleared up and now it looks like rain again. Who knows what it’s going to do. Certainly not the weather, I’d say.

Today my head is cluttered with unwanted things, not the least of which an earworm which has been there for DAYS. So much so I’m not even hearing it anymore when it starts up.

Maybe that’s the way through it.

My own personal head background music. That’s what you’re supposed to do when meditating, too, when thoughts arise. Acknowledge them, and let them go.

Maybe I need to acknowledge the song and let it go. We’ll see if that does the trick, at least in that aspect.

The other? Well, heads just get crowded sometimes.

Life moves and doesn’t move in ways you don’t expect and don’t always predict. That’s easier for some people than for others, we all handle things differently.

And yet we all get earworms.

You are correct, that doesn’t exactly follow but it only occurs to me now that maybe there are people who never get earworms? Is that even possible?

Probably. That’s likely amazing.

Sometimes it’s like an archeological dig in your own head, layers and layers, things shoved aside for “later,” and then later arrives. Our own personal epochs defining the strata.

Fossilized remains of our pasts long gone.

Sooner or later, I guess you have to get out the shovel. Do archeologists use shovels? Just imagine whatever tool makes the most sense here.

And with that, I wish you a wonderful Wednesday, with or without one of those brushes they use around the bones, whichever works for you.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: The lies conservatives tell.

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It’s Wednesday and I guess it’s cloudy, with those thin clouds lying flat against the sky. I’m already on my second cup of coffee, and I’m hoping it does its coffee thing.

I’m sitting here thinking about the lies conservatives tell about, well, everything, for people who whine and brag and screech about their “religion,” they really lie a lot. They have absolutely no respect for “life,” given the joy with which they’ve fought to legally reduce women to something less than farmstock.

They use a moralistic tone talking about “abortion” and the “sanctity of life” while pointedly lobbying for women to die or be maimed by getting pregnancy wrong. It’s a death penalty without trial, all for a clump of cells they have determined have a greater set of rights than the fully formed human surrounding them, the fully-formed human without whom there would be no clump of cells.

They refuse to feed the children they demand be born, with or without surviving mothers; education, to these conservatives, is a blight. They ooze hatred and bigotry and bemoan not owning everything, and if they don’t they just pretend that they do.

But they’re “religious” so it’s all OK.

If I sound contemptuous, it’s because I am. They have never hidden their disdain for us, and they’ve gained ground in our politeness in response, our allowing them “dignity” or the ability to hide or pretend their actions are less charged or awful than they are.

No more.

No. More.

They are terrible people doing terrible things without conscience. Not just trump, not just “maga” but ALL CONSERVATIVES. ALL REPUBLICANS. All of them. The horrible is right there in their policies, even if it’s couched in boring words.

What we’re seeing isn’t a new kind of conservative, it’s just one that doesn’t feel it has to play to the room anymore. That alone should chill you. They think they’ve done it. They think this country is theirs for the taking, that we will all be living under their gross and twisted “morality,” that they will have all the power, all the money, and we will be their drones.

That’s not hyperbole. That’s what they believe. They believe it so much, they’ve broken laws they never thought they’d see consequences for.

Well, we can be the ultimate consequences, but it requires us using our singular superpower: voting.

Not only should we not give them more institutional power, let’s remove that which they already have.

Have a great Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: Tips for unsticking yourself.

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It’s snowing and raining and generally, not to get too technical here, icky. Come on, April, what are you doing?

Yesterday several people identified with being creatively stuck, so today I want to share with you some of the things I do to get going when the going is velcro.

Set a timer.

This is one of the easiest and most effective methods I’ve found. You can set it for whatever period of time feels doable, from a few minutes to an hour, if you want. Though I’d go with shorter periods of time if you need to get yourself started. And if you’re in a flow, no need to stop when the timer goes off, it’s for you! Or if you’re motivated by metrics, track your word count when the timer goes. This works for all kinds of tasks, not just writing.

Use a prompt.

Prompts are fun but they’re also incredible tools. You can use a single word, an image, a sentence, a news story, anything that makes you think enough to put some words down. I have tons of ten word story prompts, and you don’t even have to limit yourself to ten words if you want, you’re doing it for you.

Change your genre, style, or type.

Not getting anywhere with fiction? Try journaling, or nonfiction or opinion. If you usually write horror, try romance. Humor, try something serious. If you mix it up, the expectations you have for yourself may relax a little, and you can let go of the idea of perfection.

Writing is rewriting.

While we’re at it, perfection is one of the greatest enemies of any productivity, any creativity , including writing. Know that it doesn’t have to be perfect when you write it, things rarely are. Most of the real work comes with the reshaping and reforming. Writing, like many other things, is best done in layers.

Say the thing, if only for yourself.

Sometimes something you are trying really hard not to say gets in the way of you saying what you do want to say. And again, this can apply to all kinds of artistic expression. So sit with whatever it is, and just get it out. No one else has to see it, you can even destroy it after if you want to and that would be cathartic, but sometimes, that’s the thing that standing in your way.

So it’s a little bit of a different post today, and I hope you find it helpful, or it at least gets the wheels turning. Have a great Wednesday!

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: As a species, we’re a flop.

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It’s sunny but below freezing. Only it doesn’t look below freezing. It looks like it should be an early spring day.

Oh well.

Wait, no, it’s gone up to slightly above freezing. Much better.

I’m in a state of extreme annoyance with humanity today, in which you are welcome to join me or not, that is up to you. Maybe it kicked off by the incredible disregard there seems to be for the six workers who died on the Key Bridge, a search that didn’t seem nearly as intensive as the one for the people in that unseaworthy sub that imploded.

Maybe it was yet another man pretending something I’d posted said something it didn’t, and then proceeding to “correct” and “educate” me. We all know how much I love that.

And maybe it’s the cumulative piling up of the horrible aspects of humanity, largely in republican form, delighting in the worst that happens and working against the best.

Who can tell.

But today I am feeling, very much, that as a species, we’re a flop.

For every good, decent person, it seems like there are ten awful ones utterly lacking in humanity. That time will go on but people needing to “feel superior” to others, for whatever reason they cook up, will never end.

Do you think male whales mansplain to the female ones? I almost went with elephants but we know that is not the case, the female elephants would just run them off, they’re known to do that.

And we’re mostly through today’s post with nary a drop of wisdom, so I guess I will say this: be better. Just be better as a human. Be nice to someone. Write postcards to get a Democrat elected. Challenge bad ideas.

Just be better. Even if it’s only one thing you do today.

And have a great Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: More of a blip, really.

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It’s cold and sunny, and we’re more out of March than we are into it, which is weird to me. Like it was just January.

Did February even happen?

The day is turning into the type where the time just keeps going and I keep not really having enough to say for an entire post, so my wisdom for today is know when to let it go and move on.

Which is what I will be doing with today’s post. There’s Monday and Tuesday if you want something a little more robust, and heck, there are always my books or articles, right?

So many of my words out there for you to read if you are so inclined, so few of them in here for the moment today. As happens.

Regardless, have a wonderful Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: Warming ourselves in the glow of the RNC crash and burn.

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Last night I wrote “The Cruel Dirty Trick of Robert Hur: An open letter,” in response to the upsetting and misleading way Hur concluded that Pres. Biden “didn’t remember” the date of his son, Beau’s, death. Here’s a link without paywall if you’re not a Medium member and are out of articles. If you clap or comment, I get paid for my work, so please go that way if you can.

Not a great system, really, but it’s an easy way to put something up when the words are there.

It was sunny a minute ago, and now it seems to be clouding over, I think they said rain but I can’t remember if that was today or tomorrow. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Lots of news today, but not the least of it is the trump takeover of the RNC, the organizing body of the republican party. There’s not one person who believes that this party coup will result in wins for republicans, and I have never been happier to say, well, that’s their problem.

Terrible people were out-terribled by a more terrible person, for the very same spoils they’ve worked so hard to turn “legitimate.” Do republicans running in smaller races really think they’ll see any party support?

Even if they grovel enough to trump?

It’s like everyone now agrees that the republican national committee is trump’s own personal property. I mean wow. Effectively, going forward, republicans will have no more than the resources of third-party candidates, and maybe even less than that.

Now look, this is conjecture. It’s possible, with completely inexperienced Lara Trump at the helm, after ousting all the operatives who made our nightmares a reality, that the republican party will do just fine and operate as normal, providing money and support and strategy to candidates from local school boards up to governors, from city councils to state legislatures to the House and the Senate.

It’s possible.

But is it probable?

Because as I typed that, I thought about the billions upon billions of dollars tied up in all of that, about how trump doesn’t like to pay people, about how he wants a little something left over for golden toilets after he’s finished with all of his fines and legal fees.

I mean.

So that doesn’t mean our work is over. All it means is we have to hit the ground harder, faster, more seriously than before. We’ve been given an incredible opportunity to secure a majority that can erase a large part of the damage done, locally and nationally. Maybe even enough to impeach and remove government officials so corrupt, they have the gall to be galled at our outrage.

Now is our time. Let’s not coast, let’s not assume this incredible stumble will do the work for us.

Have a great Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: If you’re wrong say you’re wrong and properly apologize.

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It’s a cloudy sunny day, bright but most of the sky is covered in those thin clouds like dingy torn sheets of paper. It’s been an eventful week in the realm of social media and it might surprise you I have things to say.

You know how rarely I express my opinion.

So that was a joke if you are new to me, also hi. Onward.

I’ve noticed a spate of people who, when confronted with something problematic they’ve said, they try to pretend they didn’t say it, or they indignantly act as though the confrontation itself is the problem. This isn’t new, of course.

But we can see it far more clearly now on Spoutible than we could on previous social media. Why?

On other sites, you get a rush of trolls who change the subject and obscure the original point. They disagree in a way that makes it difficult for other to agree and not fear a similar onslaught. This is done through a lot of awful people but also several people with slews of accounts who amplify themselves and support themselves.

That’s not the case on Spoutible.

So when someone tries to say they didn’t say what they said, or deletes it to lie more emphatically, people can see the person saying here is the proof that you said it. And that person is not met with a rancid inbox full of vile hatred.

That old coping method simply doesn’t work. The becoming the victim by claiming the criticism isn’t a criticism but something else doesn’t work for the same reason, proof is either there or it isn’t.

And in this way, Spoutible demands maturity from its users. How to handle a situation like this?

It’s not hard.

Admit what you said, admit it was wrong, and apologize sincerely. To me that sounds easier than days and weeks and months of feuding.

Even if you don’t believe what you said was wrong, it is possible to reach common ground if you are willing to listen to other people. And maybe if you do, you can understand how it is harmful and hurtful to others. Maybe you can see how stigmatizing people or demanding to marginalize marginalized people leads to real world consequences and attitudes.

Or maybe you’re just a jerk, but if that’s the case, essentially any other social media platform is there to allow you to be as horrible and awful and bigoted and “ist” as you want to be. Any other social media platform lets you stay exactly who you are, even when that’s not someone a lot of people would like to know.

Only Spoutible challenges you to learn and grow.

That’s it for me this Wednesday, have a great day.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: Pres. Biden’s “age” is not equivalent to trump offering putin the world.

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It’s a sunny Valentine’s Day here in Chicago, and despite the cloudless sky my head is foggy in a way coffee just wouldn’t clear. We’ll see how this goes.

That’s all we can do.

First, a very happy Valentine’s Day to everyone who wades through my nonsense, post after post, whether you do it occasionally, most days or every day. I appreciate you, I notice you.

As we move into the election season, which requires critical thinking, I’m going to ask you to keep one specific factor in mind. Proportion.

For example, watch what media uses to try to weigh Pres. Biden against trump. Right now, it’s mainly his age. That’s easily dismissed, however, as it’s not like trump is 20 years younger or 15 years younger or even 10 years younger. Not even 5.

He’s three years younger. They’re effectively the same age.

But they don’t compare age to age, they do things like compare age to trump inviting Russia to do whatever it wants and saying he will pull out of NATO.

Clearly those two things aren’t even in the same galaxy, let alone equivalent “issues.” Do not accept the framing of people trying to normalize one of the most evil, corrupt people in the history of the United States ever to have an official role. Do not allow any of his outrageous promises–and that’s what they are, he’s telling us what he plans to do–to be casually minimized.

The same lack of proportion is present in the coverage of the Spoutible “breach,” in which no actual user data was obtained, apparently, aside from that taken by the person who ran to Troy Hunt and not Spoutible. When I said last week there would be worse breaches from other places I wasn’t kidding; Bank of America just informed users of a hack LAST YEAR that exposed actually sensitive data, including social security numbers and financial data.

Last year. So that information was out there and people were not notified until now.

It seems to be a lost skill, weighing information in relation to other information. Unlike animals, all information is not equal, some is definitely more equal than others (thank you Orwell, triple points to all who got the reference). Don’t trust other people to tell you whether something is a big deal.

Parse it out for yourself.

I’m now starting to see the question asked if there is a double standard on age, from the very people who perpetuate and create the double standard on age, while minimizing the past harm and future destruction of trump. It’s so easy to fall into the rhythm of listening and not thinking.

But that’s how we lose everything.

Have a great Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.