The Esoteric Grimoire

 It's interesting because I started my list with "travel more," but then I'm kind of overwhelmed by lots of little travel next year. I like being places a lot more than getting places, obviously, but in some ways weekend travel is more stressful to me than a big trip, I guess.

Maybe what I really want is more adventures, and maybe when I say more travel I don't really mean more trekking out to a place to do a thing that just happens to be in that place? 

 I think, at various points of being younger, I felt like life is short and there's so much to do and there's this sense of rush. I think part of it is a college-application mindset of wanting to do impressive things young, and the way there's always forward momentum, from grade to grade, or even when you're in a contract job, approaching the not-too-distant end and the structure of that. But then, when you have an indefinite situation, it kind of feels like everything stops. There's possible promotion, I guess, but it's a hazier thing, not time-bound. So suddenly you're an adult and even when things are rushed at work, your life doesn't have a rush. Sure, you could die any time and you might not have done everything you wanted to do with your life, but also... you have the Rest Of Your Life. To do whatever you do.

I guess time just feels very different to me now. I feel guilty when I'm wasting a lot of time, but at the same time... there's kind of no consequences. (It doesn't feel good to look back and realize you didn't do much that feels interesting or productive in a given span of time, but it also doesn't matter. And maybe that guilt is a holdover.) Maybe that's what adulthood is, finding some pleasant ways to waste time. It's a little like my wandering month in Europe; I could spend all day getting to a random island only to spend far less time there and go back to where I was staying, because I had the time and only as many arbitrary goals as I set. Efficiency loses importance when time isn't a limiting factor.

Of course, time is always a limiting factor, but maybe it's like Kmart points. I don't have infinite Kmart points, and sometimes in a moment I want to order something and I don't have enough, but overall, I have more than enough Kmart points to get the things I want, and sometimes I have to really think of what it was that I wanted to get, because I have too many Kmart points and I don't want to waste them.

Time is an opportunity I don't want to waste. I remember what it's like to have all these things I'm excited to do and not enough time to do them. And time isn't something I can hoard like food or money. It's always spent, just with value judgments. I want to do cool things, I want to feel good about what I do, but I also don't want to waste time feeling guilty about time wasted or plans that don't work out. But I do want to figure out those first two.




I'm totally gonna make a playlist, aren't I.

This is not really the sort of playlist I normally do here, and no one on tumblr cares, but it was sort of inspired by playlists some other people do on tumblr. I don't know if you guys have any desire for poppy Halloween music in your lives, but this is that.

For some reason the embed shows up fine until I post it and then vanishes? Here's the link, anyway.

 Another thing I put time/effort into without any particular end is playlists. Like, it's nice that you guys listen and respond, but it's mostly just a thing I like thinking about and doing not counting on a timely/ever response.

 I was just thinking about how people like to get offended by religious metaphors/references in secular pop music so here's a playlist. Literally just what I came up with in the shower and while typing this, so not complete or deep.

Ariana Grande, "God Is A Woman"
King Princess, "Holy" -- probably no one's getting offended by this unless they're already offended by queerness and genderqueerness but it felt related
Lady Gaga, "Alejandro" and "Judas"
The Beatles, "The Ballad of John & Yoko"
Madonna, "Like A Prayer" -- Obviously the Beatles predate this and I don't think King Princess is necessarily going for Madonna, but like... Lady Gaga definitely is and Ariana Grande casts her as Samuel L Jackson so...

 Ultimately, there are a lot of problems with Die Happy. There are strong dramatic moments that aren't earned, the unreliable narrator structure is underused, obviously I haven't figured out the underlying Tiptree story and how it ties things in, and I really don't know how to make the slap-happy scene work. And the end is way too abrupt, it's all too much too fast and what are we left with? What are the consequences of the instability Sandra has chosen, and of Halle accepting that she's never going to be satisfied and she's going to have a future? (Did she actually get rid of stuff she needs? Did she say any embarrassing goodbyes? Did she spend all her money?)

There's a lot of stuff in there that I like, and things that still feel relevant to me, and I felt a little like I wanted to go back, but I'm not sure it's worth going back to now. Maybe eventually, maybe not. 

 A lot of things are attitude problems, but that doesn't make them easier. Like, I wish I could just be like 'yay, I have time to write!' rather than 'I don't have anything more urgent so I guess I should write.' And it's not like I don't have things I theoretically want to do, it's certainly not that I'm bored, but I don't have clear concrete things that are clearly worth my time that I should do, so I just sort of float to procrastinating from writing because it feels hard and because I don't know which project I should be working on, and because things feel unproductive, but then so does whatever else I do instead.

I might do some Iceland packing, because that is clearly productive. I might go thrifting, because it's half-price specifically today, so there's an urgency. I'll cook and I'll eat and I'll probably coupon a little because there are time limits on those things. But I do need a better system.

 how do i stop being precious and just fucking write? or if not, do something else? not mope around failing to write and feeling shitty about it?

 The problem with the cyborg play is the plot. In particular, all the things about the plot I don't know. 

 I'm having some doubts about the role of the mystery in Lie Back. One of the things that came up with Jason is trying to do too many big things and balance them, and it's an issue but it's not easy for me to see what or how to streamline and focus.

I think the core plots of a) Carmen being perfectionistic and too goal-oriented about her attempts to have an orgasm, and b) coming to terms with uncertainty/gray areas/lack of closure are key and staying. (I think I can do them more, and better; I think we probably need to start with Carmen feeling like she can't be ace because she was attracted to her ex -- "you never get never back" -- and thinking she has certainty, before coming to embrace spectrums and uncertainty.)

I think I need to not try to make all the characters' plots equally important; it's okay to have a supporting ensemble and let Carmen be the protagonist if that's how it works out.

I want to play with Leela's and Grace's plots being more around wanting to be alone v. not and what that can mean; I think they live together and Grace being Grace talks about wanting to live alone, but Leela's hurt by that because she likes living with Grace and feels like her greatest sense of belonging in the group is through being Grace's roommate. They spend a lot of time separately anyway and Leela can feel like a hermit, even though her apartment is often the center of things. I still like the idea of Grace having defense mechanisms and needing to learn to be alone together with people, even though I don't know exactly what that means; maybe she decides she wants to be alone because she thinks that's the inevitable result of her choice to be single and it's a defen se mechanism? Maybe they both come to have a better appreciation for their friend group and their roommate relationship?
Shit, though, would this mean cutting the fanfic arc? The stuff about being alone is probably really subtextual and not a whole thing. Maybe

The mystery does tie into Leela feeling like she has a more significant role in the group etc., but I want to make sure it's doing worthwhile things.

I'm also not totally sure what's going on with Terrence. I think he's key to helping Carmen decode her feelings about her ex and the uncertainty, and he should probably talk to her about other possible paths, while Grace is more the masturbation expert and Leela is more the aroace guru in a way she never claimed to be. But maybe it's better for Terrence not to have all this other stuff, but to have curiosities and help to offer Carmen, but not have All This Other Stuff. Especially because stuff will come out as I go.

So I guess it's like
-orgasm plotline
-mystery
-fanfic reveal
-solitude date stuff

How can I combine or cut or shrink stuff so I'm not trying to do too much and getting lost in it and not doing any of it well?