That's My Bix!

Yesterday was exhausting.

Partially because my chronic pain condition is flaring up and partially because it was a Monday and partially because this week is the week we had assumed that we would start packing/readying to move and partially because of my dissertation defense looming and partially because Because.

I will say this — I made a serious mistake opting to take a writing workshop in the same semester that I had comps exams, finish my dissertation and defend it. It doesn’t help that the pandemic happened, which is essentially a force majeure, but I take full responsibility in deciding to go against the PhD study plan and take a class despite People Who Know Better designing a program that did not require real classes in the last year. Because huh, turns out that it is maybe stupid to take classes when you’re doing all of this other stuff?

I don’t regret taking the gothic class last semester though — it informed many of my decisions and theories that fed into my comps exams and defense. It didn’t really inform my novel which was already well into motion at that point, but props for the comps help.

Monday nights are the meeting of that workshop, and I had zero fucks left at that point, which isn’t really fair to the people whose work was on the table. I’m grossly behind on my responses to them, although it seems like everyone has basically given up on their priorities too, judging by the responses I got for my last two goes workshopping my own work. Plus, it is three hours long — I started outside because That’s My Business (TM Tabitha Brown who is a delight) but it got too hot so I brought everything inside and did the rest from the couch, which was Ole’s signal that it was time to play and my classmates were treated to his impression of a pirate’s parrot.

I can’t even really point to anything specific inside my brain, other than the way I feel simultaneously overstimulated and also depressed. Perhaps it’s just a stasis feeling. Esteban last night said that he felt trapped in Las Vegas, and while that might be part of it, we actually are far better enabled here than we would be in Wisconsin. For instance, the weather is nice enough to sit out in the yard most of the time (although we have a massive hot streak going and it’s been too warm to last for more than an hour outside — Las Vegas expects to hit 100 for the first time in April either today or tomorrow because climate change is a real thing). We have a million places that deliver food and groceries if we wanted. We have a GIANT house to wander around in and also clean if we’re bored (turns out, we’re never that bored).

I think the trapped feeling is more one of feeling lack of progress. When I have a problem to solve, my brain chews and chews on it until it solves the problem, but this is a problem it can’t solve. I can’t magically make new houses appear on the Wisconsin market. I can’t brain a way to fix a pandemic. The only answer to solve all of these problems is time. Time has become our foe, except there’s no fighting it.

You just have to let it wash over you.

Comment #bixquestions thread: Is there a celebrity that you dislike for no real reason, you just know you dislike them? Share in the comments who, why and what’s wrong with their stupid famous selves?