When I write my future memoirs, I hope never to include the line, “I was napping when World War III started.” I mean, c’mon, it sounds more like the opening line of an Etgar Keret short story. But if (when?) future generations ask me where I was when I heard we bombed Iran, the sad truth will be revealed.
With everything going on, I don’t know what the point of a weeknotes post would be right now. Like Charles Bradley sang, “This world is going up in flames”. But maybe that’s why I need to write one. Proof of life as resistance.
There are moments when my typical attitude of “The only way out is through” works against me. Moments when I only have one or two spoons left and it seems like everything on my list takes at least three. And so I look for ways to use the one or two I have left to get me forward anyway, even if 99% of the time all that generates is resentment which is a lousy feeling, but better than the alternatives (not really).
I’m not the only one to know this. I came across this reading Sam Lipsyte’s THE ASK:
I had learned long ago how to refine the raw guilt into a sweet, granulated resentment.
I had a burst of writing energy for the past couple of weeks which is on the usual trend downward and I know I’m there because while I know I need three spoons to working on my current short story, I feel like I need to be using use the one or two I’ve got to do what I “should” be doing. Like, reading all the stuff that’s won Nebula, Locus, or Stoker awards this month rather than 15-year old litfic novels. Or grousing about an article on AI boosterism I never expected to see in BREVITY, of all places.
I mean, c’mon…
And just as a hammer can build Habitat for Humanity or take a human life, the tool is dependent on the human user.
Yeah, except that hammer’s design wasn’t stolen off of the work of people’s blood, sweat & tears and mass-produced via a gross waste of natural resources. But I digress. After all, that’s not the worst thing going on in the world this week, is it?
Maybe holding on to my remaining spoons would’ve been a better idea. On the other hand, maybe fellow Clevelander Harvey Pekar has it right.
Fuck it, here’s one skirmish. Now, what’s my next one gonna be?