Useful Distractions

[mrissa]

I'm trying to keep myself from fixating on worrying about Robin. This is going to be a long process; having some worry is going to be normal and necessary, but spending all my time on it will help no one. Unfortunately, before Robin had his accident, I was trying to keep myself from fixating on worrying about Wednesday's appointment with the new vertigo specialist. So I am having to be rather firm with myself about Useful Distractions this week.

Not that I am ever short on potentially Useful Distractions, but they are sometimes more actively distracting than this. They sometimes catch my attention without effort. I feel like I am leading myself very gently around by the hand. "Now you should call your grandparents," I think in the same mental voice as I use out loud with a toddler who isn't sure whether the mittens go on first or the boots. "Now you should take the sheets off the bed. Now you should put them in the washing machine. Now you should start the washing machine." It's not that I'm not capable of mental effort these days: I can get myself to sit down and work on fiction or read something fairly complicated. It's just that I have to be gentle-but-firm internally to get there right now, and fairly specific, or else the brain defaults back to worrying as the main activity.

Edited to add: Please do not take this entry to mean, "Leave mrissa alone!" I don't want to be ignored or treated with kid gloves until we know more about Robin and my vertigo appointment is over. Quite the contrary.

Comments

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Sorry if the e-mail I sent earlier is ill-timed. I didn't think about that until it was too late.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Not at all! I will edit the entry to clarify.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't think your entry needed editing; just that my choice of subject matter might be less than ideal.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No, book talk is generally a good thing.

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

Hopefully, it's okay to wish you luck with the vertigo specialist. I hope they can fix this.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Definitely okay to wish me luck. Yes.

[sksperry.livejournal.com]

Look, over there! (That ought to do it. Minnesotans are so gulible.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Where? Where?

[sksperry.livejournal.com]

My work here is done.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Aren't Minnesotans practically...Canadians?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Why yes. Yes we are.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

So I've been told.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

Would setting yourself a piece to memorize help? To give your mind something to do that is incompatible with worrying? Sort of like telling your dog to sit when she's likely to jump up?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There are very few things that are incompatible with worrying, and I am so good at memorizing text when I want to that it definitely isn't one of them. Thanks, though.

Is that Elvis over there?

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I know lots of good jokes. You've probably heard them, though. I don't know that many good *new* jokes. But seriously: elephant and a rhino? That's good stuff.

Also, I got the most eclectic music for Christmas: Josh Ritter, some science fiction hip-hop (Deltron), and some very dark almost-metal (Tool), and Tom Petty. And that hasn't yet included my brother, who is a shoe-in for *something* odd. Did you get any good and/or interesting music during the past indefinite amount of time?

Re: Is that Elvis over there?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I got two symphonies by my favorite weirdo Finnish modern classical dude, plus some extra stuff to make the CDs long enough -- symphonic dances and a weird water-themed thing. And I got some Finnish folk music ("through the ages" -- widely varied styles), and I got some Richard Shindell live stuff, and...um. markgritter and timprov also got a bunch of stuff I've been enjoying listening to.

[seagrit.livejournal.com]

Niecelet pictures (http://gallery.greenfld.net/v?g2_itemId=12202), now with more mrissa!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Niecelet keeps getting cuter!

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I think this is why I continue to read mediocre books: they get my brain to shut up, but do not ask it to do anything useful with its hands nor to contribute to the conversation at all. I've just finished a new Mercedes Lackey elemental book, and it has given me things to think about, in a semiconversational way-- how fairy tale retellings must be structured and the limits of placing them in the known world, key phrases to alert the reader that this is a retelling, wondering why I've read three of them in as many days and all had Puss in freaking Boots in one form or another. While I'm reading the book, my brain is fairly docile; when I'm done, it starts talking to imaginary people, making hypothetical posts, and trying to be witty about what it's found to say back.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah. For me it depends; many of the mediocre books available make my brain snark like crazy and want to take it away from the author and go, "Here, dear. Watch. This is how it's done."

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Snarking like crazy is not worrying like crazy, so the book does its job.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I guess. It's just a much more complicated job if I end up outlining a book I don't really want to write because the "better way to do it" has lodged itself in my head than if I can just sit back and snicker.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Eep. Yeah, that would complicate matters. I have a couple unwritten ideas spawned from from details of mediocre books, but my brain does not have a high background level of story assembly, so I can snark without fear.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think I trained mine rather too thoroughly that This Is What We Do.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I suspect that the mrissasword goes snickersnark.

[redbird]

Would baking brownies help, or are you looking for mental distractions?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We still have 1/3 pan of brownies going stale, so I'm afraid that's less in the "useful" category than one might prefer. I'm going to get to the store this morning and do a few more meals for porphyrin's (and possibly one for us!) as long as I'm steady for it.

[talimena.livejournal.com]

Heh. I use that voice quite a bit with myself and wish I'd started doing so earlier in life.

Good thoughts to all.