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I am a terrible, terrible person who promised to mention something for the Lovely Emily last week and then forgot (eep!). Without further ado: the Lovely Emily's Team In Training page for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, where she's collecting donations for the Mercedes Half Marathon she'll be running in February. Donations will support research for blood cancers (like leukemia, lymphoma, and Hodgkin lymphoma) and patient services.
Meanwhile, I'm grappling with fear-induced writer's block. As in, writer's block caused by my not opening Word at all. Whenever I was anxious as a kid (which was, oh, 95% of the time), my father used to ask me, in the most smug and least helpful way possible, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" Despite the fact that he boarded the failboat a long time ago, and that "Whatever he did, do the opposite" is a fairly good approach to living, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" is perhaps the one useful thing he has passed on to me. Except that, of course, he wasn't doing it right. (I used to get so frustrated with him that I think that, on at least on one occasion, I actually said, "THE WORLD WILL END.") He was using it in the sense of, "Well, nothing, really, so it doesn't matter anyway." I've found it's far more useful to think of actual, meaningful answers to the question and deal with those. And sometimes it involves saying, "Well, yeah, this could happen, and that would probably suck. But here's what we'll do if that happens, and here's what we could possibly do to avoid it." Life goes down a bit easier when you're walking into that eighth-grade oral book report not under a cloud of vague fear, but knowing that you could start flailing, and you probably will, but if you do, just stop, swallow, and start your sentence over. That kind of thing. Expect it, don't fear it.
So here's what I'm worried about: ( Well, because you're a dumbass, mostly )
( War on string may be unwinnable )
Meanwhile, I'm grappling with fear-induced writer's block. As in, writer's block caused by my not opening Word at all. Whenever I was anxious as a kid (which was, oh, 95% of the time), my father used to ask me, in the most smug and least helpful way possible, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" Despite the fact that he boarded the failboat a long time ago, and that "Whatever he did, do the opposite" is a fairly good approach to living, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" is perhaps the one useful thing he has passed on to me. Except that, of course, he wasn't doing it right. (I used to get so frustrated with him that I think that, on at least on one occasion, I actually said, "THE WORLD WILL END.") He was using it in the sense of, "Well, nothing, really, so it doesn't matter anyway." I've found it's far more useful to think of actual, meaningful answers to the question and deal with those. And sometimes it involves saying, "Well, yeah, this could happen, and that would probably suck. But here's what we'll do if that happens, and here's what we could possibly do to avoid it." Life goes down a bit easier when you're walking into that eighth-grade oral book report not under a cloud of vague fear, but knowing that you could start flailing, and you probably will, but if you do, just stop, swallow, and start your sentence over. That kind of thing. Expect it, don't fear it.
So here's what I'm worried about: ( Well, because you're a dumbass, mostly )
( War on string may be unwinnable )
