Three Interesting Things

1. I hope this open letter to the person who emailed to correct this person's grammar was as satisfying to read as it was to write.  (Note: WaPo link.)

2. Continuing my trend of reading about TV that I'm not watching, this chat with costume designers for three shows featuring characters underrepresented in historical dramas. 

3. Montgomery County teens won a CSPAN documentary contest. 

This Post Will Not Self Destruct....

But in light of recent Twitter news, I'm going to deactivate the account this was pushing Twitter links to. It coincides with me thinking I probably need to be scarce on social media for a bit anyway. I will still be here and on the newsletter. And I'm not sure I'll be able to successfully break, but I'm gonna try.

Project Grief

I've been reading The Grieving Brain, so my thoughts are more focused than usual on the lens of grief. But we were talking in one of my creator groups about that point where you the creator think everything is terrible and really this making things was a bad plan and someone should have stopped you phase. I referenced an old Gaiman post about that: https://ywp.nanowrimo.org/pages/peptalk-gaiman

And similarly Yarn Harlot had a post about the feeling of coming to the end of a yarn project.

And I think in both cases, it's grief. Maybe not explicitly or exclusively. But part of what The Grieving Brain talks about is that part of the work of grief is your brain adjusting to the difference between what was and what is.

And that happens when you make things. The difference isn't necessarily bad, but in the execution things shift and change. 

I do also think some of it is anticipatory decision making. Like once I'm finished what next? And even if the answer is editing or blocking or finding the next project, it requires shifting gears. 

And so while you can trash it. Or stop. Or go write something else. You can also keep going. Partly because it is easier to evaluate a finished project. And this is not to say finish everything no matter what. If the sweater clearly will not fit, then stop. 

But also, some of this feeling bad is an expected part of the process as you realign your expectations with reality. The feelings are still there, and still valid. They just don't always mean stop.

Three Interesting Things

1. As someone who has consumed a lot of Amy's Kitchen products, I was saddened by this story about the labor conditions.  I hope the workers are able to get their conditions improved.  

2. These striking strippers have been doing theme nights for their strikes, and one of them was OSHA violations at the club.  It's a combo of pretty and horrifying.

3. This 90 year-old lei maker is showing up once again for the Merrie Monarch craft fair. 

Life Lessons

I remember back in the day, as a newly minted adult asking my mom for advice on doing my taxes.  She said, well, you'll get a bunch of things that say tax information, and just use those.  At the time this advice seemed, well, lacking.  

But, as I was trying to solve a missing document housed online, as an experienced tax filing person, I mostly kinda look for all the forms that arrive that say tax information. 

So, thanks, Mom.  

Of course many of the things and trappings of adulthood are bureaucratic and sometimes byzantine, as well as shrouded in secrecy.  

I never had to take a personal finance class in school, but a friend of mine did and she said learning things like budgeting, and just getting used to terms and processes was helpful.  

My parents were firmly of the we are adults and some of the things we do are not your business camp, and so some things, like figuring out how to turn on or off utilities, or file taxes seemed like mysterious processes that I was on my own to figure out.  

Some days it feels like adulthood is the long process of figuring out which of the things your family did were normal, and which wasn't.  And deciding which were weird for good reasons, and which weren't.