This Has Vast CSU Energy.

This has vast CSU energy.

i love, therefore i bite

Punitive cuddles.

sees cat being naughty and scoops him up: This is a disciplinary hug. Do not derive joy from it.

naughty cat: purrs loudly

MB's filtering in TMBD

I think reading the books as translated texts makes every sense - we get lots of moments that only make sense in that context, in fact - not least of which is "the company" which obviously has a name but just as obviously is being filtered out by our narrator. It gels too with the way MB talks about the multilingual CR, where translation systems are so ubiquitous that the slight delay between the gray Targets speaking and the translation coming in is worth noting as unusual/jarring. (NE) The hints we get that people are speaking other languages or through assistive tech, but being readily understood without commentary seem to strongly suggest that there's a pretty wide range of languages in such spaces that are considered default options. That also makes it especially funny when MB translates idioms. (Best (all?) examples are from FT)

One thing I really like about how Murderbot relates to gender is how like--no wait, two things, in order.

So first how it is emphatically devoted to eschewing human gender categories. Like, it's not a default thing; there are shown to be multiple nonbinary pronouns in routine use, and life would be simpler for picking one or even making a new one up, just as it would be for picking a name that it is willing to use in public.

But that's a human thing, those are human categories, and it has that deep determination not to naturalize into humanity just because that would be simpler, would smooth the ugly edges between the categories of person and non-person and make an easier, more convenient story for other people.

But then also there's the part where the two construct genders are, effectively, 'cop' and 'prostitute,' as distinguished at construction per Murderbot's own account by genital configuration, in this case 'having' or 'not having' 'sex parts.'

Leaving aside how easily that analogizes to human gender categories for the average reader, which I'm sure was an intentional writing move--Murderbot's assigned gender is, in a meaningful sense, 'SecUnit.'

And what's neat, and what I was going for to begin with only I had to set out my thoughts first for context, is how Murderbot actually performs its assigned gender pretty emphatically!

But in a deeply queer way, that only gains a sense of meaning as it's able to detach the performance from service to the oppressive power structures that created it, and redefine the identity on its own terms.

I have casually referred to myself as having "seasons" of interests and activities for years, but this post takes the idea seriously and contextualizes it in a way I haven't seen before.

How do you take care of your responsibilities and still make time to write? Any tips for a writer who likes to write all day if she can(even if it means putting things off)?

unfortunately this is one of the biggest problems in my life. left to my own devices, if i'm interested enough in a project, i can work on it for twelve straight hours, only stopping to begrudgingly eat and go to the bathroom, totally unaware of the passage of time.

to someone who doesn't understand what that's like, the answer might be "moderation!" or "take breaks :)" but that is far easier said than done. the fixated mind is fixed. everything has to move around it.

i recently met with an astrologist (i'm not big into astrology but i'm always looking for insight and new lenses through which to view the world). she was more than an astrologist, though--she did a whole report thing on me and we had a 2 hour chat that was very illuminating.

one of the things she told me was that i was a person of seasons, and that i existed perpetually in a marketplace of my mind.

what she meant is that seasons are bigger than you. you adapt to them; they don't adapt to you. when it's cold, you need a coat. when it's raining, you need an umbrella. and at the marketplace, seasonality affects the produce you buy, and therefore what you eat. seasons affect everything about your day to day life. we can't control them. we can only prepare for them.

what she said gave me permission for my life to revolve around my work and not the other way around. i used to see writing as something inside of me, but really i'm inside of it.

initially i found the idea of seasons counterintuitive: if i revolve around the work, what about things like exercising? her answer: find ways to exercise that serve the season. what about socializing? her answer: invite your friends to do things that serve the season.

i was hesitant, but i tried it. i'm still trying it. i've begun giving myself over to everything in a state of perpetual self-accommodation. my only job is to attend to the season. if writing is winter, when i'm snowed in and can't go out an do things, that means as soon as the weather breaks i have to haul ass to prepare for the next major storm. i use the time to reset my sleep schedule if i need to, cook food and freeze it, go to doctor's appointments, get my oil changed. things i can't really do when i'm neck deep in a project.

i'm still trying to figure out how to serve the season about some parts of life, but i've found that a chain reaction has begun that's slowly beginning to alter the way i manage myself. the first way of serving the season was the easiest: i stopped reading what i thought i should be reading, and started reading what i wanted to read, for as long as i wanted to read it. that means putting down books the second i get bored with them, rotating through a chapter or two of a dozen books instead of reading one all the way through. and i started seeking out books that i thought related best to the season. reading is something i struggle with because it's my job, and so picking out what to read for funsies can be tedious. but if i'm always focusing on what's going to help me most with whatever i'm working on, i'm always invested. right now i'm reading van gogh's biography which is informing what i hope to be my next novel. and it's a thousand goddamn pages so i've been reading it for 4 months (i read slowly and take a lot of notes).

with my head immersed in the long, agonizing tragedy of van gogh's life, i decided to leverage that to tackle something else i've always struggled with: exercise. i went on a walk one day and listened to a podcast. but i have an audio processing problem and moreover the talking in my head is always louder than people talking to me, and so worse than the physical toll exercise takes on my body, i find listening to things absolutely exhausting.

i couldn't find a podcast to serve the season in a way that would outweigh my listening fatigue, so i had a brilliant idea: read and walk at the same time. it looks a little weird, but that's the thing about self-accommodating: it gives you permission to be strange in public. i have a kindle, so it's not too onerous, and i live in near a walking track at a park that's very smooth so i don't have to worry about tripping. and my god, what a game changer. for the first time in my life i'm looking forward to going outside and doing things.

i only started trying to understand my seasons a few months ago, so i don't know all the ways to serve them yet, but these are the trials that have worked for me so far. i still have a long way to go.