The Ink-Pot and the Palette

It's been a peculiarly stressful week, beginning with a short visit from my brother, who flew up from Santa Barbara for our oldest sister's milestone 60th birthday.

(First of all, oh my god how do I have a sixty year old sister?)

I both love and like my brother, and we get along well. We had a nice time together.


from left to right: DarkEm, niece, younger sister, niece, niece, Mom, niece, brother, the birthday girl

( But... )

1. Coffitivity, the app I mentioned the other day that provides café sounds, is turning out to be something of a small miracle for me. On low volume, through earphones, it's like prosthetic concentration. I've been able to read! Really focus without skipping around, something I thought had been lost to me forever.

I sense that my mind is mildly but actively tuning out the pleasant babble and somehow kind of sequestering itself in a narrower space, where focused work can take place. Not only have I been able to get through boring work materials, but I'm seven chapters into Mike Carey's The Devil You Know--the actual written version. I'm very pleased about this.

2. Six days off work started this evening. A couple of them will be spent down at Lincoln City on the coast with my good pal roseambr. We always have fun at the beach.

3. An editing job has come my way. No pay--it's a swap: my time and talent in exchange for credit and referrals as I try to launch a side business. The manuscript is a health program based on some very interesting dietary restrictions. It's passionately presented by the healthcare professional who has designed it, but she's not a writer. I can see a future for myself in ghostwriting, frankly.

4. Is this pingback function on LJ new? For the first time today, I got an email notification that someone had mentioned me in a LiveJournal post. I like it! I hope DW is considering something of the same kind.

I'm testing it again right now: emeraldsedai

This post was going to be about thinking styles. azurelunatic and I were discussing the different brain processes in knitting and crocheting, and yourlibrarian and I were talking about pattern thinking and the autistic brain, and I was having Very Thinky Thoughts.

I riffed for a while on my brain, my making-of-things, my peculiar set of limitations and strengths. I took some photos. I coded some links, I wrote and deleted some sentences.

But it's a sunny Sunday in June. I had a bacon cheeseburger for lunch, I've spent my morning beta-ing the work of two writers, both brilliant, and you know what? My brain isn't up to the task of making coherent noises about itself.

So instead, here are some pretty pictures of beadwork, as metaphors for two modes my brain likes to use.

( Photos illustrating what I'm not capable of articulating in words. )

Here is a thirteen-question quiz designed to rank your bare-minimum science understanding. Take it and then shudder in shock at the test results among Americans.

Then it becomes clear how something like this can even be a thing.

I mean, really, Congress? You want the National Science Foundation to fund no research unless it strikes you as "groundbreaking"? Hell, I have a 30-year-old degree in French, FFS, and even I understand science better than that.

There's a psycho-physical phenomenon called ego depletion which, brain scientists speculate, is caused by over-use of the will. It happens when you have to concentrate on something, or control your reactions, or generally over-apply your conscious mind.

I'm paraphrasing a bit. Anyway, people seem to have a tank of this mental willpower stuff, and ego depletion is when the tank runs dry. When that happens, you don't have much will to spare for the next thing that requires it--like making a decision, resisting temptation, or controlling your temper.

( Depleting and refilling )