I’ve been really busy lately.
I’m busy even though my freelance work has dried up to levels unseen since 2020 and my university is still under student blockades so I’m not going to class or doing any assignments besides some reading to try and get ahead.
I’ve always been busy. Even when I lost my job during COVID-19 and had to move back home I managed to find enough stuff to fill up my bullet journal that I always had something to do and always had something to cross off, because I am BUSY.
My senior year of college I took an extra class above the normal workload (Intermediate Arabic, in case you thought it was an easy elective) and did dance and worked a paid job and got my driver’s license and did stand-up once a month and worked an unpaid internship and a bunch of other stuff I think I forgot.
I’m realizing that busy is not a list of things on my to-do list (although there is always admin to be done and buttons to sew on). Busy is a state of mind. Busy is a state of mind that I have cultivated since high school, because we always competed to see who was busiest, and now I feel as if I am letting something slip through my fingers if I am not busy. Busy has become an identity, and I no longer know who I am if I am not busy.
Busy has become an escape. I almost wish I could escape into reality TV shows, instead I escape into the mindless tasks I assign myself, such as redoing my recipe filing system and being one of those people that has an email clearing-out system. All while complaining about how busy I am.
Because if I wasn’t busy, then I would maybe have to think about what is going on in my life. Because if I wasn’t busy, then maybe I would have to admit just how powerless I feel with so much of my life, my career, my income, the future of my academic life, out of my control.
Because if I wasn’t busy, then maybe I would have to confront the idea of who I am outside of my to-do list, my productivity, and my usefulness to others, and the idea of what I want outside of the next thing to check off a list. And that’s so scary I’ve been avoiding doing it for a decade.
So I think that’s what I’m going to try to do for a while. Be a little less busy.
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READING
Butcher - by Joyce Carol Oates, part of my optional reading for a class I’m taking for my master’s, “The Other in America.” My first time reading JCO outside of her tweets, and like many, the prolificness of her Twitter made me think her novels probably suffered. They do not, giving me hope that one can be a poster and a good writer. But in all seriousness, this fictionalized historical novel about a sadistic 19th century gynecologist, told in the format of his biography from different sources, makes us question how we perceive others, how we perceive ourselves, and who gets to “count” (sometimes literally). Sometimes nauseating, despite the occasional flourishes of too-modern.
Northanger Abbey - I’m following along with the Austen Connection Jane Austen read-along this year and this month’s book is Northanger Abbey. I like this a lot better than when I read it in high school, and I’m working on an essay about being a Catherine Morland defender.
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WATCHING
Becoming Led Zeppelin - a two hour long hagiography that stops when Zeppelin gets big, probably to avoid any stories the authorized talking heads wouldn’t authorize. Probably fun if you are a big Zep fan, which I am not. Full review here.
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OTHER STUFF
Playing Slay the Princess - believe it or not this is a homework assignment.
Made this cake (with some tweaks to reflect the lack of cream cheese in Serbia) for my partner’s birthday and it was a hit