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This Is How I Do It (TL;DR: Piecemeal and Flexibly)

Katy Peplin has a great Twitter thread on the difference between sharing your process with “This is how I do it” and “This is how you should do it.”

I try to write with the former attitude. Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega does this and it’s one of the things I most appreciate his writing.

I thought today I’d share one thing that address how I do it, wherein it = almost anything in life at all.

Piecemeal. In teeny, tiny fragments. I’ve written before about parenthood and kintsugi.

Yesterday, I was thinking about how I want to write more, and I had a thought about writing that was so good, I wanted to capture it. This happened in literally the one minute before M’s swim lesson started, so there I was on a deck chair by the pool with M basically in my lap (and he’s big, y’all, I love having him in my lap but it’s very different now), and took out my phone and typed out these words:

There will never be time to write. This is my life now. Prismatic. Fragmented. The bits inside a kaleidoscope. They make beautiful patterns and they can be arranged in new ways but they aren’t large. So how do I write in the fragments?

“How do I _______ in the fragments?” is the guiding question of my life. There is perpetually a giant pile of laundry at the foot of my bed. I do put the laundry away, but I put it away one item at a time, while I’m getting dressed and in between finding the things I want to wear on a given day.

I’m working on binding a little pamphlet-bound notebook for M. I fold a page here and there when I can.

This is how I get things done. It’s necessitated by two things: parenthood, which carries with it the eternal threat of interruption, and chronic illness, which means that while my mind loves and craves routine, my body disrupts my ability to stick to it.

So I live by this mantra: what I can, when I can.

And that’s how I get stuff done.

🔖 The Bullet Journal blog has a great interview with Tiago Forte, author of Building a Second Brain, which comes out today. I hope to get a full review up soon. Lots of good stuff in this book, will be revelatory for some & leveling up for others. 📚

🔖 Today’s #1000WordsOfSummer letter is all about letting writing be fun and silly. I needed to read this today. Maybe you do, too. 📝

Hello, Internet. Please recommend to me your favorite essay collections that combine TV or other pop culture analysis with personal writing. Thank you!

What’s that thing where your brain is like “Even leisure is too much right now”? Whatever it is, it’s happening to me. The thought of crafting or reading or playing a video game is too much. So, I guess… Star Trek time?

The TNG episode, “The Masterpiece Society,” is great. 🖖🏻📺💬

“It was the wish of our founders that no one have to suffer a life of disabilities.” “Who gave them the right to decide whether or not I might have something to contribute?” - Hannah Bates and La Forge, on eugenics

Hi! Do you struggle with activities of daily living due to executive dysfunction, cognitive overload, or brain fog? I do. Autism Grown Up, a non-profit founded by my friend Dr. Tara Regan, sells checklists that can help. Today I bought the shower one.