"I ain't lying, I'm the best (pow pow)" "Deedle dee dee??"

Mon, 25 Jan 2021 18:41:27 GMT

Between the pandemic and the winter, there have been far too many good reasons to not leave the house, and I realized that I probably hadn't been outside for weeks.

I've also been having trouble focusing on reading, and was struggling with starting any new books.

So I grumpily decided to make myself go outside and stay there for a minimum of five minutes. I didn't have to do anything out there, but by god if I was going to do nothing I would insist that I did nothing outdoors.

And I had started reading a book of poetry, because I reasoned that if I was struggling with attention span, something made up of small discrete chunks might be easier for my brain to digest.

Which is how I ended up in the yard by the bird feeder reading Maya Angelou out loud to a bunch of confused and suspicious chickadees.

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Teddy Bear Book Club

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 18:48:49 GMT

SO. Apparently part of my distress over the lack of public library time was due to the fact that socially, I am a cat.

A big part of how cats socialize is via something called "Mirroring." Cats will hang out in the general vicinity of their colony mates and mimic their position and activity. This, as it turns out, is a big part of why kitty climbs on your laptop. "What is today's activity, large friend? Touching the clicky tappy thing? Okay, fine, I support you in your weird hobby and I shall ALSO touch the clicky tappy thing! Look at us! Sharing an experience! Hanging out! Being bros!" This is also why getting them their own laptop or keyboard can help.

It turns out, quietly looking at my phone and reading books while being in a room with many other humans who are ALSO quietly looking at their phones and reading books? That's what socializing looks like on me. And it formed a not insignificant chunk of my human interaction and was a vital pillar of my self care and psychological maintenance. Who knew?

... I have started Teddy Bear Book Club. Every other day, I pose some of my stuffed animals in chairs with books so they look like they're reading. I set my own chair across from them. Then I tune my computer browser to an online noise generator and tinker with the settings to sound like a busy public library and throw in a children's audiobook from librivox for extra authenticity so it sounds like there's a volunteer holding storytime in the children's corner. And then I sit and read.

It helps. It helps a BIZARRE amount. My mood and concentration improved immeasurably and I got a lot more reading done. Then when I put the teddies away I got a lot more writing done.

Weird times call for weird measures.

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dejadrew

"I ain't lying, I'm the best (pow pow)" "Deedle dee dee??"

Teddy Bear Book Club