Anonymous asked: Do you have any advice for us people with social anxiety?
Therapy and medication.
I treat my anxiety the same way I treat any other illness: I accept that I am sick, listen to my doctors, pay attention to peer-reviewed studies of what helps in treatment of the condition, and stick with the treatment regimen.
I find it interesting that I am asked every day how I live with anxiety but almost never asked, for instance, how I would recommend confronting a diseased gallbladder, although I’ve done that as well.
Illness is illness. If you are unwell, seek assistance from trained professionals, not blogger novelists. :) - From his tumblr
(I don't usually do the repost Thing, but dynamicsymmetry is one of the most articulate people I know and this is Important (see, even the lj frontpage thinks so! ))
Folks, I know you're tired of me yelling at you, but you should be aware that there's a hearing this morning being held by the US House Judiciary Committee on a "copyright" bill that will essentially break the entire internet.
You like the internet, right? I mean, you're here.
From the link above:
As drafted, the legislation would grant the government and private parties unprecedented power to interfere with the Internet's domain name system (DNS). The government would be able to force ISPs and search engines to redirect or dump users' attempts to reach certain websites' URLs. In response, third parties will woo average users to alternative servers that offer access to the entire Internet (not just the newly censored U.S. version), which will create new computer security vulnerabilities as the reliability and universality of the DNS evaporates.
It gets worse: Under SOPA's provisions, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities. While PROTECT-IP targeted sites “dedicated to infringing activities,” SOPA targets websites that simply don’t do enough to track and police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would be enough). And it creates new powers to shut down folks who provide tools to help users get access to the Internet the rest of the world sees (not just the “U.S. authorized version”).
This is being framed as an attempt to fight hackers and pirates. Don't buy it. And don't think for a minute that it's going to stop there. This is bad. And at the hearing today, only one opponent of the bill is being allowed to testify.
Please do whatever you can to fight this. Email congresspeople. Sign petitions. Yell about it in every venue you can.
OKAY SO. According to American History and Life, there exists an academic review that jointly discusses the historical literature surrounding the Scottsboro trial and the Leo Frank trial. AND I CAN'T FIND MYSELF A FULL TEXT COPY. WORLDCAT IS FAILING ME.
In related news, I think I may need to get myself a thesis icon. ALREADY.
NG: Did you really say in a previous interview that you’d like to be like Sam Vines? Why?
TP: I don’t think I actually said that, but you know how it is and ‘how it is’ changes as you get older. The author can always delve into his own personality and find aspects of himself with which he can dress his characters. If you pushed me I would say that ever since I stood up and talked about my Alzheimer’s I have been a public figure; I visited Downing Street twice, wrote angry letters to the Times, got into debates in the House of Commons, and generally became a geezer to the extent that I sit here sometimes bewildered and think to myself, “Actually, your job is to sit here writing another book. Changing the world is for other people . . .” and then I come back to myself with, “No it isn’t!” And so, bearing in mind that these days, people call a kid from the council houses “Sir” allows me to create a mindset for Vimes.
OH GOD I LOVE THIS MAN AND THIS CHARACTER SO MUCH CANNOT EVEN ARTICULATE. If I can get through Snuff without giving in to the already growing desire to re-app Vimes, it will be only by the skin of my teeth.
Have I mentioned that I need to order Snuff right now? Because I do. Oh lord I do.
(PS, also there is this quote:
I really did enjoy writing Monstrous Regiment, which in a way became very close to becoming mainstream. With minimal changes it could have been set in the Peninsular Wars in the real world. I know you and you know me and we both know that while sometimes you do some research, at the same time you automatically do some research without knowing what you are researching; simply reading books on any subject that takes your fancy, and it is amazing how all those little things you read in all those second-hand books suddenly turn up and hand you a plot. As a matter of fact I did a lot of interesting work for Monstrous Regiment in lesbian book shops.
Oh, Terry darling. We could tell. We could so, so tell.)
SO GUESS WHAT. Today I handed in the first paper that I've written in FOUR AND A HALF YEARS. It wasn't even a big deal paper, but I definitely had a few freak out moments wherein I realized that I had literally forgotten how one writes a paper. But I think it turned out okay, and now I never have to look at it again, so that's all good.
Also, we basically just had to hand in our papers and then leave, so I'm out of class early. OH HAPPY DAY. Seriously, the last week has been filled with nuttiness and way too much time around people (ugh, more and more I am not sure how I feel about having such a small program, as it makes it very difficult to just disappear when I need to), and this week is going to be more of the same, so it's nice to have a couple unstructured hours where I a) don't have anything to do and b) don't even need to fret about all the stuff I should be doing.
It's the little things, people.
And now for my dilemma. Found out today that there's a Public History conference in Amherst this weekend and I kind of want to go because Nina Simon is doing a workshop. Nina Simon is a bit of a celebrity in the museum field - she's a museum consultant based out of the SF Bay area (thus proof that you can be successful in museums and live on the west coast, right?) and writes a pretty seminal blog about interactivity and user generated content in exhibits and museum programs. AND I WANNA MEET HER LIEK WHOA. But I also feel like I really need to collapse this weekend, so I'm not sure how much I'd really get out of it, and also can't really afford it, since my students loans still haven't come through. So I probably will stay in town and fill out my registration for the New England Museum Association conference instead. Plus, they have a Pumpkin Fest in Cooperstown this weekend. PUMPKIN FEST. Small town Americana, you never cease to amuse me.
b) watched the first half of Cambridge Spies as the first of (what I'm sure will be many to come) BBC-watching marathons with Jessica and Naomi. They loved it.
Needless to say, I think I'll be EPing Anthony this weekend. :D
Car packed. Leaving tomorrow. So many fucking mixed feelings.
(We're staying at C's parents' house tonight, and they live out in the suburbs, so technically I have already left Portland. Do not like this thought.)
I want to talk about my last week here - about my parents' visit, and tromping around the farmer's market with some friends who were in town for a weekend, and having a ridiculous tea party with C and Emily, and the epic goodbye picnic we all had at the Pittock Mansion - but I don't have the energy right now, and I feel like the wave of life is just going to carry me on so that by the time I am able to, the moment will have passed. That's the problem with be a writer, with someone who remembers and experiences through the written word - sometimes, if you're not able to take the moment to capture the memory, it's gone forever.
You can only move forward, adventures await, there are awesome people to meet and fantastic things left to do, etc. etc. But I've never been very good at bringing chapters to a close, not in books and not in real life. I do because I have to, because otherwise I rot, and I don't entirely understand people who would rather rot than move on (emotionally, not physically, though for me, moving on physically plays a big part in moving on emotionally). But that doesn't make it easy.
I'll try to take lots of pictures along the way. Take care, my dears. I doubt I'll be around much in the next couple weeks, but you'll all be in my heart.
