Ruth Sadelle Alderson

I've been posting monthly writing update posts for some number of years now. It was partly because it was helpful to me to check in on what I'd been doing and partly because it was a way to post links to what I'd written.

This has been a really hard year for me. My heart has been broken by two different systemic injustices that have left me feeling really untethered (this is not what I thought a midlife crisis was supposed to be like), and I haven't been writing anything. Making posts saying I haven't done any writing is just depressing, so I'm taking a break for now. Past experience suggests I'll get back to writing again someday, and then maybe I'll go back to my update posts.

Early this year, I saw a post about how it's never too late to become good at something, and another post that said something like, "Have the courage to be bad at something." I found those inspiring and decided that I wanted to learn how to draw. It's a skill I think would be cool to have, and I thought if nothing else it would be fun to be able to draw some little pictures on the postcards I send to my friend's toddler who isn't quite reading yet. This is probably a surprise to you because I decided this was something I wanted to just do for myself and not have to talk about, so I haven't told anyone about it until now.

I checked out a copy of Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, which a friend worked through and liked, from the library. I hated it. HATED it. It might have worked better for me if I hadn't read the introduction. The introduction is essentially Edwards' manifesto arguing that drawing is a basic skill that should be taught in schools the way we teach reading and writing. While I don't necessarily disagree with her, if you start talking to me about basic skills you learn in school, then no matter how many times I tell myself that the whole point is to be bad at it, I will get stuck in mental spiral of "I am a SMART KID and SMART KIDS are GOOD AT SCHOOL and always get the RIGHT ANSWER." That was especially bad for me given that Edwards' method, at least at the beginning of the book (I didn't make it very far), is to cause your left brain to fail out so your right brain will take over. At the point that I was literally crying about it (on an admittedly hormonal day), I thought, "Maybe this isn't for me."

The next morning, I woke up and thought, "Who was that guy we used to watch on PBS?" I googled that guy, and found that he was Mark Kistler, aka Commander Mark from The Secret City and Draw Squad. I bought a copy of his book You Can Draw in 30 Days. The book is aimed at adults, but since Kistler's primary focus has been teaching kids how to draw, it has the same kind of fun, easy, encouraging tone and approach that he uses with kids. In his framing of basic drawing skills in the introduction of his book, he says that when you started learning to write, you would trace and copy letters, so when he teaches people to draw, he starts by having you copy his drawings line by line and trace pictures.

The book is arranged into thirty lessons you can do in about twenty minutes each. I spent more than thirty days on it because sometimes I went back and redid lessons if I felt like I didn't totally get it, or I split the main lesson (the basic thing) and the bonus lesson (a more advanced or creative variation) across two days. Kistler's method is to set you up for success, and he tells jokes, so working through his book was really fun. Drawing has also been a good creative activity for pandemic times. I haven't felt like writing at all - this post is the longest thing I've written in something like two months - but drawing feels easy. I don't have to come up with anything out of my own brain; I just have to copy down something that exists on a page or in real life.

I'm finding it interesting how much learning to draw has influenced how I look at the world. I pay much more attention to the shape and direction of shadows. When I'm watching Deep Space Nine, I've been thinking about how you would draw Cardassian facial features with curved contour lines and how Bajoran nose crinkles are at much sharper angles. I drew a version of my mattress and box spring one day because I kept looking at them and wondering how to modify a cube to have curved edges. Seeing the irises in bloom in my neighborhood on my walk and made me think that I'll have to google some iris pictures and see if I can figure out how to get the shapes right.

I'm never going to put enough work into drawing to become a great artist, but I'm enjoying spending some time every day drawing something. Kistler encourages you to make notes or write things down in your sketchbook. I've been putting comments on my pictures, and that's also fun. I have a lot of things that say, "Could be worse!" or, "Not terrible!" as well as a few that say things like, "How cool!"

( Pictures of my drawings! )

This was a weird year for me. Between whatever physical trauma there was from breathing in the smoke from the fire, the emotional trauma of the fire, and my worrying about what it was going to mean for me, I caught two back-to-back colds and was sick from the middle of January until the middle of February. I had gum graft surgery on one side of my mouth in the middle of July, and spent four solid days zoning out on the couch and another three weeks or so until I started feeling more normal. At the end of September, I went on two back-to-back vacations, then went right back to work, which was clearly not okay with my body because I caught a third cold at the beginning of October. October is our busiest month of the year at work. Then at the end of October, I had gum graft surgery on the other side of my mouth. I feel like that one took a lot longer to recover from, probably because I was already a little run down and then the first anniversary of the fire was just a week after I had the surgery. Between all of that, I estimate I had about three months total out of this year that I was in some sort of illness and recovery mode, and maybe a few more weeks that I felt like I was still recovering mentally. I also had an interesting year in that I realized while 38 was arguably the uppermost limit of mid-30s, 39 was definitely almost 40, so I spent a lot of time thinking about what I want my life to be like in my 40s and making changes toward that end.

Write. I'm not sure how much I really achieved what I wanted with this this year. I did have some times when I really felt my way into the experience of writing. I also spent a lot of this year feeling somewhat fuzzy and unfocused. I am leaning into the idea that some times are like that, and that's just what I needed to do this year. It was a fallow year; next year will be different.

Strengthen connections. I did so much of this! It still makes me really happy to put all these things down in my tracking spreadsheets. I sent a lot of emails, texted, started sending mail to my niece, hung out with people from my yoga class, went on vacations and to local cultural events with my mom, went to the movies with friends, enjoyed both my book clubs, and got to see some of my best friends who live far away. One of the real highlights is that I have a better relationship with my brother now, which I think is mostly because he's changed, but my getting a cell phone so we can text each other now probably helped. I also met a potential new friend right at the end of the year (the joke I've been telling myself is that the post-work holiday party mood is: I'm in ur Facebook befriending ur partner), so I'll see if she wants to hang out earlyish this year.

Connect to God/the divine. It turns out I wrote down a lot more things on my tracking spreadsheet than I thought I did. I have the sense that I'm still really struggling with how to do this in an ongoing way. I think part of what I need to start doing is noticing the divine element of times when I'm not specifically trying to make that connection. For example, the day after we did Thanksgiving Friday at my house, I was singing along to Kesha's Rainbow while washing dishes from having hosted my family, and I thought, "This is a devotional practice."

Get more sleep. I think I did much better on this one. I still wrote down that I was tired more weeks than is ideal on my check-ins, but I have the sense that I wasn't as exhausted this year due to not getting enough sleep reasons.

Cut out the mindless internetting. Hoo boy. I did okay with this. I definitely spent less time doing mindless internetting and more time reading books this year. However, I also spent a lot of time doing mindless internetting during all of the rest and recovery from illness and dental surgeries time. I think this is something I need to keep being mindful of.

Take a vacation. I did a lot of vacationing this year! In fact, this week is my only staycation all year. My mom and I went to San Francisco in February to go to the ballet and in May to see Hamilton and go to the SFMOMA. In August we went to Ashland to see five plays in three days. In September, I went to Wisconsin to visit lakeeffectgirl and we went to see the JoBros with one of our other best friends. Right after that, I went with my mom and a handful of other women from my yoga class to Asilomar for a weekend yoga retreat with our yoga teacher. This does not need to be on my list for next year because I already have two out of town cultural events with my mom and a two Louis Tomlinson concert dates trip planned with lakeeffectgirl.

Prepare to move. I didn't have to move! I did clean out some things from my cabinets and have a few things fixed by the apartment people.

Volunteer/get involved in a cause. This did not happen at all. I think partially it turns out it's not really a high priority for me and partially being sick so much put me off doing anything that took more work.

Address problems earlier. I did okay on this. I have a lot of things on the fixed problems row of my tracking spreadsheet for the beginning of the year. I'm not sure if I slacked on this or if there just weren't a huge number of problems left in the later part of the year.

Share my interests/enthusiasm/excitement. I sent a lot of emails to friends, and talked about some of the things I was interested in at family dinner, plus there were my two book clubs. I also talked more about my interests on Facebook this year.

Be more weird. It's really hard to be weird when you're out of the habit! I did some singing and dancing in my car at stoplights, had post-lunch one-song kitchen dance parties for a few months in the summer, and was much more willing to be weird in terms of what I posted on Facebook. I'm still not sure how to be more weird.

My mom and I stayed overnight in San Francisco after we saw Hamilton, and in the morning we went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) before we came home. This was my choice; my mom originally asked if I wanted to go see the Monet exhibit at the de Young, and while I sort of felt like I should be into it because Monet is a great artist, it's just not my thing, so I suggested SFMOMA if she hadn't been there too recently. The day we went was the first day of the member preview of the Andy Warhol exhibit. My mom is a member, and every staff person we encountered was at least mildly confused that we weren't seeing the Warhol exhibit. I'm not that into Warhol. If my mom had really wanted to see it, we would have gone, but she and my dad have plans to go see it this summer so I didn't feel bad about skipping it.

I got to choose what we saw, because my mom goes more frequently than I do (San Francisco is close enough to do a long day trip to a museum, and she has an artist friend who has a condo in the East Bay who she goes to art things with). Here are some highlights:

( Art notes )

This was the first time in a decade that I didn't post one thing I was thankful for every day from November 1 through Thanksgiving. I didn't just forget. I thought about it. Last year, it wasn't fun; it felt like a chore and I really struggled with it. I didn't think I could do it again this year without struggling with it, which defeats the purpose for me.

I am thankful for how the world has changed for the better for queer people, and I had three things remind me of that recently in a way that are a contrast to both the unrelenting tales of horror I'm trying to stop constantly reading and the DADT-era GK fic it's probably time to stop re-reading constantly.

1. Last month I saw Bebe Rexha in concert in Sacramento (which was amazing and wonderful). Because of where I was in the venue and because I wasn't in a hurry, the floor was half-empty by the time I started making my way toward the exit. There were two men in the middle of the empty part of the floor kissing. No one was paying them any attention, like it was totally normal.

2. A gay, divorced (from his ex-husband) college friend narrated some sort of anniversary of the Marine Corps founding event at his overseas State Department post, which is a sentence I couldn't have ever imagined being able to type.

3. The first thing I saw about the results of Australia's marriage equality postal survey was a Facebook post from Christian Kane where he said, "Pretty great to be in Australia on the day they finally vote yes on #marriageequality it's a g'day for Australia!! @supanovaexpo" It's just not what I was expecting from a country singer/tough guy actor, but it reminded me how mainstream support for marriage equality really is now.

For the record, I loved the premiere of Hockey Wives. I watched it with focused attention (I closed both Firefox and my Twitter client), and with my knees clasped to my chest in delight. I know it's a manipulated reality show, and I still found it to be a fascinating look into the lives of a handful of women (there are ten on the show, but only five featured in the first episode) partnered to hockey players. That said, I think there's a lot of material there for critical commentary.

( Commentary )

Today I'm thankful for AAA. Today they jumped my car once, attempted to jump it a second time, and towed it to a repair place.

This is year seven of posting one thing I'm thankful for every day from November 1 to Thanksgiving, and of course I forgot about it on the first day.

Yesterday I was thankful for the super nice people who came into our office and were very excited that we had Pop Rocks in our candy bowl.

For reference, my 2012 goals post is here.

Priority: Health (Physical, Mental, Emotional)

Start walking again. I started walking again in April, which was a huge relief. I worked back up to three miles by November, and I'm so much happier.

Go to bed on time. Some months were better than others, but I put this on my daily goals tracking sheet, and it helped me stay on track. This isn't going to be one of my resolutions for this year, but I'm going to keep tracking it day-to-day.

Make at least two new recipes per month. I only managed to do this for two months consistently, although I did manage a total of five new recipes over the year. One of them (twice-baked potatoes) became one of my regular recipes, and another one (this cake) is something I'd like to try again with modifications.

Go to the beach. I went in August! It was exactly what I wanted. I even enjoyed the drive, which I haven't before. I think it was partially that I made playlists for the drive - one of music and one of podcasts, each of them long enough to cover most of the drive - and partially the novelty factor - I hadn't done a long drive in years, and I took roads I hadn't driven before in both directions. On the way home, I drove up Highway 1 on a gorgeous Tuesday morning with almost no other cars on the road.

Priority: Writing

Edit and sell books one and two. I started editing book two.

Write at least one book. I worked a little on book three, then got stuck and didn't work on it for something like seven months. I got into good habits in December, but it hasn't even cracked ten thousand words yet.

Finish/post all the little finishable/postable things I have lying about. I didn't quite get to all of them, but between 31 Days of Fic in March and Daily December Treats in December, I got to enough of them to call this a success.

Priority: Friendships

Plan a trip to Chicago at a time when eleanor_lavish can also go. We did this in July! It was a lot of fun. Two lessons: 1. Taking care of myself, even if my habits and patterns don't match up with everyone else's, will make for a better experience. I insisted on going to the grocery store for rice cakes and peanut butter so I would have something for breakfast even if no one else was into breakfast/awake when I was, and I think I had a much better time because of it. 2. When going to the movies in the Midwest in the summer, I need to take a sweater.

Connect with the people I love but don't email every day at least once a month. I did okay with some people, but not with others. I may just need to get over myself when it comes to talking on the phone. I don't actually dislike it once I'm doing it, but I tend to dread it and then not make phone calls.

Make at least one new local friend. I was trying, and it just never worked out with the people I was trying to befriend.

Yesterday I was thankful for the community of my yoga class. We were off last week, so yesterday was the first chance I had to tell my friends there that I got laid off. They were all sympathetic, and they all offered hope for better things in the future.