patron saint of weasels

chelsea rae, 33, out back watering the garden. icon by @yura_inaho on twitter.

[ghostbri]

✦ PHANTOM STARS ✦

[soap-stones]

sorry but literally how am i supposed to continue being a person after finishing this game

[zuzartii]

Until next life

[soap-stones]

my kink is just getting things to editors early. everything else in my life can be on fire. i can be late with grading, no class prep, haven't texted friends or family back in a week, no clean laundry, day #5 of takeout/drive thru meals, whatever. as far as [redacted] knows, i'm the most Together author she's ever worked with. proofs? 48h turnaround. "quick question" email? i'm back in your inbox before you even minimize the window. "due next friday"? i'll have it to you by the end of this week.

[soap-stones]

Hello! Been a fan for ages, and its been so wonderful to see you move into Amazing Professor life!

That said, how in the world do you continue your research? When I got my MFA (printmaking) I was absolutely grinding re:thesis. I love digging in deep, combing through texts etc. But now that I'm out of the academic setting I'm not sure how to continue with research. It's like an invisible wall slapped itself up right in front of my face lol

How do I trick myself into assigning myself a research paper?? For the yearning is Strong!

!!! thanks so much for hanging out for so long !! re: keeping up with research--in some ways, i'm lucky, because i've had the threat of losing my job hanging overhead since i got it :) as you probably know, many (though not all!) tenure lines at research institutions prioritize publication over things like teaching or service--that's where we get "publish or perish." so in some ways i've been very incentivized to keep up with my own work!

in other ways, though, the entire structure of western academia does the exact opposite. just about every form of immediate accountability is tied to the "unimportant" work--if i don't prep for class, class doesn't go well. if i don't grade in a timely way, students complain in their evals. if i drop the ball on a committee or advisory board, there are immediate consequences, etc. if i don't work on my book? literally nobody will know until i fail to deliver it at the end of my 5-7 year tenure clock. in my field, the book is the thing that matters; articles and solicited chapters for edited collections "count" for less (and so naturally have more built-in accountability than a book, because they have external deadlines imposed by the editor and the press). so it's very, very, very easy to let the book slide to the bottom of the to-do list.

all of which is to say!! i think as a general rule, we tend to do what we're held accountable for, and if that accountability is not organic to your job or your life, you have to come up with a way to impose it. obviously in a dream world we'd just work on the things we actually want to work on, but it so rarely works that way for me. there's always, always something else more pressing, or i feel so wiped from doing those more pressing things that i have no gas left in the tank for the stuff that comes after. so you have to find a way to make that thing you want to do just as pressing as the rest of it. strategies:

get on the hook. this is my #1 strategy. if i promise an editor i'll get something to them by a particular deadline, i will do my best to do it. if i propose a conference paper that gets accepted, i will have to write it by the time that conference happens. getting on the hook for the work takes way less time/energy than actually doing it, and then once you're on it, you're on it.

set up designated, non-negotiable time for the thing! my best writing group experiences have been the ones where we've collectively said, i don't care if the grading pile is due tomorrow. for the 3 hours we're here, we're only working on our "actual" work. sometimes you have to kinda be a hardass about it.

make the thing fun. this is the one i'm worst at right now. there are moments of fun, but they're not happening as often as i'd like. but i am of course imagining other big projects beyond this one, and it's been a completely exciting and freeing exercise to imagine how i'd approach a project without the hourglass running down in the background and the pressure to produce a traditional monograph in order to best-present a tenure case. how i might approach the research, the writing, the organization, etc, without that pressure? this is actually advice that i give my grad students when they're drafting their prospectus documents--what's the coolest, sexiest, most exciting version of this project you can imagine? if you have a question you want to ask... how do you want to answer it? do you want to write a straightforward academic diss, or do you want to do something more unique? a mix of both? etc etc etc. especially if you're not constrained by needing to produce a particular kind of product--what kind of project will make you jazzed to work on it?? what will activate your hyperfixation muscles, or your tunnel vision? i don't just mean the topic, but all the other stuff that goes into a research project--how will you take your notes, what objects will you consider, how will you be looking at them, on and on.

[soap-stones]

happy happy birthday chelsea <3 it’s such a joy to watch you try new things and explore and create and live life so fully. i wish you the very best

wahh this is so kind, thank you so much!! i had a super nice day :) :)

[soap-stones]

hello :) firstly i am loving ur quilts chelsea rae!! they all look so gorgeous. & secondly i am trying to find where i first saw reference to the old french text yde & olive... was it you posting about it? <3

ahh hi anna marie!! tyyyy that means a lot hehehe

and yes it was probably me! for anybody who hasn't been introduced to this absolute banger of a medieval text, yde and olive was written in old french in the 1200s but is available for free (with intro and in a modern english translation) here, courtesy of the medieval feminist forum. it's one choice for an optional assignment in my british literature survey so i'll just give you the spoiler-free teaser i give my students:

HIGHLY recommended for fans of trans literature in history, falling in love with a princess, and weird baby names. it's short!! you'll love it!!

[soap-stones]

me and this stranger buying my stationary bike on fb marketplace trying to figure out if the two of us will be strong enough for her to get it into the truck or if she needs to bring a third, also-not-that-strong friend lmaooooo

[soap-stones]

good morning from the coffee shop. i am at the coffee shop because you can't play clair obscur here and i need to do work today. the top priority goal is finishing a draft of this conference paper. today i also need to:

clean the kitchen. good lord.

put in some actual time on making this tbr list

move bike to lr

call the vet back

figure out what i'm bringing to this studio potluck tomorrow morning

vote!!!

book a haircut

[soap-stones]

hi chelsea! i was wondering how you actually tackle the horrors of tasks piling up! Is it todo lists? I'm curious because you seem like someone who has ~balance~~

omg i'm so sorry for giving u guys that impression. i am NOT someone who has balance hahaha though i will say that letting go of the pipe dream of achieving perfect balance has made my life a lot better. some weeks are work weeks, some weeks are chore/errand/admin weeks, some weeks are teaching weeks, some weeks are rest or escapism weeks... at my big age i think i've finally internalized the understanding that i will never be on top of it all. and that's okay. there was a... video? post? i can't remember now, but i remember seeing something that was like, more parts of life are like laundry than you'd think. the goal is never "everything in the house is perfectly clean at the same time." something's always going to be in need of a wash, and that's fine. i've been doing great at showing up for pottery lately, because i haven't turned on my sewing machine in 2 weeks. my kitchen is relatively tidy, because i've let the backyard garden become fully overtaken by weeds. etc. all of these are okay. at some point, my kitchen will desperately need a clean, and the garden will look pretty good.

ANYWAY not what you asked!! when i feel like i've been neglecting things for TOO long and the pile has become overwhelming, i do one of two things

if they're small and easily clustered, i tend to batch things--i'll tackle All of my emails at once, or i'll spend a full morning running errands. if there are enough small-ish tasks, i'll have a Hell Day, which is a day where you do all of your most hated tasks that you've been putting off. think like, oil change, calling the doctor, tackling a bunch of returns, washing the dog, etc. i am suffering the whole time but with the promise that when i go to bed, i don't have to think about ANY of those things again for a while.

if they're big and super overwhelming, i'll break them up and try to parcel them out so i'm making small but consistent progress. rn i'm doing that with writing work and with prepping the house for my house-sitter.

part of the Horrors is that the pile often feels threatening because it's full of shadows--i know some of what's in there, but i'm sure i'm forgetting something, etc etc etc. so if i'm truly feeling overwhelmed i'll start with a giant brain-dump list of literally EVERYTHING i'm feeling overwhelmed by. writing it out helps--it is in some ways worse to see it all plainly, but it also becomes a list of individual items that can be crossed out, rather than an amorphous looming mass of Stuff You Need To Do.

once i have the big list, i'll sort according to my whims. often i'll spend an hour doing anything on there that takes about 5 minutes, then i'll take a break and come back and make a game plan (often batching tasks or parceling them out) for the rest of it.

my last strategy is to get help from a friend! sometimes that's material--my garden did look great for a few weeks back in the spring, because my friends came over and helped me prep it for planting, and then i went and helped them with theirs--but sometimes it's just a coworking session where we're both cleaning our bathrooms or catching up on our grading or whatever.

[soap-stones]

oooh unusual cloud alert!! these are called MAMMA clouds bc they look like udders 🐄 and yes we do have a tornado watch.

[soap-stones]

hello it's saturday!! i FINALLY got a solid 6h of sleep. yesterday (when i was running on maybe 4?) i skipped the gym :-\ just could not make myself do it. but i did meet up with a friend to get a really good iced houjicha latte AND a kouign amann--i feel like i never find those in the wild but omg it was so good. and also so good to catch up w my friend ;__; hopefully we will follow through on our plan to meet up after our respective summer travels and debrief at the sauna/cold plunge place that just opened across the street from this coffee shop. i also made bread* (and later a really good tuna melt with the bread) + made it to the pottery studio for a few hours! and then at night caught up with another friend on zoom <3, bullied myself into racing the dishwasher cycle to get the kitchen clean and finally reassemble my dining room rug/table situation, and spent maybe an hour on emails + starting to pull this conference paper together before bed. today!! i refuse to leave the house lol it's a jammies day.

revise the work plan

submit online returns

draft conference paper

vacuum bedroom / kitchen / dining room

put away laundry / start new load / flip / remake bed

impromptu 3h nap

declutter guest room dresser

declutter kitchen closet

unload dishwasher

*i got a bread machine a few weeks ago and it's lifechanging but i don't feel i can take credit for actually Making the bread lmao

[soap-stones]

another day of managing just about the bare minimum (today's version: vet, home for writing zoom, BACK to vet with a container of dog pee because juno refused to give them even a drop for the urine sample when we were there, gym, grocery store, home, mowed the lawns, started laundry, medicated and fed my sick child and then took the world's coldest best shower) and it is once again 8pm and i'm at my desk trying to accomplish... something. might be finishing this reader's report tbh. and then maybe if i still have battery left in my brain i'll start patchworking together this conference paper for next month.

[soap-stones]

juno's been having ✧˖° digestive troubles ✧˖° for the past day or so and has been getting me up about every hour to go outside which means i am on day 2 of having... basically no? rem sleep. today i have

showered/washed my hair

watered the veg beds outside

gone to the pottery studio bc i thought she'd be okay for 2 hours

come home from the studio, moved a lot of furniture, and put the dining room rug in the wash :)

gone to a pcp appointment & got bloodwork done on my way out

washed the mountain of dishes in the sink

and that's it. i Just turned my laptop on for the first time today. i really need to get like.. one (1) work thing rolling in order to not be irritated with myself tomorrow and i think that thing is going to be this reader's report i owe to a journal at the end of the month. it should not be the priority but it's low impact for me and that feels like about what my brain can handle. i am sooo tired.

update: SUCCESS. read the whole thing and took all my notes, just gotta finish turning them into sentences tomorrow and then i can send it in 🙂‍↕️ this is my first time recommending publication with basically NO revisions!! i have a handful of copyedits and one minor suggestion and that is IT. also while i was working i got an email from one of my own editors saying that we have a pub date for this book and that we're getting proofs next week. 😵‍💫 just put it... on the pile.... with the other things....

[loveridden1999]

whatever needs to be said was said in iris by the goo goo dolls

[soap-stones]

bro how do you make yourself do stuff? i need to finish my diss prospectus and id rather lay and stare at ceiling than ever do anything again

ohh so impossible. so so impossible. okay first step is to not be mid-depressive episode. if that's squared away:

caffeinate

change your environment

impose accountability. i recommend the strategy that i recommend to my undergrads on peer review workshop days: choose someone who seems capable of psychologically damaging you.

accountability but make it immediate. i will cowork with friends and we'll start by saying, in this 40m session i will.... and then if i don't do the thing i will have to explain myself. oof.

accountability but make it immediate, deranged, and panoptic. in moments of true desperation my virtual coworking friend and i will sometimes share our screens so we can actively surveil each other.

make it silly

break it up. there was a period last spring where i was KILLING it at stardewdoro, which is when you play one day of stardew valley and then do one task from your list, ad infinitum. this does require you to:

lower your standards, especially for quantity--sometimes i cannot face the Big Task but if i tell myself, actually the goal is not "start the chapter," the goal is

i am vastly more likely to attempt it. i made eye contact this morning and that got me started on making my tbr list, which is a separate task that is now less of a Thing because i already have it started.

yap about it. i feel this lowers the barrier to entry but you have GOT to be careful bc sometimes talking about doing something pings the part of your brain that rewards you for actually doing it. you do still actually need to do it.

[peachfromcmbyn]

People on Tumblr love sharing information about themselves no matter how asinine it is. And I'm the same way. Everybody tell me what the last thing you drank was.