Yet another timesink

I was going through the WisCon 31 programming site a few weeks ago, and didn’t find any panels that made me jump up and down and yell, I *must* be on that panel! I found panels I’d like to attend, but none that called out to me. This is not a slam at the people taking on this job, I think the problem is right here with me.

I am not a fiction writer, so all the useful and necessary programming focused on writing is not useful for me.

I just had a flash earlier this evening (possibly warmer than ambient perimenopausal flash?) that right now my mental energies aren’t focused on other worlds/cultures/fantasies, it’s how I need to find a way to live on this particular planet in this particular time. I’m rapidly approaching nominal Croning age, and even if I’m fortunate enough to live another forty-six years in good mental and physical health, I’ve got this background noise telling me I don’t have unlimited resources available to me and I need to be judicious in where I direct the resources I have at hand.

There’s several things festering in my mind that I’ve read (or re-read) lately that I can see all interconnecting.

1) Suzette Haden Elgin has had a very interesting discussion of “scutwork” going on in her LiveJournal. (who does the cooking/cleaning/caregiving?) The first entry in the discussion is here.

2) Badgerbag’s discussion of “integry” (emotional work)

3) The recent Columbia Journalism Review article about the fictitious opt out dilemma, and all the classist/racist assumptions underlying it.

So here’s a heads up, I’m going to be trying to churn all of this together and welcome comments as I do so.