Weekend Coffee Share: Three Forms of Madness

If we were having coffee, I’d be going “god bless! It’s been more than two weeks since I published a post, and three since I’ve joined the #WeekendCoffeeShare.

I’ve been thinking I have a time management problem for awhile now, and I probably do. But I understand time management and I do my best to manage the time I have productively. At this point, I’m viewing the time problem in the same way I view the financial problem.

I DON’T have a “money management” problem. I manage my money just fine. The problem is I have a prioritized list of expenses every month and a set income. It’s a simple operation.

1. Rent and power always get paid first.
2. Things like shoes, groceries, and medical have to come next.
3. The rest gets paid out of whatever is left, and when I run out of money, well, I am out of money and have to let things ride.
4. So, weird things happen to the lower-priorities. The trash bill tends to get paid three months at a time at the last minute. The cell phone and cable bills get paid just enough to keep from being turned off. Credit accounts are serviced as early as possible, and just enough to keep the accounts active. I’m doing some fairly subtle and creative things with a few revolving credit accounts just now.

This is no way to live, financially. And I think something similar is going on with my time at this point. I have a prioritized list of things I need to spend time on, and once I’m out of time, I’m just out of time until I get a weekend or a holiday or a legitimate day off to be free (those are few and far between.)

The problem is not that I am unaware of how time management works. The problem is that I have precious little time to manage.

So, here are some things I’ve been doing with my time lately, and some things I plan to do with it in the next little while.

Chess Madness

The grandson, who I talk about on the Internet from time to time, has developed an interest in Chess. He is also good at math and interested in any competition which can be constructed as a war game (I blame Southern Culture as the proximate cause for his love of battle, and finger Western Imperialism as the root cause of his fascination.)

Getty stock image.

We have a neighbor kid who is a few grades further along in school, loves to hang out at our house, and wants to get good enough to beat his older brother in chess. The neighbor kid has expressed a willingness to be mindful of the fact that he’s dealing with a 7-year-old and understands that being a good sport is a condition of me teaching him how chess works.

So we have three chess players of varying levels of skill willing to be kind and learn from one another. The two with the least experience are naturally good at the sorts of thinking that make for lifelong chess players, so of course I am going to give them as much time as I can afford.

What this means, as far as the time budget goes, is that sometimes I have to stop what I am doing, even if I’d rather be writing, and give the grandson 20 minutes for a chess game. Or stop for an hour and give the two boys three chess games to think about and learn from.

Because the chess gives us a reason to interact that builds useful skills and does not require an electronic device. And it gives us something in common to talk about. All kinds of reasons this is the #1 thing at the moment.

Doggie Madness

The doggies are second because they are living creatures who depend on me to feed them. I have a 3.5-month-old puppy I brought into my house willingly, and an older one who just sort of wandered up and stuck around because we fed him.

These are large breed dogs. the smaller one is not four months old, and she’s big enough to snag a pork chop off the kitchen counter if we turn our backs long enough.

They are not bad doggies, but they are not especially well-trained, either. They’re requiring a lot of attention, which means a lot of time. Because I am not going to have two half-grown dogs that weigh better than 80 lbs counter-surfing in my kitchen. I am also not going to beat them to make them behave.

So you can see why this is consuming a lot of resources, and hopefully why it is important to me.

Feminist Madness

I started a Feminist Friday Project along with my sister Diana and our friend Gretchen a couple of years ago now. Somehow, against all odds and with the help of many other bloggers, we’ve managed to keep it viable up to this very day. Here’s the official archive of posts so far.

Most of the bloggers who have contributed so far are still in, and we’re working up to a major announcement.

In fact, once I am done with this post, the next thing I am doing is working on the feminist project.

My list is way longer. I’ve caught up on my tv in the last few weeks, and also read a comics series which demands to be written about.

This is enough for today, but if you want clues as to where I am going, read Saga, then watch Orange is the New Black and Jessica Jones.

I’ve got things to say about all of that stuff. I will likely say it on multiple blogs and from a feminist perspective.

If you’ve not yet added your #WeekendCoffeeShare post to the linkup and shared it on Twitter at this late hour, you should do that stat.

Off to work for me now 😉

Feminist Friday Summer Wrap-Up

This week we wrap up our longest run of Feminist Friday discussions so far. We’ve had discussions for eleven consecutive weeks on nine blogs, and this project is still going strong. We’re planning another, shorter run for later in the year.

L.M.’s post from the Lobster Dance, “Ask a Bisexual: Can Women and Men Ever Just Be Friends,” was recently published at Feministe. Luther Siler of Infinite Free time joined us for this round and hosted an awesome discussion on teaching girls as a guy. We have a page at Part Time Monster to archive our discussion posts from here on out, and Diana’s announced that she plans to make feminist content a regular staple at the Monster on Fridays.

I’ve missed a lot of the chats this run, and I’ve not had time promote them the way I did during 2014 and in the spring. Yet both attendance and the discussions have been good. All this is bodes well for the health of this project.

It’s amazing all this started as a conversation between three bloggers in 2013. You can read the backstory in my very first discussion post. These discussions have meant a lot to me, personally. They’ve not only made me a lot of friends, they’ve made me more sensitive to my own privilege, and they’ve improved my advocacy skills.

I’m happy with what we’ve accomplished — and we’ve accomplished a lot. We’ve produced 42 posts so far. We’ve collected last year’s into an essay collection which is available for free on Smashwords. Sabina wrote a follow-up to one of her discussion posts that ended up being Freshly Pressed.

I’m hoping we can keep it going. I’d like to continue finding new bloggers to host these posts and to join in the chats. I’m looking forward to this year’s collection. Seems like these discussions are shaping up to be an ongoing thing, and they’ve proven they can survive without the sort of micromanagement I did during the first year. So, uber-planner that I am, I almost tossed out a couple of project-related issues today.

Decided to do something fun instead, and save the project-y stuff for another day. I have three questions for you. Respond to any, all, or whatever combination suits you.

1. What’s your favorite post this project has produced so far?
2. What’s the most memorable discussion thread?
3. What topics do you think we should discuss in the next series of these?

If you’re just joining us, scan a few of the posts and threads from Part Time Monster’s Feminist Friday page and chime in if you like. I’m interested to know what grabs people. And feel free to answer item #3 even if this is the first you’ve heard of us.

Feminist Friday Spring Wrap-Up

This has been a good run of posts. Aside from a week off to post for #1000Speak, we’ve had a discussion every Friday since January 30 and I’ve put a lot less work into it than I did last year. We’re getting better at this.

I find it more than a little funny that I’ve written 12 Feminist Friday posts over the last year or so, and not a single one of them has been published here. But this is where the schedule is and where the links are archived so we can collect them into an e-book later and offer it to you for free. I sorta had to do the wrap-up here this time around.

Last weekend I was almost mugged by four guys. I escaped, but not without bleeding. That got me thinking about my own privilege. I almost posted about it today, but decided to pass.

I’m not ready to connect the violence I experienced last weekend to the privilege, so I am saving that for June. I will tell you the story in my #WeekendCoffeeShare post tomorrow, but today I’m taking a stroll through the last six weeks of Feminist Fridays so those of you who missed some of them can find those posts and check them out.

Week 1

I explain why I am a feminist. 47 comments.

Week 2

Sabina on the problems with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Seventy-nine comments, but that is deceptive because the thread got trolled and we interacted with the person who was trolling the thread to elicit information from them. It got us enough information for me to write a four-part series.

1. Yes, Trolling is a Thing.
2. Eight Indicators of Trolling
3. Here’s How I Handle It
4. Are You Vulnerable?

I also outed the trolling person without mentioning them on the front page. You have to read the series and follow the links. If you blog about feminism or any other topic that makes you an easy target, you want to read the series and follow the links.

Week 3

Leah on genderswap, and It. Is. Amazing. 48 comments. No trolling.

Week 4

Hannah on Women in Refrigerators. 37 comments, but we were starting back up after an off-week, most of us weren’t able to devote the attention to this it deserved, and 1000 Speak was still pounding the Internet with compassion links while the discussion was going on. I would not mind re-visiting this topic at some point.

Week 5

Diana on changing her name after getting married the first time, and about not changing it the second time. And about how people react to that. 86 comments, and not a lot of people talking to one another, but she obviously touched something. Because people responded to her.

Week 6

Gretchen on why girls don’t do more math and science. It got 99 comments, and very few were mine.

A good run, I say. I’m hoping for one more good thread, so here are three prompts for you to choose from. Respond to all that apply.

1. Would you like to host one of these discussions this summer? We’re looking to add one or two new hosts. If interested, let us know on the thread.
2. These posts cover a lot of ground. They start with a personal piece, then move into media and culture, and finally come back to the personal. The last article touches the personal, the larger culture AND education. (Good job there, Gretchen!) Is there a common thread? Discuss.
3. What topics would you like to see included in the next round?

This post will be archived with all the others so we can find it easily. Offering topics here means something. I’ll re-visit this thread in May and pull ideas from it when I start planning for summer. So if you have feminist leanings and you want something discussed, best chime in this week.

Thanks, everyone, for hosting and sharing and showing up for these discussions week-in and week-out. As long as you keep showing up, I’ll keep organizing them.