What I did today (or I guess it's yesterday now):
4:30 a.m. Wake up and lie fretting in the dark.
5:00 a.m. Get up, make coffee, avoid social media as much as possible.
5:30 a.m. Email at least one (today, four) representatives. Today I expressed concern about the cuts in funding to science research, because what the absolute fuck. Only in more civil language.
6:00 to 8:00 a.m.: Grade papers. My students have turned in their first paper, which the one where I teach them how to evaluate a source and then they find a source and evaluate it. We're working on sleep this semester, which seemed like a nice topic that could not be politicized. (I want them focusing on the evaluation process -- how we know what good evidence is vs. propaganda -- which if it's a topic like microplastics or climate change, for example, they can't do. They're too caught up in defending their priors to be able to think at all, let alone critically.)
I have nevertheless a few students who have managed to politicize the process, sending me outraged rants about how I am teaching them to determine what a credible source is -- basically, one written by someone who is qualified and who works in the field; one published in a credible venue; and one which uses credible sources to support its claim. Demanding that they base their paper on such credible sources is wrong, you see, because science is not always right. So therefore peer-reviewed sources written by experts in the fields are fake news.
I treat these students as gently as I can, explaining the scientific process and how it works, and requiring them to learn about the peer-review process. This is probably wasted effort, since basing their belief system on propaganda rather than evidence is, in fact, one of their priors. And they will defend it rabidly.
9:00 a.m. Shower. Try not to fall into despair.
9:20 a.m. Check social media and the three newspapers I read. Wince, close apps, thinking about dying. Start writing the emails I will send tomorrow.
9:45 a.m. Call the pharmacy's automated phone line to refill my prescriptions. They can't fill one. Talk to the pharmacists, who gives me a list of pharmacies, some as many as 20 miles away, that might have the drug I need. Or, you know, might not. American health care, best in the world.
10:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m.: Beta reading a MS from one of my favorite authors. This counts as scholarly and creative activity, right?
12:00 noon: Took Dr. Skull to a medical appointment. This is both to establish him with a local physician, and to get referrals to the pain clinic and to the kidney doctor. We had to wait awhile, but otherwise the appointment went well. We both like this new doctor.
2:00 p.m. Stopped by the Harps to pick up prescriptions, some for Dr. Skull, some for son-in-law, some for the cat. Yes, the cat has her own prescriptions.
"Name?" the pharmacist asked.
"Jasper," I said.
"Date of birth?"
"....she's a cat. Somewhere around 2010?"
2:30-5:00 p.m. Beta-read MS some more.
5:00 p.m. Gave the kid a ride home from school since it was raining and cold, also so I could pass on the meds for SIL. It is rush hour in Fayetteville, which is nothing compared to rush hours in real cities, but I did have to cuss at some asshats who blocked the intersection where Wedington crosses the interstate. Asshats.
6:00 p.m. Made dinner. Yes, actually cooked. Cod in butter and lemon sauce, plus grilled green beans.
7:00 p.m. Reading novels. I finished one and started another -- this one a novel by George Stewart which I'd never read before, called Storm. Written and therefore set in 1940. I'm not sure I like it, though Stewart writes wonderfully. Think about checking social media or the newspapers again; successfully manage not to.
9:30 p.m. Bed, after an uneasy check on the weather. We won't get snow tomorrow, probably, but maybe next Tuesday, which is the day I'm supposed to drive down to Fort Smith for my fiction workshop. Ugh.
10:00 p.m. Listen to Tana French The Searcher in the dark, which keeps me from despair at least long enough to fall asleep.
5:00 a.m. Wake up. It's raining. Lie brooding in the dark...