[[ Greetings from the 427th century... ]]
Awe, I'm just kidding. No one counts in Earth centuries anymore. We just call this Sometime After the Sixth Great Migration.
...
Okay. I lied. It's 12:32am in Philadelphia. And I am about to go to bed watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. But before I do, P*L*A*N*S.
Because. You gotta have plans.
I have gotten four great rejection letters recently. One day after the other. All of them said that they "like" and "love" certain elements and told me why they passed on these stories. It is very rare that SF editors do this and it indicates that they think you have promise.
So, I am caught between anxiety and confidence, in a vicious cycle.
I also have to work Saturday. Which I guess, is technically today.
I am coming up on one year of working from home. It's been tough. Due to the nature of my job, I feel like I live in a teenage wasteland. I crave adult companionship, not romantic, just platonic, with people who aren't case parents, foster parents or coworkers.
Don't get me wrong. I love kids. I especially like working with teens because they are challenging and they keep me on my toes. But my job comes with a lot of emotional stress and vicarious trauma because I work with kids who have been removed from their homes by DHS (the Philadelphia Department of Human Services). I deal every day with abuse and trauma. I have a mental health background and sometimes it can be isolating because I tend to see social dysfunction and relational dysfunction everywhere I look. I see people acting out traumas, I see them struggling, and I think this society has done a lot of damage to a lot of people. But I do believe in accountability: I think people need to be accountable for asking for help. Most bad behavior is maladaptive coping. There are very truly sociopathic and psychopathic individuals out there. Most people, if their needs are met, if they do not have to struggle for existence, and are afforded dignity and material safety, are good people. Even if they sometimes do bad things. And I do think people are accountable for change. I hold people accountable for change, or I at least try, every day with the families I work with.
My New Years' Resolution was to do a better job of coaching people out of avoidant behavior patterns.
See, this shit gets isolating. When you start to look at behaviors within eco-systems of human relations as predictive phenomenon, you feel like an alien observer. Like that Caliban-inspired "First Among Equals" in my story, "Savage."
So, a few more resolutions.
I am going to try to do a better job of representing social workers on this blog. This month is Social Worker Appreciation Month and I am going to try to pay it forward by being a little nicer and not as angry.
I am also going to continue to post "unpublishables," stories that are either way too experimental or weird or disturbing to get published in legit mags. Consider this a "just for fun" exercise.