fear

COVID-19

March 16, 2020 by Elizabeth Drake

Everyone is talking about COVID-19, at least where I work. Our global supply chain is interrupted. We’ve stopped all travel, even domestic travel in the US. No one is allowed to shake hands, and there are hand-sanitizer stations every 10 feet.

I don’t really have anything to say that hasn’t already been splashed across the news.

I had a whole post on this, then everything changed.

Yes, we had already made a few changes because of it.

For example, we canceled all our vacation plans as they would’ve taken us to a high-risk area. We are currently trying to figure out what to do on our week of vacation that will be fun but not in large public spaces. My kids like the idea of unlimited video game time. I may not say “no”.

Animal Crossing — They’re angling for this. Suddenly, screen time doesn’t seem so bad.

No, a cruise was never in the plans. I can honestly say I had never liked the idea of a cruise ship. Not surprising that I, as an introvert, would not want to be in tight quarters with thousands of people I don’t know. After everything that has happened, I can all but guarantee I will never go on a cruise. Ever.

It’s a scary time, made worse by the misinformation and fear-mongering.

I had taken some other precautions. I bought extra fever reducer and allergy medicine in the event of supply disruption when we would most need them. I picked up an extra jar of peanut butter and some rice and beans. I had planned to keep picking up a little bit more each week on my grocery runs until we have two weeks of non-perishable food on hand in the event of quarantine.

When this is over, we’d just incorporate it into our regular meal rotation if we don’t use it.

toilet-paper-3964492_640 — No, I didn’t buy 12 years worth.

I knew others are doing a lot more, but we were trying to be smart without giving into fear. Maybe I was not as terrified as others as I actually have colleagues in China. While not in the Hubei province, they are within a four-hour train ride of the epicenter, and they were on all but lock-down for a month. Yes, it was hard, but they and their families are all okay.

And then everything changed.

Our governor declared a state of emergency. All events with more than a certain number of attendees were canceled.

Our federal government declared an emergency.

Our state further acted on emergency measures and canceled all public and private schools for the next month.

Grocery stores are empty.

My work went from a, “we are not allowing telecommuting” policy to an urgent e-mail over the weekend asking anyone who can telecommute to do so for the next few weeks.

Trying to stick to prepare but not panic mode. Trying to be the rock for my department as I called each of them over the weekend to explain all that was happening, what they needed to do today, and to try to keep them from panicking.

There really is little more I can do. So I’m losing myself in my pretend worlds. Both reading and writing. Playing a bit of Outer Worlds (which is like Fallout is space. Highly recommend it so far).

And reminding myself of the Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”

My characters are calling it karma for all I have done to them. But I did give them all a happily-ever-after, so let’s hope it is karma.

And the Cats Watch

July 4, 2019 by Elizabeth Drake

I fear spiders. Note, there will be no pictures of spiders in this post. You will have to Google them if you want to see them.

I didn’t always fear spiders. When I was a child, I would play with them. Yeah. I know. I had a deprived childhood. But I would hold them in the palm of my hand and giggle as they ran across my forearm. Or I would build little labyrinths for them, which they mostly just climbed over the walls.

All of that changes when we moved to Seattle, and spiders went from being a run-of-the-mill insects (okay, arachnids), to creatures that could necrotize flesh.

FoundSpiderDealt — Exactly what you need to do if you find brown recluses nesting in your vents.

Seriously.

My sister was bitten by a spider. I won’t describe how awful it was, how painful, or the scars the bite left.

If you want an idea, go look up brown recluse bites. Yeah. They are awful.

That completely changed my view on spiders, and I went from playing with them to smooshing them. Or fleeing from them, as the case may be.

Then I moved to New Orleans.

In addition to brown recluses, they have black widows. And brown widows. And a slew of other really nasty and unpleasant things.

So, yes, my fear was solidified.

These days, I have two cats. One is a former barn cat. These boys should be able to take out a mere spider, right? Especially now that we live in the frozen tundra, and there are no brown recluses or wolf spiders here.

Yeaaaaah, about that. Apparently, we didn’t set expectations properly.

As I was getting out of the shower the other night, both cats had managed to get into the bathroom. If you don’t close and lock the door just right, they can jiggle it open. And both cats love to join me in the shower.

Whoever said cats hate water don’t know my two.

As anyone who owns cats knows, cats love to get their hair all over you. And one of my cats is a 26 pound long-haired Maine Coon. What better way for him to get hair all over me than to rub up against my bare wet leg?

As I was about to step out of the shower, I noticed a spider on my floor roughly the size of my palm.

I managed not to scream.

But I am in the shower. I don’t have shoes on.

So, I do what anyone else in my situation would do and call for my husband without trying to scare the kids.

He must have heard he urgency in my voice, as he came before I called for the third time.

During this entire process, both cats are simply watching the spider crawl across the bathmat as I stand in the shower waiting to be rescued.

Fortunately, my husband arrived and squished the spider. At which point, both cats had the nerve to be disappointed that the thing was gone!

I swear, those little beasts aren’t worth the cat food we feed them!

Short Story: The Vision

May 3, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

The Vision

King Eli believed in his wife’s visions. Every one of them.

But that didn’t stop him from wishing they wouldn’t happen.

He glanced at the sketch his adviser had given him. The same image stared back at him no matter how much he wished it would be different.

The child from Auburn’s visions.

A harbinger of change.

But what kind of change?

The visions hadn’t shown Auburn that much. They’d warned her it loomed, but little else.

He drummed his finger on the gold throne carved into the shape of a dragon. His first instinct said to toss the infant back into the ocean from which she’d come. He wanted to safeguard his people and his wife, and this child threatened both.

But Dracor, god of justice, frowned on such things.

Eli rubbed his temples as he stared at the image. Why did the child’s eyes have to, not exactly glow, though that’s what people said, but radiate light? The strange coloring only lent credibility to those calling her demon spawn and demanding he order Sir Gabriel to destroy her.

But demons weren’t born. They materialized in all their horror, disgorged from the bowels of the seven hells by foolish wizards beholden to the Unholy Triumvirate.

Idiots, but powerful idiots blinded by dark promises.

The same kind of promises being offered to the masses by those demanding he execute the child to protect Tamryn.

Promises based on fear rather than truth.

He understood fear, could use it himself if it was the best tool. Might yet.

But the gods had gifted Auburn with the visions, and his wife never used fear to intimidate or manipulate. If anything, Thalia, goddess of mercy and light, favored his queen.

Auburn’s gift of prophecy guided her, particularly during difficult and uncertain times. She should meet the child, and he could gauge her reaction.

Eli’s stomach clenched at the thought.

More than anything, he wanted to safeguard Auburn. He’d give his own life for her.

Sucking in a breath, he unfurled his fists. What did it say if he didn’t trust the child in the same room with his wife?

He stared at the image again. Dracor may represent justice, but He was an unforgiving god.

King Eli handed the sketch back to his adviser. “Request Knight Gabriel and his charge to join us at the palace. I need to speak with him.”

The king’s adviser bowed and left the throne room. Eli’s throat tightened as he contemplated the security measures needed to protect Auburn.

If you want more of Auburn and Eli, they have their own novel available here.

5 Reasons Science Says We Should Consume Less News

April 19, 2018 by Elizabeth Drake

What Common Household Item is Killing Your Children? We’ll tell you, tonight at eight.

Except, if it really is killing my children, shouldn’t I get a news flash across my phone telling me what it is and how to get rid of it, much like an Amber Alert?

localnewsmeme — If they were honest, this would be the news in my area.

Here are six reasons why research says you should consider changing your news consumption habits.

1. News Outlets are Here to Make Money, Not Inform

With the wave of “fake” news lately, this hardly needs explanation. But we need to remember that news doesn’t usually cover what’s important anyway. They’re looking for the “human” element, the element that sucks you in and gets you to keep watching or clicking.

If it bleeds it leads.

If a building burns to the ground, what do you think the media is going to focus on? The building. The people in the building. Injuries. Fatalities. All of which is relatively inexpensive to produce. They don’t actually have to dig to get to the guts of the story. Do they ever tell you why the building burned? Changes to the fire code that should be enacted to save those lives?

No, because that doesn’t get clicks.

With this emphasis on the dramatic, we focus on the wrong things, and those things are then overblown in our minds. We all fear terrorism, but no one thinks too much about chronic stress. Total US deaths, worldwide, due to terrorism from 2004-2014 was 112. Think about that for a moment. 112 people in the Unites States died from terrorism over ten years. That’s 11.2 people, on average, per year.

How much news did it get?

But how many people die each year of heart attack? Stroke? Cancer? Yet, how much emphasis has any of this gotten?

Stress affects 143M Americans, and 81M are under extreme stress. The causal connection between chronic disease and stress is growing .

So why don’t we hear more about this? Reducing stress is something we might actually have control over, and it can have a direct impact on our lives. Imagine if reducing stress could reduce the number of people with heart disease or cancer by 10% or even 1%.

The news doesn’t cover this because it doesn’t get clicks.

News is a for-profit organization. They are not here to inform. They are here to make money.

2. Doesn’t Really Matter to You

How many news stories have you watched or read in the last year? The last month? What did you do because you read or watched it? What decision did it help you to make, particularly about anything of consequence? Did you become a better parent? A better spouse? Did you make a serious financial decision? Do something to improve your career?

I ask this is all seriousness. If it is meant to inform you, it should be doing so in a meaningful way. We’ve already established that it’s not really informing you. Rather, it’s telling you things to get you to tune in, and we should be challenging the value of tuning in.

I can honestly say consuming news did little to engender action from me. News stories didn’t even help me make a decision on the candidates I voted for. I got that from their stated positions on their websites.

3. Teaches You Not to Think Too Hard

This article really says it all. News programming is designed to make you think you’re seeing both sides of a story and getting the low-down, but you’re not. Most of what we get are news bites, little pieces of information meant to fit into an allotted amount of time. Deep, complex subjects require time to digest. Truly difficult concepts can’t be understood in the five minutes they get.

We’ve all heard “climate change”, but how many of us have actually taken the time to understand what it is and why it’s happening? What are the macro effects? What does it truly mean to the planet and to us? (Give you a hint, the planet doesn’t care. It’s already survived numerous mass extinctions.) What are we really sacrificing by not dealing with it, and what would it really take to reverse it?

You see this superficiality with a lot of “news” reports. They are interested in giving you bite-sized pieces, but nothing too meaty. They don’t make money informing, remember? They make money on you tuning in or clicking.

Yet, without this deeper level of understanding, you lose sight of the bigger picture. Events become singular and contained instead of part of the broader view. Hard to make truly informed decisions when you see a very small piece of the whole issue.

4. Seek Conforming Opinions

With the sheer volume of news out there, we no longer have to expose ourselves to ideas that don’t conform to ours. If we don’t want to believe in climate change, we can find plenty of articles denying it to fill our screen.

As Warren Buffet said, “What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.”

If this is true, then we’re really not seeking information or enlightenment. We simply want to be told that everyone already agrees with us. That we’re right. That’s called confirmation bias, and it’s very detrimental.

It means you never hear the other side, you never have the chance to understand their way of thinking. You can’t find a compromise because why would you compromise when “everyone agrees with you?”

But what if we’re wrong? Even Albert Einstein was wrong on occasion.

5. Induces Stress

News, particularly what’s splashed across our networks, triggers our fight or flight response. The same stories that get clicks activate this center.

When you hear about a family dying in a fire, you have a very different reaction than if you’re hearing about alternate routes to avoid a fire. That’s why so many of us felt panicked and twitchy after all of the 9/11 stories, particularly as we watched people, human beings, plummet from those upper stories.

That’s one image I will never, ever forget.

The “human” side of these stories releases glucocorticoid which has a whole slew of effects on your body. It’s the fight or flight response. And what does this constant fight or flight response bring? Remember that stress we were talking about and how we know it contributes to heart disease, stroke and cancer? Yeah, that.

It’s like being constantly told there’s a monster under your bed, and knowing there is nothing you can do about it.

6. Crushes Creativity

I’m not sure if news in general does this, or just bad news. I won’t say this is an unbiased or researched article, because I couldn’t find any with hard facts, but it states what I’ve seen myself.

The more news I consume, the less creative I am. Or, perhaps, the less time I have for creativity.

Not sure, but I do know that switching off the news, even for a week, made it much easier to focus on my novel. I felt more relaxed and able to bring more of myself to my writing.

Why?

Not sure, but I figure the reduced fight-or-flight response is part of it. As is not allowing the news to snatch at my already divided attention. Kids, spouse and day job already get most of it, I’m not letting things I can’t impact take more.

Of course, tuning out the world burning may not be ideal, but there is very little I, personally, can do for the issues of the day.

Yet, despite the science that says to ignore it, we keep coming back to the news. Makes me think they’re in the same camp as social media. They’ve figured out how our brains work and how to keep us coming back for more. How to suck our precious time from us for profit.

I am done.

I will continue to read the Economist, and I will never know what household item is slowly killing my children until they send me an Amber Alert to my phone.

How about you? Do you watch the news? Do you get anything out of it? Does it inform your decisions? Has it ever affected your sleep or given you nightmares?

What I Really Want

November 3, 2017 by Elizabeth Drake

I’ve been reading a lot of craft books. Things that tell me books should be all about plot, and tension, and making characters miserable until the very end. But maybe, just maybe, that’s not what I want to read.

Yeah, I know. Kind of a revelation to me, too.

But the deal is life has been pretty stressful.

There’s hurricanes like Irma and Harvey, issues with North Korea, Las Vegas shootings, NYC terrorist attacks, trade concerns, Russia investigations, debt ceilings, border walls, and whatever else is gobbling up the news. It feels like a constant stream of ugliness and negativity. Maybe it’s always been there, and I was better at not noticing.

There’s family and work and health issues and . . . Well, you get the idea. You probably suffer from all of it, too.

So maybe, just maybe, when I slip into a fictional world, I’m not looking for heart wrenching agony. I’m not looking for Game of Thrones level treachery, betrayal, and angst. Maybe, I just want a nice romance with a few obstacles to overcome and then a happily-ever-after.

kindle

Yeah, that’s kinda ugly to admit. But it’s true.

I have a rather large stack of books to read. Most of them romance, so I should get my happily-ever-after. Yet, I don’t want to read about a lot of things in them. I never have the stomach for rape. I’m really not looking for characters that keep making bad choices as we watch the suspense build.

I don’t really want to be on the edge of my seat. I just don’t have it in me to care. Or, if I do care, I’d rather save it for something else.

I want to slip into a book and let it be a nice ride. Give me some bumps and challenges to overcome, but that lets me escape into it. I don’t find fear or horror relaxing. Or suffering.

gotd

While maybe it’s not good storytelling and doesn’t follow the rules of craft, this is what I want right now. What I’ve been reading. What entertains me. And for me, that’s all that matters at the moment.

Maybe I’m alone. And that’s okay. It won’t be the first time, and it won’t be the last.

How about you? Ever find yourself too wrung out for high-intensity fiction? Am I the only one that watches reruns of Bob Ross to relax some evenings?

Moms Taking Time for Themselves

October 25, 2017 by Elizabeth Drake

Why are there so many articles about moms taking time for themselves? You can’t walk through a magazine aisle (yes,those are still a thing), or go through a grocery checkout line without seeing something about it. You find it on mom blogs, in the online journals, and on Facebook.

So why is this so prevalent?

Because it’s so hard, and it’s important. Like anything that’s hard, lots of people have written about it. This tends to be because what worked for one mom didn’t work for another.

Let’s start with why it’s important for moms, or anyone, to take time for themselves.

It’s really hard to help others until your own needs are met. Think about it. There’s a reason the airlines tell you to put your own oxygen mask on before helping anyone else.

2. Kids learn by what you do, not what you say. If you tell them that it’s important for all members of the family to help out, and they see dad helping do dishes and fold the laundry, they see that. If you tell them exercise and eating right are important, then get take-out most nights and plop down on the sofa, they see that, too.

3. Stress is bad for everyone. We all need less of it, and as being a mother is a job that never really ends, sometimes you need to take time that is yours.

So, we know that it’s good for us, but why is it so hard?

Because kids need us. Maybe less than we want to believe, less than we think, but they need us. We’ve been hard wired by nature to respond to those needs. There’s a reason why you can’t ignore a baby’s cry.

2. Societal pressure. There is most certainly a lot of pressure on moms to be “perfect”. To throw kids the perfect birthday party, to make sure they have all the right activities, to nurture them so they have the best start in life. Looking at my own checkered childhood, I feel like I turned out fine in spite of it. Or maybe, just maybe, because of it. That is a post for another time, but the pressure to give a “perfect” childhood is very real.

3. Because we love them. Kids are the greatest challenge I’ve ever faced.

They are frustrating, annoying reminders of all the worst parts of myself. They are also amazing little creatures capable of making my heart melt with a single spontaneous hug or “I love you, mommy.” We want to do things for them. We want to be there for them. We want to give them all that we can.

4. Fear of Regret. For me, this is a big one. I don’t want to regret the time I didn’t spend with them. I work full time, and now that the oldest has started official school, she has obligations, too. I only see them for a few hours each work day, which, yes, can sometimes be too much, but it still makes me feel like I’m missing so much. I have to make use of whatever time we have together as I don’t get much of it.

Trying to make time for myself has definitely been challenging for me, especially as I’ve been trying to juggle a full time job, spouse, and kids.

So yes, it’s hard to take time for just myself when there is so much more I feel like I should be doing. So many more things I want to be doing. I haven’t yet figured it out, and maybe I never will. But at least I understand the dilemma.

How about you? Are you able to find time to yourself even if you have other obligations? How do you do it? Do you ever fear you’re going to miss out on other things? Do you worry about not meeting other societal demands because of it?