As I post, every few minutes or so, a flashbang grenade or a round of teargas canister explosions goes off, and there are helicopters and sirens. This is an improvement on earlier this weekend, when it sounded like I was in the middle of a warzone, because for the most part, I was. I live in downtown Portland, Oregon, and things are also Not Okay here, just as they are Not Okay in a number of places in the United States right now (and even in some other countries in solidarity!) as people are coming together, despite general quarantine, to protest the murders of a number of people by police just in the last several days.

Of course these are not the only times police have used deadly force against people of color, that’s been going on since the idea of police began. Unless you’re living under a rock, you are more than aware of what is happening, and of the larger issues of institutionalized racism at stake.

I am afraid for my city. I am afraid for family and friends in other cities including Minneapolis, some of whom have had to flee their homes. I am afraid and horrified for an acquaintance who is a journalist, who lost her eye last night because the police decided to shoot at her crew despite them being clearly marked as media. I am afraid for a lot of people right now. I am afraid we will not collectively have the strength to keep pushing for change once the militarized police start terrorizing people like they’re doing in New York by running over people, or like they’re doing in Minneapolis by shooting at people on their porches doing nothing but watching the armored vehicles roll by….or or or….

And yet, in the midst of my fear, there is something else to think about.

I saw a photograph yesterday, of a piece of graffiti tagged on a store somewhere. It said ANOTHER END OF THE WORLD IS POSSIBLE.

In the midst of so much disruption and death and violence and sadness and heartache, from the COVID-19 pandemic, to the rise of fascism, to decades and centuries of oppression and misery for our friends and family and everybody else, there is a whole lot of apocalypse energy in the world, and it does feel like an ending. But the graffiti spoke to me about more than that.

It was a reminder that none of these things have to continue to happen. Another end is possible: the end of that miserable world, so a better world can have room to be. Nothing that is happening right now is inevitable. Together we have voices and agency and power, and it can be used, to help bring that better world into being. Black lives matter. Until Black people are free to live, nobody is. Another end of the world is possible. It might not even have to end now…if we have the will to get through the changes and live.

First weekend of heat. Wishing I hadn’t decided to store the portable air conditioner in the downstairs closet, because now I’ll have to haul it up the stairs. Thankfully, the heat subsides tonight, and if the forecast holds it’ll be more than a week of cooler weather, so I can save up energy for that task.

I took several days off this week, and only worked on what I felt like working. I realize that’s not exactly days off, but for me that’s a step in the right direction. I weeded and planted the garden box, cleaned, packed up packages for the post office, picked up other packages and groceries, and got a dent in a car door from a careless person in the next parking space. This week’s counseling load was no lower, but different. Last week’s funerals and suicide attempts were replaced this week by two emergencies (both turned out okay), another funeral, and a missing person. I’m astounded by people suggesting there’s nothing strange going on or that the pandemic is a hoax. I’ve dealt with more crises in the last month than all of last year - and my community is not dealing with as many crises as others I’m aware of. Stress is definitely up, so it was important to slow down.

My body rewarded me for slowing down by deciding I needed to have an arthritis flareup in my hands again - which meant I got very little writing done, and was only able to do a minimal amount of cleaning and housework. More reading was done, more petting the cat, and more naps. These are good things, but I had plans for that time, and was denied carrying those plans out. A bit concerned that this hand thing is the new normal if I do too much.

It’s only been two weeks since my last post, then? If we’d never had the sense of time being different before the pandemic, surely we’re face to face with it now. Short bursts of forward motion and a great deal of treading water, with the accompanied exhaustion, have been my norm. I expect that’s not unique to me.

About the only new thing that has surfaced is that I’ve received more compliments from family members who didn’t understand what I do online for work. Now that they’re forced to do most of their work in the internet as well, they’re understanding that it isn’t easy, and that working from home doesn’t mean five minutes on a video call, a handful of emails, and the rest of the day eating snacks in your pajamas.

Spring continues to come. The weather has been steadily warming, the dogwood outside my window has begun to show its flowers - and my allergies, alas - and time and life continue. May we all get to the place where we feel like we can enjoy it again soon, and may as many of us as possible get to do that.

The Big Project has a tentative name. We’re calling it 100 Gods of Egypt for now, and it is an encyclopedia of, well, gods of Egypt. I’ll be posting about my process in my Patreon (www.patreon.com/tsiuda) if you’re interested in that.

For some reason, a green notebook spoke to me on this one, and so this book begins its life in a five-subject wirebound notebook with a lime green cover. Maybe I’m old school, but when I start a big writing project I still plot/outline it on paper, even if the majority of my writing work ends up being digital. Over the years I’ve amassed a collection of notebooks for every book I’ve done, and often multiple books. For example, The Ancient Egyptian Daybook was written and plotted using two 5-subject notebooks.

This is the first or main book for 100 Gods, where I’m gathering snippets of data I want to make sure end up as references or footnotes for the text. This is where I’ll be scribbling in the pieces of good detail I pick up from reading source material, so it’s all in one place and I can find it once I’m working on a particular deity’s entry. I don’t intend to write in order necessarily, but we will see how that really goes as I get further into the work. Currently I have a handful of skeletal entries that need lots of work, two mostly completed ones (Anubis and Nephthys, if you want to know), and a couple dozen others in various stages of staging.

At this point in the work I’m also browsing through other encyclopedias of gods, trying to get a sense of my layout. Even though I won’t be the one to do the layout of this book, because I have done both editing and publishing in addition to writing, I find that it helps me to shape the work if I have some idea of how the writing is going to flow in the final version. I’m trying to get a sense of how data is broken up in various dictionaries, what’s considered important, and the differences between strictly academic lexicon type works and those that are more for general audiences. I’m trying to position 100 Gods into a place somewhere between something that’s only going to make sense to a specialized audience or something that is so broadly written as to be useless.

This process started last year, but now that the project is something I can talk about, I can talk about it. If you’re interested in reading more material like this, or actual drafts of the work, please consider joining us at the Patreon.

I agreed to be interviewed for a podcast in a few hours. Suddenly very nervous and not quite sure why. I have the questions ahead of time and none are too difficult. Hopefully I’ll be able to calm the stage fright before it’s time to go on the record. I do wish that we weren’t meeting at such an early hour, though. Despite all my intentions I am still not at all a morning person, and I prefer to do my thinking after I’ve been awake a bit.

In other news, several projects are moving forward despite the general slowdown/stop of the world in general due to our new and not very nice friend, the novel coronavirus. Just as I thought chemotherapy solitude was ending…now everybody else is joining me in self-isolation. Get some rest, regroup around what’s really important to you, and please stay healthy.

I had a clever idea for a post and by the time I got a chance to type it, it’s gone. Brain is moving faster than the rest of my self, so I’m exercising an attempt to bring them to parity. Slow the brain, keep the body moving, continue to live despite the uncertainty we’re forced to sit with.

It is very quiet here, despite my location a few blocks shy of the geographical center of my city. The church across the street has a new sign - REOPENING MARCH 28 - and not a single vehicle in the lot or taking up our street space. While I welcome not having to be concerned about where to put my car for a couple weeks, I can’t say the reason brings any happiness.

I expect Portland should’ve closed for business last week or the week before, given our proximity to Seattle. Will people choose to understand this as snow days without snow - time to relax, regroup, spend time doing things we say we never have time for? Or will we opt for the plaguescape apocalypse? That it’s hard to know right now is also unsettling.

The only way out is through.

Heard back on Big Project - contract is happening and I’ve had preliminary contact with other people who are involved, so far quite positive. At least writing is something I can do from home. I have to venture out tomorrow for prescriptions and groceries, as I’ve put it off as long as I can, but I am hopeful to make that a short trip with little interaction. Thursday’s doctor appointment was serious: she doesn’t want me interacting with strangers if I can help it “until at least May.” All trips are canceled and re-isolation, just as I was hoping to exit that after chemo, now begins.