So…. all day while I was at the not-academia day job, the question of “why did I make this decision” was running in the background. It wasn’t conscious at all, just in hindsight I can see that it was there and just being chewed over. But when I got home, after picking up a gigantic bucket of plums from a friend, and started planning a weekend get away with some girlfriends (picture: all of us going to one person’s house for a sleepover, low budget, fun, real life), I realized part of what informed my decision.
The first thing was that I cannot even begin to imagine coming home from the day job and having to work on this research. I am exhausted at the end of the day and I don’t really want to do that to myself. I know, not very 2026 where it’s all supposed to be about the hustle and side hustle but I am opting out of that wherever I can. I want to come home, chill with my family, play with my puppy, read a good book, etc. I have decades of working all around the clock – time to stop that.
I am not interested in being home all alone on my computer with social media filling the social needs. I am so lucky to have amazing people in my life, I want to have dinners with them. And go on girls’ weekends. And have time for the important people.
The other thing is about time and space for tangible things – like getting back to crafting. For us it started with getting a DVD player and buying DVDs instead of renting everything from whatever streaming site. And buying print books as well, instead of getting them for my e reader. I still love my e reader, it’s a game changer for middle of the night waking when I can’t get right back to sleep. But as the source of books that I love? I need physical copies.
And then there are the crafts. I have love crafting. Crafting is life (that and family and walks and gardening.) In an age of AI nonsense, it has never been more important to make tangible things. By hand. Things that use real materials and take real time.
And if I took on this project, there would time and energy for none of it. So, this year is about living in a way that’s an antidote to whatever the heck is going on out there with tech and politics and capitalism. And especially AI. And genocide. I want to live in opposition to all of it.
Free Palestine. Transrights are human rights. Generative AI sucks.
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