I Don't Want to Go to Work

or: struggling with priorities during perpetual crisis

My publisher, Feminist Press, will be launching the kickstarter for my new novel The Sapling Cage on June 10th. You can sign up to be notified when it launches. I got my advance reader copies in the mail last week and I’m thrilled. (I don’t look thrilled, but that’s because I’m weird and never smile in photos.)

About half of my posts are more personal and are for paid backers only. This is one of them. Don’t worry, my more “important” essays are always free, but the memoir and reflections and journal type posts are pay-walled.

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I Don’t Want to Go to Work

It’s a strange career I picked for myself, spreading hopeful warnings. I try with every word I write to both raise awareness of the extremity of the situation we’re in and to mitigate despair and suggest alternatives–both alternative actions we can take and alternative ways we can frame the situation in our heads so that we don’t fall into despair. Sometimes I wonder how I’ll do it.

Some mornings I wake up and cry about what’s happening in Gaza. I read the news and the social media posts that remind me that the US government is far more concerned with students camping on the lawn in tents than tents set afire with human beings inside in a refugee camp in Rafah. I think about how of every dollar I make, about fifteen cents goes to one of most evil empires in history.

It’s hard to get up and go to work sometimes.

I have the best job anyone has ever had, and I try not to complain about it. I’m paid to research and present history that I care about to an engaged audience. Who knows how long that particular job will last… it’s not the kind of thing that goes on forever (and frankly, the precarity of freelance podcasting is part of why I started this Substack, so that all my eggs aren’t in one corporate basket).

But despite having a career I care about, sometimes it’s hard to get up and go to work regardless. I don’t want to work. I don’t want to play games like “try to get the most followers on instagram” or “cultivate a broad appeal for your podcast.” I don’t want to make money for the evil bastards that I hate and want to see overthrown.