Curious about Why Writing is so Difficult

I'm a good writer.
At least, that's what I've been told. Over the years my teachers, parents, friends, co-workers, husband, and even random strangers on the internet have told me now and again that I'm a good writer.

At the very least, I have the potential to become a good writer.
Reading this you might not agree, and that's okay. I'm not sure I agree either.

Here's what I'm curious about.

I enjoy writing. I've been told over the years that I have some talent. Not Stephen King or Kristin Hannah or Margaret Atwood kind of talent. Heck, not even random self-published author down the street level of talent. Their book might be terrible but at least they finished one.

Still. Some talent.

Then why is writing so hard? It's bang your head against your desk, helplessly staring at the screen searching for words, constantly berating your terrible writing skills kind of hard. It's looking for anything else to do. (Including laundry, washing the dishes, dusting, watching TikTok videos and literally any other pastime other than writing.)

No. That's not true. It's even HARDER THAN THAT.

This is despite the fact that I desperately want to finish what I'm working on, even if it is a pile of shit.

Why is it that something I truly enjoy (when the words come) and want to do is bafflingly difficult?

I will never understand this.

Curious About Why So Many People Think Their Way of Looking at the World Should be Everyone's Way of Looking at the World

I started a new podcast last week, White Flag with Joe Walsh.

Joe Walsh is a former Congressman, a Tea Party Conservative, and a rightwing radio host. In other words, he stands for pretty much everything I disagree with. He looks like this:

He looks kind of angry in that picture, doesn't he?

I've listened to Joe Walsh before. When I worked as a teacher consultant back in 2016 I traveled a lot and did a fair amount of driving. After awhile I would get tired of listening to music and search around for something different and I discovered his radio show. 

Back then he was fire and brimstone about how horrible Obama was and how we should all have guns and the rich shouldn't pay any taxes ever and the oil companies can loot and pillage and destroy the environment as much as they want and Democrats and all liberals were horrible people who ate babies. He yelled a lot.

Or something like that. I'm quite sure he would disagree with my assessment, but that's how he sounded to me at the time.

Despite the fact that I disagreed with almost everything he said, I still listened to him. I told myself then that I just wanted to get a different perspective from my own and that is true. However, I also found him entertaining.

The man is good at his job.

Also as it turns out, I was wrong in my initial assessment of him. He is a man of integrity and honor.

While he did vote for Trump in 2016, he recognized fairly quickly that Donald Trump is a dangerous demagogue, and is one of the very few hard right Republicans who has stood up forcefully against Trump and all he stands for. Because of his stand against Trump he lost his radio show and, well, pretty much everything.

When I listen to his podcast now, I don't hear hate. I hear a man who is trying his best to understand others. He listens to people with very different views than him and while he doesn't agree with them, he also doesn't demonize and treats everyone with respect.

Which leads me to what I'm curious about.

On one of his podcasts he interviewed former Senator Rick Santorum.

This guy:

Looks friendly, doesn't he?

Here's the thing.

As I listened to his interview with Joe Walsh, he kept talking about what I, as a liberal, believe. According to what he said on this podcast, I don't believe in equality, I don't believe in family values, and I don't believe in capitalism. Liberals and others like me are destroying the country. 

I found myself getting angry, listening to him. How dare he tell me what I think and believe? And I know, I know. Democrats can do the same thing to Republicans. It isn't okay no matter who does it.

However, Republicans seem intent on telling certain people that they should not live their truth. He and his fellow conservatives seem to want to go back to the 1950's when white people were in complete control, LGBTQ+ people lived in hiding, and men worked and women stayed at home with the kids. 

But guess what? They don't get to decide that for the rest of us. They don't. They can try, and they will do everything they can to take us back there, but I hope and pray that they won't succeed. Because if they do succeed, we're going to become Gilead. Or worse. 

I fervently hope that there will be more Joe Walsh's out there--a conservative who listens respectfully to people with views he disagrees with, and fewer Rick Santorum's--a conservative who believes that everyone needs to live their lives the way he believes they should.

Curious about why the Damn Deer Don't Move when a car is Speeding Toward Them

Today I am curious about deer.

Why do they just stand in a road when a car is barreling toward them at 75 miles an hour? Why don't they move? 

Because if they don't move, that car will probably hit them, as mine did.

Poor, sad, car.

Hitting a deer was as surreal and as terrifying as I imagined it would be. 

I was zipping down the highway at 10:45 p.m., with my Diet Dr. Pepper to keep me awake, a Recess Peanut Butter cup for something sweet to eat and some Parmesan Cheez-its for something salty. I had just left from visiting my son who needed his Mama and I had about 90 minutes yet before I would be home.

The highway was almost deserted, my tunes were playing loudly, the caffeine was keeping me wide awake, and I was feeling good.

Then an apparition appeared.

Well, I wish it was an apparition. It sure seemed like one at first. The deer almost seem to appear instantaneously in front of me, wrapped in some nighttime mist, unmoving, staring straight at me. 

It probably didn't just appear, by the way. It might have been standing there for quite awhile. All I know is that by the time I saw it in my headlights it was too late for me to stop.

I swerved to the left for a millisecond, instinctively trying to avoid it, but I'd heard the saying "Don't Veer for Deer" and I was afraid something horrible would happen if I swerved too far out of the way, so I straightened out and then...

Both the sound and the feel of my car slamming into the deer was worse than I thought it could have been. Almost immediately smoke poured our of my engine and my air bag inflated. I still had control of the car, so I slowed down and pulled off to the side of the highway.

I was in shock, but when you're in shock you don't usually realize you're in shock, you know? My lizard brain told me to get out of the car, but I also knew I shouldn't get out on the side of the car where I might get hit, so I crawled over to the passenger side and ended up in the grass on my knees. Of course the first thing I did was call my husband, Tom. 

I didn't think about the fact that my phone was on speaker so when he spoke the sound came out in the car, but I was sitting outside about six feet away so I couldn't hear him. After some confusion on both his and my part I finally figured it out and managed to convey to him the sad story of the deer and my car.

A lot more happened. A friendly young fellow stopped by to see if I was okay and he let me warm up in his van while I waited for the cops. I thought he might be a serial killer but he wasn't. He was just a nice guy.

A cop who looked like Nathan Fillion eventually showed up and he called a tow truck. Meanwhile Tom was making the 1.5 hour trip up from our house to pick me up. By the time I got to the car repair place it was about 1:30 a.m. Tom showed up sometime after that and we got home around 3 a.m. and collapsed into bed.

We never found the deer.

When I think about the poor deer I hit I imagine she looked something like this.

In fact, that's exactly how I remember her looking standing on the highway in the milliseconds before I hit her. I still have hope she managed to shake off getting hit point blank by a car going 75 miles per hour and is frolicking in the woods of mid-Michigan right now, older but wiser, and determined never to go near a highway again.

And oh, by the way, here is the answer to what I'm curious about, from Science ABC:

"A deer’s eyes consist of more rods than cones, which is why it is able to see very clearly, even at night. However, when a car’s headlight beam falls into their eyes, the deer becomes blinded by the bright light. Until its eyes adjust to that heightened level of brightness, a deer will keep standing there, which makes it look like the deer is rooted to the spot."

Now I know. And I will be on the lookout for deer, especially on Michigan highways at night.