Humour Archives | A.S. Akkalon

The joys and pitfalls of obsession

I have a natural inclination towards obsession, focussing all my energies on one thing until it bursts into flame. Sometimes this is bad. Not always.

Ask someone who knows me in real life, and they’ll tell you I’m quite good at obsession.

I think of it as having a talent for focus. Hubby disagrees.

In the past I’ve obsessed over study, work, hobbies, romantic interests (before you freak out, I married him in the end), concepts (but what little girl isn’t crazy about horses?), reading books (like reading a ten-book series ten times back to back), writing books, TV shows, video games, and the absolute best way to construct a wall out of branches and pine needles.

I exaggerate. My pine walls were good, but I could have made them better with an additional ten years to experiment.

A flair for obsession can bring unexpected rewards, but the path to them is thick with pit traps and those nasty things you step on that release a log in your face. Today I’m going to share some of these joys and downfalls so you can decide for yourself if a life of obsession is right for you.

The endless cycle of my inbox

My inbox and my life have a natural cycle of growth and decay. Here I explain this cycle in all its glory. Killer hamsters included.

I want to talk about looking for a critique partner because that’s all I’ve been thinking about for the past few months.

(What do you mean it hasn’t been months since I blogged to say I was looking for a critique partner?)

But I haven’t locked in a critique partner yet and you don’t want to read that post twice, so I’m not going to talk about it today.

*screams into a cushion for a while, gets cat hair in her mouth*

Instead I thought I’d tell you about the endless cycle my inbox goes through. It’s more exciting than it sounds–there are killer hamsters.

Ten things I have stopped doing

Someone on Quora asked for a list of ten things I’ve stopped doing in life. This is mine. Yes, there are ten. I can count.

The world is in turmoil (May the turmoil cause long-lasting change for the better!), my editing is dragging along (May the editing also cause change for the better!), and it’s kinda cold (So, log fire, yay!).

Also, I’m getting older. Don’t be smug–you’re getting older too.

I didn’t have a topic to blog about today, so I thought I’d go to Quora and answer some questions. The first question I found was so good I reduced “questions” to “question”.

Here it is: What 10 things have you stopped doing in your life?

How to make cooking more exciting

If you’re bored with the same old cooking routine, here are some suggestions on how to make cooking more exciting. I don’t recommend any of them.

I’m not a fan of cooking. In fact, I believe eating should be optional.

Sadly, the Great Cat hasn’t implemented that idea yet, so I’m stuck with bumbling my way through the kitchen and failing to improve my diet.

I was talking with the delightful @Bky_The_Geek on Twitter recently, and she had some excellent suggestions for how I might have more fun cooking.

That is exactly what I did. Cooking is more fun when you chuck your food around 🤣
— Rebecca White (@Bky_The_Geek) May 26, 2020

Look! That’s me talking to Rebecca. I got pretty purple stars by my name. That’s to help people who, like me, are terrible at remembering faces.

In which I celebrate small victories

Pandemic times are tough, and it’s important we celebrate our small victories. Here are some of mine.

Some days are more epic than others.

Some days you might summit Mount Everest (or at least Mount Rolleston) or complete your solo sail across the Pacific Ocean.

Other days your victories are smaller.

In these pandemic times, I’ve been having a lot of the small victory type days.

But even small victories are worth celebrating, so that’s what I’m doing in this post.