April Update: Seventy-Five Percent

Hey team! Not a lot to discuss, but here's the skinny:

75%

When I started physical therapy this month, their preliminary assessment told me my leg was at 31% functionality. (This was after a chiropractor visit that had already improved things significantly.) I had my reevaluation this past week and I am up to 75%. That's more than double in under a month! It is very nice being, in many ways, a proper human being again.

What this means for work is: I am able to sit at my desk again, provided I keep it to half-hour bursts and do a bunch of stretches right after. I haven't attempted more than one burst in a day yet, though that may be a goal for this week. In the time I've been recuperating, I've managed a complete draft of the next Alt-Right Playbook, in addition to the final CO-VID and audio from my UC Merced lecture that were already in the can. I've captured as much footage as I can for the CO-VID, though I still need to grab some first-person games that are hard to play from a reclining position. I've recorded and edited the audio for the CO-VID as well, barring a few lines that need re-recording. And I've made headway on structuring a few other videos for down the line.

So things have resumed, at a slackened pace. It's a bit frustrating sitting on three completed scripts and only being able to edit them in tiny increments, but I'm just not going to risk pushing myself any faster. Not sure which was worse, the pain or the inability to do things, but I'm not chancing either of them coming back because I sat at a desk too much too soon.

So that's where we are right now! Work is happening to the best of my limited abilities. I like where things are headed, and I appreciate your patience.

Now, whenever I post about stuff like this, a bunch of you incredibly sweet people fill my comments with kind words about taking as long as I need and not feeling pressured to put stuff online. And that always feels really good to hear! But, for those of you gearing up to say exactly that, know this: I have somehow finagled my life such that I'm getting paid to do my own thing, in my own chosen medium, and there are even people who care about it! And I like my job. My feelings about work are as complicated as anyone's, but I find genuine fulfillment in my work. The capitalist pressure to define one's worth by their productivity is very real, but it sits alongside the very human drive to make and do and share things. Yes, I worry that not putting things out on a faster timeline is going to cost me money and patrons (and, honestly, it has, though probably not so much that I should worry as much as I do; I'm doing fine); but I also just, in and of myself, hate not being able to make things. To have my brain full of all these things to put in videos and be stymied from throwing them online and moving on to the next thing. COVID had already disrupted my productivity, only irregularly giving me that satisfied feeling of finishing something, and sciatica has only made it worse.

So! In short: don't worry about me, I'm getting back to it, for your sake and for mine. But, also, this sucks, and I wish it were going faster.

And, hot tip: do some planks once in a while. Sciatica is the pits.