I was chatting with my buddy Julian yesterday about a number of things, and we touched on my feelings about my body's new "broken" status. I've been rejecting the "sick" label or calling myself "sick" because I have certain ideas about what sickness is: sickness gets better. Sickness is temporary. And, most importantly, for me, sickness isn't all that sexy.
I'm 26, you know. I think about these things.
Most of all, I didn't want to get into thinking of myself as some kind of victim.
"You can't be a victim," Julian said. "Being a victim implies that somebody did something to you, and unless you count your body as something outside of yourself, you can't claim victim status anyway."
OK, point.
It just so happens that Julian's got severe asthma, the type that means he has to carry around an inhaler everywhere he goes in case of an attack.
OK, so, I have a broken pancreas. It doesn't work anymore. But I'm not sick all the time. I don't feel sick. I can do pretty much anything anybody else can do, I just need to do it differently or work harder at it.
"Taking insulin doesn't make you a sick person," Julian said. "Taking insulin prevents you from getting sick."
Oh.
Oh, well yes. Yes it does.
I thought my doctor was on crack when he told me that the swelling in my feet was a result of my body's sugar being so high and then coming back into balance. I thought he told me it would go away in a couple weeks just so I'd feel better and stop calling him. But it's nearly noon now and I'm looking at my feet and I can see the tendons and viens and I don't have to loosen my sandals, and hey, my ankles look great!
Yesterday was the first time since I got sick that I felt near normal. My sugar hasn't been over 200 in six days (generally, you want to keep it between 70 and 180). I've accomplished this by testing my blood 4-7 times a day. Once before exercise in the morning, again an hour later before breakfast, once before lunch, once before I leave the office (I have a bit of walking in my commute and don't want to keel over if I'm too low), once before dinner, and sometimes once before bed and again if I wake up with low-sugar symptoms at night.
That's a lot of testing, but every single thing I've read tells me that the closer I can keep my blood sugar to "normal," the less chance I have of getting my feet chopped off, developing kidney disease, blindess, and more nerve damage to my feet or damage to my hands.
The first thing my buddy Stephanie asked last night when I told her about the numbness on the pads of my feet and the tips of my toes was, "But your hands are all right, right? So you can still type, which means you can still write. As long as you can still write, who cares if your feet are chopped off?"
OK, point.
It's so nice having friends you've known for over a decade. They can say things like this and it'll make perfect sense to you.
In one of those capitalist-society ironies, however, the most expensive item on my long list of keep-me-from-being-sick supplies are the testing strips for my blood sugar meter. Every time I test my sugar, I use a piece of plastic half as long as my thumb that somehow costs me a buck a piece. Seriously. They can grow human insulin in a petri dish for less money than it costs to check my blood sugar.
The biggest irony of all?
Most insurance plans don't cover testing strips, even though it's the best way to manage your sugar and keep you out of the hospital - paying for more testing strips could *save* your insurance company money in the long run.
But who has time for numbers these days?
I really do need to move to Canada.
Now that I'm feeling near-normal, it's time to put my timeline back together.
Afterall, life is short. There's a lot I want to do.
1) Fuck the day job. I'm not ever going to stress about this job again. I got several frantic phone calls today about reporting, and felt my heartrate climb because I just wasn't getting it out fast enough, they needed it now, yesterday, HOURS AGO!!!!!
You know what?
They'll fucking deal. Reporting is out, and the two-hour delay due to internal politics wasn't worth me making myself sick.
2) Sell another story by year's end. My goal this year was to sell three stories. I've sold two. I need one more.
3) Send tDW to Agent.
4) Finish draft and rewrites of God's War.
5) Start research for as yet unnamed family saga about genocide and female guerilla fighters.
6) Re-join my boxing gym. Because I love it, and life is short. It's $26 a month more than my current gym. That's not going to break all banks.
7) Apply to gaming job in Edmonton. For the healthcare and non-suckiness of the job!
8) Write better blog posts. Because that's fun and blows off a lot of steam.
9) Write more email.
10) Read lots of books, because that's fun. But try to *buy* fewer of them.
Anyhow, I'm going to go and stare at my normal-looking feet for awhile.
They really are beautiful.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Ode to My Feet
Oh! Oh! Oh!
I realize I'm a year late in getting to it, but I just finished reading David Moles's story, "Planet of the Amazon Women."
It's good.
Go read it.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Mapping Our Rights
Cool interactive website that maps out the rights of women, men, and families state by state.
Check it out.
Ye Olde "Can Men Be Feminists" Debate
I had the opportunity to hit the "Fundamentals of Feminism" panel at Wiscon, consisting of four women and Sam Delany. Delany's opening comments touched on men's interests in the equality of women throughout history.
"What do these men have to do with feminism?" he asked. "Absolutely nothing. Men cannot be feminists. Feminism is about women."
My buddy Patrick happened to be sitting in the front row of this panel, and I cut a look at him to see how offended he was. I know *I* was offended.
Do I believe that a feminist conversation should be controlled by women?
Yes.
Do I believe feminist issues should be determined by women?
Yes.
Do I believe that excluding half the population from the conversation forwards the goals of feminism?
No.
For a lot of people, it's the *wording* that seems to be the problem. As a white woman, can I call myself a member of the Black Power movement? There are a lot of wording gymnastics: pro feminist men, allies, etc. For the record, I don't mind a guy calling himself a feminist. The guys I'm leery of are the ones who feel they need to remind you that they're a feminist at every opportunity.
Delany said that in 10 of the 12 years he's taught creative writing, he's received a story from a female student about a woman who was breaking up with her "feminist" boyfriend who turned out not to be feminist at all the longer the relationship went on (or when they moved in together). When he approached these women, they admitted the stories were autobiographical.
"Your first clue that things weren't right should have been when he called himself a feminist," Delany said.
Or, as another blogger put it:
As a matter of fact, it's caused me to realize that most of the men I've personally known who have made a huge hairy point of identifying as feminists have been either date rapists, mom fetishists, porn addicts, or bear daddies inflicting their frustrated pseudopaternal tendencies on women. They are some of the most passive-aggressive, patronizing, out-dishing without it-taking twerps on the planet, and they are poisoning the women's movement from the inside by sapping the hell out of everyone's goddamn energy.
I was offended by Delany's comment on behalf of my guy friends: the ones who live feminism. The guys I've known who make a Big Deal about how "woman-friendly" they are usually do so because they're trying to mask their misogyny (One guy I knew went on and on and on about what a feminist he was and - in the same breath - talked about how much feminism oppressed him. We're no longer friends). It's like running around saying you're not a racist and have tons of black friends. Or not a homophobe and have tons of gay friends.
I used to be one of the biggest misogynists I knew (as a woman, you can convince yourself of this by taking yourself out of the "other" category and declaring yourself an "honorary man" ie a "real person" because you don't wear makeup or skirts). It's stupid, and I still catch myself thinking horribly anti-woman things on occasion. I write stereotypes and have to go back and fix them whenever I catch them.
I grew up in and am constantly immersed in a society that still denigrates women and forces men into monstrous-masulinity roles. I'm going to think these things. The best way to combat it is to read as widely as I can, talk to as many people as I can, and be aware of why and how I'm thinking and what images I put onto a page; what thinking goes on behind it. It's no easier for me, I think, than it is for a man to twist at my internalized misogyny. I'll be one of the first people to admit that stupidly racist thoughts go through my head at the oddest moments. But I'm aware of them, aware of where the racism comes from, and I fight it tooth and nail whenever I respond that way.
Does that mean I can't argue against racism and misogyny?
Lame.
The Abolitionist movement and the Suffrage movement would not have succeeded without support from a variety of camps. A great number of Abolitionists were pale people, and the deciding vote in the deciding state that ratified the amendment granting women suffrage was cast by a man (who did it because his mother told him to. Raise feminist men, women!).
I'm always leery of casting the feminist movement as a separatist movement that eliminates half the population from the conversation.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
The Writing Life
75 pages of God's War to go, dammit.
Opened up the file, looked at the three chapters of revision I needed to do before I moved on, and closed it again.
ug ug ug
It'll get there.
Just waiting on responses from my second round of readers for tDW, then revisions, then I'm booting it back out the door.
Ordered the first research book for my next project, which will start in December.
Very exciting.
Oh, the Irony
My duties at The Day Job (TM) have been reduced to updating our client's database. I'm incredibly relieved about this. I keep hoping they'll just fire me. I would love to sit at home and collect unemployment checks for a couple of months.
But then, I better be careful what I wish for. The Day Job (TM) also keeps me in health insurance.
That's a bit more important these days.
I also seem to have either caught a cold at Wiscon or developed yet another allergy-related coughing/runny nose/sinus headache thing that tends to develop about this time of year. I'm leaning toward the latter, which means more doctors and drugs.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The good news is, I did 90% of my full free weights routine this morning.
I forgot how heavy those 30 lb weights are.
A few hours before, at 2:45 am, I woke up covered in sweat, my heart pounding, my body trembling. I waited a couple of minutes until I realized the room was actually cool, meaning my body's freakout was internal and not external.
I dragged myself out of bed and checked my blood: 50.
Too low.
Stumbled out to the kitchen, drank a glass of orange juice and ate three graham crackers.
I flopped back into bed and lay awake until the trembling and racing heart subsided. It only took a few minutes for my blood to stabilize, and lo, I was back to normal.
It's the strangest thing.
I used to think I was self-medicating during food binges, back in the day.
Now I'm quite literally self-medicating with food.
Oh, the irony.
Slash Fiction & the Venom Cock (Oh, You Knew This Was Coming!)
I happened to be comatose when this particular subject hit the blogs, but I caught up in the hotel at Wiscon when I got wind that a piece of mpreg slash fiction made the Tiptree Award longlist (and yet, my 2004 story, Genderbending at the Madhattered didn't make any 2004 list, long or short. I'm not bitter, really, but I'm trying to put this in perspective). Right next to the unfinished, badly written slash choice was our old favorite, the Venom Cock.
Every once in a while, somebody comes along who wants to be really controversial. Often, they're good at arguing and steeped in academia. Sometimes, they're just a little batty.
If I believed the cutting edge of genderbending/sex expanding/controversial/envelope pushing fiction was in the slash world, I'd be all for nominating those stories.
But grabbing the most slap-dash piece of fiction you can troll from the net and putting it onto an awards long-list to "make a point" strikes me as a little selfish and quite ill-thought-out. It embarasses oneself, may well embarass the author, the other judges, lessens the honor of the award, and perverts the purpose of the list - the list is for pointing out interesting fiction that explores sex and gender. Pointing out stories that are not only badly written but 1) merely consist of switching gender roles in the "Wheeee! Men will be pregnant and get sore nipples just like women!" sort or 2) merely restates the fact that being a woman Really Sucks and is Really Hard does nothing to expand anybody's thoughts on sex and gender.
In fact, reading such stories can enforce one's stereotypes of the sexes.
Before I go any further, I'd like to say that yes, I've met Liz Henry. Yes, she is very nice. I enjoy her effort at radicalism, because I get really tired of spouting off about misogynists like gabe, Trent, and David Brin. I enjoy disagreeing with somebody whose politics are far left. And I want to make that clear: Liz is great. I just disagree with her. That's very healthy. And before anyone recommends that she and I auction off a boxing match at next year's Tiptree auction, well, anybody who's seen us standing side-by-side knows who'll win that match, even in my weakened state.
heh heh.
In any case, VanderMeer and I are closer in weight class anyway (I need to put on about 10 lbs of muscle before it's a fair fight, tho).
It's up to each year's Tiptree jury to define what a Tipworthy story really is. As I'm not on a jury, my opinion doesn't officially count, but as a reader and writer, I have very strong opinions about what I'm looking for in my genderfucking fiction.
Egalia's Daughters bored the shit out of me. It wasn't the best-written book in the world. I didn't connect with any of the characters and it kept head-hopping. What it did do, however, was posit a world in which men took care of children and women birthed them. Not in an even-split gender-reversal way, but in a way that challenged ideas about what birth is, what it means to a woman, to society, and the ways we speak about biological destiny, virginity, and penetration-is-the-only-"real"-sex paradigm. I believe that the value of the book's ideas outweigh the shitacular writing and inane ending that made me want to throw it across the room (women are naturally nurturing and have an instrinsic understanding of nature and The Land, and because this is a matriarchy, nature is totally balanced. It's the same old "if only women were in charge society would be soooo peaceful!" cliche. I tend to think that any society that's socially unbalanced will also be unbalanced in regard to their treatment of the "natural" world around them). Because it fucked with my conceptions of biology-as-destiny and the ways our society treats birth and child rearing, I'd put it on any genderfuck-you-should-read list.
Several years ago, I wrote a story called, "The History of Anson U." I took Freud's account of Anna O., reversed the genders, plunked it on a foreign world, and ran with it. Problem was, all I really did was switch the genders. I even opened with a nearly identical opening to Egalia's Daughters in which mom's reading the paper at the breakfast table and dad's serving up the victuals (and no, I hadn't read ED at this point, which says a lot about social stereotypes and how ingrained they are). Needless to say, the story was rejected again and again and eventually retired.
If I tossed "The History of Anson U." up on my personal website and changed the names so I was writing a piece of Harry Potter/Buffy slash where Buffy played the Freud character and Harry was Anson U., and then cut it in half because I didn't like the ending, so it remained unfinished, would that story be Tiptree worthy?
I mean, the fact that it's self-published and slash fiction means it's "edgy" and "raw," right? And we need more of that sort of stuff in SF!
No.
Just because it's self-published slash doesn't mean it's anything new or contains anything controversial. The controversy isn't springing from the story's ideas but from the fact that all it's doing is rehashing old ideas that have been better done elsewhere. There's even a name for that genre of slash: mpreg. This means that unless the story's saying something new or different or fucking with ideas relating to that already time-worn topic, it's not worthy for inclusion on a list of fiction that should be getting more mind-blowing and envelope-pushing every year. When people start saying that the most radical genderfuck is going on in real life and not in SF, there's a problem. It means writers are being lazy. If "genderfuck" means slapdashing off a piece of old hack (ohhhhhh wouldn't it be kewl if men got pregnant and had to deal with swollen ankles????), what's that say about the current state of Tipworthy fiction?
It makes me embarassed to be an SF/F writer. Particularly one who's interested in pushing the genderfuck envelope. I want a long list of what's out there that pushes me to think in new ways, not fiction that reinforces dominant patriarchal heteronormative ideas about what sex, reproduction, and gender mean.
Which brings me to the Cock.
As one of the few people who've actually managed to finish this book, I was appalled to see it on the long list almost as much as I was appalled to see a shitty piece of slash fiction.
Almost.
At least Janine can put together a sentence.
I've heard it said that Cock's inclusion on the long list wasn't because it showed how crappy life is for women under patriarchy (yawn), but because of the "subversiveness" of the dragonfucking.
Here's the thing with dragonfucking: it's just bestiality. There's nothing new about bestiality, or having sex with animals as part of a religious or mind-altering experience.
But, you may protest, these dragons are sentient!!!!!!
Fucking a dolphin isn't any more subversive than a girl and donkey show.
The woman may believe she's edgy and subversive while she's fucking a donkey, but in the end, she's fucking a donkey.
I came away from Venom Cock thinking, "Is that it? Sucks to be a woman? Is that all the message you've got for me after this masochistic shit-fest?"
Because you know what? The Marquis de Sade was pretty edgy and raw, too. He believed women wouldn't be equal to men until they could do the same depraved, evil, terrible things men could do, but I wouldn't nominate Justine for a Tiptree either. It's a work that exists for another reason: to titillate. Sex sells books. Sexual freedom is certainly a tenet of feminism, but there's a fine line between sexual freedom and sexual exploitation. It's up to every woman to decide for herself where that line is (with the help of some great consciousness-raising sessions, I hope). If Cock - about the abuse and slavery of women - were written by a man, would anybody call it revolutionary and feminist? Something tells me Joe Cross would be seen as a little less thought-fucking.
I suppose this is the point where I come out of the closet as a power feminist. Are things shitty for women in most places? They sure are. Will they always be that way? Is showing worlds where it will always be that way forwarding feminism or challenging our thoughts about biological destiny?
I certainly agree with De Sade that before women are equal it must be acknowledged that we can do things that are just as shitty and depraved as what some men can do. If women were in charge, things wouldn't be much better. There are tools one uses to stay in power. Anytime you set up a power system, you're going to have to use certain methods to retain your power, and men have used those because they work. Those methods would likely be similiar in a matriarchy, though recast through the lens of woman-as-norm/template.
Reading yet another book about a feudal patriarchy makes me tired, even if it's set in the jungle with green women as protagonists.
I certainly want controversy around the Tiptree. But I want that controversy to spring from a story's ideas and the ways those ideas change the way we think. I don't want a controversy for the sake of controversy ("Should we include slash??" Of course we should, when and if anybody finds a piece that blows their head off. The one on the top of one's neck, preferably). I want somebody to recommend a book or story that changes my conceptions of sex and gender. That's a Tiptree.
There are plenty of works out there reinforcing patriarchal heteronormative ideas about sex, gender, and reproduction.
I don't want them recommended to me on my Tiptree list.
One More Reason to Vote for Stem Cell Research
And hey, I was all for it before (I have deep fears of developing Alzheimer's. Probably every writer's fear). Now I'm personally invested.
Juvenile-onset diabetes is caused by the immune system destroying the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. It can now be treated by transplanting beta cells taken from cadavers, using a technique called the Edmonton protocol. But many recipients suffer severe side effects because of the drugs they have to take to prevent their immune systems rejecting the foreign cells. Also, the supply of beta cells is limited – only 500 people have been treated so far.
Several teams around the world have now managed to derive insulin-producing cells from human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). While this might one day end the shortage of beta cells for transplantation, it is not a perfect solution.
My doctor mentioned this when we were chatting. He thinks it's about 10 years out. Knowing the FDA, however, I'd bet on 15-20. We'll see.
In the meantime, I'll post about some other stuff, I promise.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
I Used to Have Such Beautiful Feet
She wanted back her strength, her stamina, her place at the head of legions.
I used to have beautiful feet.
Long, strong toes. Big, narrow feet. Size 11 feet that I could never find shoes for but that could land a front kick to the groin with elegant ease.
The day before Wiscon, my feet started to get fat and pudgy looking. I frantically called my doctor, fearing I was developing one of those diabetes-related foot diseases that would result in my legs being chopped off.
He assured me the swollen feet were normal now that my body was getting back into balance, and should ease up and go away in a couple of weeks.
Nonetheless, I went to bed alone and cried. I needed some time to digest it all for myself, alone.
I don't want my feet chopped off.
By the end of day one of Wiscon, my ankles were so fat that it hurt to press the skin around them, and foot rubs were out of the question.
The swelling goes down at night, but puffs back up during the day as fluid starts settling in my lower extremeties.
I shuffled around Wiscon like an old woman.
I spent much of the weekend being "on," assuring everyone else - and myself - that I was all right.
"I'm fine," I said.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," the echo of a nearly comatose woman from the back of an ambulance.
There was much joking, good humor, and I blew through both my panels, including one that appeared to be a crash course in how to moderate a panel where pretty much everything goes wrong.
I met a ton of people. I even spent a night running the party rounds.
The most popular question, after, "OMG are you all right???" was "Have you met Liz Henry yet?"
Ah, venom cocks and mpreg. I'll save that for another post.
The thing is, I haven't had a lot of time to digest the fact that I don't have a working pancreas. I was in the hospital for four days, my mom was in town for a week, then my buddy Patrick and his family arrived (damn, I missed them!), then we drove up to Madison and it was Wiscon-burn time. Right up until Wiscon, I spent all my time making sure I was well enough to attend Wiscon. I didn't do a lot of thinking. I needed to be strong and competent because Jenn and my mom and Patrick were all so worried about me.
And... and...
I wanted to be strong for myself. I needed to know I could get up out of a hospital bed without a working pancreas and get my life back together.
Every night at Wiscon I shuffled back to the hotel and propped up my feet for the night so I could get in another 12 hours the next day. At which point my feet would once again feel like they were going to explode.
I realized that what bothered me so much about my feet was that I have no real external signs of being sick... except that one. All the weight loss is considered a *good* thing in this culture, so all I kept hearing from people (even my mom, who was well aware of why I'd lost so much weight) was how great I looked. I'm thinner but sicker than I've ever been.
I won't mind gaining 20 lbs or so if it means I'm going to be healthier, thanks.
Diabetes is great because, sure, you have to shoot up in the bathroom before meals, and those close to you will see you shoot up at home and see the bruises on your thighs, but to the rest of the world, you look healthy. You look normal. You can pass.
You can pretend you're not dependent.
But the truth is that when the apocalypse comes, I'm pretty fucked.
Now I need to write a story about a post-apocalyptic diabetic warrior woman who hordes insulin.
heh.
I let myself sink on Monday at lunch. I interrupted one of Jenn's negotiation sessions with the waiter about the price of a salad, and she snapped at me.
I teared up at the rebuke, and quietly cried and stared out the window.
Obviously, this isn't something I do often. It was totally out of character. Jenn was pretty stunned.
This kicked off two hours of silence in the car on the ride back. When I'm sad, I want people to leave me alone. I don't often interrogate my feelings, so if someone asks me what's wrong when I'm in the thick of it, I can't articulate myself and end up getting angry and tired. I feel pushed.
Me going quiet hasn't worked for any of my partners because, well, they love me and want to know what's going on. Jenn got pissed because I wouldn't tell her what I needed, and then I got pissed because Jenn was pissed, and when we stopped at a gas station, I went inside for snacks, came back out, and discovered Jenn had disappeared.
The car was locked and parked. I sat down to wait, thinking she'd gone for a short walk. I was a little worried because my insulin was in the car, and getting insulin over 88 degrees makes it go bad.
After a while, sitting there on the curb crying and feeling sorry for myself, I realized Jenn hadn't come back. That wasn't like her.
I went back inside the mini-mart, looked through the aisles.
No Jenn.
I checked the bathroom.
No Jenn.
I walked around either side of the building.
No Jenn.
I started getting increasingly worried. I circled the parking lot. I went back inside and checked the aisles. I asked the cashier if he'd seen a skinny brunette about yay tall.
He shook his head.
At this point, about a million things were running through my head. Jenn is little, but fiesty. I couldn't see her disappearing among so many people without an attention-drawing fight. But she also tends to believe everyone is good until proven otherwise, and I could see her trying to help somebody and getting nabbed.
I looked along either side of the building again. I stood out on the sidewalk. Went back to the car in case she'd doubled back.
The sooner I called the police, I knew, the better chance I had. I started thinking of all the terrible things that could be happening to her. I started thinking about what would happen after the police got there.
My insulin was in the car.
Sure, I had extra insulin at home, but not the long-lasting kind I take every morning, the Lantus.
Everything in the car would be ruined. My blood sugar would plummet in a couple of hours, but my glucose meter that tests my blood sugar was in the car.
Jenn was off somewhere being raped and mutilated, and I was going to collapse into a coma among strangers.
I went back into the mini-mart one last time. I'd give her two more minutes. Two minutes, and then I was calling the fucking cops.
I pushed out of the market for the fourth time, and there was Jenn walking toward me.
She'd been lying behind the building.
I grabbed hold of her and started crying again.
We spent over an hour sitting in the car with the doors open and talking. I'm terrible at expressing myself face-to-face. I can say, "I'm tired," or "I'm sad," but that's about the breadth of my emotional vocabulary until I've had enough time to work through what I'm feeling.
The thing is, since I learned about the diabetes, I haven't been angry. You can't be angry at an illness, and I'm not a believer in a God you can pray to and blame for things, so damning God wouldn't help. I can't blame my parents, because I'm the only type 1 diabetic in our entire family circle (my grandmother's sisters had children who are type 2 diabetics, in France, and my dad is apparently a type 2 diabetic, though he didn't realize that's what he was getting the pills for until I got sick). Type 1 isn't something I could have regulated with diet and exercise, so I couldn't blame myself (in fact, I was in really good shape, which is why it took me so long to crash. I've been getting increasingly sicker for the last 8 or 9 months as my body turned on itself and attacked its own pancreas). I'd like to be upset at Planned Parenthood for not catching it before I went into a coma - frequent yeast infections are one of the prime signs of diabetes. All that extra sugar in your blood encourages the growth of yeast (oh, I can't tell you how extraordinary it is to be yeast and irritation free after 8 months!). But when I'd go in there and they'd ask if I was tired, I'd say sure, I'm tired, but I'm stressed out because of X, Y, Z. Granted, all that weight loss should have clued them in. A follow-up question like, "How many times do you urinate at night?" would have gotten them to do a blood test. I was getting up 3-4 times a night, and water tasted sooooo good that I drank it like kool-aid on a summer day.
So I didn't feel a lot of anger. I still don't. What I sometimes feel is sadness. I've always taken great pride in my independence. I avoided forming relationships and partnerships that I thought were too close. Whenever I got too reliant on someone, I'd back off and work things through again to preserve my independence. I have a core group of fantastic friends, but I've never leaned on them. It creeps me out that if I would have been alone that Sunday night, I'd be dead. I was so out of it that I was incapable of taking care of myself. I realize that at some point, this happens to everyone.
But for fuck's sake, I'm 26.
"It's nice to see a different sort of face in here," one of the nurses told me as she wheeled me upstairs to one of the general hospital rooms. "We're used to dealing with people who are 86, not 26."
Oh, wheeee.
One of the most important things, for me, is to learn how to be as independent as possible while still accepting help from the amazing people in my life. When I came home from the hospital, I had trouble turning keys in doors and had to ask Jenn to cut asparagus for me because my wrists hurt so badly. My buddy Patrick did some Reiki on me while he was in town and bought me a stone whose qualities are supposed to be good for ailments such as mine (I love my granola-munching-hippie Clarion buddy). My mom took out the trash, did the laundry, paid for tons of meals, and offered moral support. Everybody wanted to help me.
But my fear, my huge fear, the fear that fuels the bouts of sadness, is that I'm going to turn into one of those enormous, swollen-ankled sick people who can't get out of bed. I'm afraid I'll turn into someone who gives up, someone who says, "I'm sick, I can't."
That's the scariest part of all.
I tested my blood sugar when I got up this morning, had a glass of orange juice to bring it above 70, and did my morning weights routine for the first time in two weeks. Obviously, I wasn't in prime form, and had to stop and rest more often. My three sets of fifty sit-ups turned into three sets of thirty, and I had to lower my 1 set of 15 for several exercises to 1 set of 10.
But I did it.
The stronger I get, the easier it will be.
I'm going to work out on the elliptical machine at home tonight after Jenn gets home (exercise can drop your blood sugar really fast if it's too intense) and do a lot of blood testing to see how my body responds to formal exercise, then pick back up at the gym next week once I figure it all out. I've been thinking more and more about picking up the boxing classes again as well. I miss it so much. It'll just be a little trickier this time around.
Because despite my bouts of occasional sadness, I realize I'm very lucky I got diabetes in 2006 and not 1906 when there was no such thing as insulin. I'm lucky to be alive. This is the second time I've died and had to re-evaluate my life. The first time, I rejected a life I didn't want, one that was taking me increasingly closer to ending my own life. This time around, my body nearly ended my life for me.
This is an opportunity. I feel a bit like a ghost, someone living on borrowed time.
The wonderful thing about borrowed time is that every second you get after you died is that much more beautiful because of how close you were to not seeing it.
That's an odd sentence, I realize.
It goes back to what I'd said all along about wanting to excel at things physical when I spent most of my childhood sedentary:
I'm just going to have to work harder than other people.
Really, that's the only difference. I have to work harder.
This isn't a stretch for me. I realized a long time ago that if I wanted to be a really great writer, I had to work harder than most people.
And I think I do, and will continue to do so.
I have such desire. I am so full of desire to do and be and see and taste and touch everything. I want everything. I want the big life. Still. Even now.
Especially now. Because losing it all is as simple as going to sleep and not waking up.
When Jenn and I got home, I started putting everything away, unpacked my books, set up my computer for work on God's War this week, started a load of laundry, watered my plants, and as I walked into the bathroom thinking of all the things I needed to do this week - gotta get back to the weights routine, a little at a time, don't push it, pace yourself, then the gym, don't push it, pace, go, be, do, finish God's War a page at a time - a sentence popped into my head:
She wanted back her strength, her stamina, her place at the head of legions.
In my book, The Dragon's Wall, there's a half-breed woman named Zezili, a legion commander who fails in her duty to the Queen and is viciously mauled by the Queen's giant cats. Zezili loses a thumb, the ends of her fingers, most of one eye, and acquires deep cat-scratches all over her body.
When she wakes up from her fever in her new, altered, nearly ruined body, her sisters are all staring down at her. They've gathered to watch her die. The Queen releases her from service, and tells her she can either choose to retire or renew her oath to the country.
Zezili's lying there in bed, her wounds swollen and oozing pus, looking out at her expectant sisters with her one good eye, and she rejects the Queen's offer to slink back to her estate and lick her wounds.
She wanted back her strength, her stamina, her place at the head of legions.
There are times when I don't realize how much of myself, of my deeper self, my core beliefs, I put into my writing. But when I thought of what I need to do now, of the way I have to approach the rest of my life, the stubborness I'd need, the desire, the passion, I thought of Zezili.
There's a piece of you in everything you write. You just may not see those peices that often.
I have no illusions. I'm going to be sad sometimes. I'm going to hate these needles. I'm going to wish for some other life outside a broken body.
But I'm going to get up every morning. I'm going to hike up to Machu Picchu. I will run around the world and back again (and again). I will be able to live on my own. And travel on my own, if need be. It's not impossible.
I'm just going to need to work a little harder.
Like Zezili.
Like me.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Home Again, Home Again Jiggety Jig
Made it back to Chicago after a really great con.
My ankles are a bit swollen, my feet look fat, I'm a little sleep deprived, but otherwise I'm doing well.
Lots to say. More later, when I've gotten some sleep.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Final Wiscon Schedule
Me, Jenn and Patrick are off to Wiscon tomorrow. Here's the final schedule for the panels I'll be on. My sugars are still settling out low, so little to no alcohol for me, sadly. Dammit, I wanted my Wiscon beer...
Hope to see you all there! Swing by after and say hello. We're all staying at the Best Western.
Feminist Fiction Is So Five Minutes Ago (Feminism, Sex, and Gender)
Saturday, 2:30-3:45 p.m. Saturday, 2:30-3:45 p.m. in Capitol A
The word "feminist" has fallen out of fashion; for some of us middle-aged crones, calling a book or story feminist will attract us, but how do we approach young women and girls to get them to read the works that made a difference for us when we were young?
The Female Warrior in Science Fiction: Who Does It Right and Who Deserves a Soft Tomato? (Reading SF&F)
Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m. Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m. in Conference Room 5
Come share your favorite titles and hear the panelists' list. It's not like an IPod playlist, it's just good stories well-written.
35
...was my blood count this morning, which is dangerously low. Not enough rice last night.
This balancing act is a funny thing.
Drinking some OJ and scarfing toast to even me out before breakfast.
How strange, to have a body that's totally broken.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
176
I haven't been 176 lbs since I was 14.
Until today, that is.
Everybody has a favorite horror novel, one that just cuts right to the bone.
Mine is Stephen King's, Thinner.
I had my first follow-up appointment today. My doctor, Dr. S, says my sugar levels look good. He's concerned about the numbness in my feet, but there's apparently not a lot I can do about it right now except take some vitamin B.
I'm taking 4 insulin shots a day right now, and he says that in a month or two when he's better able to see how the Lantus (a long-acting insulin) works with my body, I may be able to go down to two shots a day over the long haul.
That would be great. Shooting up four times a day is a neccessary thing, but if I could cut that in half, well, hey.
Oh, the irony: I was well on the road to learning how to eat right and exercise. Finally taking "good" care of myself. And now I *have* to or I'll keel over and die. Or, worse: just expire gradually from diabetes-related diseases like kidney failure, while my limbs are all chopped off.
The way to prevent a slow disintegration is four shots a day, three blood tests a day, and counting every carb that goes into my mouth (oh, thank the gods I was on the Atkins diet for a year and know how to gauge these!).
When I met with the dietician, she said, "I hear you've been losing a lot of weight recently. My job is to help that stop."
That's the first - and likely the last - time anyone's every said that to me.
Imagine a world where your dietician wants to stop you from losing weight.
I am stunned. And humbled.
Reading through a lot of literature so I can figure out how to go back to doing my workouts. My wrists are nearly better, so it's time to start free weights in the morning again next week. Walking really helps bring down my glucose; more intense activity may bring it down too low.
Like everything else, it's going to be a tight-rope walk.
WisCon Membership
I've got a free last-minute Wiscon Membership - a buddy of mine who was going to go can't make it.
First person to email kameron_hurley AT hotmail.com gets it (please only ask for this if you can make it last minute to Wiscon!).
I'll be in Madison around 1 or 2pm on Friday and can hand over the membership then.
Let me know.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
"I Have Wrestled With Death"
"I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat."
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Marlow, in Heart of Darkness (1902).
(thanks, Jenn)
Monday, May 22, 2006
Back to Work
Well, I managed to get out here and clock in... an hour.
I'm now tired and going home.
I have the rest of the week off - working from home on Thursday.
Gonna blow this popsicle stand.
