Summertime Fridays at the Dayjob

The perks of summer: no bosses in on Friday, nobody shows up until after 9am, and everyone leaves around 4:30.

Also, nothing to do but update a datebase for an hour and attend a 30-minute conference call.

Anyway, I'm going to go and work on tDW. I have many rewrites to go before I sleep...

Also, I now have one of these again, because work is slow, and what else am I going to do all day?

What a Difference a Little Insulin Makes

It's scary, actually.

My numbers bumped down Wednesday at noon, gave me a below-200 Thursday, and I bottomed out last night with a too-low number of 55 after taking 2 units too much insulin (I'd planned to eat some fruit and yogurt, but ended up deciding I wasn't all that hungry, and went to bed). I tossed and turned until 10pm, when I realized my rapidly-increasing heartbeat and inability to sleep meant I should probably check my sugar.

I over-medicated myself with three graham crackers and a piece of chocolate (I think I was just so happy that I was low that I was like "Screw it" and ate 1 too many carb servings. I should have just eaten the graham crakers). So I was above 200 again this morning, but if all goes well, that should come right back down here at noon. In fact, I already know it's lower, because I can concentrate on the computer screen without getting a headache, and I don't have to blink all the time to clear my vision.

Also, I have a lot more energy. Everything is beautiful! Life is beautiful! I want to sing! And dance around the office! And go running!

Ah, yes. What a difference.

For the first time in a long time, I'm also back to my usual book-devouring pace. The first year I was here, I'd read about 2-3 books a week (I have about 15 hours of communting time each week; plenty of time to finish several books). As life started to get crazier, and I started to get sicker, I was lucky to finish 2 books a month. I tended to just space out during my commute and either try and work through various personal problems, or, toward the end, just try and get some extra sleep cause I was always so damned tired. And hungry. And thirsty.

So this week I finished Palahniuk's collection of essays, Stranger Than Fiction, and Susan Sontag's Regarding the Pain of Others, and I'm almost done with Mao's On Guerrilla Warfare (these last two are very short books). I've also come up with some ideas for a sequel to God's War, though that's not something I'm going to seriously plan unless I sell GW and it does well. Still, the ideas are there if it turns out they become useful. I do so love these characters, and this world.

Planning to work on GW this weekend, again. Hoping my numbers stay good so I can actually get some writing done (not coincidentally, I think, the weekend when my numbers were the best was the weekend I went from needing to write 75 more pages of GW to needing to write 55 more pages. It's a lot easier to write when you can think straight).

I was emailing Jenn the other day (yes, I conduct much of my socializing via email, even with people I live with. How odd is that?) about stress and feelings of not being "good enough" or "successful enough" at all aspects of our lives.

I mean, life is hard. It just is. And life has been kinda shit for me. Not... bad. There have been so many good things. But it's been hard, harder than it's ever been. And there are things in my life that I bombed out on. I mean, I've been crappy at relationships. I've been completely shunned at work, and all of a sudden I've gone from being a project coordinater who traveled and did reports to a lowly admin again whose sole job is to update a database for an hour every day. I completely ignored my health and let myself deteriorate to the point where I nearly died.

What I've been putting everything into, the thing I've been focusing on to the detriment of everything else, is my writing, and it's the only thing I've had any success at this last year. And that's because it takes up everything I had (and when I was sick, that wasn't much). And, you know: still not huge successes. I don't have a four-book deal or hordes of adoring fans or crowds following me around at cons. Yet I've sacrificed everything else in my life just to get this one little thing moving even a quarter inch. I mean, I hated it when I realized that some people just didn't have to work as hard to get the same result I did if I killed myself, but that's how it works out sometimes. I can work as hard as I want, but some other writer will always be more talented, more prolific, more brilliant, more famous, more well-regarded than I am, and they'll do it while raising four kids and competing in kickboxing championships and opening restaurants in their spare time.

It's like with me and maintaining my weight, or learning some kind of skill that involves physical coordination. I have to work harder than other people just to be seen as in the running. And that doesn't mean I'm a loser, or that there's something wrong with me. I'm just different. It sucks. It's shitty, but it just *is.* And I either accept that or lie around and whine about it and not get anything done.

And I really, really want to get healthier, because there's a lot more I want to do besides writing, like reading more, getting back to boxing, teaching myself some Arabic, and taking a refresher course in basic French.

I've gained ten pounds since I got out of the hospital, and I lamented over it for awhile. I worried that it would never stop. I worried about having an out-of-control body. I already had a broken pancreas. What if my metabolism was broken, too?

But the thing about that, about finally putting back on weight, is that for me, for myself, without looking out at the world, without thinking about how other people regard me - I really like being more substantial. I like having my biceps back. I like being able to get up the stairs without wanting to pass out. I like being able to get back to my regular workouts without feeling like I'm so tired I'll die.

And sometimes, I get so angry. I get so angry that I live in this society that tells me I'm overweight and unhealthy because I don't fit into their boxes, because they know nothing about my life. I'm angry because this body that I can train to do such great things isn't valued as much because it takes up an inappropriate amount of space. I'm angry, because secretely, I do like myself. I like the way I look. I like having hips, and broad shoulders, and muscles I can flex. Watching myself melt away was really scary there, toward the end. Looking at myself in the mirror at Wiscon, I marveled at how much my torso had straightened out. What was happening to my hips? I had no shape. And my biceps? How come I work out every morning and they stay so spindly? What's happened to me?

I guess I'm saying that no matter how much or how often I logically reject the social pressures to be small and fem, I still feel those pressures. They don't go away, not when I'm bombarded with those images every day. I have those times when I want to cut everything away, and then I realize what I'm doing, remember how weak I was with less of myself, and I say, "What the hell are you thinking?"

Because I'm so much more powerful a person when I'm healthy, and substantial.

And have enough insulin...

There's a time and a place for fighting. Sometimes you have to fight for your life, your beliefs, your sense of self. But there are times when fighting means becoming your own worst enemy, when you realize one day that it's not other people who are out to get you, it's not the world that's keeping you miserable, it's yourself.

And, maybe, a lack of insulin...

How Much is Too Much, and Who Says?

How much sex, exactly, makes a woman a slut? And why's having a lot of sexual partners still considered a "bad thing" for women, but a matter of "gaining useful experience" for men?

Well, then

I've discovered that I don't really like pistachios.

Huh.

Demolitions!

Kewl (and hey! I *know* that Trojan cooling tower - I used to pass it on the freeway all the time. Looks like they just blew it up in May)

Nightwatch

As expected, the women are all shape shifters. You do meet a shapeshifting guy at some point, but you never watch him shift. Is this fear of the naked male body again?

Dunno (OK, to be fair, the "good" women are shapeshifters, and the "bad" women are vampires, and the only other woman in the show is the McGuffin. And a lot of the "bad" guys are vampires, too, but because there are so many more guy characters than women characters, they get to have a greater variety of skills. Whereas women are just.. shapeshifters and vampires. I mean, couldn't you have a vampire, a seer, a shapeshifter and some kind of shooting-flames-from-eye-sockets power woman?).

Highlight of the movie: when the main kid sits and watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer on tv while carving kitchen utensils into pointy stakes.

This wasn't the movie I thought it was. I assumed it was going to be some sort of creepy ghosty show, based on the trailer I saw. Instead, it's a showdown between good and evil, where everybody has a superpower. A sort of X-men lite.

Also, the pseudo-climax is resolved pretty easily, with no real action on the part of the protagonist, at which point you realize that whole part of the plot was just a McGuffin that gets us to the place where his son has to choose between good and evil, and his part in doing that (though his part in doing that comes at the beginning of the movie, so again, his choices, the outcome, has already been made. Sort of tensionless then, really).

I might be interested in seeing the rest, maybe. It's the first in a trilogy. But... well, though I do sorta like some of the characters, I don't love any of them, and if you're going to invest that much time in a series, you generally have to love the people and really care what's going to happen to them.

And, mostly, I didn't really.

Though it was cool that the shapeshifting chick got to battle it out in armor in the opening bit.

Hey, I take what I can get.

Jiggety-Jig

This is just another reason why I don't buy the whole "he" is really being used as a pronoun meaning "everyone" thing.

It doesn't. It means men.



Ha.

Katha Pollitt Interview

Katha Pollit is awesome.

I guess I feel that the rollback of our rights is only temporary -- and I say that in my introduction. That a big modern industrial country like America is not going to become a right-wing Christian nation in which you have to show your marriage certificate to get birth control. If you can measure the strength of an impulse by the ferocity of the opposition to it, I would say that feminism is very much alive. People don't spend a lot of time anymore bashing unions, for example. They don't spend a lot of time bashing the black power movement, but feminism really gets to people. So I think the fact that it really gets to people shows both its relevance and its power.

Sugar, Sugar

Yea, my eyes are bothering me, so I'm less prone to type up long posts today.

I took some ridiculous amount of insulin this morning, and it only helped my average noon-day number by like 40 points. So instead of 220, I'm 180, which is still too high a pre-meal number.

But at least it was below 200. I haven't seen a below 200 number since Monday morning, and that was still too high as well. All that sugar has exhausted my poor eyes. Should clear up when the numbers do.

Simple Tutorials Explaining a Number of Medical Conditions & Procedures

They're very basic overviews, but somewhat entertaining.

Please Find My Friend Stephanie A New Job

Anybody know of any good receptionist/admin positions open in Dayton? Please. Find her a new job. With people who aren't originally from Dayton. Steph has a college degree and everything! And she uses big words, like egregious!

Here's a snippet of conversation she overheard at work today:

Stupid person A: "Have you ever tried to study geneology?"

Stupid person B: "No, I've never really been into rocks."

A Few More Photos Up At Flickr

Some more pics from the 4th weekend are up...

Buffy, The UnAired Pilot

Really, the one with the plumper version of Willow. God, I love the fucking internet.

The World, Without Men

All those far future SF novels about worlds without men?

Not so far-future, after all.

"Scientists have turned stem cells from an embryo into sperm that are capable of producing offspring."

Respect the Cock, Woman

Soooo... tell me what's funny about this comment written in response to this rather tame and reasonable post about the importance of creating strong female comic book characters:

Nice piece. Of course, the two main things that would need to change is there to be more female leads (either in their own book or another series) and more female creators (not always working on female characters, either).

But the thing feminist comic fans need to remeber, is that it's going to take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, neither was the comic industry. Things are changing to the better for women in comics (both in the books and in real life), but there is still more to be done. Guys understand that. But it seems that a good bit (not all, because not everyone is the same) of comic book feminists are a VERY impatient lot (and concidering the patience of "regular" comic fans, that's saying something).

We know you want to make things better. We even want to help where we can (because, I'm sure it wasn't just feminist comic fans who wrote in and saved Manhuter and Spider-Girl). But when you get impatient, you really hurt the cause more than help it. This is just a little something you should keep in mind, when you want to go off on rants about something you don't like. Normal comic book fans look stupid when they do it, having a "cause" behind you doesn't make you look any less so.

Let's keep making those strides to make better comics for men and women (has anyone here been reading Witchblade lately? Man, that is some good stuff.). But don't let the passion you feel for the issues, cause you to turn people sour to your points, simply bacause of your tone and attitude in expressing them.

When someone is screaming in your ears, the reflex is to cover your ears. Not listen more intently.

Just a little something to think about... :)

You poor little impatient feminist girls! You're soooo cute when you try and talk to "us," the men who make up the "real world"! You silly fems are just hurting your cause by engaging in intelligent discussion, don't you see??

Read the whole exchange. It's classic! Women are too angry, and don't respect the cock!

Really! Read it!

And, a response.

(thanks, Jenn!)

The Writers' Fightsong

So beat your helpless characters
With bricks and baseball bats
We've answered ALL our email
And shaved and waxed the cats (AND YAKS!)
Procrastination is the foe
Write in a kindly whore
And add a bit of sodomy (USE LUBE!)
And another dinosaur! (A LOT OF LUBE!)


MAKE THEM FIGHT AND MAKE THEM SCREW
MAKE THEM DO WHAT BAD FOLKS DO
MAKE THEM MEAN AND LET THEM FUCK
GIVE THEM REALLY CRAPPY LUCK

Rogue Waves

Are kewl. I really should see the remake of The Poseidon Adventure, just for the hell of it.

What can I say? I was raised on disaster movies and post-apocalyptic SF shows. I'm bound to be a little morbid.

Eating, Drinking, Fighting, Fucking and Other Fun Things

The other night, I wanted to eat a pound of cheese fries and drink five beers.

Wouldn't that have been great?

Instead, I went home, ate some Spanish cheese and soy crisps, and went to bed mostly hungry.

I am so tired of being hungry. Also, tired of needles. Also, tired of nerve-damaged feet. But having feet - nerve-damaged or not - is better than not having any feet. So really, I'm lucky.

But my feet are a constant reminder that things are not OK with me, that I'm sick, that at some point in the far future, I may lose some of these very lovely toes. On the one hand, the constant tingling or twitching on the bottoms of my feet and toes is a hateful thing. It keeps me from being able to pretend that everything's fine. On the other hand, it keeps me from be able to pretend that everything's fine, and so keeps me from eating like everything's fine. I know what's at stake. I can stay pretty focused.

And pretty hungry.

I called Dr. S today, and we upped the insulin again (I'd been upping it on my own between this call and the one before). We've gone from a starting insulin dose of 18 in the morning and 10 at night to 30 in the morning and 28 at night, which says something about why I felt so freakin' shitty after the initial leveling-out period.

I'll be seeing Dr. S. on the 19th, and unless this new uppage does some kind of wonderful thing, I'm going to ask that we move me back to the other insulin regimen, because this one just isn't working with any kind of consistency. My sugar spikes in the afternoon while at work and again at night while I'm lying in bed, so I lie there and listen to my heart pound hard and often irregularly in my chest for an hour before the insulin brings me back down.

Also, really fascinated with the fact that I've lost what used to be a really high sex drive.

Not that it's gone, mind you, but it's not what it was. That's what shitty sugar will do to you (and yes, that's another reason I really, really want to get the insulin sorted out). I do realize that, being single, there's not a lot to do with a sex drive if I did have my old one back, but you know, I *like* looking at people. I *like* sighing over people I find attractive. One of the reasons I hated being on the pill was because I never ovulated, and lost that monthly spike in sexual interest where everyone I met just looked so beautiful...

I miss that.

I don't know, sometimes, how much of my exhaustion with the whole thing is physical, and how much is mental. It's just the constant nagging thing, trying to get everything to work out right. I want to get this under control before I start boxing classes, which I wanted to start in August, but which I may push back until September (which is as far as I'll push it. After that, it's "suck it up" time).

Jenn had some friends in town this weekend, and the four of us went to a restaurant, and Jenn and I both ended up in front of the sinks in the bathroom at the same time, and when I looked at us both in the mirror, our difference in size was really apparent. I looked absolutely gargantuan next to her. Not fat, so much, though I obviously weigh more, but just... big. I am just big. When I stand her in front of me and line up her left shoulder with mine, her right shoulder hits the center of my chest. Granted, Jenn is just little, but man, seeing myself look so huge and intimidating reminded me again that I live in a society that doesn't seem to have a place for me. If I'm supposed to be a little objectified woman who exists to be looked at, well, I'm pretty bad at that... But you know, boxing? When I was boxing, I felt like my body was just right, like I was built just for this. I had this fantastic, powerful body that was actually really *good* for something. I didn't feel too-big or freakish. I felt just right.

And that's why I need to get back to it: beyond the fitness part, the self defense part, it's something that makes me feel better in my skin, that makes me feel like I'm not too big and bulky and awkward. No, I'm powerful and intimidating and free.

Also, really hungry right now.

I may have to get in the habit of making something like egg salad or chicken salad and bringing that to work to snack on. The idea of eating plain hard boiled eggs isn't that appealing, and you can only eat so much beef jerky before you get sick on it.

I think a lot of my problems with the change in eating isn't *what* I eat - I'm actually eating a wider variety of things now that I'm diabetic - it's *how much* I eat. I got so used to packing in some ridiculous amount of calories every day, living on popcorn and nutrigrain bars and going out to lunch and having chocolate cake twice a week, that changing that mode after a year of, "I can eat anything I want and still lose weight!" I'm pretty startled to find myself subsisting primarily on cheese and almonds. I mean, gawd, I'm a former binge eater, too, and one of the big reasons I resolved never to get any kind of stomach surgery was because I love to eat sometimes, just eat until I'm exhausted. I mean, that's what holidays are for. I enjoy the celebration. I'd broken the binge eating cycle before I got sick, but the, "Let's celebrate and eat!" thing was still OK, I could still do it.

And, I guess I still can, only with, like hot wings and omelettes.

Dammit.

I actually crave the low sugar days (few to none, right now) when I can eat one piece of chocolate or even three whole graham crackers! Or jellybeans! Or! Or!

Sometimes, I'm just tired. It'll get better. It'll get easier. It's only been two months. When I figure this whole thing out, when I find an insulin regimen that works and fine tune it, everything will be OK.

I know it will, but it doesn't mean it makes it any easier not to lust after cheese fries and multiple bottles of beer.

I get sad, sometimes.

Good Morning, Chiklits

It's a rainy day in Chicago, but the day job is slow, and I have coffee. Decaf coffee, but coffee nonetheless.

Always gotta look on the bright side.

Travel Writing: About as Glamorous as Being a War Reporter

Only, no bombs. Also, less money.

Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah. Blah

No, I really have nothing to say today. At least not anything that doesn't sound really whiny.

I'm going to go work on God's War.

Arg

I'm getting really, really sick of needles.

Also, if my weight would stabilize at some point, I'd really appreciate that...

Hacienda Chicago

Our front stoop - we're on the top floor


Kitchen


Living room - that elliptical machine and I have a very special relationship...


Dining room/reading room


Me and Jenn


Outtake 1


More of me and Steph

The Weekend of the 4th

What's on my mind?


Stephanie has a bright idea


Ian concocts his next scheme


Me & Stephanie learn to pilot our own ship


Typical Steph & Ian...


Let the drinking begin! Thanks to David, we enjoyed this wine with a fine selection of Spanish cheeses...


And we aren't even drunk yet!

More to follow, as soon as I can get blogger to upload these damn things properly. Or, just go to my flickr account for the rest.

Pirates!

Guys hanging off the rigging of ships; Orlando Bloom without a shirt: hot

Keira Knightley with a sword: even hotter.

It's embarassing how much delight I take in these movies...

You Can Tell My Sugar is Better...

... because I'm swearing a lot in my blog posts again.

The Beat Goes On: Or, the Protagonist is An Idiot Who Can't Commit (and should probably be committed)

"The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one." - Joan Baez

As regular readers know, things have been fucking crazy here at Hacienda Chicago for the last, well... year, year and a half. A while.

I've been crazy and spastic and greiving and exhausted and sometimes, occasionally, hung over (though that won't ever happen again. Which is such an odd thing to think: I'll never be drunk again). Earlier this year, amid all the madness, Jenn and I decided to try and date. We've known each other for six years and been living together for three, and after we both ended rather disastrous relationships, it seemed to make perfect sense for the two of us - who got along so well - to date.

I'd been pretty exhausted by my last relationship, and the August end-date for mine and Jenn's (she'll be getting a teaching job; I'll be heading off to god knows where) gave me a really good excuse to keep up my emotional walls and keep going at a three-months-into-it level of commitment throughout the long haul.

Problem is, you get three or four months into it, and discover that the relationship you thought you'd gotten into wasn't the one she thought she'd gotten into. Because maintaining a three-months-into-it level of emotional intimacy only lasts, well, three months.

Then you need to decide if you want the relationship to grow, of if you want to continue keeping your desperate stranglehold on it.

My rules and boxes, all those things that made me feel "safe" inside of the relationship, were stifling it. And I had to make the choice of whether to give up on all those constraints that made me feel so safe, or end the relationship. Because if you can't trust that you and your partner will have each other's backs forever, you really shouldn't be in a relationship.

I trust Jenn with pretty much everything. The woman fucking saved my life; I know that when the shit hits the fan, if I ever need her when the world throws a punch, she can handle it.

It's not her I don't trust.

It's myself.

I don't trust my judgement in people. I've had too many people turn on me the minute I decided everything must be OK. And I've continued relationships far longer than I felt was right because I figured, "Hey, relationships are hard. I just need to WORK HARDER."

And, you know what?

There are things Jenn deserves in a lover that I can't give her. And I love her to death, and I want her to be happy. And if you're a decent fucking person, you'll walk away when you realize it isn't going to work. That's what you do. You don't try and keep your stranglehold. You don't try and change them.

You realize there's something fundamentally fucked up about the way you view relationships, and you stay away from people until you figure out what that is and how you're going to fix it.

I mean, there's all the romantic baloney about hey, maybe if I just meet the right person, things will be magically fixed and I'll be able to commit! But that may not be the case, and I need to face that possibility. It could just be that there's something fundamentally broken inside of me. I don't know.

What it likely means is that this was not the right place/right time for this particular pairing, or that something was just off. It just wasn't quite right, and I don't know why, and I can't articulate it. I just felt ending it was the right thing to do, and I feel like a lowly piece of shit for doing it, because it was, ultimately, a happy relationship. It was my first non-fucked-up relationship. I can look at it and go, "Wow, I learned so much about what it is to have a real relationship."

But there's something I'm missing in this whole "relationship" thing, because I don't think I really understand what relationships are. I mean, I would run into a burning building to save Jenn or my buddy Julian. I love them a lot. Would I have run into a burning building to save B? Or the psycho ex? No, I would not have.

But then, if you asked me, what's the difference between people who are your friends, and people who are your lovers? I would stare blankly and say, "Um... we have sex?"

And then you'd say, "Sooooo.... what's the difference between a relationship and a fuckbuddy?"

And I'd say, "Well, committment. Monogamy [I'm old-fashioned that way; other stuff doesn't work. Believe me. I know]. Love."

"Soooo.... what's committment?"

"Well.... when you say, `we'll be together X long, or until X.' And, to me, X can be an arbitrary date or a "until you hit me" or "until you disrespect me" or "until one of us no longer loves the other one" or "until you cheat on me" thing. And, to me, that arbitrary date sounded like a really great safety catch. Problem was, it also encouraged me to be all stoic and amazon-like and remind myself every day that soon, I was going to be alone. I wasn't going to have someone around forever. I needed to be able to take care of myself."

Because, you know, even if somebody never leaves you or hurts you or cheats on you, everybody dies.

People fucking die, and they leave you.

Everybody leaves you eventually, and you have to be prepared for that, and for me, for someone who so clearly fucked up in the longest relationship I ever had, way back when, I know what sort of person I can become if I rely on someone too heavily, if I get used to the idea that somebody else is going to fix everything. And, you know, to be honest, not only do I never want to be that stupid person again, but now that I do actually love the partners that I'm with, I never want to be that kind of a burden on them.

And you know, with the whole diabetes bullshit, that's a really terrifying thing. I was already terrified about being dependent on anybody, and waking up in a hospital, realizing that I'd so totally fucked up in taking care of myself, was just a huge blow. I don't trust myself to *not* want to be taken care of, for somebody to hold me every stupid night and tell me everything's going to be all right. Because I'm afraid that if I want that, I'll get used to that, I'll get dependent on it, and I'll become this burdensome woman who cries on somebody's shoulder every stupid night, and how unattractive is that?

"Hello, my name is Kameron Hurley and I'm committment-phobic. Every time my partner says, `let's think about forever," I cut and run."

Because you know, I have this little engine inside of me. I have this story. People come up to me and say, "How did you change your life?" or "Where do you get the courage to do what you've done?" or "How did you go from being sedentary to *not* being sendtary?" They ask me where my drive comes from. And I tell everyone the same goddamn story: for almost three years, I was someone I hated. I was in a relationship with somebody who wanted to keep me more than he wanted to love me, somebody who was more interested in being in control than in being partners.

I hated who I was. I hated what I looked like. I hated being full of fear.

And so I decided to change it.

And every night for a year I went to bed and closed my eyes and envisioned who I wanted to be, the things I wanted to do, the life I wanted to live.

And that life that I created in my head, in that life, I was all alone. I let go of this romantic wishy-washy notion of having this really cool partner who was my best friend and wanted to run off and have adventures with me. I let that go, because in order to have everything else, I felt I needed to give up something. And I chose to give up the romantic ideal. I chose to give up the forever-fairytale fantasy.

And that's worked for me for nearly ten years. For almost ten years, I've lived the life I wanted and did the things I wanted to do, and when confronted with someone who says, "You know, we could be those ideal romantic buddies. We could motorcyle around Rome and drink red wine in Cape Town and you'll speak Arabic and I'll speak Chinese and we'll have a little house by the ocean and fill it full of books and have drunken dinner parties and learn to cook Thai food," I think, "No, no. You can't have everything. That's impossible. I'm either on my own or I'm owned."

Because I was in a relationship, a "forever" relationship, that lasted a really long time, and he said he wanted those things, said that was the life he wanted too, and he was full of shit, and instead he joined the Marines and spun out my whole life for me, as if I'd already lived it: drunk and barefoot and pregnant, living in shitty Marine base housing and being shouted at and talked down to every day for the rest of my life so he could feel better about himself, so he could feel superior to somebody.

I'm not going to do that again. I'm not going to make a mistake again. I'm not going to be that person again.

I run on rage and anger and fear, and that's what powers me through everything: through grad school in foreign countries and lightless days in Fairbanks and broken pancreases and boxing classes where I feel like I'm the most uncoordinated person in the whole room. It pushes me past all my other fears: of looking stupid, of acting like an idiot, of dying, of being maimed or raped or used and thrown aside, because there is no more frightening place than where I've been, no more frightening future person than the one I used to be.

I link that person to "forever." I link that person to, "I will just relax now and assume I'm not going to get fucked over."

The safe place to be is, "I just won't let myself get hurt. I'll keep everything controlled and contained. I won't get attached." The safe place is, "Well, I don't need to get too attached, because it's not like this is Forever."

My Story has gotten me through a lot of shit. It's powered me through some really dark times when I went back to thinking I was a worthless idiot, no better than a wad of spent chewing gum. It got me through.

So to give up that story, to say, "Well, I can be the person I am and still do Forever," is really fucking scary. It's too much, and it involves me trusting myself - and my partner - to such a ridiculous degree that it's nearly impossible.

It's something I fear giving up. It's something I can't give up - right now, anyway.

But it's something I know I need to work on. The alternative is serial monogamy. The alternative is possibly finding a partner where everything *does* work, and giving up because it's too fucking scary.

Even admitting that it's something I know I need to work on sends my heart racing and my palms sweating. It's the most terrifying thing I will ever do, if I ever do it. It means confronting that base fear, the fear that drives me, the fear that I'll become the person I hate the most, that all of these things are tied together, that if I give in and say, "forever," it means I become a bawling submissive who flinches every time her partner looks at her.

I don't want that. I don't want to be that. I don't want to confront that. And I've gone nearly ten years not having to, not getting to the point where someone said, "No, really, this is fucked up." Or, at least, not understanding what they meant.

Jenn has called me on it. And I know she's right. Her and I may not be the best fit for a number of reasons, but if I'm ever going to have any kind of relationship that lasts more than three months, I need to confront this fear. I need to have some faith in myself, and in other people.

Cause, as Jenn taught me, not everyone is a fucker. And - most important of all - as my buddy Ian said: If I can't commit because some asshat I dated back when I was 18 scared me away from having a life partner, then, well, "He wins."

And, you know, if there's any other rage that can drive me as powerfully as the one that's gotten me through these last ten years, it's the idea that he wins.

This is my life.

I can make it into anything I want it to be. And I need to figure out how to do that without giving up who I've become.

The Bitch is LYING: Or, Dan Savage is a Fucktard

So, say you had this friend. You find her very attractive. She happens to be married and has four kids, and she takes you into her confidence and admits that her husband is an abusive fuck who's raped her, abused the kids, and threatened to kill her.

What would you do?

1) tell her that's really awful, and give her the number for the local women's shelter

2) run away with her and the kids and kill her husband for her

3) tell her she's a lying ho, because any woman who stays with a fucker who says they're going to kill them would be stupid, cause that makes no sense, then laugh in her face and break off the friendship

If you chose #3, you and Dan Savage will get along just fine!

Seriously.

Maybe I'm just shocked that the girl of your dreams—the girl of any man's dreams—would be a married woman with four children

Because women with kids are soooo not sexy.

and what may be the worst taste in men this side of Denise Richards.

Ah, you stupid women! Alwasy choosing fuckups! What's wrong with you?? Men never choose fuckups. Just hos. And that's different. That's about sex and clean kitchens.

Can this angel-on-earth pick 'em or what?

What a stupid ho! How can you like this stupid ho! I mean, no decent woman ever found herself in an abusive relationship with a fucktard, and any woman who is isn't worthy of love, obviously.

She married a bordering-on-homicidal asshole and now she's sneaking around with a bordering-on-homicidal dumbass, a guy so stupid that he would threaten the life of his lover's husband in a newspaper column.

And it's all her fault that you guys are bordering on homocidal. What a ho!

Have you bothered to confirm your lover's story?

Cause the bitch is LYING! Obviously. I mean, if a guy came up to you and said he'd just been mugged, why would you believe him? He's obviously just trying to get some sympathy in a vain attempt to get you to track down his mugger.

Your letter makes this woman's husband seem perfectly monstrous. In fact, he seems a little too perfectly monstrous.

Because most men are Really Nice Guys. There are no fucktarded guys in the world, just as there are no fucktarded women, except lying hos.

Have you entertained the possibility that you're being fed a massive load of shit, LIFE?

Bitch be LYIN'!!!!!!!!

Some cheaters invent elaborate tales of woe—the frigid shrew of a wife; the abusive husband—because the cheater wants to have her infidelities and her victim status too.

Because the very first thing every abused woman wants to do is run out and tell everyone that she stays with an abusive fucker! Because she gains so much self-respect when she says that out loud. "Hi, world! I'm too scared to leave this fucker who's hitting me because he says he's going to kill me, and the police won't help me and I don't know what to do."

Oh yea, I've heard that one a MILLION times from lying hos out to "get attention." There's nothing cooler than faking your own bruises and wearing frumpy sweaters in a vain attempt to appear pathetic!

It's incredibly empowering.

So, LIFE, before you run off and kill anyone: Have you checked her story out? If your lover's husband was tried for rape, then there are records out there somewhere—trial transcripts, newspaper articles. Have you looked them up?

Oh, YEA. Because if you REALLY want your abusive psycho husband to leave you alone, the BEST THING TO DO is make rape charges! He'll be out on bail the next day, then stalk you with a butcher knife and cut your head off because you made him "so angry" that he just couldn't contain himself! And if you're EVEN LUCKIER he'll plead the "crime of passion" defense and get off with a year of prison time and then go off and marry some other woman he thinks he can bully around.

OK, my chiklits.

So, let's say you have this friend who's told you all about this abusive fucker she's dating. What advice would, say, somebody like ME give you?

1) DON'T HAVE SEX WITH HER.

Sweet jesus on a fucking stick. Do not fuck this woman. If she's stuck in this relationship, she probably has low self-esteem and very little confidence, and hopping from one guy (or girl) to another with no break in between means you're going to be dating the same person who just got beat down for god knows how many years, and she needs to deal with that. If you're really her friend, if you really love her, you'll give her AT LEAST a year to get her shit together.

AFTER she's left the fucker.

2) TELL HER TO LEAVE THE FUCKER.

Give her some numbers for women and children's shelters. Inquire about her relationship with her other family members to see if she can lean on them. Show her how to fill out financial aid forms.

3) DON'T TELL HER SHE'S A LYING WHORE

When I was shacking up with a fucker in Bellingham, my friend Jen B. came up and visited for a weekend. I was feeling increasingly terrified about my relationship with the fucker I was dating, but every time I thought he was out of line, I made up little stories about how no, really, he didn't mean that. He was just under a lot of stress and pressure and that's why he called me shitty things and said I was stupid, and that was why, after a while, I started to believe me. I mean, I must be a pretty shitty, stupid person to stay with him.

Then Jen B. came up, and when the fucker went out to get something, turned to me and said, "How can you let him treat you like that? I had no idea things were this bad."

And it was like this huge weight fell off my shoulders, because I realized I wasn't crazy, I wasn't making it up, somebody else saw it too. Because when you're in a relationship with one person who's discouraged you from having any friends and you never get out, well, you start to believe that what they're doing and saying is totally "normal." Because in your close-knit little world, it is.

Don't tell her she's a liar. Because you'll just reinforce what she thinks about herself, and she'll stay with the fucker even longer.

4) DON'T TRY AND FIX HER

Her shit is her shit. Encourage her to take up quilting or kickboxing or take pottery classes or karate classes, but don't tell her you're going to save her or fix her or make everything better. Only she can do that. You can help her, sure, provide the information she needs to change her life; direct her toward those resources. But you can't do it for her.

5) DON'T OFFER TO KILL HER HUSBAND

Because that's just fucking stupid, you fucking retard.

6) BUT WHAT IF THE BITCH IS LYIN' TO GET VICTIM STATUS FOR AN AFFAIR?

Well, if you followed my advice in step one, this won't be a problem, will it, you fucktard?

Give Them Something to Live For

"Do you want to know how to eliminate terrorism? I'll tell you. In fact, I'll tell you about something that no one else knows. Something that has never been written about. You will be amazed, but it is true. Listen."

Woman, be a patriot! Marry yourself off for the cause!

On the one hand, giving people something to live for will stop them from doing crazy shit; or at least slow them down. As someone who does a lot of crazy shit, I can tell you that realizing how much my death would piss some people off, I do occasionally have some second thoughts now, like: well, it's not just me I'm living for. It impacts a lot of other people (sometimes I wonder if this is another reason why I have trouble with longterm relationships. I mean, if you're really partnered forever in an interdependent way with somebody and have kids, going bungee jumping might be a little irresponsible).

On the other hand, shipping in women and asking them to screw for the cause is a little weird. But then, it's not like they were forced over there or forced to get married, and you know: a lot of them probably wanted to get married, and hey, what a dating service!

In any case, it's a good example of thinking outside the box. Instead of fighting violence with violence, well... there are other options, and they're a lot more effective than smart bombs.

(thanks, Jenn!)

Ah, the Joys of the Dayjob

Nobody gets their lame asses in here before 9am on Friday: the HR Manager and the Design Center Director both have every Friday off, and nobody's fucking been to work this whole week, cause when we're slow, everybody's encouraged to take their vacation time, including our ever-punctual receptionist.

So I walked in this morning to a dark office and the security alarm going off. One of the junior architects had come in just after 8, set the thing off, and had no idea what to do about it.

I turned it off, security called, and I told them not to call the police, gave them the password that went with my verification code, and hung up. It's apparently a $100 fine every time the police show up and there's not an actual emergency. We know this because my own boss, Blaine, used to set the goddamn thing off all the time.

What a fun way to start the day.

Of course, nobody being in the office also means I get to screw off even more than usual today.

Fucking sweeeeeet.

I've got "The Women of Our Occupation" edits to do.

EDIT: Yup. They called the police. A fun visit from Johnny Law! Yay!

The Real Pirates

heh heh. I am easily amused.

(thanks, Jenn!)

I Drink Too Much Coffee

And yet, I have so few vices left...

Gone With the Blastwave

It's Red vs. Blue, only all apocalyptic and shit.

50 Most Popular Science Blogs

For your reading pleasure.

It's good for you.

The 40 Questions Meme: Cause it's Summertime @ the Day Job, So Why Not?

1. Have you ever been searched by the cops?
Oh, yea, right. I got out of my first speeding ticket because the cop used to work for my parents. Small towns!

2. Do you close your eyes on roller coasters?
No.

3. When's the last time you've been sledding?
What a poorly constructed sentence.

4. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone?
Are we talking in the biblical sense, or actual sleeping? Cause, you know, people are sexy, but there are, indeed, people who should stay far, far away from other people. Like, forever.

5. Do you believe in ghosts?
Of course. I saw a ghost in a B&B in Cape Town. I will not stay there again.

6. Do you consider yourself creative?
Not particularly.

7. Do you think O.J. killed his wife?
Doesn't much matter what I think, does it?

8. Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie?
Keira Knightley.

9. Do you stay friends with your ex's?
No, but I'm hoping to change that.

10. Do you know how to play poker?
That's like asking if I know how to smoke a cigar and drink whisky. I mean, *Yea.*

11. Have you ever been awake for 48 hours straight?
Yes. Hullo, Clarion!

12. What's your favorite commercial?
I'm partial to the Apple Computer 1984 commerical classic.

13. What are you allergic to?
My pancreas, apparently.

14. If you're driving in the middle of the night, and no one is around do you run red lights?
No.

15. Do you have a secret that no one knows but you?
Yes, several, but they're likely to come out in my fiction.

16. Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees?
Whatever.

17. Have you ever been Ice Skating?
Yes. Once. Never again.

18. How often do you remember your dreams?
Usually. I have a lot of crazy fucking dreams.

19. When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried?
This weekend, baby: Steph and Ian, you guys rock!

20. Can you name 5 songs by The Beatles?
Yes, but should I?

21. What's the one thing on your mind now?
I reserve comment.

22. Do you know who Ghetto-ass barbie is?
Do you mean "Who" or "What"? Cause if it's who, and Barbie's a real person now, that's fucking scary. I had My Little Ponies and GI Joes, and they had wars, dude.

23. Do you always wear your seat belt?
Yes.

24. What cell service do you use?
I don't have a cell phone. Which is really ironic because, of course, I work for a company that builds, designs and upgrades cell phone towers. Word of advice: don't get a Cingular phone for another 3 years.

25. Do you like Sushi?
Yes. Is Sushi really a capitalized word?

26. Have you ever narrowly avoided a fatal accident?
Yes. Several.

a) I was coming home from the movie theater I worked at one night and stopped at a red light on a deserted street. The light turned green, I moved my foot to the gas and started for the intersection, and a car full of guys ran the other light going about 100 MPH. They missed me by about a foot.

b) Got T-boned in South Africa while trying to cross two lanes of traffic. I wasn't driving, and was on the non-T-boned side, but if the guy would have been going faster... well.

c) My pancreas exploded, which I'd count as an accident of sorts.

27. What do you wear to bed?
Depends on the season, but I'm quite partial to my oversized Nanook Nick's shirt and shorts or sweat pants. Terribly unsexy, but very comfortable.

28. Been caught stealing?
Caught? No.

29. What shoe size do you have?
Size 11. Just like Kate Winslett!

30. Do you truly hate anyone?
No, because that would mean I'd have strong feelings for someone I didn't care about, and I have no interest in giving anybody that honor.

31. Classic Rock or Rap?
Scissors.

32. If you could sleep with one famous person, who would it be?
I reserve comment.

33. Favorite Song?
Currently? "Fix You" by Coldplay.

34. Have you ever sang in front of the mirror?
All the time.

35. What food do you find disgusting?
Those gnocchi things with the olives

36. Do you sing in the shower?
Only when I'm really, really, really happy.

37. Did you ever play, "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours"?
Not that I recall. I figured out plumbing pretty early.

38. Have you ever made fun of your friends behind their back?
Oh yes. Sadly. Though not many of those people are still my friends, so that says something about how close we were...

39. Have you ever stood up for someone you hardly knew?
Yes. The most memorable being in South Africa when I was waiting at a bus stop with this skinny blond chick and these two drunk guys came up and started saying all these really lewd, violently sexual things to her and telling her what they were going to do to her, and I turned on them both and started a screaming, swearing tirade about how it was disrespectful to harass people while they were waiting for the bus.

The guys moved on.

40. Have you ever been punched in the face?
Yes, but not hard, and she was wearing gloves. So.

Summertime at the Dayjob

I'm reminded of why I've kept this job for so long.

Cause for several months during the summer, I get paid to write and play computer games for 8 hours every day.

Man.

In Which the Protagonist is Chagrined

So, my buddies Ian and Stephanie were in town for the long weekend. They're living in Dayton where he's working toward a PhD in material science (we keep trying to call him a physicist, but it's "Material Science" apparently) and she's working as a medical receptionist to support the household before heading back to grad school herself (like me, she's a history major. Yay!).

Stephanie and I met when we were 14 via the high school drama department. We hated each other at the time. She was the backstage bitch, and I was the onstage bitch. Our most famous encounter was during a show where - because of the limited resources we had - I was supposed to get offstage from a scene and then go back onstage to move a bookcase once the curtain went down. Stephanie was stage managing, which meant it was her job to make sure all the shit got moved.

Well, you know, one night after a particularly great show where I just thought I was the hotest shit ever to hit the stage, I waltzed back into the green room, absolutely preening, and went to my locker to get some more chamomile tea (I did a lot of yelling in that particular show).

About three minutes after I walk into the green room, Stephanie tromps in - 5'4 and barely 120 lbs at the time - and you can practically *see* the steam coming out of her ears. She storms right up to me and screams, "You didn't move the *fucking* bookshelf! It was your job to move the bookshelf! I just about killed myself moving the goddamn bookshelf! Remember to move the goddamn bookshelf! Do you know how important this is??"

Now, a stage manager storming into the green room and screaming at an actor in front of God and everyone wasn't something that, well, happened. There was the heirarchy, right? If an actor fucks up, well, you come to them later, quietly, and set things right.

Oh, no, not Stephanie.

And never again did I forget to move the goddamn book shelf.

We didn't really become close friends until the theater rivalry was over and we started college and started re-examining what we were doing with our lives. It turned out that we had a lot more in common than we suspected, which is probably why we hated each other in high school. Now I think of Stephanie as the little sister I don't have (I mean, I have a sister, but, well, we really don't have anything in common); that is, someone who's loud and obnoxious like me, and even looks like me (when she arrived in Chicago and stepped out of the car, I saw that we had the same haircut), and who has the same sorts of fears and has overcome a lot of the same things. She also decided one day that she didn't like her life, and she's worked very hard to create a new one.

In any case, because I've always been on the move, and now that they are too, a lot of the "what's going on with Kameron" stuff gets transmitted via my blog (I told Stephanie she really needs to start one, too, but she's afraid it'll all be about quilting and scrapbooking, to which I'd reply, "So the fuck what?").

So, a few times this weekend, the subject of exes came up, and after hearing about the shitstorm that was my relationship with B and hearing a few things via the blog, Stephanie said she regretted not meeting him. I told her it was best she hadn't, because he'd probably have assumed that because I spoke to Ian, I must be flirting with him, and I'd have spent the whole weekend trying to convince him that I wasn't going to screw Stephanie's husband (who is nice and all, but I feel like I'm related to him, so that idea is just, well, *icky*).

And, really, how exhausting is it to reassure someone that you're not going to go out and screw the closest human being around the second he turns his back?

In any case, the four of us went out to a great pancake house in Evanston yesterday morning, and I was blabbing to Stephanie about how I'd had to break things off with B when I realized I didn't respect him, and if you can't respect someone, how can you love them? She agreed that that was a pretty mature thing to do.

"Apparently," Stephanie said, "if you talk to marriage counselors, you can figure out which couples will stay together and which won't by measuring the amount of contempt they have for each other. Once couples start down the road toward contempt, there's really pretty much none who can turn it around. Once you disrespect someone, things are pretty much over."

"It's fucked up, too," I said. "I mentioned him, what, five times in the five months since we broke up, and he thought I was, like, saying these really horrible things about him, that I was attacking him on my blog and calling him all sorts of names. All the stuff I said was true stuff. He's kinda wacky and all, but I never said the stuff he said. I mean, he was posting about how disgusting I was, and how I was a shitty writer and used all my friends and was going to spend the rest of my life alone and without love. Which, you know, I've heard before."

"I didn't get that," Stephanie said. "I thought you were being mature about how you felt."

"Oh no," Ian said, and turned to me. "No way. I totally thought you were trying to destroy him."

Me, Steph, and Jenn all looked at Ian, a little perplexed.

"Huh?" I said.

"I mean, you might as well have kicked him in the balls," Ian said. "When you tell a guy `I don't respect you,' that's the worst possible thing you can say. There's like this heirarchy of things you can do to a guy: kick him in the balls, tell him he has a small penis, and then, worst of all, tell him you don't respect him. It means he's not worth bothering with. Not worth anything at all. It's the worst possible insult."

"You're fucking kidding me," I said.

"Seriously," he said. "I honestly thought you'd thought of the worst possible thing to say to him, the one that would cut him the worst, and then posted it up on your blog to your international audience."

"Fuck," I said, "I so totally didn't mean to do that. I thought I was being really honest about the whole thing. I didn't want to be a jerk."

"Well, I mean, what's the female equivalent of that?" he said.

"What do you mean?" Stephanie said. "Of disrespect?"

"I don't know that a guy saying he didn't respect me would be so huge because -" I began, and then stopped. "Oh. The female equivalent is having a guy tell you he loves you and thinks you're the most amazing person in the world and then once he has sex with you says you're a dirty whore and he was only using you for sex."

"Oh, totally," Stephanie said.

"That's it," Ian said. "Same thing."

"Holy shit," I said. "I acted like an ASSHOLE."

"And I thought it was just a mature thing to say," Stephanie said.

Well, crap.

I somehow always manage to come across as more of a bitch than I really think I am, which is likely why so many people call me one. I mean, I don't *feel* evil.

Damn.

Top Ten Trivia Tips About... Me

1) Kameron is only six percent water.
2) Kameron is the oldest playable musical instrument in the world.
3) Michelangelo finished his great statue of Kameron in 1504, after eighteen months work!
4) In Eastern Africa you can buy beer brewed from Kameron!
5) Kameron is born white; her pink feathers are caused by pigments in her typical diet of shrimp.
6) Kameron cannot burp - there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in her stomach.
7) Kameron can use only about ten percent of her brain!
8) 99 percent of the pumpkins sold in the US end up as Kameron.
9) In Japan, Kameron can only be prepared by chefs specially trained and certified by the government!
10) In Vermont, the ratio of cows to Kameron is 10:1!

You gotta go to Africa for the beer, really. Though that statue pretty much rocks, too.

Get your own tips

One of This Weekend's Discussions...

.. was why the hell aren't we talking about vaccinating girls and boys against HPV (or, rather, the four kinds of HPV that prevent 70% of all cases of cervical cancer). I mean, women aren't just magically contracting it all by themselves, any more than we reproduce through parthenogenesis.

My buddy Ian wondered if anybody had even tried the vaccine on men, and whether or not it'd even be effective.

Well, turns out, it is:

And there is still discussion about whether to vaccinate a group of people who don't get cervical cancer: men. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease, after all, and vaccinating men would likely protect their sexual partners.

There's a small advantage for men and boys: The vaccine protects against genital warts and rare cases of penile cancer.

Aha. So, studies on guys have been done.

Sooooo... why am I not seeing the idea of vaccinating boys being discussed in 90% of the articles about the vaccine?

Besides, you know, sexism?

On Not Being "Fat Enough"

"When Kathleen LeBesco gave a talk at an academic meeting last fall about how, as an overweight professor, she influenced her students' ideas about body size, there was only one problem: She wasn't fat."

Well. Fat's really a relative term, isn't it?

I mean, among a bunch of models and actresses I'd be considered a freakin' whale. I mean, Elizabeth Hurley has nightmares about being a size 14. And, you know, I'm a size 14. And according to the BMI, still fat, though it took a diabetic coma to get me here.

I'm currently reading a volume LeBesco edited called, Bodies Out of Bounds, which is mostly pretty good (after a stop-and-go iffy sort of start).

What interests me about this article is the assumption that because LeBesco doesn't currently have an obese BMI that she's suddenly not fit enough to talk about fat studies. Because suddenly all of her experiences as a fat woman in society are completely invalid?

Speaking as someone who can "pass" (for the moment, in some circles) I can tell you this: no matter what the scale says or what other people say, I still have an image of myself as a fat girl who takes up too much space.

You could argue here about what's more valid/important/real: society's perception of you, or your perception of yourself.

(via bfb)

The Crazy Life

I have a fucked up life. Not bad, fucked up, but just kind of fucked up right now. Things are up and down and crazy and full of sadness and hurt and laughter and storytelling and low sugar shaking and dancing in the kitchen and drinking wine and all that bittersweet shit.

I'm not a beautiful writer. I'm not always the greatest person. I might try to do the right thing all the time, but it's not neccessarily the best thing, or the smartest thing, but I do what I think is right.

Despite everything, I had a really good weekend.

And yea, I really fucking needed it.

Something about a phoenix, fire, ashes, burning everything up and starting over.

Sometimes I wish I could rewind my life and start over.

I suppose falling down seven times, getting up eight, is as close as I'm going to get.

In Which The Protagonist Starts Deleting Posts!

Ah, yes, Delete is a useful function, as any good LJer will tell you, so I've deleted this one!

I'll be taking a blogging break until late next week.

Just Keep Upping That Insulin

Upping me another 4 units: 24 in the morning, 18 in the evening.

I'm no longer spiking above 300 in the afternoons, and I can get myself under 200 at night by working out.

Calling him again on Monday for another dosage check.

This is such a bitch.

In Which The Protagonist Fucks Up, Again

Well, I dig my own holes.

Sex Talk

Well, the one good thing that came out of the whole "blowjob" fiasco running rampant in the feminist blogosphere are a couple of threads over at Bitch PhD. She's opened up a women's and men's thread for "honest" talk about sex: what you like, what you don't.

In this case, I actually like that she broke the threads up by sex; likely, it avoids some fighting/disagreements that would undermine the whole idea of the exercise, which is to feel that you can speak honestly without being attacked for it.

One of the things I don't talk about here is intimate sexual details, because, well, that's between me and my partners. But hey, you can post anonymously over at Bitch's place...

Footprints

My parents both worked when I was growing up; still do. I have fond memories of helping my mom mop up the burger joint on Christmas Eve. Sometimes they worked nights, weekends, holidays, so me and my brother and sister spent much of our time, until I was about 12, at my French grandmother's house. She had fantastic stories about growing up in Nazi-occupied France, and she was also a devout Catholic.

When I was old enough to read - and tall enough to see it - I read a poem that hung in the dining room. It was called "Footprints," and if you haven't read it, one version goes something like this:

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed He was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from His life. For each scene He noticed two sets of footprints in the sand. One belonging to Him and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of His life flashed before Him, He looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of His life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times of His life.

This really bothered Him and He questioned the Lord about it. Lord you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me.

The Lord replied, my precious, precious child, I Love you and I would never leave you! During your times of trial and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.

Something about this poem really touched me, and I'd come back to it again and again and read it over and over, especially the last part. I wanted that, I think. I wanted to know someone would carry me through the darkest times. I wanted to believe it.

Though my grandmother took me to church whenever she could get away with it, and I grew up reading gory children's Bible stories (growing up on Bible stories and stories about Nazi-occupied France, it's really no surprise I write what I write), I never took to the idea that there was somebody out there who would carry me during the worst times. I didn't take to the idea because during the worst times, nobody carried me. The older I got, the more obvious that was. I was the one responsible for my choices. If I was lucky, loved ones might try and bail me out, but well, my dad's the one who agreed to come bail me out of my bad choices in Bellingham, when I was evicted from my apartment. My mom wanted to leave me there to stew. "She's 18. Let her make her own mistakes." So I've never felt any sort of *guarantee* that even family members would carry me out of anything.

No, the only one who could pick me up was myself.

I lost it this morning on the bus. I had Coldplay's Fix You on repeat, and I just started crying. In public. On the bus. I was so heartsick. The other side of anger is deep sadness, grief.

I feel like I'm working so hard, and nothing is working. I don't feel great. And the worst part of that is that for three great days I felt so totally wonderful and normal and then my sugar took a nose dive again. And it's so frustrating. I'm living mainly on protein and vegetables and working out every day, and this is what I get: I feel terrible, my numbers don't come out right, and I'm stuck drinking decaf fucking coffee.

I cried on the bus, and transferred to the train, and thought of that poem. And I steeled myself again. I buttoned everything back down, I stopped the tide of grief.

Suck it up, Hurley.

No one's going to carry me. No one's going to fix me. At the end of every day, all you have is yourself, and it's you who gets to decide how you'll handle what you'll feel: it's you who decides if you'll hide under your bed and weep or open up that goddamn book file and *concentrate harder* and get some goddamn work done.

And I sucked it up, and I walked off the train and I wiped off my face and thought, OK, it's going to be hard. You knew it was going to be hard. It's OK if it's hard. It doesn't mean you've failed at anything. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. It means it's fucking hard. Suck it up.

When the cardiologist (from Durban, of all places) came into the ICU room (once I was conscious) and told me I was going to be an insulin dependent diabetic the rest of my life, he talked a lot about my heart. Being the doctor on duty the night I came in, he'd had to oversee my care, despite being, you know, a cardiologist and not an endocrinologist. So it's no wonder he talked so much about my heart, and so little about my pancreas.

"You have a really strong, healthy heart," he said, and he said it as if he was slightly surprised that a 180 lb insulin dependent diabetic could have such a healthy heart. "Your heart is very strong. You'll do well."

I trekked 120 km into rural Africa. I left a bipolar, schizophrenic Marine who wanted to kill me. I jumped off a bridge. I saw peguins on the other side of the world. I've lived without love, without money, without self-respect, without a clue.

I can live without a fucking pancreas.

Because if my fucking pancreas can't get me through this, my heart will have to do.

Oh, For Fuck's Sake

I've cut carbs until I'm down to one serving per meal (I'm supposed to be eating 3-4), and the best # I could get was 180, last night, after working out. I increased my goddamn insulin dose agoddamgain

This FUCKING INSULIN isn't FUCKING WORKING.

I CAN'T WRITE IF I CAN'T CONCENTRATE ON THE FUCKING SCREEN.

Fuck.

I am so done.

I Remember

I've been tossing and turning in bed, thinking of Durban.

I don't know why I'm thinking of it again, now, suddenly, when I've gone so long without talking about it, ruminating, thinking anything beyond, "I drank a lot in Africa."

But I remember. I'm lying awake remembering things; leaning out the big back window of my little one-and-a-half room flat and watching the storms come in over the Indian Ocean. Watching the big red sheet I kept over the living room window billow in the wind and scatter the light. I remember long, drunken nights of dancing. Shots of tequila. Rum and coke. I remember the way the air tasted, how it clung to my skin; I remember the crazy rides in the overpacked taxis and the dust that clung to everything. I remember chain smoking while writing a thesis and a novel, and yes, I remember the bugs. The flying cockroaches, the geckos that lived in the cupboards, the nest of unnammable creatures living under the bathtub. I remember stumbling home drunk and waking up in my own bed wearing only a towel. I remember hot nights.

I remember the people. The sound of Zulu. And I remember Julian's house, this stolid, quiet little house with the front porch and the big dining table under the awning out back, and I remember the good wine and the good coffee, and the dinner parties. I remember laughing. I remember being asked what I thought my worth was, in cows. I remember a woman at a noisy dance club asking me for aspirin, because, you see, her stomach hurt; she'd just had an abortion. I remember being driven home by some pretty drunk drivers. I remember never quite feeling like I fit in. I remember not being pretty enough. I remember not being smart enough. I remember the art parties, the bottles of wine.

I remember running away from everything and ending up there, on the other side of the world. I remember monkeys perched on top of garbage cans. I remember figuring out, for the first time, what love was. I remember lying awake and tossing and turning and trying to figure it out, and suddenly understanding, and thinking, "Ahhh... this was my lesson. This is why I had to come to Africa. Not for the cockroaches or the banana trees or the ocean storms, but this, here, yes."

And I remember looking back at Table Mountin from a boat in the harbor and thinking, "I have come to the ends of the earth. I can stop running now."

I'd spent five years running and running and running. Running from an old life, an old self, and I was ready to stop. I was ready to live again. I was tired of running because I was afriad. I wanted another reason to get up in the morning.

I wanted the storms to be enough.

Joss Whedon is My Secret Boyfriend

If you haven't seen it yet, Joss Whedon's award acceptance speech for Equality Now:

"Why aren't you asking a hundred other guys why they *don't* write strong women characters?"

I got to the end of the speech and burst into tears, because he said so succinctly what I've been trying to say with so much of my fiction.

Whedon is my new Secret Boyfriend.

Sugar Sick

Well, I've been feeling like absolute shit the last three days, so I called Dr. S. today and updated him on my numbers, which, like my physical state, are shit.

I've been having trouble concentrating here at work (sugar headache, blurry vision), my sex drive tanked (yes. I notice these things), I wanted to lie around in bed immediately after coming home last night (I couldn't do this, of course, because my sugar was so high that I had to work out immediately after coming home just to get it reasonable), and all of a sudden water was looking *really* good again, and I was spending more time in the bathroom.

Well, at least I know what all of these things *mean* now, even if I wasn't sugar testing 5 times a day.

Dr. S. told me to up my insulin from 18 morning, 10 night; to 18 morning, 18 at night, and call him again on Thursday.

This is exhausting. I just want to get these goddamn numbers back on track before I get another fucking yeast infection.

This is like some kind of fifth ring of hell.

Jagged Little Pill

When my computer(s) died, I lost a lot of music along with them, and have been re-installing music piecemeal. Yesterday I finally re-burned a copy of Alanis Morissette's first album, Jagged Little Pill.

And I was reminded of what I love it so much.

Oh, sure, she got the "you must be a femi-nazi bitch who hates men" label after this album, which secrely pleased me. I love You Outta Know. I think it's the star of the album, though every single other song ain't bad either.

I was surprised to read this piece (scroll down) over at The Hathor Legacy that, while affirming the fanasticness of the album, expresses frustration about the rap Alanis got for this album, and particularly, for You Outta Know. She argues that there are a lot of really powerful songs besides You Outta Know on the album (which is true), and that Alanis got tagged as an evil, angry woman unfairly, and you should look at the album as a whole, and blah blah basically "Hey, she's not *just* an angry woman! She's a talented artist!"

It's really shitty that we feel we have to defend angry women by pointing out that they're really great artists (I'm trying to think of angry men whose artistic talent gets overlooked because they're too "angry" and I'm not coming up with anyone. Feel free to correct me). But I don't want to defend angry women artists by saying they "aren't as angry as you think they are."

I WANT her to be that angry. That's what I fucking love about You Outta Know and the album as a whole. All of sudden there's all this honest emotion: not cutesy little, "Oh, I love you and all the shiny flowers even though you cheated on me" crap, but real, "I cared about you and you fucked me over you asshole" anger. And "I thought this relationship was something it really wasn't" anger. And "this isn't quite the life I was looking for" anger.

Anger is good.

Lack of anger and frustration actually really turned me off the second album. Not that I *hated* her second album, but it doesn't connect with me the way Jagged Little Pill does. I mean, maybe once you make a lot of money and run off to India for a few years, you aren't angry anymore. But, you know, Pink has a lot of money, and I think she had some great ass-kicking songs in I'm Not Dead.

I don't want to feel I have to defend an artist cause she's angry. I want to go, "She's really angry! Isn't that cool!?"

Because it is cool. What nobody seems to get is that the flipside of anger is often sadness; anger is just a more powerful way to express oneself than sadness (and more socially acceptable among men. Men are encouraged to get angry instead of being sad. Women are just supposed to be sad). If you want to know what the song's really about, try listening to You Outta Know again - particulary the slow, sad, alternate take she did at the Grammies.

That'll stop your heart.

But most days, I prefer the pissed-off version. Most days, it feels truer. And it's telling the truth that's going to connect with people; or piss them off.

Gormenghast

You know what the *real* problem is with the BBC production of Gormenghast?

The problem is, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is really fucking hot, and the director even manages to employ several ingenious ways of getting gratuitious shots of JRM without his shirt on. OK, yea, that's good, I know. But here's the bad part:

JRM plays a Sneering Villain. And Sneering Villains: not so hot. So while I sigh and squirm over the long, lingering shot of JRM's beautiful bare back and shoulders, I am then thrown out of said reverie the moment he turns around and *sneers*.

Blast!

Can't somebody please put him in more roles like the one in Bend It Like Beckham instead of Misogynist Jerk #4 in Vanity Fair? I have the same problem with Ryan Gosling. I found him incredibly repugnant in Murder By Numbers, and then wanted to leap out of my chair and drag him home after The Notebook. I'm wondering if this is the real mark of a good actor: they can transcend their good looks, so you'll find them appealing or disgusting based entirely on their performance, and not based purely on their looks.

This is why I couldn't watch Red Eye, either, though Jenn loved it. Not only is the uber-cute and lovely Rachel McAdams getting terrorized (and the idea of Rachel McAdams getting terrorized makes me want to run out and save her!), but the Bad Guy is Cillian Murphy, who I mooned over (once he shaved) in 28 Days Later, but is far, far less appealing as a Crazy Jerk.

Bad guys just aren't sexy.

Blast!

And I still have one whole disk of Gormenghast to go....

The Workouts Will Continue Until the Sugar Improves

::Snarl::

Quote of the Day

“If you act like a rock star, people will treat you like a rock star.”
- Marilyn Manson

Switching to Decaf & Blowing Up People's Heads

I'm not giving up butter or regular cheese (oh yes, dieticians prefer you eat fat-free cheese, which has the taste and texture of plastic), but I'm switching to decaf coffee at work (caffeine increases the body's resistance to insulin).

So, no more getting drunk, no more plateloads of mashed potatoes, and very little regular coffee (1 cup a day).

There's something *good* about all of this, I just know it!

Ah, yes: living longer. Living longer. Writing more books. Hm, yes.

Anyway, going to work out some of this pent-up aggression by pushing through the last two big fight scenes of God's War today. I get to cut off some more people's body parts and write a big boxing scene!

Yay!

Diabetes: What Fun!

Since I started the new insulin on Thursday, I've been checking my blood a little more often, including between meals, just to gauge where I'm at on the new stuff. Every time I tested, no matter what time of day, I was under 200, which is quite respectable, and it was usually near or below the perfect 100-150 mark.

Today I wandered into my room after an afternoon walk to Borders and found my sugar had spiked to 317.

My sugar hasn't been above 300 since I was in the hospital.

When it hits 400, you're supposed to call the doctor.

I tested again, and once more on my other monitor. Still over 300.

How the hell had this happened? Sure, I had a lot of coffee today, but I have lots of coffee on weekends (caffeine increases your body's insulin resistance), and yea, I added some chicken nuggets to my usual soup and sandwich lunch, but even with BBQ sauce, that shouldn't have come out anywhere *near* where I was.

So I put in half an hour on the elliptical machine while watching Gormenghast, and that brought me down to 260. Better, but not great. I tested half an hour later, and I was starting to go up again, to 279.

WTF had happened?

Then I remembered how I had trouble finding my insulin this morning. I store it in the refrigerator, but last night, I got distracted, and somehow it ended up spending the night on top of the television stand, next to the phone (it was a really distracting day). If insulin gets too hot or too cold, it loses its potency, but this place was nowhere near 88 degrees last night, and that's the upward temp where it starts losing potency.

So I popped open my second bottle of insulin, had an early dinner consisting primarily of salad, and went for a walk around the graveyard out here by our place. I came home, and my sugar was 222. Still not ideal.

I stared glumly at the elliptical machine again.

Did *another* 30 minutes of cardio.

Came back down to a reasonable 138.

Now I'm eating some string cheese and nuts because I'm freakin' starving; sadly, these are the only low-glucose snacks I've got around. I don't even want to risk the low-carb yogurt or berries. I just want my freakin sugar to stay even.

I'm so tired of being a defective person. I just want to nail down this goddamn routine. I just want everything to work the way its supposed to. I can work out half an hour every day, fine, fine, fine (my regualr weight routine is great for building muscle, but it doesn't lower sugar immediately the way cardio does. In fact, in the short term, my sugar goes up when I lift weights).

Even on weekends? Seven days a week? My whole life? For an hour on days when things are bad? Can't I lie around in bed on weekends? Why can't I sit around and drink coffee and write ten pages and not worry about my goddamn blood sugar? And why the fuck did I have to get a disease that everybody's going to hear I have and immediately think, "Oh, she must not take care of herself?"

When Stephanie told her mom I had Type 1 diabetes, her mom said, "You mean *Type 2* diabetes."

Oh, fuck you.

What I hate about this disease is that it takes away my choices. If I want to be anything like healthy I *have* to exercise an hour a day. I *have* to eat mostly salad. I *have* to blah blah blah or my feet will get chopped off.

I don't want to *have* to do anything just to live like a normal fucking person. It kind of takes the fun out of exercise if you *have* to do it, if you'll die without it, if your blood becomes sluggish and turns to acid if you don't (look, I have a superpower!).

And I hate it. I walked around the graveyard (oh, the irony!) with an internal monologue that went something like, "I should just be fucking dead. I should be dead. They should have let him die in the hospital. I'm a freaking genetic freak. We shouldn't reproduce or even exist. I'm defective. Why the fuck am I still here? What fucking purpose does it serve? Am I just here because it makes other people happy? I should just let myself die. I hate this. I hate this whole thing. I hate my stupid dead pancreas. I hate myself for being alive. What the hell is there to do when you're a genetic freak? Isn't that the whole idea of evolution, to get rid of people like me?"

And on and on and on and on and on and on.

I have to work harder. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

And the alternative is not to do it, and get my feet chopped off.

And you know, I really like my feet.

I just have to work harder.

Every. Goddamn. Day.

And there are days when it makes me really fucking frustrated.

Still Writing

Oh, thank gawd, I FINALLY got them OUT OF DADFAR.

This book can ACTUALLY END SOON.

What a bitch. I'm going to get some lunch.

Ballsy, But Stupid

16-year-old girl runs off to Jordan to meet 25-year-old guy she met on My Space.

You gotta admit, the girl's got balls. Sadly, she ran off thinking there was a well meaning guy on the other end who'd take care of her (that's the assumption anywhere. Nowhere in this article is she allowed to speak for herself and her own motives, and her parents are baffled, as parents usually are). There certainly could have been a well-meaning guy on the other end (sure, uh huh), but I think a lot of women think that in order for them to go out and have adventures and live exciting lives (it didn't surprise me that she's from a small "agricultural" community), they have to partner themselves with some random guy in order to do so.

I'm just as guilty of this, of course, I ran off to Bellingham with a high school boyfriend three days after turning eighteen (my parents wouldn't let me out of the house before then), thinking that now I was going to have all sorts of great adventures. Sadly, not every guy actually shares in the idea that his partner should go off and have adventures - with or without him, and you wake up one day with 100 extra pounds, three kids, and a drinking problem.

I totally blame Disney movies. I mean, you get this whole idea into your head that life doesn't really start until you find your prince charming and get married. What you don't wonder about until later is why all those romantic stories *end* when the characters get married. Well, likely they *end* because all of the adventure stops after they get married, and a movie all about how Mr. & Mrs. argue about who put the spatula in the wrong drawer gets boring (this is why I love the Shrek movies and hope they keep making them. I love that the story goes on and there's still adventure to be had *after* the couple gets together. And they aren't always fairy-tale happy, but they love and respect each other).

I want the story where the 16 year old runs off to join Green Peace and gets hauled out of the ocean because she's trying to blockade a whaling ship with her little rubber boat. Or the girl who goes off to Thailand and starts a rural school for tsunami orphans (I did, in fact, read a story about a 17 year old girl who did this, with her parents' blessing, and who raised all the money for the school and helped build it with her own two hands).

Because, you know, you don't need to hang on some guy and wait for him to take you on adventures. Cause he probably won't. And some of the more deviant ones will think it's a great adventure to keep you locked in the closet in a foreign country and only bring you out for the occasional gang bang.

Like I said: ballsy, but stupid.

Go buy a one-way ticket to Fairbanks and build a log cabin in the woods and brew your own beer. Believe me, it's far more exciting than attaching yourself to somebody who probably doesn't have your best interests in mind.

You're the only one who knows what your best interests are. Don't rely on somebody else to decide them for you.

Strawberries and Sunsets on a Saturday Night

For the first time in a very, very long time -

I feel alive.

And it's really beautiful.

Sugar Sugar

Phone update, reading sugar numbers to Dr. S.

No dosage adjustments. Whew. Will update him again on Thursday.

Also, I am out of computer ink.

Dammit. Off to Best Buy.

In Which the Protagonist Realizes Why GRRM Has Character Names as Chapter Titles

Arg!

Just.. Arg!

Writing Today

Will... finish.... God's War draft... dammit...

Sugar, Sugar: or, Why I Love My Endocrinologist

New insulin regimen = perfect sugar levels all day!

Wooooot!

"Where's My Adolescent Power Fantasy?"

... individuals who call strong women characters "men with breasts" or "Amazons" (same tone as "Unicorns") are missing something very important. They've probably realized that superheroes are an "Adolescent Power Fantasy" because that much is obvious. But they think of twelve year old boys when they think of it. They haven't looked beyond their own gender to realize that woman also have "Adolescent Power Fantasies." It's unheard of, because females are supposed to fantasize about love and romance and world peace and crap like that. Women don't want to be punch out the people who offend them. That's ridiculous, only men have those impulses.

Travel Grant For Spec Fic Writers

Want to run around the world doing research for your latest novel?

Apply for a travel grant from the Spec. Lit. Foundation here.

It might cover your airfare, in any case...

Boys & Bodies

The researchers, from the University of Glamorgan's Health and Exercise Science Research Unit, say bodybuilders turn to steroids because they see themselves as too "weedy" - in a condition which is the opposite of anorexia.

So sad. Dorky little weedy boys are quite sexy.

It does interest me that both men and women seek media-hyped perceptions of beauty that aren't neccessarily appealing to the sex(s) they're trying to attract.

I suppose it's easier for us to pretend we have only one standard of beauty, so companies can try to turn all of us into that. Acknowledging diversity - particularly the attractiveness of diversity - means smaller groups of potential consumers.

If everyone in America is "overweight" it's a lot easier to sell us all diet products. If all men are "weedy" it's easier to sell them on gyms and steriods. If all women need big breasts, they'll go to great lengths to inhance them, including surgery.

A handful of people are making a lot of money by making other people feel terrible about themselves.

(Thanks, Cheryl)