Becoming Insurance Savvy

I know nothing about insurance. Really, nothing. My crash course in how my insurance actually worked was my second day in the hospital, after having come out of a coma 24 hours before, when a woman from the hospital’s billing department called me and asked what my insurance information was. At that point, I couldn’t feel my feed and my head still felt like it was, literally, full of molasses. Luckily, Jenn had my wallet handy, and I read my information to them over the phone.

A woman with a clipboard was back the next day, while I sat in a puddle of urine from a leaking catheter and a smear of my own blood because my period has started, and said, “You do know that you have a rather high deductible. Can you pay us something right now?”

“Sure,” I said. But I think that at that point, Jenn and the wallet had left, and I was on my own, and I figured I would pay part of that to shut them the hell up as soon as I got the bill.

Because I’d never bothered to submit any of my receipts to my insurance provider. With a $2500 deductible, you just figure you’ve got exactly what I had: catastrophic insurance. Something that’s only useful if you get hit by a shovel, but everyday stuff, all of my antibiotics and gyno costs and birth control costs and the doctor’s visits, I’d just pay all of those out of pocket. I was young and invincible, so I didn’t feel I had to pay much attention to health insurance.

All that changed on May 15th of last year.

I received a $28,000 hospital bill and a slew of other, unrelated bills. The doctors who treat you aren’t actually employed by the hospital. They charge you bills in *additional* to the room and board and machine costs the hospital charges you. So there was a $600 cardiologist bill, a $500 endocrinologist bill, a $400 ambulance bill, and all these random bills for tests, lab tests, I didn’t have any idea what any of these tests were for. There were X-ray charges from when the cardiologist ordered that I get a chest X-ray because I was having trouble swallowing. The endocrinologist later figured out all I had was thrush caused by bacteria from the oxygen tube, and treated it with some $4 antibiotic that I was charged $20 for.

All of these bills were submitted to my insurance company. I had to pay my $2500 and 80% of hospital bill, but after I shelled out 6-7K or so for meds, supplies, my portion of the hospital bill and assorted 80%s of the other bills, they finally started to cover 100% of everything. I’d reached my out of pocket limit, apparently. I wasn’t aware that I had one. I thought I’d always be paying my 80% after my deductible.

With my catastrophic plan, I didn’t have to worry about a primary care doctor or in and out of network or anything like that, I figured, because what was the difference between covering 100% and covering 80% when you were shelling out $2500 a year regardless before you saw any benefit from it?

But, now.

Well, now I have another slew of insurance choices, and tricky things like choosing an “in network primary care physician,” which I’ve never bothered to do before. Why would I choose a “primary care” physician? If it was gyno related, I’d go to a gynecologist. When it was a sore throat, I’d go to a walk-in clinic.

Now I have to see the gyno, an endocrinologist every three months, a podiatrist (recommended) once a year, and the usual vision check every year, plus, of course, anything that comes up as far as complications or additions goes (sore throat, pelvic pain, bronchitis, etc). I go to the pharmacy for meds at least twice a month (I have to pick up testing strips at least that often, and I *should* be getting insulin once a month, but I keep trying to make it last longer than it should).

What this means is that I’ve finally reached the point where I finally have to fully and completely deal with America’s fucked up, confusing, incredibly inefficient and debilitating healthcare system. I have to choose something called a “primary care” physician if I want 100% of my costs to be paid, but it can’t be a truly useful primary care physician for me, like an endocrinologist. It’s going to end up being somebody who does the work of a walk-in clinic and prescribes antibiotics for sore throats.

My new endocrinologist only agreed to see me so long as I was clear that she would *not* fill the role of my primary care physician. She refused to be listed as such, even if, my some strange coincidence, the plan I was a part of had her name on it.

There are a lot of really confusing things in here, and they’re worded really awkwardly like this one under the list of “Limitations and Exclusions” for my new health plan. It says, “Unless stated otherwise, no coverage will be provided or paid for or on account of:” and number 4 is: “Prescription drugs, including insulin and syringes, vitamins, unless medically necessary for a medical condition and nonprescription drugs or medicines, except for diabetes supplies.”

What?

I had to read this three times before I realized they weren’t saying, “We won’t cover insulin.” They were saying “we’ll only cover insulin if it’s medically necessary.”

Which is fine, but that’s a really fucked up way to phrase that, and it made me really apprehensive for about three minutes.

Why is insurance coverage so hard? This shouldn’t be rocket science. This shouldn’t be hard. If you’re sick, you should be able to get better. You should be able to choose the best way to get better; the best doctor, or the most convenient doctor. You should be able to pay your $20 co-pay for anything. Fucking *anything* and go home and get better.

These policies have been written and created to provide the least amount of care possible to the healthiest number of people possible. Which might make a lot of money for somebody else in the end, but is going to ultimately result in a lot of unhealthy and ultimately dead people who aren’t any good to anybody.

HIRED

As of tomorrow at 8:00 am, I will officially be an employee of the financial services company downtown, working (officially!) as a document, technical, and copywriter.

Benefits start first day.

I'm not allowed to disclose how much I make according to the Employee Handbook or I'll be fired, but I'll say it's more than I made as a temp in Chicago but less than I made as an employee in Chicago.

Basically: I'll be making just enough.

WITH FIRST DAY BENEFITS AND $20 PERSCRIPTION CO-PAYS~!!!!

I Have the Sweetest HR Manager

They were doing July birthdays today, with cake, and the HR Manager went out and got a sugarfree pie.. just for me.

I still have to take a shot for it, but it's less likely to give me a headache.

How terribly sweet.

Digging In

OK. Here we go.

This Probably Works Better When You're Not Really Self-Conscious

As I expected, associating "Good" and "Vabbenif" happens a lot more quickly in my lizard brain, but then, as shown, associating the pale figure with *anything* was something I did a lot more than with the dark figure. Try it for yourself.

At least, I think that's how I read these numbers ("0" was average. But... Um, I'm not sure what "average" meant. Anyway, this is what it said):

Good and Vabbenif=0.04
Bad and Vabbenif=-0.42
Good and Reemolap=0.213
Bad and Reemolap=0.164

(stolen from ABW)

A Scrap of Land and 2 Dollars in a Coffee Can

Stephanie's Old Man's parents, Nancy and Brian, are in town this week doing home repairs. They're amazing. They're replumbing and rewiring the whole house. Last night, Nancy and Stephanie took acetone and sandpaper to all the cabinets in the little kitchen to prep them for new paint and new doors.

Today I came home to see Nancy finishing up the paint. I went to the worn, stained old sink to wash my dishes and found that.. the sink was white. "Holy shit," I said. "How the hell did you get that out? This sink was *brown*! I thought they'd have to replace the whole thing!"

The lighting and medicine cabinet have been yanked out of the wall in the bathroom. Brian's adding a much-needed outlet in the kitchen.

I came home early, after my ultrasound appointment, feeling surly and sorry for myself, raging at all the weight gain, my out of control body, angry at lab techs who can't tell me anything, just push and prod and pat me on the head and send me on my way until they write up a "report" in "two or three days." I was angry at my credit card debt, my reliance on others. I was angry at the fuckhats at the temp agency who refuse to negotiate my contract. Angry, full of despair, sorry for myself.

I came home and saw the house re-ordered, all this great work being done, life going on. Life going on, regardless. Life. Beautiful, exquisite life.

"When Stephanie gets home," Brian said, "we'll go to Home Depot and pick up some new light fixtures for the bathroom."

Real light fixtures in the bathroom. That work.

Stephanie came home not long after, and Nancy spoke with her in the kitchen, updated her on the work, and Stephanie wandered through the house, marveling at the changes.

A few minutes later, Stephanie came to the door of my room, red-faced and teary-eyed, and said, "I'm sorry, I'm feeling really sappy right now. Can I tell you I love you and give you a hug?"

And, me being me, thinking this is some new disaster, I say, "Oh gawd, are you OK?"

"Oh yes," she said, "I was just driving home in the car after a crappy day at work, and this song came on, you know, this song where this guy talks about how much he hates his stupid job and hates life and things really suck and then he says, `but I have this scrap of land and a couple dollars in a coffee can,' and says how lucky he is to have these things, just these little things. And then I started to think about my diabetic roommate and my husband who's allergic to air and I come home and my in-laws are here fixing my house out of the goodness of their heart, and I own a house, and I have this stupid dog, and I just got so happy, and I felt so lucky, and I want to give you all a hug because I'm stupid and sappy."

And, god help me, I started getting teary-eyed too, and I gave her a hug.

We have so much. We are so goddamn lucky. Because the other thing I thought about, again, on the way back from the hospital, was mortality. How I keep hanging on. How I still want more. More of this. Of the scrap of land and the house repairs and the stupid job negotiations and words to write and slapfights to get into. I want so much more of it.

And I know, everyday, how lucky I am for every one of these moments, whether I'm fat or thin or dying of ovarian cancer or diabetes or whatever. I have a sappy friend from highschool and her husband who's allergic to air, and their bad dog and their hugely kind-hearted, generous relatives, and words and words and words. I love my job. I love my books. I love the people in my life. Even the ones who are far away. And I want so much more of it.

Perhaps that's where all of my frustration comes from with the continuing health issues, the constant fight for one more breath of air, one more shot. Sometimes I wonder if I'm fighting for more than my share. I keep thinking that my continued existence is somehow tempting fate, fucking god, swearing in the face of death. Every minute more I fight for feels like one minute more I didn't deserve.

And I want it nonetheless.

It's just all so beautiful.

For August

Dissonance

Life just keeps going, doesn't it? I suppose that's the definition, but yeah, boy, it just marches on regardless.

Sometimes it's just stunning, how that is.

Are You Allowed to Criticise the Fiction of a Writer You're Sleeping With?

Gee, I hope so.

In a discussion over at Torque Control about a review of the October/Nov 2006 issue of the Mag of SF/F, one commenter pointed out that, as writers/industry pros who knew the writers of these stories, we weren’t looking at the critiques the reviewer made objectively. We were concentrating on the critique the reviewer made of the writers and not of their writing.

I agree that we were far more interested in the critiques of the writers than we were of their work, mainly because there were some public facts about the writers that the critic got wrong, and she made some assumptions about those writers based entirely on their stories.

So, sure, when somebody makes incorrect or weird assumptions about people you know, you’re going to be like, “Um, whaaa…?”

But the criticism of our response was an interesting one, because it made the assumption that writers are going to object to critiques of the writing of people they know and be more lenient in their own criticism of those writers’ stories.

I thought about that for awhile, because it’s true that critiquing a writer’s work gets harder the more you know them. To some extent, it also gets easier: “Aha, yeah, here’s that bullshit lazy thing they always do. I’m going to call them on it again.”

But it does also mean that you’re less likely to tell your buddy, “Hey, you’re a misogynist asshole and the race relations in this book suck, you racist pig!” (which I would probably do far more readily, yes, to someone I didn’t know). What I’m more likely to say in response to a writer I knew whose work I saw had some of this lazy, likely inadvertent stuff in it is, “Uh, you realize all the women in your story just want to get pregnant. And I realize that’s very noble and good, but they come across like happy pod people, and this isn’t a story about pod people. And why is the only race/culture distinction made in this book based entirely in the characters’ skin color? There are going to be other slurs people will use. They’ll assign characteristics to the peoples of those cultures/races. Also, in your narrative voices, saying `the white people and the Yupsuks’ is ignoring the race of the white people and setting it up like `white’ is some kind of universal norm race. That’s fine from the POV of a character from that culture, but if you’re being pure narrative, it’s probably `the Kols and the Yupsuks.’” Etc.

Now, that’s *private* critique. In public? Yes, it’s harder for me to post here about writers I know whose work I either hate outright or just don’t get but who I get along great with in person and who I think are great people. I tend to avoid posting about them, mainly because it’s not worth the time. There are better, more deserving folks to skewer and better, more deserving books to talk about constructively.

But you know? Critique is half my job, as a writer. I critique myself and my buddies I call them on weirdly sexist stuff and plot holes and flat characters and stereotypical characters and “why is the only gay guy in the book evil?” stuff. It’s my job, as a writer, to call other writers on their shit, and I fully expect other writers to call me on mine (“Kameron, why the hell is Nyx raped in this book? You’ve set up a society where any guy who did that would be fucking crucified. Is this just another slapdash `look how evil my bad guy is!’ characterization.’ Oh. Um. Yes. Yes, it is. And out the gratuitous crap goes).

There are writers I like quite a lot who’s stuff I hate and whose stuff I love. I love a great deal of VanderMeer’s stuff, but that didn’t keep me from getting into an argument with him about his lack of female background characters in his earlier work (I need to finish reading Shriek, actually; I know the protag is female, but I’m curious about those female background characters…). I also think Daniel Abraham, as a fellow, is about twelve kinds of awesome, but that doesn’t mean I love his books with an undying passion and believe they’re the best thing since sliced bread (but there’s some good stuff in there). There are all sorts of writers I love dearly on a personal level whose stuff underwhelms me to the point where I don’t actually make an effort to pick up their books (and yes, I feel really awful about it).

I love the vast majority of Carol Emshwiller’s stuff, but that doesn’t mean that I think she’s a radically feminist writer. I quite enjoyed Carnival, but I don’t think it was a perfect book (I don’t even think The Hours is perfect – if only because of that shitty one last connection bullshit thing at the end - and I’ve read it at least 20 times. Seriously. 20 times. Of course, I’ve never met Michael Cunningham).

Then, of course, there are writers I know who’s attempts at feminist fiction make me snicker (David “I could *so* write you!” Brin), or whose fiction (some of it) I enjoy but whose politics I hate (Orson Scott Card). Being an ass in real life doesn’t mean you aren’t a good writer and doesn’t mean I won’t like your fiction (I am a huge fan of Hemingway. But then, I’ve never met Hemingway either). And being a kewl person who I love dearly and want to hang out with doesn’t mean I’ll like your fiction.

I love Maureen McHugh and she is eight kinds of awesome. I still get vaguely annoyed at the endings to all of her books.

I’m also reminded of reading a review of an Elizabeth Hand novel written by John Clute. Why yes, even writers who are sleeping together can be critical of each other! (I have a certain someone’s scathing review of God’s War saved for posterity. I intend to auction it off at WisCon in 20 years).

In fact, writers have a long history of saying really mean things about their friends’ work (Algonquin Roundtable, anyone? Expat writers in Paris? Hemingway and Fitzgerald were best friends and best enemies). In our industry, we call that Clarion, Blue Heaven, Sycamore Hill, Milford, Viable Paradise, Odyssey, the bar, and the bedroom.

I know that, the more writers I get to know, the more self conscious I am about posting about their work, but I’d like to think that if somebody I knew wrote something I took serious issue with (as opposed to just it not being my cup of tea) that I’d post about it. I certainly post about books I enjoy and hit the points I think are weak in addition to the stuff I think is good. I love Nicola Griffith’s Aud books, but I think that travelogue to Scandinavia in The Blue Place was, pacing-wise, really weird and awkward.

Writers are not perfect people and they’re not perfect writers. One of the things a lot of writers, fans, reviewers and publishers yearn for is really great criticism in the genre. We don’t get enough of it. It’s probably one reason why we’re so interested in reading fan reviews of our work and the work of others (because, let’s face it, we’re all fans), and it’s one reason why we all get so disappointed when we read lazy and/or incoherent rants about our work (I had someone review a story of mine who got the title wrong. The review went downhill from there. It was a “positive” review of my story, but that doesn’t mean it was a “good” review. And this was a review posted in one of the genre’s secondary review sites. I’m hungry for good criticism as much as anybody).

None of us want to write in a vacuum. As a writer, you want to have an audience. You want to be read. You want discussion, passionate debate. That’s the whole point behind sending it out instead of keeping it in a drawer. There are certainly writers who despise criticism and/or who don’t take it well, but I’d wager that many-to-most of us really welcome it. We want to get better. We want people to call us on our bullshit.

We want a dialogue.

It’s why we write.

Clipping

I work for a minority-owned company, and it just so happens that the majority of our franchisees are also minorities and women (I love the stupid word "minorities" to mean "not white!" because, you know, you put together all of the "not white" people, and suddenly, they're not so much a minority, but Let's Not Think About That and then there's that "and women" addition, like women make up 20% of the world or something. Anyway).

So one of the things I have to be aware of, even more than my "liberal" sensibilities call for, is the inclusion of women and Everybody Else in things like, say, visual representations. Because how incredibly stupid is it to whitewash the whole world, not only on the basic, you know, human decency "because it's not right" level, but on the actual real-world holy fuck, that's a PRETEND WORLD you're telling people to buy into level?

I'm currently in the process of moving our ops manual into an online format, and I couldn't *believe* (or maybe you would...) what a fucking pain in the ass it was to find clip art of black men and women, Asian men and women, or just women all together, doing something really active and powerful.

It took me several days of working through the clip art galleries before I started to realize that, yes, actually, those images are *there,* sort of. They're just harder to find, because even though they're there, I'm having a lot of trouble seeing them. Why am I still seeing a universe of white people?

And I realized as I was setting out images for different sections, thinking, "OK, there's an image of a black man here, and I have a woman here, and an Asian woman here and... oh god, is that too many women? Are there too many pictures of women and minorities? Is this going to scare off white guys?"

SERIOUSLY. I thought that.

I thought, "But WHAT ABOUT THE POOR WHITE MEN???"

Here I was getting stuck in the 1/4 rule: any time women make up 1/4 of the room, you assume half the room is full of women. Same with any character who's not slice-of-wonder-bread white. And when there's *more* than 1/4... well, then THEY'RE TAKING OVER, OH NOOOOSSS!!!

What I find fascinating is how well we've all been trained to keep making sure that the fragile white male ego is protected, like it's so incredibly impossible for white men to relate to the humanity of women and men of other races.

How condescending is that, to create an entire structure, an entire subserviant class, whose duty it is to look after the fragile white male ego? If men are really *that* fucking weak, then patriarchy is some fucking joke.

And yet here I am, thinking, "OH NOoOOoooSsss! The poor white men!"

Gawd.

One of the things I try and tell people is that we're all racist. We're all misogynist. When you live in a racist, misogynist culture, you pick these assumptions and stereotypes up as easily as breathing; you're trained to maintain the status quo. What it means to be a decent human being is to be aware of these prejudices and to fight them, fight them, fight them. Because none of it's true: it's all a bunch of bullshit.

The world WILL NOT END if 3/4 of every piece of clip art shows a black woman and an Asian man and a Hispanic woman and an Indian man being powerful.

In fact, the world might look a little better for it.

Reading Wikipedia in French

I've been busting up on my French for awhile now, trying to get in at least a few pages or lessons or some kind of exposure to it at least once a day. It's been a goal of mine to be able to get around in French for some time now, but it was one of those things I just never made the time for. Some of that was because I assumed I'd need to take a another community college course, and I never had enough time or money to fit that into my crazy Chicago life.

I'm not sure at what point I realized I was passable enough to stop buying the "intro to French" refresher books and to move on to the French verb conjugation books, but it happened sometime after I got to Dayton.

Learning another language is a lot like learning to read your mother tongue for the first time. It's a lot of frustration and banging your head against the desk and trying to figure out why it seems to be so *easy* for other people, and then, almost like magic, after persistent head banging, something clicks in your head. It's like this whole time, you've been wearing out this groove in your brain, and one day you realize it's there, and the words start to click together. And then once you have those words, you can guess many of the others based on context.

I remember thinking that reading was a really magical process, this idea that you could set down words and thoughts for other people to see and understand, and then *you* could learn to see and understand the words and thoughts of others. And learning another language is a lot like that for me. I mean, sure, I took my two years of high school French like anybody else, and my grandmother's from France, so I can "la lalaala la" with the best of them, but the minute they asked me to start doing past tense, it was like my brain hit a huge, hard wall. And everything stuck. It got hard, I balked, and the idea of pushing past that wall hurt my head just to think of it.

Now it's a matter of wearing down the wall. It's not like I'm taking a sledge hammer to it. It's like I have this hammer and pick, and sometimes these big blocks come out, but mainly it's just me chipping away.

When things are slow at work, I used to cruise Wikipedia or write, but the last few weeks, I've replaced English-language Wikipedia with French Wikipedia, just to get me some more exposure.

And what put me in mind, again, of this whole process was reading the beginning of the entry on "Impression à la demande." And I'm sitting here reading "La principale caractéristique de l'impression à la demande est dans la possibilité d'imprimer un seul exemplaire à la fois, contrairement à l'impression traditionnelle (Offset) qui oblige un tirage minumum de centaines d'exemplaires à la fois." and thinking:

"OK, it's about books. Making one example. "Seul exemplaire." Is this about first editions? No, it's "one example" something... one example.... "à la fois."

One example at a time...

And I realized I was reading about print-on-demand publishing (which I would have learned anyway by the end of the article regardless because they use the English terms, but bear with me). But it was funny, because it was that one phrase that did it, that made the whole article click for me and threw light on what the rest of the passage meant (with help from a handy French dictionary as well, of course). It's like finding a linch pin, sliding it into place, and things start to go click click click.

I remember being very frustrated when I first learned to read. I learned in the first grade, and I felt like I was learning oh so slowly, far more slowly than everyone else in class. My mom says some of my frustration likely came from the fact that I was ready to read long before I actually learned how; it's just that nobody taught me and I didn't think to try and teach myself. Once I started picking away at it, all it did was make me frustrated and angry.

I grew up being told that I was smart, and so believing that I was smart, but for some reason, I believed that being smart meant that things came easily and naturally to you. You would be like my friend Matt, who was reading fourth-grade level books in kindergarten and skipped a grade because he was so smart. This was what smart was. Because of that, I started to believe, in school, that I just wasn't smart enough. That there were only so many things I was good at, so I should try to concentrate on those and not do the hard stuff, since if it was hard, it meant I wasn't good at it. Those things made me feel so stupid, and who wants to be stupid?

This is really dangerous thinking for a kid to have, and I'm not sure where we get this impression, since I can't remember my parents or teachers saying "smart people don't have to work hard." I think it's more along the lines of an assumption we get, as kids, when we're told, "Oh, you did well! You must be really good at this." Instead of, "Oh, you did well! You must have worked really hard on this."

To some extent, I started to learn the problem inherent in this belief with writing. Sure, I had a natural affinity for it, but natural affinity only takes you so far. You'll be the best kid in class up until you break out of your local highschool and/or community college classes, and then all the sudden, what you've got doesn't cut it (and if you start subbing stories early, as I did, you realize really quickly that you're competing against a huge number of people who work far harder and are way better than you are). So when I subbed stuff at 15 and it all came back in rejections, I realized I was going to have to work a lot harder, everyday, and it's that concerted practice that's gotten me to this point, not raw talent. Part of my experience of growing up, of becoming an adult, has been learning how to have the guts to branch off into areas where I'm not so good, where I don't have a "natural" affinity, where things are hard. I'm always picking apart parts of my writing that I'm not good at. GW was about learning how to write good dialogue. I'm not focusing on plotting. I find the thing I'm worst at, and pound my head against it for awhile, until something starts to stick.

At some point I realized that there were a lot of things I wanted out of my life that I wasn't magically good at. I was going to have to work harder.

I find it baffling that it took me so long to figure this out.

Why Do I Always Overcorrect for Whole Wheat Pasta?

Why? Why? Why?

I love my graham crackers and all, but when food is medicine, it's just not as fun to eat, particularly when you're up feeling woozy past your bedtime.

Blarg.

I would like to magically be able to tell my body to stop eating my pancreas.

Rome

Why is Cleopatra a drugged out, sex-crazy, slightly dimwitted pale-skinned whore with no hair?

It's Like It's a Real Book or Something!

Halfway through Black Desert. It's at about 45,000 words, that point at which, which you print it out, it almost feels like you're writing a real book.

Repeat after me:

Draft by October! Draft by October!

Numbers for the last Four Days

145
83
91

93
94
67

126
94
91

131
69
135

These are a lot better than they were back when I was trying to squeeze every last drop out of my expired insulin bottle, but not as good as I'd like them to be (under 110, baby!).

Really, the insulin is the only difference. I continue to eat and work out more or less the same as I'd been doing a few weeks ago, but the last four days before I finally packed it in and got new insulin, things looked more like this:

147
80
168

116
141
112

170
128
57

169
64
317

As you can see, it took that 317 number to freak me out enough to finally make the switch.

(and even then, it took some time to get things back under control. Even with the new insulin, I spent another week like this:

175
145
175

145
126
74

170
96
145

122
68
186)

It's a good lesson, though. When your numbers start to go off - even by "only" forty or fifty points, and your insulin is nearly three months old, it's the insulin, not some wackjob bodily process or those onion rings you ate last night. And, I think, it's a good lesson for me, too. Bad insulin takes a while to get out of your system. Changing it right away doesn't mean immediate results. You're already swinging high, and your body has to find equilibrium again.

It's weird how those hills and valleys work, like throwing a pebble into a pond.

Ranting About the Short Form

Because really, it never gets old.

Around the House

Steph's in-laws are here for the week to work on the cabinets and the plumbing in this 1940s-era fixer-upper.

Steph and the Old Man have a really great coffee maker that's shiny and kewl and makes the best coffee ever, but it had been taking progressively longer and longer for the coffee to brew. Steph's mother-in-law, Nancy, noted this and brewed the thing with - get this - vinegar, in order to dissolve all of the deposits in the machine.

After a thorough brew with the vinegar solution and two more brews with regular water. the thing works great.

Here are 61 other little-known uses for vinegar.

(by the time I leave this place, I'm going to be a regular home handywoman - who can cook too)

Mmmmmm

There's not much better than a little Lebanese and North African cooking.

The "I'm Fine!" Emergency Visit

Final Cost:

$836.75

On the one hand: it's better than being dead.

On the other hand: they spent 4 hours and charged me $836.75 to tell me that there was nothing wrong with me.

And people wonder why poor people never go to the doctor until they're literally bleeding and falling over on the floor?

This is why.

Heh Heh

No End in Sight

Yes, everything you feared was true.

Because "Women Have no Freedom at All"

The protagonist of one of Portugal's most gripping courtroom dramas has died after almost 20 years in which she fooled everyone, including her live-in companion, that she was actually a male army general.

With her general's uniform complete with medals, Maria Teresinha Gomes cut a dashing figure as the respectable and charming General Tito Anibal da Paixao Gomes. What started out as a costume for the 1974 carnival, knocked up by a tailor in Lisbon, soon became the defining aspect of an invented personality. The general was only occasionally seen in uniform, but even in his civilian clothes he had a distinguished martial air about him that was enough to convince almost everyone.

I love that women are still "getting away" with this. I'm not so hot on the idea that it's still more often than not a necessity in order to ensure one's freedom more than an innate impulse to pose as a man.

Who thought my MA dissertation could look so sexy?

Just applied for this job (despite the fact that they want me to have a Swiss work permit. heh. Honestly, I love applying for all these UN-related jobs in Geneva. It's a real kick to my ego, even if nothing ever comes of it).

It inspired me to open up my MA dissertation for the first time in years and pull out a chapter to use as one of my writing samples.

Hot *damn* that dissertation looks fucking sexy when I get to use it to apply to jobs where it's actually, you know, relevant.

Wow

I just asked our graphic designer to send me a PDF copy of the final versions of the last two brochures I've been working on. One is a Services Proposal we prepared to give to another financial services company to pitch a partnership with them and another is a trade show brochure advertising our franchising opportunities.

OMG they look great.

And I totally wrote all of the text for these, yo.

I think 27 isn't a bad time to finally become a real writer.

One for the Road

Writing Challenge of the Day

How to make bit characters interesting who are loved and adored by your secondary character but who are going to get killed in about, oh, three chapters.

I mean, I know *he* likes them quite a lot, but, you know, *I* don't want to get attached, because then they'll try and figure out a way to live.

AND THEY MUST DIE.

THE PLOT DEMANDS IT.

I really gotta stick to this plot thing if I want this damn book done by October.

Dammit.

Oh Gawd

I just received an email from our mailroom guy addressed to "Mrs. Hurley."

Oh gawd.

Holy Crap I Just Totally Laughed Out Loud at This

This week must be even longer than I thought.

Hurdles

Why is it I find it so difficult to write happy family scenes? I mean, I actually had quite a wonderful, happy childhood. It's not like I don't have material to draw from.

I think I just don't find happy childhood scenes all that interesting.

Today's Song, Stuck on Repeat

The National - "Slow Show"

Standing at the punch table swallowing punch
can’t pay attention to the sound of anyone
a little more stupid, a little more scared
every minute more unprepared

I made a mistake in my life today
everything I love gets lost in drawers
I want to start over, I want to be winning
way out of sync from the beginning

I wanna hurry home to you
put on a slow, dumb show for you
and crack you up
so you can put a blue ribbon on my brain
god I’m very, very frightening
I’ll overdo it

Looking for somewhere to stand and stay
I leaned on the wall and the wall leaned away
Can I get a minute of not being nervous
and not thinking of my dick
My leg is sparkles, my leg is pins
I better get my shit together, better gather my shit in
You could drive a car through my head in five minutes
from one side of it to the other

I wanna hurry home to you
put on a slow, dumb show for you
and crack you up
so you can put a blue ribbon on my brain
god I’m very, very frightening
I’ll overdo it

You know I dreamed about you
for twenty-nine years before I saw you
You know I dreamed about you
I missed you for
for twenty-nine years

You know I dreamed about you
for twenty-nine years before I saw you
You know I dreamed about you
I missed you for
for twenty-nine years

(hot damn I'm finding some great sounds via Whiskey From a Wire. Bless Nick for posting that link. I'm completely addicted)

So

Is it Friday yet?

A Little Something for the Space Pirates

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has announced the discovery of a mass of crystallized carbon formerly known as star BPM 37093, now known as the biggest diamond in the galaxy, fifty light years away from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. The diamond is estimated to be 2,500 miles across and weighs approximately 10 billion-trillion-trillion-carats – a one, followed by 34 zeros.

Do You Ever Get the Feeling...

That you're just way too sensitive about certain personal push-button topics?

I suppose that's to be expected, but I'd love to be stone cold enough for stupid stuff not to bother me so I could speak about it rationally.

Or even, at this point, make fun of it.

Because really, at this point, it's just all really fucking funny.

Today's Song, Stuck on Repeat

Bikini Kill - Rebel Girl (boy, that video is hilarious)

That girl thinks she's the queen of the neighborhood
She's got the hottest trike in town
That girl she holds her head up so high
I think I wanna be her best friend, yeah

Rebel girl, Rebel girl
Rebel girl you are the queen of my world
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
I think I wanna take you home
I wanna try on your clothes oh

When she talks, I hear the revolutions
In her hips, there's revolutions
When she walks, the revolution's coming
In her kiss, I taste the revolution

Rebel girl, Rebel girl
Rebel girl you are the queen of my world
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
I know I wanna take you home
I wanna try on your clothes oh

That girl thinks she's the queen of the neighborhood
I got news for you, she is!
They say she's a dyke, but I know
She is my best friend, yeah

Rebel girl, Rebel girl
Rebel girl you are the queen of my world
Rebel girl, Rebel girl
I know I wanna take you home
I wanna try on your clothes

Love you like a sister always
Soul sister, Rebel girl
Come and be my best friend
Will you Rebel girl?
I really like you
I really wanna be your best friend
Be my Rebel girl

I'll Just Type a Little Faster

One of the toughest things to deal with, having a chronic illness, is how many other things that that one illness affects. I went a really long time before getting diagnosed doing a lot of harm to myself. I was, effectively, dying, but it was taking me an incredibly long time to do it. I hear other stories from people about type 1 diabetics who just felt really thirsty and were losing weight for a couple months, and because they were younger, it was one of the first things people tested for, and viola, yes, there it is: congratulations, you’re dying.

It was the shovel to the head, yes, but it wasn’t four days in the ICU.

And with me, I went such a long time; seeing one doctor after another, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me (and I’ve read of this happening to other t1s diagnosed after 25. Once you’re in you’re 20s, people are less likely to test for it when you come in complaining about, say, thirst and yeast infections), and in the meantime, a lot of stuff was breaking down. My doctor told me that the reason it took me so long to die is because, yes, I was in such good shape. My body was slowing moving through all of my defenses, slowing burning through and shutting down systems one at a time until I finally went into seizures.

There are things already that I know don’t work as well as they used to. There are things that work a lot better now that I’m not dying quite as quickly (mmmm insulin). But to some extent I am, in fact, dying. Oh sure, we’re all dying: I’m just going to do it a little bit faster than most other people, and that’s a tough thing to come to terms with, especially for “I’m a kick ass brutal woman Kameron.”

It’s hard to say, now, but I’m doing everything I should be doing and my numbers are good and I’m not using expired insulin, so why am I having all of these problems? And it’s like: because it’s a chronic illness. It’s an immune disorder. It’s not one thing. It’s not like some kind of localized disease that eats your foot and stops at the knee. It gnaws at everything. Everyday. And some days, when you’re not looking, it gnaws more quickly than others.

Sometimes I get melancholy about it. It’s such a strange thing, when you look death so close in the face and then spend every day that much closer to it. I think about all sorts of things, about how all of these moments, each moment that I’ve gotten after getting sick, is like a stolen moment. It feels like something precious and extra. Even during my worst days, that feeling is still there. That feeling like I’ve died already, like this is yet another new life. Another incarnation.

But in this incarnation, things are a lot harder. I recognize that and I’m dealing with it, but sometimes, I know, I despise it for being so hard. I get angry and hopeless and scared and I wonder if all these stolen moments are worth it. It’s a silly, fleeting hopelessness.

Because all I have to do is look out at the world, at all this, everything I’ve got, everything I’m building and rebuilding, and I feel so lucky; lucky and cursed, because I want so desperately to make all of these moments count. Each and every one. They’re so goddamn beautiful, and they go by so quickly, just slip right past you, while you’re eating dinner, turning off your computer, reading before bed. They happen and they’re gone, and that’s one less heartbeat you have to carry out the rest of your days with.

I feel now a lot of how I felt in South Africa. It’s this sort of heady, dizzy fear and joy; this drunk feeling like you have to burn through every moment so brilliantly, so brightly, because you’re not sure what’s going to happen next; around the corner, back at the house, in your car. You don’t know if this is going to be the last moment; you’re not sure if somebody’s going to snatch it away from you if you’re not careful. And oh, god, that feeling of uncertainty, of fear, of brightly burning moments, is overwhelming. Some days you’re not sure if you can do it, if it’s even worth going on, because of all that fear. Other days you cling to life with a fierceness that terrifies you. Not yet, you say. Not quite yet. Just one more breath. One more heat beat. Let me have just one more.

So I’m still stumbling blindly around, trying to figure out what’s wrong with me, what else this illness effected, what more I can do to stare down death another day. My hope is that at some point the worst will be over. My despair is that it’s true that I’m dying just a little bit faster than everyone else.

Which means, of course, as Asimov said: I’ll just have to type a little bit faster.

And live a little bigger.

Wishlist

This is the first thing I'm getting when I get real insurance coverage.

The more I hear about it, the more I love it.

Now I just need someone to cover that $800 up front and $345 a month.

I'm Sorry, This Still Bafflies Me

Titanic is still the highest-grossing movie of all time. It's made nearly 2 billion dollar worldwide.

If you look at the other movies in the top 10, they're all part of series: LOTR, Spiderman, Pirates, Harry Potter, hell, they even made a bunch more Jurassic Park movies.

But the thing is, Titantic is now 10 years old and nobody's really tried to make a huge rip-off. I mean, sure, you can't (thank God) do a sequel, but where are the people clamboring to make a gutsy-woman-leaves-her-crap-fiancee-during-time-of-major-action-catastrophe-and-finds-her-strength movies?

Sure, there's The Notebook, but again: it's her husband telling the story, and it's framed as being his story. You get maybe half the story: you'll get the romance part or the action part, and still, STILL, ten years later, we're not getting that strong woman's story from the woman's POV, the sort of silly fourteen-year-old-teen-girl fantasy story with the bad dialogue that I went to see 11 times (and which did, indeed, assist me in finding the strength to break off a bad relationship).

So if Hollywood's really so interested in making gobs of money, where are the Titantic knockoffs? Or have they just all been so bad that you don't hear about them? Or have they been half-hearted attempts that tell the guy's half of the romance or lose themselves in swarm and forget the action?

What's so scary about kewl action stories about women who actually wear actual clothes, have no-strings sex, and get to spit in their abusive fiance's face?

I mean, I would pay money to see that.

I would pay money to see that eleven times.

And, obviously, a hell of a lot of other women would, too.

(NOTE: though it does look like Kate and Leo are pairing up again after 10 years, which I find almost as surprising as the fact that nobody's made another woman-kicks-ass-disaster-romance movie)

How Far Could You Walk in a Day with a Treadmill at Your Desk?

Yeah. I love this thing. Honestly, there's nothing so mind-numbing and sluggish-making than 8 hours at a desk.

It's completely contrary to how I'd like to spend my day, but here I am, writing all day at work, and coming home, briefly spending half an hour on the elliptical, and then... sitting down and writing all night.

Not the best way to get around.

Too Old and Awesome to Read Harry Potter?

But you're going to read it anyway?

Why, the internets have provided a solution! Just slap on one of these handy-dandy book jackets!


They will make it look like you are reading something for OLD, AWESOME people!

One for the Road

Blogs I Love

"So about a year later, when he came over to my house and uttered the simple phrase, "So. Wanna get married?" I was a little surprised, but it felt right and I said yes. We kissed goodbye and he left to go castrate some calves."

I swear, it's like reading a novel about cow wrangling and great food. It's like an Annie Proulx story without all the angst.

Novel Gazing

Tim's got a post up where he looks at the first lines of his novels, and it got me curious at to what all of mine looked like. No doubt there's a hell of a lot of other huge differences between where I was when I wrote my first book and where I am now, but first lines are good snapshot.

And so: Novel Gazing

-----------
The Cat-Eyed Queen (originally titled, The Queen of Gwenedyned. No, don't ask me to pronounce it). Written sometime in 1991/1992. About 30,000 words. Almost, but not quite, a YA novel. At 12, this seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to start a book:

The girl ran through the hallway of the castle.

-----------

The Thief Queen (originally titled Quill). Written sometime in 1992. 22,000 words, so more like a novelette than a novel, but I wrote it like a short book. Look at me learning to write interesting, though still cliched, first lines! This was about the time I was starting to read Writer's Digest:

Fear had always come first.

-----------

Marianna. Probably written in 1993. Unknown word count. I used to write up all of my books long hand, and this one I never loved enough to actually type up. This one starts out just as dull at Cat-Eyed Queen because it deals with the same girl who was running through the castle, and she tended to having boring get-gos:

Yolanda looked out of the little window.

-----------

Quilliam. Written in 1993. 45,000 words. This was the first and last time I tried to write myself into a book as a character; the "historian" of all things, though I don't think it occurred to me at 13 that I was going to major in history. Anyway, the historian was pretty boring, as indicated by this first line:

Faiten sat down, pen in hand, paper ready.

-----------

The Queen's Gunpowder (originally titled Faiten). Finished this in 1994/95 sometime. 70,000 words. You can tell I had a subscription to Writer's Digest at this point...

You knew something was going to happen.

-----------

Rogue (originally titled Driamyne). Wrote this in 1995-1996. 90,000 words. What can I say? I was bad at description. I needed the practice:

Blistering sun scorched the golden plains, battering down at the flat expanse rolling on for as far as the eye could see.

-----------

Silver Fire. Wrote this from 1996-1999. It was the first attempt at what would become my huge-crazy fantasy saga. I initially planned 15 books. After bad experiences with Jordan and Martin, I've decided I can do it in 5. 160,000 words. I no longer had that Writer's Digest subscription:

"Do you remember shadows?" the voice murmured; his father's voice, deep and afraid.

-----------

Brutal Women. 2001-2003. Based on a short story I wrote at Clarion. I wrote the first half, maybe 40-50K, and tried to sell it by sending out the partial to editor slush piles and assuring them it was done. The ones who did reply form rejected it out of hand. Still one of my favorite first lines, tho:

Nalah buried her babies in the cold silt somewhere between the mountains and the sea.

-----------

The Dragon’s War (originally titled Beyond the Shadowed Sea, To the Dragon's Wall and The Dragon's Wall). 1999-2005. This was a ground-up rewrite of Silver Fire. Literally, I tossed out the first book and wrote another book with characters whose names sounded sort of similiar and who ran around a place with similiar geography, but the rest was a new book from the ground up. I had some interested agents, one of whom requested several rewrites, but I could never get it to a place where anybody wanted to buy it or sell it. First draft: 200,000 words. Final draft submitted to editor/agent folks: 119,000 words. Not a bad little first line, but it took me six years and 80,000 dead words to get there:

The invaders came in on the morning tide, and drove before them a sea of roaches.

-----------

Over Burning Cities. 2004-present. Book 2 in the 5 book series that starts with The Dragon's War. I have five or six chapters and an outline. It's on hold until I can sell The Dragon's War.Yes, I stole the idea for this line from the first line of Ash. Also one of my favorite first lines:

They would say her scars made her beautiful, and what the cats had left of her half-breed face was wholly Dhorinian.

-----------

God’s War. 2003-2007. 90,000 words. Yes. This is my favorite first line EVER:

Nyx sold her womb somewhere between Punjai and Faleen, on the edge of the Desert.

-----------

Black Desert. 2007-present. Sequel to God's War. I'm about halfway done, and hoping to have a draft to first readers by October:

The smog in Mushtallah tasted of tar and ashes; it tasted like the war.

Who needs Writer's Digest now????

What does this summary of first lines have to tell me?

I've gotten a fuck of a lot better, yo.

Can't wait to see what I'm writing in another ten years...

Tree Trimming!

Oh, the joys of home ownership....

Yesterday, one of the big tree branches out front came down, so Steph and the Old Man bought a chain-saw-on a stick and Steph's brother Josh came down for the day and made an afternoon of it.


Josh is real excited by this manly stuff...


But that chainsaw-on-a-stick is heavier than it looks.


When all else fails, just try and yank the fucking branch off.


Tessa found us all very amusing...


Cutting things down got kind of fun... let's cut down some more stuff!


Josh wants a record of his manliness....


Now Josh attempts to cut down a branch with the careful guidance of the Old Man...


And... holy crap does that branch come down!


He's just got something in his eye...


Oh yeah, it was a little close for comfort. Can you tell we're all from Battle Ground?


Surveying the damage.


Damage!


It's a family affair.


Time to clean up.


Seriously, look how manly he is! (do I get a dollar now, Josh?)


The old man asks me why I'm not "getting to work." As you can see from these photos, I did fuck all. I talked to my boyfriend and worked on Black Desert. I'm a writer, you know.


But I did sort of pretend to haul some things to the curb.


Ah, yes, look at that tree! Still a mess, really, but a better mess. Really.


Josh is cutting things! It's so manly!


I was going to put in a picture of Josh's ass here, as it would show how manly he was, but I'll settle for this one.


A job well done (in a manly way!)

Marie Antoinette

Where's the love, honestly? I remember seeing the preview for the Kirsten Dunst/Sophia Capploa production of Marie Antoinette and thinking it was a great concept. You've got that whole "royalty as rockstars" thing going on, with a modern soundtrack and a story of cloistered indulgence and opulance. Versailles is very much its own world, shuttered up away from everywhere else, and it abides by its own rules and customs (it's very Gormenghast in that sense).

The strength of the film is in the first, say half to two thirds of the movie where Marie Antoinette shows up and tries to be "good" without any real sense of how to do that at 15 except please everyone and buy a lot of lap dogs, and then, after three years of talk behind her back, the figidity of her husband, and the loss of her family, goes on a lavish spending spree and seeks to insulate herself from whatever the hell else is going on in the world. Which is what everyone else at Versaille is doing.

I admire films and books that can convey feeling through the use of words and images; feelings are not things that are easily translated. You can't say "so and so was sad" or show someone being sad, but that doesn't neccessarily make the viewer/reader *feel* sadness. Good stuff sets up words and images in such a way that you can actually summon up a particlary feeling in the viewer or read: the sense of loss, the desire to bury oneself in excess.

I enjoyed the film; I liked the way that Coppola made sure not to show anything going on outside of Versaille. Versaille is the whole world, the petty court games and snide talking behind others and political games, and knowing that, you can understand why the people inside acted as they did (and, of course, the whole bullshit idea of Versaille was created as a way to keep all the nobles busy trying to curry favor instead of plotting behind the King's back, and this movie reminds us of why that strategy worked so well).

The trouble is that there seemed to be some kind of self-consciousness on the part of Coppola that made her throw in these half-hearted lines for Marie Antoinette to pretend she's really interested in poor people and politics. The problem is, there's so little dialogue and the emotional heart of the movie *so* has nothing to do with the people of France and Dunst delivers these lines so woodenly that they feel like half-hearted additions, like, "I want to show that she's not an idiot or a total hedonist, but I'm not sure that she wasn't. I mean, it's not like she doesn't *care* about what's going on, it's just not part of her world. But, I mean, she's aware of it. But... um....."

The actual pacing of the movie starts to suffer about the time she starts having kids, and then there's the rapid slide to get to the end of the movie and half-hearted attempts to "age" Dunst which are silly and don't work because it's not like she really looks old or gains weight or anything. I was wondering how they would pull off the ending, because once she and Louis get in the carriage to flee from Versaille, I recalled that there was several more weeks of tag played between the family and the people of France before they were actually beheaded. What Coppola chooses to do is to show them leaving Versaille the first time, before the mob stops them and turns them back, and there it just sort of... ends.

Sure, it's a half-hearted ending. She's supposed to have gotten older and wiser and gotten some kind of conscience by now, but we don't actually see that journey. The first half or 2/3 I can understand: I understand how a young girl thrown into a foreign court where she's despised and has a frigid husband can lose herself in the excess. The journey they didn't do so well in conveying was how she and her husband learned, over time, to hold some sort of affection for one another and for France, which means that in the end, when they tried to just wave their hands and pretend that had happened, I had a tough time believing it.

All that said, I'd recommend this movie. I think Coppola did some great things with the ideas, the emotion, the soundtrack (and there's also some great stuff in there about how the foreign women gets blamed for everything that's wrong with the country; ah yes, always blame the woman), and though the pacing's off and it starts to lag toward the end, it's really worth it for that daring, breathless run there for the first 2/3.

Rosetta Stone

I've been trying out the demo CD for the Rosetta Stone language software; the demo comes with sampel exercises for all 30 languages that Rosetta Stone covers. I'm most interested in the French and Arabic, so I've been spending some time last night and this morning running through those.

For the beaucoup bucks that they charge for this thing, I was expecting a far less clunky interface; something a bit more slick.

What is does get me is really serious and sometimes intense listening, writing, and comprehension practice. It's about the same cost as a community college class, but I could do it an hour a night at home, and it sure beats the mindlessness of flash games, which is, admittedly, something I've spent far too much time doing in the past.

I'm not nearly as wowed as they've made it all up to be (again for $300 fucking bucks I expected this thing to shit gold), but because it *is* such a comprehensive system with so many games and different *kinds* of exercises, it's something I could see myself investing in whenever I get hired on full time at the day job (that's currently being negotiated).

My First Dream in French

Or, rather, my first dream where I found myself in a French-Arab country and tried desperately to communicate in broken French.

I was with someone else, collecting all sorts of wizardly potions for some kind of ritual at this big old house and we were in the souk and found this little sort of herb shop and we needed... gawd, what was it? Nassau, nassa, something, I don't know, but they didn't have it in straight herb form so we had to order it as part of this chickpea stew.

In the dream, I forgot how to say, "I need" (j'ai besoin de) and had to use "I would like" (je voudrais), but I was terribly dissatisfied with this expression because I really did desperately need this herb for this wizardly rite, and these two guys in the back, who spoke Arabic, English, and French, quietly made fun of our paltry attempts to communicate in French.

"French isn't so hard," they said to one another, "Faim, quelque faim, it is nothing. So easy."

It wasn't until I work up that I realized the easy words they'd used to illustrate how "easy" French was were "hunger" and "some hunger."

Even in my dreams, I'm buying food and thinking about hunger. Even in foreign languages.

This doesn't surprise me, as I learned at PP that I've gained another six pounds since January. I've also started eating blueberries for breakfast instead of eggs and bacon, to cut calories, and have started drinking black coffee all morning to cut hunger. From about 9am to 7pm, except for a short hour or hour and a half after lunch, I'm hungry all day. All. Fucking. Day. And yes, I do put snacks in there: one at 10am and one at 3pm - string cheese and some carrots - just to try and cut some of that horrible hunger.

I'm hungry all the time, and seeing negative results for all that. It's enough to drive me batty. I can't fucking wait to set up this appointment with the new endocrinologist. There's some easier solution to this crap, I know.

I don't even care what language it's in.

In the Desert...

In the Desert
by Stephen Crane

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter – bitter", he answered,
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

Heh Heh

No Wonder My Life Seems So Damn Crazy... I'm Not Making Any Money!

Occupation: First Lady

Little-known fact: most presidents since the 70s release some form of their tax returns to the public.

Here's George W. Bush's tax return for last year. I'm not terribly surprised that he somehow managed to get a refund of over $19,000 while I owed over $500 this year, but whatever.

The part that amused me, however, is that Laura Bush's occupation is listed as "First Lady."

It is, indeed, a position that requires a shitload of work. It's also an unpaid position, however. Do stay-at-home moms list their occupation as "homemaker"? I'm honestly curious.

What I Wrote Today

Morning: sample speeches about tax history

Afternoon: financial services business proposal brochure for kiosk locations

Tonight: Nyx chopping off heads

It's not a bad life.

Call For Subs

Mama Specific Productions is seeking submissions of speculative fiction stories about the future of motherhood, including science fiction, fantasy, mystery and any sub-genres. The theme is motherhood in the future. Some things to prompt or give you ideas to start with: What do you imagine the function of motherhood to be? How do you think the image of motherhood will change? How do you think the image of motherhood will stay the same? What possible customs, norms or laws will be in place in the future that would have an impact on changing or affecting mothers? How will science and technology affect pregnancy, birth, and child rearing? How might full social equality affect childcare in the home and workplace? How does a lack of social equality in a highly technological society affect pregnancy, birth, and childcare? How about in a future culture with a highly evolved social order but low technology?

Submission deadline: September 15, 2007.
Payment: $100

(thanks, Roni!)

Techie Career Flow Chart

Epiphany

When I was in the fourth grade, I had a terrible crush on a guy named Aaron.

Aaron was the realization of all of my preconceptions about what a good boy should be. He was tall and blond and blue eyed and played basketball and read Stephen King novels. My stomach twisted and my heart pounded every time I saw him. Sometimes, I couldn’t even breathe. I’d see him and try and leave the room. I’d go out of my way not to look at him. But sitting there on the other side of the classroom, seeing him out of the corner of my eye, I wanted desperately for him to want me. I wanted him to see me even though I never looked at him. I think some part of me believed that if this socially perfect person wanted me, it meant I was worth loving. It meant I was worth something.

In fact, Aaron seemed to “date” every girl in the fourth grade but me. There was a new girl he was out hand-holding with every couple of weeks. I’d go home and try and figure out what, exactly, it was about these girls that drew him to them. God knows I knew what drew them to him. What I realized is that these were perky, fun-loving, sociable girls; you know, the sort who actually *talked* to him and *looked* at him.

I was filled with a sense of despair. I would never get this guy’s attention. He didn’t even know I breathed air.

Which was why it was so strange when we were put in the same desk grouping and... he started talking to me.

We talked about Stephen King novels, which he brought to school and which were subsequently confiscated by the teacher. When he saw that the notebook I worked in all day was a writing notebook, he started talking to me about my writing. Mostly, I still did not look at him. I feared that this interest was his attempt to gain more information about me so he could use it against me in some kind of cruel playground joke. I figured he was trying to figure out if I liked him so he could shame me in front of the class.

My experiences of playground harassment primarily centered on jokes about my weight and the fact that I read too many books. I tried to avoid all of this by becoming invisible. By not looking at anyone or talking to anyone but “safe” people like my friend Matt, who also read too many books. This did not eliminate the harassment all together, but it did reduce it.

Maybe some part of me believed that if this beautiful boy wanted me, it meant people wouldn’t tease me anymore. He would wave a magic wand and cool status would magically wash over me and people would leave me alone.

Eventually, we talked even outside of class, mostly, again, about writing. I was still really confused about the attention, because he didn’t try and date me. He was still dating every other girl in the fourth grade. He showed no romantic interest at all. It was like I was invisible in some other way.
And so I pined for him, and by some stroke of fate, his mother ended up working at the same place my parents worked, and our parents became friends.

By some miraculous miracle, his family went on a vacation to Disneyworld with my family sometime later – sixth grade? When I was still hopelessly pining after him (years and years – I didn’t like anybody else until eighth grade).

But this was not the great, magical vacation I’d imagined in my romantic brain. Aaron spent most of the time talking to my younger, blond sister, and there was no deepening of conversation or talk of intimate liking. No, it was all buddy buddy ha ha stuff, and while he ran around thinking we were great buddies, I felt like I was dying.

When his parents bought a plot of land out in Camas, WA my family bid on a house just down the road from them. The owner ended up refusing our offer, and once again, my pre-adoloscent fantasy of living down the road from this guy who was my friend, who would one day just magically grow to love me because we’d live down the street and hang out all the time and go exploring the woods together and read books… that didn’t turn out either.

I switched schools in the sixth grade, and then his mother got another job, and so I didn’t see him anymore. I’d hear a thing or two, but mostly, I got wrapped up in my new life at the new school where the teasing was a lot more brutal than the school before and I had no friends, not even bookish ones like Matt, to act as buffer to the gangs of asshole boys looking for people to harass.

The funny thing is, I didn’t forget about Aaron. I wrote what amounted to Aaron fan fiction, where I had these characters based on him, and he was this stable boy and married this scullery maid who turned out to be a princess, and she was much prettier and smaller and skinnier and much more likable than me, and in that universe, everything was as it should be.

I found some other hopeless crush to pine after in the eighth grade, another physically perfect, too-popular boy, one who really didn’t know I breathed air, and I spent my time until high school pretending he was really great. It’s easy to pretend people are really great when you don’t actually know them or spend any time with them.

And still, you know, I’d listen for news of Aaron, and once we got AOL, I’d do an online search for him on occasion.

So life moved on, and I battled through highschool and my first relationship and staggered home from my attempt at living away from home in Bellingham. I dropped the weight I’d gained during my long pill-and-relationship depression and gained some self-esteem. I’d applied to the U of Alaska in Fairbanks and been accepted. I would buy my one way ticket at the end of the summer.

I was working 30-40 hours a week at the local movie theater by now, saving up for the move. It was a good job for me. I liked it. I could clean that fucking popcorn popper like nobody’s business. I worked during the midnight showings of Star Wars.

And one day I’m working at the concession stand and there’s somebody three people back in the line. I’m doing my best to concentrate on my customer, but I’d spent so many years seeing Aaron by not looking directly at him that I knew him even before someone in a shorter line called to him and said, “This line’s shorter!”

“Oh,” he said, “that’s all right. There’s an old friend here I want to talk to.”

The voice clinched it. I knew him. It was Aaron. And after, what, six, seven years, my body reacted in exactly the same way. Sick terror. Pounding heart, breathless, knees weak. I composed myself. I would not look at him. Prepare yourself, I thought. Prepare for this. Be strong and confident. Don’t let him see it.

Because if he knew, if he had any idea of my need, my desire, it meant he would know he had power over me. I hated that need. I hated wanting him to want me, especially after all this time. How could I want that? How could I want that sort of validation from somebody I didn’t even know?

I helped the next customer, and then there he was, standing in front of me after all this time. Still tall, blond, blue-eyed, beautiful.

And, I noted, now wearing glasses.

Which made him so much more incredibly hot that I nearly lost my feet right there.

Instead, the first thing out of my mouth was, “Hey there. I see you managed to acquire some dork glasses.”

This was the greeting I gave to the one guy who could make my knees weak after an absence of seven years.

He laughed and touched them, a little self-consciously. “Yeah, it was getting to be about that time.”

“I like them,” I said.

He invited me to lunch to “catch up.” He gave me his phone number.

I thought I was going to die.

We met for lunch at Shari’s, a local diner chain, and talked and caught up. He was, of course, engaged, which I noted immediately when I sat down, because he was wearing a ring (this had completely escaped me during the hasty theater meeting). He and his fiancée were going to be going to school at Washington State University in the fall. I told him I was going to Alaska. He looked wisful.

“And you still write?” he asked.

“Of course. I’ve sort of published a few things, but no books yet.”

“You will.”

“Yes.”

His father had wanted him to major in engineering, but he’d decided he wanted to be an English major.

“Where the hell did that idea come from?” I asked.

“I just had this epiphany,” he said. “I looked at my life and realized what I really wanted to do was be a teacher, teach English. I’ve always loved writing. I always admired your writing. I mean, you were always really committed to doing what you loved. I admired that.”

I raised my brows. “Wow,” I said, “you’ve learned a lot since the last time I saw you. You just used a word I don’t know.”

“Which one?”

“Epiphany,” I said.

He grinned. “You don’t know what epiphany means? It’s like a profound realization, like when you find God or something.”

Epiphany. God I could take or leave, but epiphanies, yes, I figured I’d had a few of those.

We ended up going out to dinner a few days later, and I remember how proud I felt to walk into the restaurant next to this guy, this beautiful guy, and ask for a table for two. Yes, I wanted to holler to everyone in the whole restaurant, yes, I’m with HIM! And he’s going to be an English major! And he likes me!

And, Kameron, he’s engaged, and he thinks you’re his “old friend.”

I knew that, knew all of it, of course, but those old scenerios were playing out in my head, all those old fantasies. We would sit down and get to know each other and he would realize how wonderful I was. He’d realize what a mistake he made in never dating me. He would want me. And when he wanted me, I’d be able to tell him I’d think about it, I’d…

If he ever did want me, what *would* I do?

Did I *really* want him to want me? Once he wanted me, what then?

We talked over dinner, and had one more lunch date a week later, when I purposefully dressed down and started getting pretty snarky. I don’t remember what I said, but I was starting to get a little mean, I think.

And at one point he said, “You know, during gradeschool, I always thought you put me on some kind of pedastel. I’m not this person you think I am. Sports? Sure, I played sometimes with some guys at recess, but mostly I hung out with Ned or talked to you. I wasn’t popular. I was the new kid. Didn’t you know that?”

I had to admit that I didn’t.

“I always thought of us as friends, and I always found you attractive, and maybe we would have dated, but if never happened, you know?”

Never. Happened.

No, it didn’t. But it wasn’t until later, when he had to call and cancel what would be our final scheduled lunch date because he needed to do something with his fiancee and I felt this huge wave of jealousy and anger that I realized that what I was doing to myself with this whole “let’s pretend I feel merely friendly toward you” thing was really just a big clusterfuck horrorshow.

It was like I was some kind of masochist.

I had spent the entirety of my time wanting men who didn’t want me and pushing away the ones who did want me, and even the ones who wanted me? If Aaron had broken everything off and come crawling up to me and said I was always the one, the love of his life? I would have pushed him away too. I would have pushed him away for all that unrequited bullshit playground crushing I did, all those perceived hurts I caused myself because I wouldn’t look at him, I wouldn’t talk to him, I wouldn’t wise up and find somebody worth my own love instead of sitting around waiting for somebody to find me worthy of theirs.

It wasn’t until years later, when I actually fell in love with someone and went through the whole process of desire, realization, terror, need, and finally, acceptance that I realized that this wasn’t actually what love was, this need for approval and worth paired with desire. No, that was just need and desire.

Love was something else entirely, some kind of acceptance of feeling: yours and theirs, whether or not it was requited. The first time I fell in love, it most definitely wasn’t requited, and the process of me coming to terms with that felt a hell of lot more like love than the twisted clusterfuck that was “Oh why won’t my gradeschool crush please like me for realz!”

It’s a funny thing, that terrified need. I think it’s the first step toward realizing that I’m in deep trouble. In some cases, all there’s going to be is that terrified need thing, for ever and ever – seven years and more. I’m sure if I saw Aaron today, my body would react in exactly the same way. But I no longer have that need for him to find me worthy, to desire me, because I know that even if he did, there was no future in it. There was and never will be an “us.”

There’s an episode of “Rome” where one of the soldiers says he wants his wife to love him not because he loves her but because if he loves her and she does not love him, it makes him her slave.

I think sometimes it can feel like that.

That unrequited crush of mine? He and I are still friends. I still care deeply about him. The feelings don’t go away; they’re just warm and cozy now; no longer needful or terrified. I learned to accept it a long time ago.

It’s the terrified need you get when you’re about to fall. It’s up to you to decide if you want to continue to stay needy and terrified, avoid the object of your affection entirely, or fall.

It’s your call.

Today, I had an epiphany.

Lyric of the Day

"The beer tastes like blood."

There's so much I could do with that....

It's nights like these that make me sleep all day
It's nights like these that make you feel so far away
It's nights like these when nothing is for sure
It's nights like these I don't want you anymore

And I've only got this one wish
That I was good enough to make you forget
The only boy who ever broke your heart
Cause nights like these tear me apart

It's nights like these the sad songs don't help
It's nights like these your heart's with someone else
It's nights like these I feel like giving up
It's nights like these I don't seem to count for much

The beer tastes like blood and my mouth is numb
I can't make the words I need to say
She had a weakness for writers
And I was never that good at the words anyways

And... One for the Road

Dolls Can't Love You. But Then, if Real Folks Can't Either...

FOR SERIOUS.

Dolls can't love you, people.

But you can, indeed, love them.

What I loved about Dradin, in Love of course, is that the protagonist realizes that this is, indeed, exactly the way he wants it. Not everybody actually wants a relationship with people. Not everyone should have a relationship with real people. And that's totally cool.

The thing here bothers me in a "oh sweet fucking jesus" sense here is that, I think, some of these men really do think their dolls are real women.

And that's really scary.

And the more I watch this thing, the sadder it is. The misconceptions people have about people. How people are just out to hurt you. How women are completely unknowable creatures. How loving things is so much easier than loving people. It's so deeply sad. It makes my heart hurt.

Misc.