Urgency Care Tomorrow

What I love about reading Diabetes Mine (she's another Omnipod Pump user) is that pretty much anything that's happened to her while using the pump also, eventually, happens to me. She's got an incredible resource of t1 diabetes information that has really helped me get a handle on my illness and the most up to date info. There's nothing like reading the musings of another t1 who strives for optimum health.

I've been debating about whether to visit Urgency Care for my pump site infection, which, sadly, has not gotten better despite cleaning and dressing twice a day for the last two days (discovered it Thursday night when I pulled off my old pump to change it out).

Finally, I did some googling today and found this post about Amy's own pump site infection, which pretty much looks exactly like mine (only mine is on my thigh, and is redder than hers, as I was silly enough not to jump over to the doc immediately, as she did).

As I cleaned and drained the wound again tonight, I realized that if J. had something that looked this bad, I'd make him go to Urgency Care.

Yeah. Urgency Care tomorrow for me. Bah. I fucking hate doctors.

West Coast Trip Photos

For those who haven't seen them, here's the full set of J and I's West Coast Trip photos.

Osama

My God, that was a depressing movie.

Don't get me wrong: the Taliban is utterly fucking depressing (and fascinating. What made the movie are the ways people get around laws enforced by Draconian regimes. I've looked a lot into how Iranians have gotten around these sorts of laws, and it's a good illustration of why a Draconian society eventually breaks down, but I digress). But my God, could we get just one good thing happening for this kid?

I kept expecting her to stand up for herself. Her mother and grandmother basically force her to dress like a boy so she can go out of the house to work. The three of them are starving, her mother's always trying to get a man to escort her (since her husband is dead and she can't go outside without a male relative). But the kid never gets a break. Not once. And she's been so cowed by the system that her disguise... well, let's just say that this girl-dressing-up-as-boy story doesn't end as happily as Alanna's.

What's rough about these sorts of drag-you-down-and-out-constant-badness movies is that they always end up feeling unbalanced. There's some scenes of her jump roping where she appears to be having fun, but basically, all joy, happiness, love, and laughter is totally absent from this movie. I realize some of the lament may be cultural ("if we talk about good things, we'll jinx ourselves, so we must lament our fate"), and a good deal of it is just true... but this really needed a "life can be enjoyable" scene. Just one. Otherwise, life is not worth living, and these women should have all killed themselves by now (and, granted, many women in Afghanistan do and have, but: many don't. Why? It's not just for religious reasons. Even the worst life must have a moment - even fleeting - of joy).

At the same time, the film did what it set out to do, which is allow you to feel a fraction of what it's like to grow up a girl in Afghanistan under the Taliban. This whole time she's running around, I had this sinking feeling in my gut, this low-level terror of getting caught... and what would be done to her when she got caught. Which... inevitably, she is. This isn't a happy ending American movie. Not by a long shot.

I was horrifically sad for the heroine, as well. I wanted so badly to see her stand up for herself, to take an active role, to be an Alanna, basically. But this wasn't about an exception. This was about someone who'd grown up beaten and cowed by a system of oppression. And this is the most likely way things would turn out.

And that sure doesn't make me feel any better about it.

A good film, but don't expect to walk away feeling positive about the current state of the world or how long we have to go.

Facts About Healthcare Reform

I'm all for healthy debate, but please, folks, read the facts before you go debating. Otherwise it's not debate, it's "OMG MY DEEP SEATED FEARS VOMITED IN PUBLIC AND CRAZY KNEE JERK REACTIONS TO DEEP SEATED PERSONAL ANXIETIES AND OMG DEATH PANELS" and that's just... not helpful.

Facts about healthcare reform here.

Rough Nite

J. is out at GenCon til Sunday, so I have this nice big house to myself. Nice change of pace, but I enjoy his company quite a bit. The bed has remained unmade for the last three days...

Trying to save money by trying to eat in and eat reasonably. Failed, but not miserably. Drove around for awhile getting lost. Cheap Friday night entertainment, tho with the price of gas these days, I should have opted for the bike. Would have if my sugar was better. It's been a rough sugar week.

Pod site infection isn't getting any better. May need to pop by Urgency Care tomorrow for antibiotics if it's still red and gooey tomorrow. Antibiotics are a diabetic's best friend.

Life, overall, has been good, but busy. Health annoyances always feel more annoying when life is good. When life is bad, you just come to expect them. Like an old friend.

I need to go write something.

Back in the Saddle

Back in Ohio after a long, good, but tiring break-neck vacation in the Portland/Seattle/Vancouver area. A few highlight below.

Other highlights included: the Space Needle, eating far too much clam chowder, the excellent latte at Pike's Place Market (best I ever had), hanging with my crazy family Saturday night, the incredible view of Seattle from our hotel and amazing back porch and firepit overlooking the ocean at the Seaside beach house.

An all around swell time. More pictures later.















Cannon beach!




















Beating up a defenseless penguin on the Seattle waterfront.




















Pirate store victuals!















Moulton Falls, a bit north of my home town. One of my favorite places.
















Small Powell's bookstore outlet at PDX, right after we arrived on Tuesday.





















Voodoo doughnut Queen. The line to get into this place was half a block long.





















J's very convincing Sasquatch impression at Camp 18 on the way home from Seaside, OR.
















Cannon Beach!





















Falling asleep at the Space Needle while we waited for our table...

I'm a good writer. Now I need to fucking finish things.

For serious.

The Happening

That movie was just... retarded.

The Blood of Heroes

How had I never watched this movie?

Classic late-80s apocalypse movie with strange blood sports that make no sense and people who make a living making armor out of spare tires in a desert wasteland while these pale vampire people rule the abandoned underground cities and watch the more formalized version of the blood sport for fun. It even has Rutger Hauer. It was apparently written by the same guy who wrote Blade Runner, which is how I found it. Comb through IMDB profiles and you can find some interesting stuff.

The surprising part about this movie was that the main character - our plucky hero who wants to join the blood sport team heading through his little town so he can make it to the big leagues in the city - is actually a she, played by Joan Chen of Twin Peaks fame. And holy crap - unlike a lot of other crappy post-apocalypse movies, she actually gets to kick ass! And have meaningless sex! And kick some more ass!

The brutal band of blood sport folks (who go by the ridiculous name "juggers" and run around with chains and dog skulls and yeah, but Mad Max made no sense either handwave handwave) also includes a tough female equivalent of a line backer whose whole face is a mass of scars and a big African American guy with tribal tattoos.

Did I mention that Chen's character breaks people's legs and bites a guy's ear off? Brutal blood sport, right? And she doesn't even have to die at the end! Oh frabjuous day!

J. and I enjoyed this little post-apocalypse romp for its sheer ridiculousness, lame dialogue, silly storyline, and crazy blood sports, but it really stood out to me not because of its B-movieness (I'll watch just about any 80s post-apocalypse show and get some kind of enjoyment out of its craziness), but because it did that thing that is, sadly, really different - I got big brutal heroines and a diverse cast of characters.

I just wish they'd been better actors with a budget and a non-ridiculous script. There's a lot of window dressing here that makes no sense (and let's not even get into the ridiculous of the dog skull thing. Or the chain wielding. Or the... yeah, anyway).

I'm telling you, the Nyx books would be awesome on film.

For a more coherent summary of this bad movie, which helped explain some of the absent, meandering plot to ME, as well, see here (it is worth mentioning - which the reviewer doesn't - that our heroine has sex with two people on the team, not just the team leader, and eyes up some male prostitutes, and she pays no whore price for doing so. Her sexuality feels totally on par with the men's [read: a real person], which I appreciated).

I can be satisfied....

...when just *one* reader "gets" a story.

I'm not sure this makes me a very marketable writer.

I think we are far too in love with being mass-loved. I don't write the sorts of stories that get me mass love. I write about machete-wielding matriarchs.

It does make me wonder, tho, what all of us are writing for? The day job writing pays the bills. The night job writing... more and more these days, I wonder what it's for. It used to be a great way to funnel a lot of anger; a great way to wake people up. We get so complacent in our soft, cozy lives. I've spent the last year oh-so-cozy in mine after nearly two years of terror involving crazy people (one of them being me), chronic illness, job loss, homelessness, grunt work, and soaring medical costs. I live knowing full well that Bad Things can and will happen. You roll the dice. I know what I'm in for. And it makes the soft, quiet, cozy time that much more precious.

I already know what's in the closet. So it does make it hard to visit the horrorshow on purpose at the keyboard every night, when you know it's really out there somewhere - waiting.

Thoughts on Spock/Uhura

One of the quibbles I had about the new Star Trek was the "oh man, the one female character is having sex with her commanding officer" thing. It sucked, cause Uhura was in all other ways such a great update of the character. But see, I was reading this from the perspective of a white chick.

Here's a much more interesting take, which turns Spock/Uhura from EpicFail to EpicWin:

Uhura being single in TOS was not empowering.

She was single because the male leads were all white and as a black woman she was less of a person than them, she was less of a person than a white woman, and the fact that this serendipitously ended up meaning that she didn't have to spend all of her time mooning pathetically after dismissive men does not make that any more acceptable.

She got to sit in the back and rarely do anything and have her sexuality ignored not because they respected her so much as a colleague and a person, but because she was not a full, real human being and when you're not a full, real human being the idea that actual people would ever desire you or romance you or love you is ridiculous. You are invisible.

I love it when somebody points something out that makes me read an entire situation totally differently.

#EAFail

For fuck's sake, you guys.

Link roundup.

Busy

Yes. That is me. But I'm alive. Posting will continue when I learn to manage my time more wisely.

"Wonder Maul Doll" Live at Escape Pod!

You can check out my story, "Wonder Maul Doll" today at EscapePod!

Bonus graphic violence warning!

Twitterbots

I think the reason so many porn spammers try to follow Nyx is because she uses the word "fuck" a lot.

Today's Stats

Only had two regular workout days last week instead of four. Annoying. On the other hand, it was a short and busy week.

When J. and I stopped at Wendy's at 1 am for a "snack" on the way home from our fireworks party on Saturday and I ordered a baconater, I turned to him and said, "This is why married people get fat."

"It's one roadtrip!" he protested.

Then I was reminded of why I don't eat fast food anymore. I felt sick after eating the damn thing, and wished I would have just kept to the almonds and string cheese. But oohhhhh the IDEA of a baconator is just... well, the idea is better than the real thing.

Hot hot hot!

15 min free weights this morning
10 min bike ride to work
20 min weight lifting w/ trainer at work
20 min cardio w/ trainer at work
10 min bike ride home
20 min Wii Fit

Hot Eats

Breakfast: Egg mixed with spinach, tomato, & cheese
Lunch: Chicken curry, low carb tortilla, and string cheese
Snack: 2 tbs peanut butter mixed with 1/4 cup peanuts
Dinner: Pork chop and asparagus
Snack: 5 low carb peanut butter cookies (they were DELICIOUS)


Hot Sugar

Breakfast: 98
Lunch: 161 (had to lower my insulin before cardio at the gym)
Post lunch: 209 (I always forget that the peas in the curry have more carbs than I think they do)
Dinner: 77
Post-dinner: 80

East and West

"Superman and his buddies will be uniting with The 99, superheroes already popular in the Middle East and who personify the 99 attributes of Allah.

Created by Kuwaiti-based Teshkeel Media, The 99 are ordinary people who develop special abilities after coming into contact with a mystical glass. They do not have secret identities and include five female superheroes with one, Batina, who is fully veiled.

The characters — created by five writers who have worked either with DC or Marvel — pray or read the Qur'an."

Ok, time to do some searching on Batina...

UPDATE: Open letter from the creator about why he created The 99.

The Writing Life (or, lack thereof)

I worry these days that my writing isn’t as good as it used to be, because all the choices I make seem to be poor ones. I’ll go through a story or a scene and realize that what I chose during the first pass was totally inappropriate. I keep thinking I’ve lost touch with the words, that there’s some kind of innate feeling for plot, character, structure, that went by the wayside. It’s made the last year of writing incredibly slow-going and difficult.

It wasn’t until tonight, as I went through and worked on the heroes story, that I realized what I was doing. There wasn’t anything different about the choices I made the first time through now than there was three years ago. The difference is, they’re *transparently wrong choices* now. As I go through and clean up the words, I’m seeing the errors – and where those errors will lead – a lot sooner than I would have a couple years ago. It’s like playing a chess game. You can see where this one wrong piece is going to get you somewhere you don’t want to go. So you go back, and back, and back, and figure out exactly where it’s going wrong. You fix that piece. You go forward. Then back, back, then forward.

It’s such a slow fucking process that it makes me feel retarded. I feel like I’m making stupid mistakes that I never used to make. But when I look back at my old fiction, I can see the same mistakes. The differences is, when I wrote them then I wasn't aware of them. When I write a story very quickly - something incredibly inspired that I feel in my gut the whole way through - sometimes the emotional weight of it can mask some of the bullshit for me. That's what those nice gut-punching writing sessions were like. Now, usually, my stories come out like this: bursts and spurts and lame-duck circling.

I feel like a completely broken writer because I can actually see where things are broken. It’s not that they weren’t broken before. It’s just that I can see it now. And it gets me stuck.

I’d call it a blessing, except that’s it’s slowed my writing down considerably, in no small part because it’s caused a total lack of confidence. I just sit here and look at all these broken pieces and I think, “How the hell do these fit together?”

I’m working through the writing funk slowly, but it’s torturous, and it’s been paralyzing me this last year. I started up regular writing times again this week, for the first time in... well, the first time since I had a book 1 deadline. I gave up regular writing times when I moved out of Steph and the Old Man's place, and writing has been sporadic since then. Again, I don’t know if this is good or bad. There’s a big change going on in my writing life, and I don’t know if it’s for the best or not. I won’t know for awhile yet.

I can see broken things now. I just need to stop letting that paralyze me. Failure only really happens when you give up, and not writing much this last year has come perilously close to that. Sticking in the trenches… well, I don’t know. Sometimes you get to hop into another trench on down the line. You get to advance. But in the meantime, you’re keeping your head down a lot, and pissing in a bucket, and that does get old after awhile. I mean, when you start drinking your urine out of the bucket, do you figure you've been in long enough to quit? Or do you wait for dehydration to set in and just pray for rain?

I'm thinking I'll dig a well.

Must be a holiday

Heavy thump-thump of fireworks outside my window. We're less than a mile away from the downtown fireworks show, which plays on the 3rd and 4th. I can see the fireworks from my window here as I'm typing. If I wanted a proper show, I only need to walk out my front door and sit out on the grass in the park next to my house. J. and I did that during the memorial day fireworks.

I really like this house, especially now, when the weather's not too hot or too cold. Everything in my life feels just right.

This Month's Budget

June Budget = -$176.49

+ $247.85 in celebratory expenses

= -$424.34 last month.

All of that went on my credit card, but at least the IRS got their payment for the month?

Bah.

Doing math for July.