One of Those Mornings

Man, I love my life.

I don't say it often enough cause I've been busy, but it's so damn true. I'm so happy with where I'm at, what I've done, what I've accomplished, where I'm going.

So. Damn. Happy.

Why Angry Women Are So Scary

"Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change."

— Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, 1965

Because Joan of Arc Saved France!

My war propaganda love continues....

Workadoo

Surely, California Will Fall Into the Sea NOW!!!

“Our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation like a person’s race or gender does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights. We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as opposite-sex couples.”

BUT THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE.

Yes.

My life is mostly full of work and homework right now. And a lot of marketing considerations for GW, which I'm working on putting together with some other folks.

Also, there is writing in there somewhere. And Chipotle.

Sorry things are so quiet. At least, for once, it's a good quiet.

I Wouldn't Have

And neither would have my brother of the burst appendix or my sister of the Cesarean section.

We do forget this sometimes.

On Offer Tonight

Tomato pesto chicken rolls (rolled in parmesan cheese instead of breadcrumbs; parmesan is my substitute for all breadcrumbs) and fried carrots with garlic, rosemary and thyme.

Yes, I'm getting myself off the last two weeks' "I'll just go out to Chipotle/order in pizza because really, my check is coming!" mentality.

Two Year Anniversary

I came home tonight, did 20 minutes of pilates, cooked green beans and salmon for dinner, got a 93% on my econ test (holy crap!), and am just sitting down to finish reading a book of David's that I need to return to him at Wiscon.

What else did I do?

I did things I don't even think much about anymore. Calculated about how much the pilates would affect my sugar levels. Checked the insulin supply in the fridge to see when I'd have to make my next run. Thought about what ordering out for pizza would do to me at about 3am (groggy, pissing tired, muzzy head, incredible thirst). Decided I'd rather feel great tomorrow instead of crappy, and made a food decision based on that.

Bled onto a piece of plastic, compared that number to the number of carbs I wanted to eat and dialed out the appropriate number of insulin units. Took the hit. Ate some dinner, thought about how many units I would take if I decided to eat some dark chocolate afterwards. Decided to wait until *after* dinner instead of *before* to take that shot, in case I got full before I wanted the chocolate.

Two years ago, on May 15th, Jenn found me standing stock still in the middle of the bathroom in my Chicago apartment at about 11 at night, breathing heavily. I remember that part. I remember her looking at me with these big eyes and holding out her little hands and asking about me. If I was all right? Telling me to come with her? I remember, vaguely, trying to move toward her on heavy feet. Everything was hazy. Like looking through a gray gauze.

That's the last thing I remember.

I'd been very sick since Friday. Now it was Sunday. And things weren't getting better. It felt like I had the flu. Incredibly tired and achy. Incredible thirst, but then, the thirst had become a mainstay of my life. I'd been dealing with that for months. No, this was something different, different than the steady but inexplicable weight loss despite incredible hunger and thirst, the weird and frequent infections, the extreme tiredness and irritability and depression, the constant reporting mistakes I was making at work. All that had been going on for nearly a year. No doctor could tell me what was wrong with me. But this was reaching total-body shutdown levels.

I just wanted to sleep. If I could just sleep, I'd be fine.

I woke up looking into a bright light, lying on my back. It was an office type room. Some guy leaning over me, but I knew that everything was OK, because Jenn was there, and she looked stressed but relieved, and I knew I was safe because she was there. I knew Jenn had had a good reason for calling an ambulance.

I remember that I really had to pee, and tried to get up. They all forced me back down. Not that that was hard. I had no strength. No energy. Nothing. My wrists were so small. Everything about me had gotten so much smaller, less substantial. Weak. Why hadn't I noticed something was wrong when I lost all that weight? I'm not supposed to be a small person.

I was assured I had a catheter in, which I found funny because, you know, I figured I would have *noticed* that when they put it in, but this whole place was totally foreign. The world was still foggy, that gray gauze, and I was content to just let things happen to me. So I peed right there in the bed, and boy, that was great.

I don't remember anybody saying what was wrong with me. Maybe they said something about blood sugar then. I don't know. I know Jenn said she'd called work and let them know I wasn't coming in, and I was relieved. I know she then asked if she should call my parents and I said, "No, don't call my PARENTS!" In my hazy dream state, the worst thing in the world would be to bug my parents with something like this, something like... what? The flu?

But I didn't have to think much longer, because they were moving me off the bed and bringing me somewhere, into an elevator, somewhere, and that was it, the world was gone again. I was gone, and it was really quiet there.

I wasn't lucid again until late Monday? I don't remember. I know my mom told me afterward that Jenn had called late Sunday, the 14th, and my mom had seen that someone called, but didn't call back because she figured it was me calling late because I'd forgotten it was Mother's Day. She figured she'd guilt trip me a little.

She felt so terrible about that afterward that she remembers the anniversary of my diagnosis before I do.... it's Mother's Day.

You don't really think about much of anything when someone tells you you have a chronic illness. Or, really, what you're thinking about is 1) what do I need to do in order to live? 2) what can I still do, what kind of life can I have, with this illness?

The rest of the ramifications - what it will do to you, your self esteem, your work life, your personal life, your relationships, your friendships, your family, all of that.... that all comes later, after you figure out if it's possible to live any kind of normal life. Any kind of life resembling the one you used to have.

I used to be a different person. I was young and invincible and infallible. I was always right. I was always strong. In fact, those were all fronts. I was not strong or infallible, and I certainly was not always right. Most people aren't, but not all of us really think we are. Those things got me through tough times. I clung to them. When your hole world, your whole perception of self, is shattered, though, it's hard to cling to those things anymore.

In fact, I was a weak, selfish person, which was why when Jenn accused me of it later on it hit me so hard. I ran around in life with no responsibilities, not a care in the world, racking up credit card debt and blowing through relationships and blowing off friendships. When things got too crazy I just ran away. I'd run around the world trying to escape myself, but there it was, the whole time, just me. Me with all these things to fix, and no fucking clue about how to fix them.

The Old Man once said that chronic illness was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and to me. Being ill teaches you to grow the fuck up really fast or to just give the fuck up. You either figure out how to manage, figure out what's important, or you pack it in and go back to that quiet, still place that tried to claim you.

But you know what? Dying? It's pretty dull there. Everything just stops. Blackness. Nothingness. Endings.

I believe everything happens for a reason, even the shitty things. I believe lessons are repeated until they're learned.

I needed to learn how to love people, but not just love. Let myself be loved (that's still hard). I needed to have my heart broken (two or three times). I needed to know I could live afterward. I needed to pay grown up bills and figure out grown up finances. I needed a grown up job. More than that, I needed to stop being so goddamn selfish, to understand that it's not all about me, to realize what's really important in my life, to stop avoiding and then learn to get over severe emotional hurts.

Because at the end of the day it doesn't matter if you're weak. Everyone's weak. It's what you do with yourself, your life, how you relate to other people, once you know that.

It's realizing that your time is limited, or, in my case, completely borrowed. Every moment I get is extra. I measure out my life one unit of insulin at a time. I know already that they'll never be enough of it. I know I won't make it through the zombie apocolypse, or the nuclear apocolypse, or being stranded for more than a month in the Alps.

At the same time, I know that I can kickbox, I can run, I can have a successful job, I can take care of myself, I can live alone, I can (sometimes) be a good friend, I can date, I can laugh, I can be physically strong, I can learn French, I can go back to school, I can travel, I can have a house and a dog. I can write books. People may even read them!

I can do all of these things. I've just learned, over the last two years, to measure them differently. To not take them for granted.

None of us can live without other people. We're social creatures. It's just that I know that more intimately than most.

It was a hard lesson.

But it was the only way I was going to learn it.

So here's to two extra years (brutal as they were), and many more (less brutal?) to come.

In the Bag

Homework is done for the week. Another econ test on Tuesday. Why did I decide to go back to school, again?

Ah yes, because it's a neat benefit.

But only one class next quarter, OK?

Time to do some writing out on the balcony and clean up the house a bit. Have I mentioned how much I love having my own place? One of the things I was really concerned about, living on my own, was getting caught up in that nasty cycle of living-by-myself depression that I sunk into in South Africa.

I took a lot of precautions this time around. Taking classes was one of those strategies, as was having a balcony, a tv that's constantly playing old movies, Buffy episodes, and Carnivale, a WoW account, over a hundred unread books, magazines on hand, a gym two block up the street, a new gym ball and workout book, and a kitchen full of recipes. There's also those French lessons I should get back into.

Oddly enough, ever since I was diagnosed with the diabetes and got it under control, those black depressed days I used to have have pretty much gone away. Sure, I get stressed and tired, and when I was job hunting here and slowly running out of money, I was feeling low, but it wasn't black depression. It wasn't "God I want to kill myself I hate myself I hate everyone die die die" depression.

When my sugar's out of control, I can feel it clawing back at me. It makes me wonder how long my sugar was out of wack. Was I always processing/producing insulin inefficiently? If I had kept up my teenaged lifestyle I likely would have had type 2 at 45 or so, with my genetics. How long were things wacky?

I don't get sick as often. I was sick all the time in Alaska and Chicago (I never got sick in Durban, but I sure was depressed a lot; living alone in a foreign country with no money can do that).

I've told people that I understand a little bit what it's like to be crazy because I know how I get when my sugar's out of wack. When I'm low, I want everyone to die and want to crush in their heads. When I'm high, I'm tired and dopey all the time and make sluggish, ill-formed decisions. The sorts of decisions you make without really thinking about consequences. The sorts of decisions that really knifed up my life and the people I cared about in Chicago.

The more stable I am, sugar-wise, the saner I am. I've been remarkably surprised at my sanity the last year or so. It helps that I have a job I love, I'm down to one credit card (big as it may be), I have health insurance, a book contract, and a roof over my head.

That shit isn't anything to sneeze at either.

But you know, having been chemically depressed for three years when I was on the pill (and again for a few months when I went back on it at 25, realized what was causing it, and ditched it for good), I know what the fuzzy of that feels like, and it's weird to be black depressed free for such a long period of time. I'd like to think that some of this is also because I've been working very hard to curb my litany of self-hate, that crap I've been carrying around since I was a kid. Confidence doesn't hurt either, but you know... I think a lot of it is being chemically stable.

Severe depression is about wacky brain hormone levels. Keeping my sugar balanced and stable keeps my brain balanced and stable too.

It's pretty awesome.

Wow, that was depressing

And then, of course, I totaled up total expenses for the last six weeks and discovered I've spent $70 in Chipotle and $70 in pizza over the last six weeks.

Yeah, work was stressful.

CC #1

Paid off and cut up.

CC #2 back down to pre-moving levels. My next payment will bring it under 12K.

Yeah, I have a ways to go. But it's going.

Tra-la

Going Pro

One of the regular struggles of blogging is knowing when to say how much is too much (TMI). I share a lot of personal stuff here, and though some of the worst of my personal rants have been moved over to LJ, I don't exactly filter those as "well" as I could either.

As I've started dating in professional circles, I've ranted less-to-none about relationships that happen within them. Doing that was hard (non-writer-circle folks still get ranted about on LJ, tho).

The struggle becomes that I have more professional relationships (at the day job and writing) than I do actual personal relationships (this is true of most people, of course). The first person at the day job to google me announced his find to the rest of the IT team, and lo and behold, my the personal became immediately known to the professional.

Not that it wasn't already. I'm terribly easy to find.

But I don't want to roll over to an anon LJ and I don't want to stop sharing stories. A lot of the personal things I talk about here are useful to people because they *are* so personal. I have the whole bloody account of how to get an IUD, how to struggle through chronic illness, stories about dealing with an exploding personal life, struggles with strength training and skills and writing and personal relationships and commitment issues.

I like to share this stuff. I like the idea that somebody out there reads it and is inspired or changed or moved or somehow positively affected by it. I've received a few letters from folks who *were* inspired, and those are what keep me sharing personal stuff here, though as I grow up into some kind of strange "young professional" instead of a "wacky college grad" the fact that all that information is readily available could serve as a huge turnoff in future professional endeavors.

Folks know how much money I make, generally (I'm bound by our employee handbook not to post how much I make at the day job, but I've said it's less than I made as a project assistant in Chicago and more than I made as a temp just before I left Chicago). I like truth and transparency. I realize people can do harm with some of that. And that's something I need to be more aware of. At the same time, I don't want to go and hide everything over at LJ with a three-person filter. Because I mean really, once you do that, what's the point?

I write to be read. Most writers do. I've tried writing up rants and just sending them to myself. It doesn't work. Even when there's no acknowledgement from the audience - no comments, no discussion, nothing - there's something about having it all up there that makes it all so much less scary, that makes it all make so much more sense.

Seeing it in black and white pulls it out of that shadowy place of "you're not supposed to talk about *that*." If you can talk about it, you name it, you acknowledge it, and you move on.

Writing has made me a much less fearful person.

So maybe that's the truly selfish reason I post so much personal crap anyway. Because it's made my life so much less scary.

I got tired of being afraid of shadows all the time.

To Do

1) Stop eating pizza
2) Black Desert should be DONE, yo (What's another 20K between friends? It's time to buckle down again. I've been on a deathmarch at work since the first week of April. It completely destroyed my writing work. Novel writing came to a full stop in order to make my work project deadline)
3) Workouts, yo. Two a week and my fives-days-a-week free weights aren't going to cut it. It's time to cardio hard.
4) Homework. I'm behind again.
5) Whatever happened to my French lessons? I need to get back on that to.
6) But, first things first: no more pizza. No more going out. It's killing my sugar and my pocketbook. It'll help to ease out of the work deathmarch.

Vacation at the end of the month!

Then maybe I'll actually have the headspace to start book 3 and start posting actual blog posts again! Miracle of miracles!

The Check is Arrived!

I'll be able to pay rent in June after all!

3K pays off the credit card, leaving me with one credit card to go! The other 2.5K goes onto the other credit card (and 3K goes into the bank for taxes).

This last CC is the big one, the albatross (the one that got me around the world - several times - and got me through 6 months without health insurance and two moving expeditions), which all future checks will go to until it is gone (about a year and a half).

But then, people, BUT THEN:

Dog and a house, yo. Dog and a house.

Torchwood

I like that her boyfriend is boring and normal and cooks her dinner and babbles on domestically about nothing at all, all full of squishy affection.

Yet I tend to only fall hard for people who are just this side of nuts.

I get bored otherwise.

Yeah, I'm trying hard to grow out of that.

There's just no future in it.

But I do have mixed feelings when I get the flipside view of what partnering up with a loving, normal, but boring mate would look like.

I prefer my balcony-view and a life on the road. But a house and a dog might be nice.

Damn.

Yup (scroll down to comments). When God's War comes out, I'm going to get my ASS kicked. Yeah, I'm already preparing for that Wiscon.

This is why I love this genre. Cause people call all of us writers on our bullshit.

It's the only way you can get better.

Coming Attractions

On Friday, I managed to get WoW working on my computer. This boon, paired with a gentle nudge from Jackie, finally got me off my ass, and I made plane ticket reservations for Wiscon. I already had my membership, and Jackie had a couple roommates bail, so there's really no excuse not to go except my own personal wackiness.

It's time to get out of Dayton for a vacation, yo.

It's a good thing, too, because according to Bantam's website (scroll to the bottom), I'm a Wiscon attraction!:

Upcoming Spectra Author Appearances:

WisCon 32

* 5/23-26/08 | Attending Authors include: Barth Anderson, Christopher Barzak, Greg van Eekhout, Kameron Hurley, John Klima, T.A. Pratt, & Catherynne M. Valente

Holy shit, yo!

(thanks, Greg)

Announcement

As of today, I have a microwave!

It is red. It makes me happy.

That is all.

Repeat After Me:

I work for the health insurance. That is all.

It's not worth my book or my sanity.