Stupid Writing

19 Sunday Jun 2016

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OK, got Long Leggedy Beasties launched as my first experiment in self-publishing, finished fine-combing Max AGAIN and am now waiting for my typographer son to finish the cover. Meanwhile, I’ve dived back into Dark Crimson Corners, which is now almost ten years old, and . . . yeesh!

It’s not that I was a bad writer back then. I was a somewhat weaker writer back then; but the yeesh! part is the intensity. This was my first novel, folks, and of course I threw everything but the kitchen sink into it–autobiography to just weird wild hares up my bum. Going through it is exhausting and I need breaks. I’ve been editing out unneeded plot threads and random asides (and changing “Pharaoh” to “Max” because Max’s book is coming first.) I’ll then put together Damascus the serial Slayer’s story (said unneeded plot thread) and run it as a sort of prequel to the rest.

After that? I dunno. By then it’ll possibly be November, and time for NaNoWriMo while battling the pain of a post-surgical knee. (Am going in for the other one on August 8th.) Seeing as I already have a stub done for Things That Go Bump in the Night (sequel to Da Kitttehs), I’m not sure what my WriMo will be. I might stick with the cat theme seeing as it seems to be working.

Oh–an aside for anybody who actually ends up *reading* the stuff: Eureka (published here) is non-canon, meaning it’ll stay here and not mess up the reality my fingers are trying so hard to make coherent.

In other news, back at work and trying desperately to do everything that needs to be done in the seven weeks remaining before my surgery, including putting together a training on the autism spectrum for my co-workers.

My allergies have been killing me, to the point where I have succumbed to using Flonase (ewww), and the new knee is still stiff with painful muscles. (The surgery has healed solid as a rock–no more bone pain!) My sleep is disrupted in that I now wake up too early. (It’s 07:30 now; been up writing since 5, and am yawning to nigh-decapitation.) Despite having tea and morning meds, I will now try to go back to bed for an hour.

Alphabetical Acrostic

19 Tuesday Apr 2016

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(This surprised me by taking under ten minutes. I think I’ll do another prompt today because I feel like I’ve been let out of school early.)

Another writing prompt, another day—

Bizarre or quotidian: Who knows?

Challenging my creativity

Despite initial doubt,

Every day my fingers surprise me.

Frightful or frivolous,

Good or mediocre; when I

Hear my words as

I read them aloud, it

Just gives me a quiver that

Kills my insecurity, my feelings of

Lameness, if only for a

Moment.

Nature, it seems, has given me this talent

Of being a wordsmith. My ground-in Christianity

Perennially brings me to the Talents parable.

Queer, in such an agnostic adrift, I know.

Reason, however,

Still brings me

To Gibbs’ Rule #5: Don’t waste good.

Unless I can come up with some other

Very good thing to do,

Writing is my thing, whether

Xanthic or fertile, it holds me accountable.

Yesterday and tomorrow, I must cry forth my One, else be a

Zero.

 

And for the Next Six Weeks . . .

12 Tuesday Apr 2016

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. . . I sat around on my butt at home. Ice packs were my friends. All told, the pain hasn’t been too bad, unless I have the thing in a weird position, it’s just the Sisyphean journey to try to just get sheeping comfortable.

The PT my insurance sent out was a nice guy, but we didn’t really do PT per se–he just watched me do my exercises and evaluated how I was walking. He seemed to have a curious aversion to touching me, in fact. *shrug* My real PTs tell me it’s like that, and that they make good money, too. *shrug again*

The nurses who had to come out and give me a finger stick to check my coumadin level were a mixed bag. My favorite one was thrilled by the ferrets, and even took a selfie with one of them! It got so that whenever a new stranger came to the house, they started mugging in their cage to be let out, heh.

Finally I had to venture out into the Big Scary World at the foot of the 37 steps, but that is going well enough. I’m still easily exhausted by it, but I’m building up stamina. This means writing too, but ironically, I’ve just done enough of it that I’m tired now, and will talk about it later!

I Don’t Wanna Go to Rehab

12 Tuesday Apr 2016

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Well, I didn’t . It conjured up the picture (or whatever sensory thing it is) of old person pee; this because I know some folks who live in “rehabilitation facilities” and they’re just nursing homes. Nope, I was going home after my three days in the Beth Israel tomb and hiking up them steps like a mutha-sheeper. This was my plan.

Instead, I found out that for many practical purposes, “total knee replacement” means “removing your leg and replacing it with a pillar of pain.” I needed Mommy to help me pee; no way was I going home to my kids like that.

So, off to rehab we went, me and my stuffed leopard Max, who I discovered is useful as a cervical pillow. There was a support strut up the length of the ambulance’s stretcher that dug into the sore place worn into my butt by four days in bed, and I spent an hour trying to wiggle around it and not make prolonged eye contact with the car in back of us, because weird.

My rehab hospital was in the boonies of Woburn (pronounced WOO-burn) and I was there for only two weeks, because (to quote a certain popular video game) I was filled with determination. I had three hours of therapy a day except on the weekends: an hour of individual PT with the adorable Amy, another hour of OT with the lovable Leigh, who re-introduced me to the wonderful world of personal hygiene with tactful assistance, and then Gait Group, which was boring and rubbed my nose into what a wussy I still was. Those 37 steps loomed over me like a monster guarding the gates to my longed-for home, and I was vastly relieved when Amy and I worked out how to do the hardest part, which is stepping through the door of my building.

Little by little the knee became more cooperative. I got a canned lecture on how Pain Meds Are Bad while I was there, which was weird, because my surgeon’s practice has made it clear that there’s only a certain window to bring the knee fully online, and if pain is getting in the way, it makes the whole freaking exercise pointless, and you can always just be brought off the meds if needed. (Yay! say I. Especially since the anticoagulant for the blood clots mean I can’t use NSAIDs like most post-surgical folks.)

I ordered some basic stuff while there, joining Amazon Prime to make sure it got home in time: Handlebars for my john, a bench for my shower, and a couple of reaching tools which have captivated the cat, who can’t get her tail grabbed by them often enough. I recommend all these things.

Then the golden moment came when the bestie showed up to spring me the hell out of there. It hadn’t been a bad stay–bed was comfy, roommates nice–but the night shift left something to be desired in terms of getting the pain meds out on time. (I Officially Complained, which caused a minor kerfuffle, with night service improving radically afterwards. Use that phone number on the wall, patients of the world!)

And with the help of my daughter at thar sheeping doorway, I made it up all 37 steps just fine. Yay me!

Now with Extra Titanium!

12 Tuesday Apr 2016

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So, for those of you who missed it, here’s the update/explanation for my absence: On February 8, I had my right knee replaced. Even to me, this still sounds like a “meh” in the world of bodily modification–it’s not even as if knees are interesting gooshy bits: They’re dry and chewy and we don’t even notice what they do unless they stop doing it. Well, wrongo, Mary Lou. Total knee replacement is a Big Fat Hairy Deal, considered to be one of the most painful surgeries out there with one of the longest recoveries. Everybody told me this beforehand, with the result that I was terrified out of my tiny brain.

It’s exactly 9 weeks later, and despite having told myself beforehand that the several months of recovery would be GREAT for my writing, I have only now re-surfaced to tell y’all about it. Writing is hard when you’re distracted by pain and the need to move it/ice it/be gracious to all the medical professionals in your face.

Where to begin? Well, for those of you who are sciencey, this link from my orthopods will give you pictures of the anatomy in detail. For the rest of you, they basically sawed off the cartilage-bearing parts of my knee joint off (what cartilage I had left, this being The Problem) and replaced it with this shiny titanium baby:

fake knee

(Only I think my spacer is ceramic. I’ll have to remember to ask.) This did indeed hurt quite a lot, I’m not going to lie, but it also was NOT the-most-horrible-pain-I-have-ever-had. (That trophy is shared between kidney stones and my worst menstrual cramps: I am a pain professional!) I had both local injections (to help with the immediate pain post-surgery) and a spinal with so much sedation that I didn’t know a thing until it was over–I was as much a non-participant as if I’d had a general, with less recovery yuckies.

The physical therapy team at the hospital showed up on schedule that very afternoon to get my slacker butt out of bed so I could stand on the new knee starting immediately. (I don’t know why they do this. I will ask my real PT when I see her this Friday at my first outpatient visit. Bean counters should note that yes, outpatient PT only starts at the two month point.) This standing thing is made challenging because pain, and also because those numbing injections make you super wobbly. PT don’t care; PT don’t play. There is a fairly brief window where it’s mobility v. scar tissue formation.

This did lead to one of the most painful medical things I’ve ever had done (up there with endometrial biopsies), which was the main PT forcing my knee back on Day 3. This produced a level of screaming and crying that embarrassed me a bit but was totes called for–and I am NOT a wussy. (In fact, I once got sent home from critical care during one kidney stone because I was too controlled about it–they didn’t figure on it being my umpteenth stone. I had an infection, btw.) This range-of-motion thing isn’t quiiiiite the emergency they claim, as the surgeon bends the knee (duh, to make sure it works) before closing. No other PT person did this to me (and none will again, bwah ha ha).

However, it did put the fear ah Gawd inta me bigtime, and I hustled my butt into all those knee bending exercises out of fear that I would once again fail to please. (Bear in mind that I was out of my gourd on pain meds, etc., so was not my usual spunky Advocacy Lass self for quite a while.) As of now I am at 110 degrees of flexion (my heel almost touches my butt), and can straighten the thing out almost completely! (This translates to “rock star.”)

The four and a half days in the original hospital were the worst part of the whole thing. Not so much pain, but I have a well-behaved cat’s reaction to Things Not My Usual Litter Pan, and the food was atrocious beyond belief. The room was claustrophobic, and in the middle of this whole adventure, despite support socks that cut into my fat little legs and annoying booties that auto-inflated, I got blood clots in my lungs. (Maybe not from the surgery. Hematological workup pending next month.) Not too seriously, but I’ll be on anti-coagulant meds for a while to come. Sigh. I miss you, Vitamin K rich veggies.

And this was one of the best hospitals in Boston. Sigh again. But, seeing as I had 37 stairs awaiting me at home, my next stop was rehab, about which more later.

Long-Leggedy Beasties: 2015 WriMo Winner

02 Tuesday Feb 2016

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After ruminating a bit, I decided to put this up here instead of sheeping around with self-pubbing it, which I don’t have energy for. I’ve done little editing, but am pretty pleased with it. My self-inflicted prompt: Use a different set of characters. The Lions have a couple of minor walk-ons, as this is still my universe, but this is an entirely different corner. Hope you like it!

I pubbed it! Don’t worry, it’s still affordable at $2.99. Check Amazon and the other e-book sites. Woot!

Stuck Down Here Forever?

29 Friday Jan 2016

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I sorta believe in God; i.e., more than not believing in God. It seems reasonable to me that God does wacky Godlike things, even maybe becoming Jesus, whom I follow while doubting like a Thomas who has never gotten the icky part of putting my dirty fisherman’s paws into a still-fresh wound. Aiee! Good thing Jesus didn’t stick around too long, eh?

But for all I know it’s the Flying Spaghetti Monster all along. Whatever. My point here is that I’m not nailed down (pun intended) to any particular brand of spirituality. I know that Zen monk Cheri Huber’s There is Nothing Wrong with You moved me to hysterical tears, and I no longer have a copy because I gave it away, and have bought others for very special people.

Now, here’s the cruel irony: I style-edit self-help and spiritual books. After a while. they all sound the same, with some more readable than others. It seems to my jaundiced eye that enlightenment is saved for those wealthy enough to travel the country–the world!–kneeling at one or the other pair of sandaled feet. Where, I ask, is the ultimate truth revealed while washing dishes, while caring for children? What sorts of visions of angels are received while bagging groceries at Shaw’s? (At Whole Foods, maybe.) The great teachers gave what they had for food, clothing, and shelter that would make 21st century homo sap shudder. What’s up with all this “I started my own business healing and directing souls?”

According to many of these self-proclaimed sages, we are on the cusp of a Great Awakening. Where have we heard this before? I don’t feel any perkier than I did when the Mayans came through town.

Fear not; I keep my personal beliefs to myself unless some random scrap from my personal life will reassure and make somebody bigger, instead of smaller. Because they are all beginning writers, and in a way they are kneeling before my sandals. This makes me profoundly uncomfortable, but I muddle through. I find something to praise, even if it’s only “Congratulations on your enlightenment!” and I polish with a light hand, making it sound as if paying attention to commas and sentence fragments was dirty work to be laid upon that maid-of-all-work, the proofreader/copy editor, and not part of the writing craft at all. I feel bad about that part, but it’s the only way to keep people writing. Remember that teacher? The one who didn’t get it and whose scars you still bear? The one who couldn’t see past the lumpiness to the embryo writer? I don’t ever want to be that teacher.

After all, for all we know, we are stuck down here forever, and polishing one’s craft is something to do to pass the time.

 

 

 

 

Haven’t heard from YOU, either!

23 Saturday Jan 2016

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The boy (25) is off at a furry con all weekend; the girl (26) just reamed my sheep about being lax on him. I blame teh interwebs.

Teh interwebs are apparently all full of people claiming that they have Asperger’s and thus should be immune to Things They Dislike, like trying to find Aspy-friendly work. She sees her brother as having embodied this attitude, which is untrue.

The girl finds fault with everything the boy does; the boy feels like he’s double teamed and that we are out to get him. Meantime, the real problem is that he’s a teenager in an adult suit. I am still parenting him, and parenting is more complex than making rules that carry consequences. The girl (who never plans to have children) can’t see that. So I have a war going on at my house all the time. She snarls when he’s here; she takes advantage of his absence by yelling at me about what a bad parent I’m being. In my opinion. she needs to open up a 20-ounce bottle of Detachment and rub it all over.

Part of this tangle is that she blames him for having been housed and fed by his father while we were off having Adventures with Homelessness, losing bunches of our stuff and being fed rice and beans every night (not our culture). Needless to say, she can find tons of compassion, support, and excuses for her well-homed (and jobless) boyfriend, so it’s not like she’s a work ethic Nazi. No, there is just something broken in her brain–she has had a hard life, and now she has a personal demon. It’s not fair. Between that, and that she offers “suggestions” in a near-snarl–it’s hard to accept her as co-parent de facto. (Mind you, she’s sweet as pie to Me. I consider her one of my best friends.)

They were both very sympathetic when I came down with one of those norovirii last weekend. I’m still fighting the residual fatigue, and this is the first writing I’ve gotten done since I semi-quit my job. (I was depressed to see a panel at Arisia entitled “Don’t Quit Your Day Job.” I was too sick by that time, which is probably just as well.)

I made the mistake of not being firm with the Arisia volunteer team that I needed a sitting job; instead, the cane got put in a corner and I was run off my feet by a gluten-free vegan (sorry, GFVs. Every one of you I’ve met has been bossy) drill sergeant barely out of her teens, meaning that her people skills were still shaky. I escaped to eat lunch and found the staff den. Wish I’d had my test meter bundle, as I was wobbly, sweaty, and nauseated. Next time I will pay more attention to self care: (I should assign myself that sentence as a punish lesson.) “No, see the cane? I’m not physically able to scamper about putting food out. At least, not for long.” *sigh* Next time. . . . While waiting for the Ride in the lobby, I had the great joy of watching the costumes. Everybody was there. from Princess Ozma to Carmen Sandiego to a patient Pyrenees in golden leather armor from the Golden Compass.

Next time it might be a moot point, because my right knee is getting replaced in two weeks, and as soon as it heals (3-4 months) I’m putting the left knee on the chopping block too. We shall see. I’ve picked up 15 pounds since losing the cardio of the walk up the hill to work, and I’d like to get out of this body. I’ve never been this fat before, and it gets in my way. I’m still just as supportive of fat acceptance as ever, but the most intimately close chapter of it has closed for the winter.

I want my body back. I’m 5’3″ and 280 lbs.

Oh yeah, I’ve heard BAD things about long-term outcomes for “the surgery” so for once my conservative PCP and I are in agreement. It will have to be dietary changes (needed for the diabetes as well) and exercise, which is where the knees come in. Wish me luck.

 

 

The Sparkly Feeling

28 Monday Dec 2015

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I just began the sequel to my WriMo, in which the cats (and I) consult a cousin chart and then more or less give up on the “once removed” and whatnot: They are looking for a missing cousin, leave it at that, and her wife. I have no idea what happened to them or how they are to be found; I have an image of Darjeeling in his panther form slinking through a field of wheat, but I don’t know if it actually occurs. I am in a place of mystery, and it sparkles.

I need some sparkle this morning; I had to leave a message with Boston Housing to tell them I am now essentially unemployed; I’ll keep leaving messages for a few days. I also filled out a tax form (badly), only just now spying the information which I should have put in a couple of boxes. I have other tax forms awaiting me, as now that I don’t have a child in college, I haven’t coaxed said child into filing my taxes for me. (I am so, so, SO phobic about paperwork. I’m not sure why. I’m pretty sure it began with poverty–very inconvenient of it.) Still ahead is knocking on the door of the food stamp people. Sigh.

But my brain is already feeling better about not having to Go Back There. It was all just so stressful, and I really do think that the “convenience” of having paratransit made it much worse. Paratransit is when you’re too disabled to use public transit well, so they send a car or a weird little truck to your door. It’s about twice as expensive as taking the train, but a fraction of what a cab would cost. When my right meniscus finally shredded itself to bits, I couldn’t walk up the half-mile hill to work anymore. Sigh. So not only did I end up waiting impatiently for their very random arrival and departure times, I lost some cardio and gained some weight. Grrr. More stress.

I’m also unsure about my fitness to continue working in what’s called direct service, which much of the time means dealing with highly stressed out people who have major life problems. It’s a brutal challenge to your patience and compassion, especially if you’re me and they have continence issues. I suspect it triggers me back to my unimaginably squalid childhood in the hands of a psychotic and alcoholic, which is my personal problem, but it wears on the brain nonetheless: I need to work somewhere where I don’t smell pee-pee. This all limits my options as a peer specialist, so the writing needs to take off.

At least that is still sparkly, although I have some horribly triggering stuff in Terry’s story to wade through. But I’ll wait til later; til my brain grows back somewhat. For now, sparkly.