Tag Archives: life

Looking for a Word

03 Saturday Feb 2018

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(Just skim the two paragraphs of techie art neep if you’re not interested in paint. The essay proper begins below them.)

I just participated in a month-long journal challenge with a group of women artists, and Got Religion–I discovered a new medium! It’s Japanese watercolor, often called “gansai tambi” as that’s the ad blurb used by the manufacturer to describe them.  (It literally means something like “vibrant aesthetic.”) I majored in what I suppose I must now call Western watercolor in college, making full sheet (22×30″) color field paintings (think Rothko, only busier) and thinking I was having the time of my life. Then fast forward thirty years and here’s this stuff that made me squee when I unpacked it. (Disclosure: I had a $50 gift card from doing a survey, and went on Amazon. The 36 pan set, three water brushes, and another six-pan set of metallics left a buck and change on the card; YMMV.)

Part of my honeymoon joy is being forced once again to learn what stuff does–the great thing about the big abstracts I did as a kid is that it showed me pretty much every trick Western watercolor and its French cousin, gouache have up their sleeves. It’s a little like gouache, a little like either sort of tempera in consistency, and behaves on paper like nothing else I’ve found. The pigment is crazy thick and you need a lot of water to make it behave like . . . watercolor. Sigh . . .

Anyway, I whacked out a basic image to use as the Tribe of Tiger cover and came back to the computer because the sun was in my eyes. I noticed, almost as a by-the-way, that I was ecstatic. It was very much a body feeling–a combination of terrific sex, a filling breakfast, and a satisfactory trip to the loo. Oh, and the best coffee. I feel this way every time I make art I’m pleased with, and even when I’m depressed, it makes me feel at least some better, at the very least while I’m making something.

I thought to myself, “Weird. I guess sex is the closest many people get to ecstasy.” Maybe joy too. I don’t know how that makes me feel. Am I right? If so, am I being kind of snobby to feel a bit sorry for them? Or is this more about me being abnormally unimpressed with sex?

Don’t get me wrong–I’ve had some great sex. It just doesn’t hit the same spots as, say, the smell of oil paint, which makes me tremble and moan. I have similar reactions to music I like, which is to say, much of it, but maybe particularly early music (think Byrd and Tallis).

As for writing, the feeling is more subdued, possibly because I’m not getting as much sensory input, and it’s more draining. But I still come away from good sessions feeling like this is why I’ve been put on earth.

So what do y’all think? Especially other creatives–is it better than sex? Is it ecstasy? Or do we need a new word?

Journalish Entry

27 Saturday Jan 2018

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inky hand

Who’s procrastinating? I am! I am!

My still foggy brain figured out how to add the photo and still have text next to it; faithful readers with sharp memories will notice this as a new skill. Yay me!

I’ve been depressed for most of the past two months–Christmas cheered me up, which makes me feel shallow and trite, but there it is. (Can a person be trite? Sure they can. We’ve all been trapped at that business dinner.) It’s not that I spend hours gloomily musing on Being and Nothingness, it’s more that I don’t know what to do. (As in, read a book or play a game. As far as Being and Nothingness goes . . . ) Worse, once I figure it out (if I do), I spend seemingly hours getting it done because I am far more easily distracted than usual. This is a common symptom of depression, but I have ADHD, so who can tell?

I am open to suggestions. I can’t take meds, because I either have a weird reaction to them, or they might make me manic. (Trust me–or trust those who’ve been close to me–you don’t want to see me manic. I don’t do anything amusing like start new religious movements, but I do end up in the hospital. Pity. Being manic feels great! Which is why it’s so hard to treat.) I am working my WRAP plan. But here’s the hell of it: If I am trying my best, if I am doing something borderline productive (like blogging), it means I’m having a good day. If I’m having a bad day, I can’t even focus on a video game. Arrghh.

In other news: Although I have been faithful to my protein shake breakfast, to the point where it now feels normal, I’ve only lost about five pounds. I had it pushed a little lower, but the holidays snuck two pounds back on. Sigh. (This matters because I am due for bariatric surgery this spring, and I must lose 16 pounds so they can maneuver around my massive fatty liver, cuddled around my stomach like a protective bloat of tick.) However, I have dropped my application off at the Y, and the guy who Does That will come back from vacation any day now. Sigh. Seeing as I don’t get a surgery date until I see their shrink (March) I have some time. It’s only 11 pounds, right?

Tribe of Tiger (this year’s NaNo and the third in the kitty series–Eureka, published here, is in the same world but is not strictly canon) is SO close to being finished it’s a bit scary. I’m at the point where the next two or three paragraphs will wrap up the main action. There must be a name for this feeling that I should kill somebody off for it to be good art!

I’ve been doing more visual art lately–got involved with an art journal challenge. Seeing as I wimped out on Inktober, I would have been more reluctant, but, golly mo, my daughter makes those blank books! So I begged one that had some invisible flaw, and have been having a great time. Sure, I’m behind, but it’s an improvement over Inktober’s 12-day performance. (To be fair, what slowed me down then was lack of scanner access; I learned from this mistake and have been doing just fine snapping pix from my phone.)

OKCupid (deliberately not linked because drive-bys) used to do this thing where they made you pick three words to describe yourself. So I guess right now they’re fat, depressed, and creative. I could do worse.

Colossal Lack of Insight! Film at 11!

13 Wednesday Dec 2017

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For the past couple of months, I’ve been getting the looming feeling that Something Big was about to happen. I was going to (moan) Grow. I’m not given to premonitions–historically, I’ve made most of the decisions in my life in the split second before they came out of my mouth, surprising myself well over half the time. (Work in progress, folks. Medication helps.) So I started to worry that something weird and horrible was going to happen.  Didn’t think it was the upcoming surgery. Then the thing just did, and I didn’t even realize it until a few minutes ago.

Yesterday I went to my shrink of the past seven years, and she told me she’d gotten a well-deserved promotion and was stepping away from clinical practice. Translation: I’m getting the boot. I have a couple more sessions; she suggested enthusiastically that she be the one to talk to the bariatric people; and then I take a two-month hiatus. I’m going to need all the support I get post-surgery, and I know that, even if I’m not anticipating the psychotic break some previously-blogged-about hospitals did. So I will be starting off with somebody new.

I said something about my premonition, and said in all seriousness that I would want to continue talk therapy when it hit. I said this with absolutely no self-awareness that THIS was it; that it already had hit. I mean, duh? This thought just wandered into my brain 22 hours later.

I owe a lot to this woman. Speaking broadly and with political incorrectness, I was still crazy when I got to her, and now I’m not crazy anymore. When you’re starting off with more than one major psychiatric disorder, that is huge. The process wasn’t as emotional as my previous therapy had been–you know the sort, where I ended up a small child coloring while sitting on the floor, therapist down there with me–but little by bit, she helped me tease out about a million little things, and my life became less chaotic. We did a lot of good work, and I am a happier and much more productive person for it.

In the novel of my life, a chapter (or a story arc) is ending. Something Big, indeed.

(But what was up with the premonition? Are they going to keep happening now? Noooo!)

A New Adventure Begins

22 Friday Sep 2017

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Discerning readers will vaguely recall that I had my first heart attack the day before last New Year’s Eve. This surprised absolutely nobody, as my BMI is pushing 50 the way those guys on the Tokyo subways cram in the commuters. It wasn’t a BIG heart attack, feeling more like recalcitrant indigestion, but when they got inside with the widdy-bitty camera, my right coronary artery was 95% blocked. A little bit of titanium fixed that mo-fo, but in the recovery room, a nurse shared that they called situations like mine “One cheeseburger away.” (Hear that, Elizabeth? I’m comin’ to join ya, honey!)

Since then I have been on three new meds and had the dosage cranked on the Lipitor. And I’ve felt fine, except for a rather Victorian over-attention to my heart. I went in to see the cardiologist for the six-ish month check-in this Monday expecting only to possibly be released from a pill or two.

Instead, he scolded me for letting the baby aspirin lapse, and told me I was taking it for the rest of my life. And while he was on the topic of “the rest of my life,” he in so many words intimated that it would be a short story unless . . .

“Have you ever thought of bariatric surgery?”

Now, every fat person in the Western world has at least thought about it, so I parried by sharing my PCP’s aversion to the practice. (Malabsorption issues.) The cardiologist pooh-poohed this; said they had that under control, and went down the list: Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and the ever-looming sin of having a heart-attack at only 54.

Now, I am something of a fat activist. People were saying stupid stuff to me about my weight back when I was only 170, which is a hundred pounds or so ago. *I* was saying stupid stuff to myself back when I was in high school, at 129. I got tired of it after I had the kids and found that the baby weight had come to stay. So I left myself alone about it–started buying jeans that actually fit instead of jamming myself into a number that I thought was more reasonable than reality. I started being nicer to myself, which was groovy, seeing as sporadic attempts to Do Something about it kept putting another several pounds on, topped with the five I picked up from being sidelined by the double knee replacement last year.

I now weigh 274; been told I carry it well, but apparently my coronary artery wasn’t listening to the compliments.

The cardiologist, a former Marine, doesn’t do bullshit, but he doesn’t do fat-bashing, either. He was just laying out the facts, and this week I heard him. (It didn’t hurt that the podiatrist told me last week that my clumsy attempt to continue cutting my own toenails wasn’t gonna fly and I had to leave it to the professionals, ’cause I can’t really reach them anymore.)

I got referred to Local Hospital, which my insurance told me was out of network, and then went to (sigh) Beth Israel, where I had my knees done, so at least I know them there.

I discovered that the road to bariatric weight loss is long and dotted with hurdles: Mandatory info sessions. Psychologists. Social workers. And of course nutritionists and exercise physiologists and about a billion nurses. I need to have tried (failed) at least two formal attempts to lose weight. This is a bit of a sticking point for me, as I’ve never done Weight Watchers or fen-phen or any other fad, because I already knew what the surgery people posted in their PowerPoint: Only 5% of the people who do them succeed. At least I had a little time with a personal trainer. Sigh.

I don’t know how this story ends, but that’s the sitch whenever I begin a new book, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see. A big part of me wants to hide under the covers and pretend it’s not happening, but I know I need to be really social about this and have support. (Besides, it’s a Rule of the Blogosphere.)

Next stop for Beth Israel: I join a “new patient group.” Next stop for me: I tell my PCP on Monday. Yeep.

Woo-Woo Scale for New Age Books

04 Monday Sep 2017

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1—My Journey

2—Crystals  are Our Friends

3—My Trek Through Holistic Healing: Drugs You Have to Google

4—Karma: Love It or Hate It?

5—All You Need to Do is Breathe. Or Cleanse. Whatever.

6—Whaddya Mean, You Don’t Have the Money to go to X and Experience Y?

7—Our Upcoming Evolution

8—Jesus Helped Me Write This

9—My Dog Helped Me Write This

10—(must bring in saucer people in a meaningful way)

When I Last Saw Skoll

21 Monday Aug 2017

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I was twenty-one and five days married. I had to work that day, and I came outside to a wonderland of twinkling sidewalk crescent reflections from the leaves of the elm trees, each fragment of light tossed through a natural pinhole camera. I was overwhelmed by their evanescent beauty and at the same time, I felt like the kid at the carnival: “When’s it coming back, Daddy?”

My space physicist husband gave me an answer that I don’t remember, but I wailed, because I would be an oooolllldddd old lady. Well, if you pick that answer as equal to “the next eclipse you’re aware of,” today is that day.

I’m not quite 55. In other words, what the twenty-somethings call an old lady.

I have this dim memory of my younger self envisioning somebody who was unable to enjoy life in any way; diapers-support hose-mobility device dependent. I will cop to the cane, and admit that heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension have reared their ugly heads. But I don’t feel old.  (Just fat.) My quality of life is quite high as of now. What was that kid thinking? No wonder she couldn’t picture getting from here to there, because we’re not there yet!

I think the uncomfortable feeling of this long-buried memory, triggered by today’s sun-swallow, hit me as it did because I have been haunted by that helpless old woman for quite some time.  I throw a tantrum every time I get AARP mail because she’s their customer, not me! I am in love with Grace and Frankie because they are helping me re-imagine the possibility of what seventy might look like.

Not being a genetically skinny person, I have few illusions about this, but it’s fun to realize that I will likely still get a kick out of it when Skoll the wolf next hunts his prey.

 

Turning the Pages

26 Wednesday Jul 2017

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I think it was my “year off” getting my knees replaced that did it. The tiny Kindle was a sanity-saver (and a hats-off to Project Gutenberg, while we’re on the topic) and I got disconnected from paper books. But then, I haven’t been a big consumer of even paper books since the dissertation. My recovery from that segued into a depressive episode, and when I emerged, I was in a life where I’d read/reread most of my books. (I view libraries as evil guilt-producing crackmasters, and have been known to brag about my current immaculate relationship with Cambridge Public the way people in recovery show off their five-year chips.)

By then, I’d started writing, and I had this idea from some quote somewhere that the more I’d read, then the less I’d write–and I’d risk sounding derivative of the writer. So for quite a while, the most complex prose I had was my daughter’s subscription to Cosmopolitan. (Don’t knock it. It ‘splained how to keep my eye shadow out of the creases. I’m a little sad that my daughter traded up to National Geographic.)

I gradually began to read Victorians and mysteries (and have now discovered Victorian mysteries). But then I got a gig of reading and commenting on other people’s novels, so all of a sudden I was reading for a living. Very weird. Sometimes I get a manuscript that is slick clean classy content–and then I don’t, and have to force myself to sit my ass in the chair for five, ten, fifteen minutes as a whack. Mercifully, I read fast. And eventually, I got used to being a writer too. The whole thing made me pickier about what I’d read for fun.

However, my daughter and I always stop by our favorite bookstore when we’re out, and I pick something out with the best of intentions. It is added to the stack, but every so often one jumps into my purse if the Kindle is charging, or if it’s Neil Gaiman, apparently.

So, there I am with  Neverwhere in the waiting room. My shrink emerges and gushes over *book* reading, claiming that studies have shown there to be superior cognitive benefit from the physicality of the book. I must admit I recall little of the Kindle-corn I’ve been consuming all year, but had put that down to the quality of writing.

My books (Long Leggedy Beasties, Things that Go Bump in the Night, their forthcoming cousins) are non-physical. I’ve been trying not to feel bad about that. This doesn’t help. Sigh.

You’re reading from a screen right now–what do you think?

Listening to the Silence

23 Tuesday May 2017

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I have left my noisy urban home for a few days, and am now in a very quiet place. All I can hear other than my own little noises is the dripping of my friend’s cat bowl, which makes a teeny recycling fountain to keep the water fresher. Strange to tell, instead of being relaxing, all this stillness has done is underscore my own disquiet, which I tend to keep buried like a secret shame.

When I realized Things were burbling up from my inner cesspool, I opted to turn off Pandora and stay with the cat bowl and what I call “microcries:” bursts of blubbering that last about 15 to 30 seconds. It’s sort of like crying constipation–that’s all I can get out at a time, although I feel myself to be a very cistern of tears.

As previously noted, I’m a random crier at the best of times, and I’m getting closer to deciphering why, or at least a maybe-why. I think that when it’s triggered by something heartwarming, it’s because my heart is in reality feeling cold and lonely; if the trigger is heroism, I am afraid that I myself am weak and helpless.

I do many things. I sing, draw, make jewelry, mother, befriend, love. But I feel as tottery at most of it as I do when my physical therapist cajoles me into trying to stand on just my right leg. (Almost everybody is a little lopsided at this, but I’m a champ at lop.) The only thing I really have is the writing. The sheeping writing, which fails to make me any money or gain me any renown, and which will likely continue to fail to do either.

All I am is the writing. That’s what’s at the bottom, behind the tears, underneath the depression, and despite the failure.

During this quiet afternoon, I went to the extent of Asking for a Sign, first in what passes in me for silent meditation, and then just talking out loud. So many people tell confident stories of hearing a Voice, either from outside or within–why not me? Although my faith isn’t what I’d call strong, my belief in the possibility of a Higher Power is stronger than my fear that #45 will turn America into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and that’s something, isn’t it? But nobody came to my outreaching self-pity party, leaving me to confront what I have, what I know.

Perhaps all I’m really for is the writing. Maybe one or two people will be reached by the words that start at my core and ooze from my fingertips. They will laugh, cry, feel less alone or freakish; they will feel a kindred spirit. My fiction will keep them company for a bit.

What I hear, what I know, is just the writing. And sometimes it is barely enough, but it remains.

Tide Change

28 Tuesday Mar 2017

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Because I can’t meditate (I am a trauma survivor and get jumpy if I feel myself losing conscious control of my body), I had to find a way to dump stress after the New Year’s heart attack. So I cut back my hours at my day job down to one day a week, and that will stop in May. I will be picking up more editing work, and that will fill the financial gap, but belts will be tightened around here.

I made this decision about a couple of months ago, and have until now been too busy with the editing to do much else–somewhere along the line I acquired the Protestant Work Ethic, damn it to blazes. But now there’s a lull, it’s a gray Tuesday morning, and I’m here in my sweats debating getting another tea so I can finish this post in one sitting instead of going back to bed for a half hour: Now what?

Above my desk is a copy of a Batman meme: It is the crisp and elegant Batman from The Animated Series, pointing his finger at me. The caption reads, “Quit Procrastinating/Work on Your Art.” I’ve put in a decent word count recently–finished the sequel to Long Leggedy Beasties!–and so this Lent I decided to do an hour a day working at visual art. Like most of my Lenten disciplines through the years, it’s most conspicuous for its omission. I did complete the T-shirt design needed for the day job, but that was because I had an external deadline. Other than that–

–I’m blocked. You don’t know how happy I am that I’m at least finding words to put on this screen. I started a weird little story about an autistic girl on a bus, who has just met a mage and his familiar, although she doesn’t know it yet–and I’m stuck. I listened to my beta reader and tore out half of Max’s sequel because I sorta went off topic and threw in the kitchen sink (an age-drenched failing of my work in all media), and now am doing the stare–write a sentence–stare–write three more–stare–wander off method, known to writers everywhere. And don’t get me started on Damascus. I’m just glad I have a solid beta reader to point out the screamingly obvious. Sigh.

I also have to self-pub Max and get him out of my system. I tried finding an agent for him, and nobody bit past the can-I-see-three-pages stage, and those were the agents, I discovered, who reply to all queries that way. (I wish they would just put that in their requirements; it would save a lot of raised hopes.) At least a few people have read Beasties and been kind enough to compliment me on it, so this way Max will get his chance to do some people-pleasing.

I just wish I didn’t feel that doing so means I’m a failure. The market has changed, that’s all, and the good thing that it brings is that some people will read my stuff. Maybe not as many as would if I had a big publisher doing advertising and whatnot, but some.

So much for going back to bed. The 18-pound cat is stretched out on its bottom half and she has a stronger character than I do in terms of my getting up the gumption to remove my loving pet who just wants to be near me. Time to soldier on, watch closely, and try to see what life is saying to me.

Season of the New Year

07 Saturday Jan 2017

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The day before New Year’s Eve, I got up from an indulgent post-breakfast nap with my throat on swollen fire. I had a column of nasty pain running up from about where the esophagus hits the stomach, all the way up to my jaw, and it was even going into my left arm a tad.

“GERD,” thought I. But it seemed unfair. It had been a small breakfast. And sitting up wasn’t relieving the pressure in my neck. It had never made it to my jaw before. Tried TUMS, tried milk, and sent the kid to the store for Mylanta. By the time he got home, I was feeling some better, but it was still bad. Mylanta did jack. That was when I . . .

. . . started Googling. Heaven forfend I act on impulse and call 911 or something. For GERD? It was most assuredly bad GERD. I’d had most of those symptoms before. But . . .

. . . women and chest pain, we’re weird. Both in the way it hits us, and in the way we handle it. That is to say, our cardiac symptoms are not classic, and ever since menarche, we are conditioned to shrug off pain. Tell you a secret, guys? We think you’re big, wussy babies; we tell jokes behind your backs about how tough you’d be with period cramps. Having a baby, ma’am? Walk it off!

SO there I was, fully dressed and ready to go–and not ready to go. My son, however, snarled at me, which is unlike him, so we . . . called a cab. No fuss here, just GERD.

They let us sit for ten minutes in the ER, which told me the admissions clerk must be just as impressed as I was with my chest pain, especially since I only got about a C+ on the little test she gave me, consisting of male-normed symptoms of The Big One. But they took me in, gave me an EKG–which I aced–and took some blood. I didn’t even ask them why, because that’s what they do: collect samples just-in-case, and send in some brave soul to put in an IV.

Welp, I failed the blood test. The resident was freakin’ perky as he told me that one of my heart enzymes was 50 times normal: My heart muscle had been damaged, and I had had a heart attack. Small, but undeniable.

“Oh, shit,” I said, and started to giggle. I mean, a heart attack? I’m 54. True, I have every other major risk factor except being a smoker (let’s not be excessive here), but it just seemed so surreal.

Because it was a three-day New Year’s weekend, I spent it in the hospital, waiting for the slightly fancier hospital’s center for angioplasty to open on Tuesday. I had many sticky things placed under my left boob and a heparin drip in my inevitably screechy IV. As holidays, despite visits and a good view of the fireworks, it sort of sucked.

Tuesday came, however, and I started off with an echocardiogram, which is a sonogram of the heart. I was a little appalled to learn that the heart doesn’t politely and sedately tap out a simple one-two; it dances sort of gelatinously, and the Doppler picked up several different rhythms, including “du-wacky-du-wacky-du.” What was this thing in my chest, anyway?  Then I had the angiogram.

I thought I’d known what it was and what it was up to.Wrong. Right coronary artery was 95% blocked. In the words of the OR nurse, I was “one cheeseburger away.”

This is having your guardian angel scruff you seconds before you go over a precipice, only it’s THE Precipice, and why not have gone there in the Sooner rather than Later?

Kinda leaves you with a question that wants answering, that does.