Quick thought on American society

This will be brief, as I just took my chemo and expect to be woozy and useless in a few minutes.

Something I've noticed about American society--and something I don't necessarily agree with--is that, as a culture, we value potential more than anything else. The starkest point I've noticed is that, when a child dies, it's treated as the ultimate tragedy; on the other hand, if someone elderly dies, it passes with resolution and sometimes a sense of relief. (I understand relief if the person suffered from some prolonged illness, like Alzheimer's or severe arthritis. That's not what this comment is about. That same relief can be applied to a younger person.) What is the greatest commodity lost if a child dies? The potential to be something great. However, when someone in their 80s or such dies, with them goes a bounty of knowledge and experience.

I've thought about this off and on for a long time, but recently, I had the privilege to talk to a woman just short of her 97th birthday, who has been sewing since she was a small girl. She's been sewing, a learned and valuable skill, for nearly a century. How often do you meet someone who's been doing something, anything (apart from, say, breathing), for very close to a hundred years? There is so much to learn from her, and so much fulfillment. Potential just doesn't come close.

Feel free to disagree with me. This is just how I see the world. YMMV.

I feel chemo brain setting in. Time to let my IQ drop by half in private.

Frustration is a frustrating mistress.

I'm frustrated right now. It's taking WAY too long to get a copyedited ms back from Yon Agent, and I'm starting to fear that it'll never get published. It's a tough sell to start with, but it's got to be ready to go. I'm supposed to be working on other books, but, I dunno. I have no time, my energy is all wrapped up in other projects (nearly finished, thank Elvis), and I'm generally just ready to rip my hair out and scream.

Compounding this is a medically necessary decision to get healthier. I've started seeing a pain specialist, and she told me to start exercising regularly or else. My weight isn't good for my joints OR muscles, both of which are damaged by SLE and/or FMS, and I need to simply move more. Hence, I've joined a gym near my day job. It's a nice place with a varied clientèle, one of my best friends is a member, and a few of my coworkers joined, so I've got people to work out with. I feel better for it and (an increase in my Lyrica dosage), but, well, my diet has to change, too. Aye, there's the rub.

I was vegan for seven years. Apart from a general lack of EFA's, it was the best eating plan for my body, and it worked wonders on my health AND my weight. (For me, a US size 10 is scrawny. I have a frame like a linebacker and the muscles to match. If I were an athlete, I'd totally be a power lifter.) Wasband (the ex) pressured me to relax to lacto-ovo/pescetarianism. The added fish was a good thing, and the eggs were neutral. The milk, though.... Cow's milk does a number on me. We don't know why, but it makes me hurt liek woah and feel like I'm thinking through wet cotton. Hence, I'm moving to primary veganism, which means that I'll occasionally hit the sushi bar or order an omelet when I'm out.

I'm on day three. My body is fiercely unhappy. Veganism is often a low-fat diet, and my body demands fat. Not saturated, but mono- and polyunsaturated. I could probably live on avocados, given my weird metabolism. Alas, I have very little vegan fat in the house, and I'm not about to chug a bottle of olive oil. Part of me is simply pondering the possibility of a parve diet--vegetables, grains, legumes, fruit, eggs, and fish (plus shellfish, 'cause I'm totally not kosher), but no dairy or meat. I might end up relaxing to that at some point in future. For now, though, I'm mostly vegan.

Blah. Going to lay down with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for a while. I'm just past the part where Daddy Clidell's friends were teaching Maya/Marguerite how not to get taken, and the long con with the jerk in Tulsa. I can't help but think that, given their target, that group of men were a collective Robin Hood. Granted, they didn't say anything about giving to the poor, but they certainly showed a racist twit the other end of the con game.

Quick Post

Just a quick heads up (again) to say that I'm still alive. RL is going well--I'm happy in my personal life for the first time in many, many years, and my gallbladder (aka The Beast) is now floating in a jar of formaldehyde somewhere--and I'm hoping to formally get writing back on track again soon.

It's still suffering somewhat from the upset my life took in February. However, I've been meeting people in the profession, and I'm actually working with a good friend from Texas, helping him copy-edit a nonfiction book, which is pretty kickass. There's nothing in it save thanks and maybe a professional leg up (and, I'm promised, a roof and a bed whenever I'm out that way), but I enjoy the work and I very much enjoy the chance to work with someone like this. (Colleen, Linda, you know who I'm talking about.)

On the actual writing front, the book should be ready to market within a month or two, Elvis willing, and I'm finally revamping a novelette that's in dire need of attention. It's got a lot of potential, but it needs serious work. At least I've got people who can help me with the finer aspects of librarianship. (I not-so-secretly refer to the story as my librarians-as-gods story. You have no idea how happy this makes the librarians in my life.) Other than that, I'm just working on getting properly geared up again. No idea what I'll be doing or where I'll be ten years from now, but I'll be writing. Unless I've kicked it, which probably means I won't be doing much of anything. :P

Am loosely playing with the idea of going back to school for Fashion Design, of all things. It's something I'd enjoy, though, and there's no way in HELL I could stand four years of academics. Let me get my hands on something, and I'll be happy as a clam in silt. And if there's one thing I know my way around, it's a sewing machine.

Erk. Is midnight. I'm due up in seven hours. First day back post-op. Wish me luck!

Still alive.

Sorry for the extended blackout period. The last few weeks have been far too exciting. This excitement has included:

- Gallbladder FAIL. Little bastard is still installed, but I'm seeing a service tech in a few days.
- A week of teaching some awesome kids to sew. They did a great job, and much fun was had.
- Deciding that I'm just about ready to start dating again. There are some interesting people out there. That's not always a compliment.
- Not enough writing, though I've got my FINAL EVER Writers of the Future entry ready to be mailed. Final, that is, unless my RoF publication date is pushed back again.
- Neil Gaiman is off the market. This seems to be huge news on the Internets. Eh, I'm just happy for him and Miss AFP, and I hope my luck is as good as theirs was.
- A neck rash. Yes, a neck rash. I tried to see if shorts + sunblock = jeans in the coverage department, and, yeah. WTF, immune system?

Gotta jet in a minute. Things to do tonight, and I need to start getting them done. Will post again soon, promise!

This is the greatest thing ever seen upon the Internets.

Gorramit.

I got caught up in reading and forgot I'm supposed to be editing and making notes. I'm not sure if that's a good sign or not.

Out with the old, in with the headache.

It's time for me to write two-page synopses of Books 2 and 3. Book 1 is nearly ready to stop around, and I've got to get my ass in gear on the other that I finished (in my bull-headed way--common sense does not compute). I'm going through with major changes needed to make the books fall in line with the revised Book 1, and I'm doing something actually fairly clever: at the end of each chapter, I'm rewriting the whole thing in one sentence. That lets me keep note of the important bits. Hence, I won't have to boil down any more 16-page synopses.

What? My fingers don't know when to shut up.

In other news, I have today off. Tomorrow is moving, Tuesday will involve taking my Conestoga costume to work so I can finish sewing it before going shopping for the last piece I need, Wednesday and Thursday are work and packing, and Friday starts the con. Going to be a VERY busy week, so I'm doing nothing today but editing, laundry, and hopefully a little exercise. (Believe it or not, all of these things are relaxing.) I should probably find room for food in there, too, but that's not such an issue. Worst case scenario, I have tofu and stir-fry frozen veggies. And frozen edamame. Mmm, edamame.

Okay, off to do some chores, take a shower, and get back to work! My life is so exciting. Indeed.

Amazon clusterfuck

Unless you're living under a rock, you've heard all about the Amazon clusterfuck, in which pretty much every GLBT book they sell has been declared "adult" material (ie, explicit) and been stripped of ranking AND availability on Amazon searches. To give an indication of what's considered explicit, Heather Has Two Mommies was included. Amazon says it was a glitch, but this is one hell of a glitch. It's more on level of a site hack.

In any case, I'm pissed off. On the off chance that this thing stays put, that's my bread and butter they're fucking with (to quote Metalocalypse). Most of my writing has GLBT characters and deals with GLBT issues. The main character in the series Colleen is working with me on? Gay as a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide (to quote Good Omens). The novel I started for fun a couple of weeks ago? MC is a 6'2" muscular bull dyke.

Me? I'm a 5'4" pudgy lipstick bi chick. (Why can't I have a cool term like "lipstick lesbian?") I don't appreciate being told--whether by glitch, hack, or executive decision--that I'm offensive, and I'm sure no-one else on the queer spectrum does, either. It's not exactly fun to grow up this way, and a lot of the books currently being censored are intended to help kids through the horrible "why am I this way, and how do I fix it?" phase that so commonly hits about the time you realise the captain of the girls' basketball team is way hotter than the guys' captain. That this could, if not fixed, impact my future income adds injury to insult.

In short, I'm angry. If it's deliberate, I'm angry that anyone could stoop to such a level. If it's accidental, I'm angry that Amazon's systems were so vulnerable to such a glitch. Whatever it is, they need to fix it. If nothing else, the amount of business they'll lose for the sake of alienating the queer community and its straight allies is far greater than what they'd bring in from opposing groups.

Aldous, the cat in my icon, died today. He was four years old. I found his body. We don't know what happened, but he's going to the animal hospital at Stillwater for autopsy, just in case it's something that might affect the other cats.

I loved him more than anyone or anything.

That time of year again.

I've been dreading this event: the first bout of my biannual allergy-induced insomnia. The trees are mating left and right, and the mould spore is skyrocketing. It's not as bad as most years, but I'm putting that down to my lovely, lovely chemo. (No, seriously. Apart from a few side effects, I don't know how I ever lived without it.) I'd take a Lunesta, but they tend to just make me hallucinate.

On the writing front, I'm about 50 pages into a new novel. It's only being written for fun, so I don't know if it'll ever see print. Time and Colleen will probably determine that, though. I'm really enjoying it--I actually remember, for the first time in months, why I started writing in the first place. (It's been a rough few months, in case you couldn't tell. That's what happens when an undeserving oaf breathes down your neck, demanding to know why you haven't sold any books yet.) I'm at a point where I need to just go back and re-read from the start to figure out what happens next. I should probably do some actual plotting, too. Like I said, I'm writing it for fun. I love plotting by the seat of my pants.

I'm going to stick Neil Gaiman on for a while and see if it helps me sleep. Let's hear it for The Graveyard Book!