Nightly oddness

You really shouldn’t be surprised that I would dream in entire episodes of UK-made mystery series.

This time, I made up my own, somehow. The hero looked like Jason Isaacs, which is fitting, as he is really very yummy and has done Mystery! before. (Case Histories. My sole reason for watching.) I couldn’t name the heroine. She had brown eyes and brown, curly hair; she was a bit of an everywoman, at loose ends after World War II. Earl-and-policeman!hero took her on as his assistant, and they had a happy enough time solving mysteries together until Korea happened. Oh, dear. By then, they had reached something of An Agreement regarding their feelings, and she was looking after his four-year-old son for the duration. Also, they had beat up someone who was touching her in not-very-appropriate places. That’s a bonding moment.

Unfortunately, his unit got itself in a spot of trouble and the authorities claimed they’d brought his body home. Watching her grief was pretty agonising, especially as I was also living it. This is Must Feel TV. She turned up pregnant, but didn’t care about herself or the baby. They took her to the hospital and that, bugger all, is where the installment ended.

This happens to me pretty regularly.

Happy New Year in case I don’t get around to blogging again in 2011.

growing into it.

I didn’t know I’d be able to stick with blogging this time.

I came into blogging thinking “oh, you have to have A Brand, you have to be Fabulous,” and let’s face it, one of these is false when it comes to me. (Be nice. It’s the first one.) I guess we all come from somewhere, don’t we? So hurrah, still here, and have made a gradual-imperceptible-oh my God avalanche shift over from Livejournal. I suppose I should tell my LJ people where I am, and ask them to add me on Facebook or follow this blog.

Amazing Things doesn’t have an identity. It doesn’t have any regular features. What it has is a girl-turning-woman writing about what matters to her. I used to blog a lot more about getting organised and the like, until I stopped having enough energy to care. Then I started blogging about long-term invisible illness/disability, with the odd political feature tossed in. But this isn’t a disability blog. I write about books, too, and the making of them, and the sheer love of them. I write about love. I write about what it’s like being a whole quarter-century old. I grow bridges between Then and Now.

I don’t always adhere to the conventions I was taught as a child, linguistically speaking. I abuse adverbs and semicolons. The Oxford comma is IN.

I should get Beloved to photograph me fully-clothed so I can post photographs of myself. I should show you my world, even if it’s only cats and sunsets for now, and the sunsets are inspired by Keith Olbermann. I want you to know me. I want you to see through my eyes.

Maybe I want a domain name, too. I used to have one of my own. I wonder how much that would cost? I wonder if I should ask Dad for that for my birthday? I definitely want a name change, but I’ve wanted one since I was seven. Nothing fanciful. One half to honor my mother. One half to honor my father. One more syllable, but the syllables are prettier!

Only–how? And when?

2012. The world is ending. The world begins anew.

[dance of anger] Context!

Context, context, context!

Duh. What has been subtly nipping at my behind as I read?

There was a family tree, complete with dates, on one page, during a chapter about dissecting family relationships. It hit me then that eight-year-old Billy was born in 1975.

This would put the events of the narrative sometime in 1983 or 1984. I wasn’t even born until 1986.

The expectations of women today are very different from the expectations of women a generation or two behind me. We grew into a different feminism, for one thing: second-wave versus third-wave, and I would not be shocked if there’s a fourth wave in the making. What was radical to my mother’s generation was my girlhood reading–I kid you not, I passed some wonderful hours imbibing feminist lit. And I was never shamed for it. I was actively encouraged to feel my anger and fight for myself and my rights. I suppose being the daughter of an ex-hippie and a socialist also had its impact.

Lerner is talking to women who are battling tradition as much as their own partners and families. I don’t have that. My families are both about as non-traditional as they get. I’m with a man who lent me this book to read; you think he wants anything but equality? And my mother only seems to want me to marry if I’m going to marry rich, while my father believes I ought to be treated like the princess I am pointedly not, regardless of status. They want me to be happy, whatever “happy” means to me, and while we have fought about what that means to me, they’ve been willing to step back and let the proof surface in the ensuing pudding. Hence three and a half years with the most wonderful man I’ve ever met.

And when my dad and I shift into helping-professionals mode (well, he was one and I’m going to be one), somehow we communicate. We find a language we both speak. We have both taken the same Psych 100 course at the same school, albeit several years apart and with different professors. Remembering to use our skills during a conflict is a challenge, I’ll admit, but I can do the Vulcan thing when I need to, whereas Dad is all human, when he’s not outright Klingon.

–Well, I’ll be a hit with my geekier students someday.

I’m not a woman of 1983. I’m a woman of 2011, almost thirty years down the road and an entire movement later. We were taught I-statements, my generation, in health class and later in college. (What did I do with that textbook?) Is that why I’m not seeing my conflicts or, really, myself, in this book? I’m still reading, because I don’t like to give up, and something useful may yet surface. But I do think a serious update is in order, if Dr Lerner is up to it. I mean, she’s perfectly willing to admit that not all women function the way she describes (to include herself) yet the majority of her advice is geared toward what she appears to think is the majority of women. It may have been when she wrote this book, but it’s not now. We’re the daughters of this book. We’re the ones whose mothers may or may not have read it and taken it to heart–and our mothers taught us differently. So what do we do with our own dances of anger?

I mean, I could read Chapter 9 alone and get as much out of this as I have done reading the whole book. Chapter 9 is a useful little summary of everything that’s been discussed and a guide to further action. I didn’t need help recognizing that I was stuck in a pattern, nor did the patterns shown even begin to resemble my own conflicts. I needed a more general guide that would serve everyone involved in these dances, not just one member, the assumed audience. I suppose if I were Dr Lerner, that’s how I’d update this book. I’d acknowledge that we can be any member of these dances and offer advice accordingly.

As it stands, I’m just as confused as I was when I started out.

[dance of anger] Some woman I make.

I’m finding Lerner to be very essentialist in her view of gender: men are cold and unemotional, women are needy and clingy. I don’t really find that helpful, since most of the women in my life have issues around being too withdrawn, and it’s a chore having to swap “he” for “she” in my brain. The work is very dated in that respect, and the next chapter, which is about our “impossible mothers”, is also one I’m tempted to skip, for similar reasons. I’m a woman whose problems are mostly with her father. He is the pursuer and I am distancing myself. I haven’t seen much advice for the “man” in the equation and how “he” can break free of the cycle, only for the “woman”. Only for pursuers. My mother and I, at least, can walk away from each other and come back and be rational for a little while. We aggravate each other, but I can live with our interactions because we’re good at reconciling our differences. I don’t feel the need to shut her out. Her pursuing doesn’t freak me out–she’s learned that I need my distance sometimes.

But not my dad. He pushes and pushes. He’s loud and tactile and I am uncomfortable with both of these when it comes to him. He doesn’t understand distance, not like I need. We also have so little in common that if I didn’t have to live here, I doubt I’d stay. We make better Sunday-brunch friends. I am trying not to let our relationship be destroyed. I am trying to express my frustrations to him in writing, not at the top of my lungs. On the rare occasions that I show him my vulnerabilities, I feel like he either exploits them in order to get into my good books or gets angry because I show them. I find, when dealing with someone who behaves as if every challenge is an insult, that cold withdrawal is my best policy. I can keep the peace that way and not spark a fight with my mother, who inevitably jumps in on his side. I’m never sure how she really feels in a three-way fight, honestly.

Time to skim ahead looking for something I can use.

Estel, indeed.

I’ve named my new laptop Hope. She’s beautiful. She runs so fast! I have a keypad, so I can make my diacritical marks wherever I please. Hëre is an ümlaut!

I also have nice warm things, because it is just the start of winter, and things for the inevitable anti-Lyme baths I will be taking. Lots of choices! If I don’t get to use them in the winter due to PICCage, I’ll use them in the summer, when hopefully we’ll have licked this thing.

Now I have a favour to ask of all of you: Will you teach me about the Medicaid application process?

Merry Christmas!

love, love, love

I gripe about being ill, but blessings have emerged from this muck.

I am grateful for my beloved, who has been as supportive a partner as one could desire. Short of actually providing nursing services, he is Right There, mentally when physically is impossible.

I am grateful for my friends, who have rallied admirably as well! Darlings, I know I’ve been down for a long time, but I swear I’m not out, and I think of you so fondly. I have a long life of gratitude to lead yet. I’ll thank you all if it takes me the next sixty years.

I am grateful for my family, who do provide everyday help. When I’m not up to cooking, someone else cooks. My mother’s been helping me bathe; showers, I’m afraid, are out due to balance issues, but baths I can almost manage, unless I need to do my hair. Then I need Mum. Dad’s been great about the emotional end, and stability in general. We’re rebuilding trust and it’s coming at just the right time.

If I have to be in this for the long haul, at least I am being hauled along by people who care.

i want a perfect body

I resent the fuck out of you, Lyme.

In retrospect, I wish you had been CFS. Well. I don’t know that. I do know that the treatments for you are scaring me, though. I don’t want to go to the hospital. At least I can stomach needles. Sorta. Kinda. The kind of needles I’d have in me would be taped down solidly, so well that I’d not even see the needle, or notice it; if it joggled, I might remember. Or my brain would keep reminding me, through the herx and the anxiety, that needles are part of this fight.

How does anyone adjust to there is a needle in my body?

I’m losing weight again. 92.6. Pathetic. I probably fit into a lot of my old clothes. Good thing I never got around to giving them away, huh? You’re stealing away all the progress I made. I fought you for seven days and got some of my own back, but now even when I eat hearty, you waste me away.

Also, there’s this pesky question of identity. What am I now? Am I disabled? Ironically, now that we know about you, my mother is more willing to entertain the notion of assistive tech. It’s only for a little while, right? I’ve got to be able to live my life! Funny how that was always so weird to her before. What, did I not deserve to live my life when it looked like this was permanent?

I’m probably going to miss the Oscars. I hate you, Lyme, because I wanted that party. I’m not having jewelry for Christmas, so that was sort of my fallback position. Now I’m in DMAFP mode (Don’t Make Any Fucking Plans).

I wish I’d never gone to Alfred, never gone into the woods after dark, never fought my way through the underbrush. None of it. Hell, Alfred alone was pretty bad. But you probably came with the territory, and that breaks me a little. As if everything else wasn’t shitty enough.

I’m tired now, and I’m on my way to bed, but I just had to say one more “fuck you” first.

Fuck you, Lyme.

[dance of anger] following the heartlines

I haven’t even cracked the content and I already think this will be a good one to read next.

I’m so used to believing the worst of people. This may be what makes my relationship with my father such a prickly one. He makes a quip, my bristles spike out, I deflect with a practiced chill. Gone are the days of good-natured cussing contests to relieve my anxiety as I wait to perform a solo. (Much, I imagine, to Mr Borden’s relief.) This hurts me most when I want to believe better. Every time someone puts me off for some reason, or things just don’t go my way, I react in two ways: I get sad and I get angry.

Not at the same time. Sadness is first by a hair, usually directly following a bizarre kind of acquiescence (“I acknowledge that I am not worth your time/effort/love”). Sadness is top-of-the-pile emotion, always there when I need to feel something. Damn depressive tendencies. Then comes the misinterpretation. (“Wait a fucking minute, did I or did I not tell myself last time that I’d stick to my guns?”) Then there’s anger. Because yes, I do keep promising myself I’ll grow a backbone.

But I have to be careful to stop there instead of winding up with an exoskeleton. There’s legitimate anger and then there’s anger I’ve created because I didn’t stop and put something between raw emotion and action. Usually, that something is earth logic! I don’t always understand things, either, but if I don’t understand something, shouldn’t I ask questions before I blow up?

So complicated, this business of emotion. But I should learn, above all, how to ferret out the truth that I build with other people when we interact. It will help me see when my anger is justified and when I’m reacting to something that isn’t being said at all.

Grin and slug ‘em

I could cheerfully punch the whole lot of doctors who missed this, you know. Sock ‘em straight in the teeth. That for your reliance on my psych history to explain it all! That for your bloody-mindedness that’s got my life on hold! It’s not fucking fair and I am upset! It was a great shock made all the worse by the spectacular failure of my first attempt at treatment. Oh, God. Next year as an extension of that week. I’d almost rather the bug killed me.

i’ve been a fool / and i’ve been blind

Spoilers for the season finale of Covert Affairs. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Oh, Annie. Oh, Auggie. Ever since Season 1, this show has been “Annie-and-Auggie time!” For me, anyway. Said in a toddler voice, like my mum is popping in that VHS of The Lion King YET A-FUCKING-GAIN and might I add, I wish I’d been malicious enough to destroy that one copy.

But this is not about my deep-seated childhood issues.

This is about the imagery.

You see, I am one of Those People who knows a song in the first few bars, at least if it’s a favorite. Which “Shake It Out” totally is. They gave us this gorgeous bass line and I was interested. Auggie’s journey wasn’t over after Miss Africa, evidently. No, he wanted to see if his eyes could be fixed. (Like they need fixing. Auggie, darling, you are ten thousand kinds of brilliant.) It’s always darkest before the dawn. And they can’t be fixed. So he’s ready to suffer and ready to hope.

But I will point you to the lyric from the beginning. It’s like they’re both talking, Annie and Auggie. Well, Auggie first. “I’ve been a fool.” “And I’ve been blind.” Because Annie’s the one who couldn’t see everything about the two of them that seemed obvious to me, and Auggie was all hung up on someone who has just given him the brush-off for Africa. Look, Eritrea is a worthy place to go, but I’m sayin’ if a woman would rather be there nownownow than work out a way for you to go with, she’s telling you something important. And there is a woman back home who is equally suitable.

If the two of them play their cards right, Annie and Auggie could be Joan and her husband without the fuckups in the middle. They could own the Agency. They have a spark I envy, a spark I looked for for years. I found it in many unsuitable men, and then I found it in Darling. That’s how strong I spark with people: years’ worth or not at all.

This is very much about my deep-seated need to spark, I guess. That’s what the kids are calling it these days, right?

So spark a fire, guys. Please? For someone who saw a lot of fires die before they passed the ember stage?