Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

I wrote this post already. About all the stuff I managed to accomplish in 2012 and how I felt about it. Then livejournal ate it. Thanks, livejournal! Sigh.

So I did stuff. I did writingy stuff. ("Writingy" is one of those words people use that lets you know they're real writers, not like those hacks who have to use dictionary words.) I wrote ten stories, which is by no means a personal record but isn't anything to sneeze at, either. I did some revisions for a long-trunked project and have detailed plans for more. I wrote a fairly sizable chunk of a novel that was like pulling teeth, put it aside, and started a novel that is not the least bit like pulling teeth. I sold seven new stories and had eight new stories published (several of which are available from links on my bibliography page).

This was the year alecaustin's and my collaboration first saw publication, and we sold a couple more collaborative stories and have plans to do more work together in the new year. So that's been a very good set of things for both of us. I also had a story in a Year's Best and sold a story for this year's YB, and while I am not an assiduous pursuer of reprints, I found some all the same.

I stayed pretty closed-mouthed this year about how the vertigo and related meds were affecting me, and I kind of want to keep to that. Suffice it to say that they were, and that I am beginning to be able to notice patterns in the med/no-med periods. Ideally this will be something I can exploit when I have to do it again. (If, I suppose. But realistically, when.) So while I'm not pleased with everything I dealt with, I'm actually pretty pleased with how I dealt with it. When I let myself be.

I am having one of those weeks where I am very carefully enumerating the good things and calling them my precious, because if I don't hold onto them, they slip away kind of quickly with the rest of this week's stuff. And I know lots of you are having one of those weeks, too, so I thought I would tell you one of my good things, and maybe you will tell me one of yours.

I was at the grocery store yesterday, having drawn the "most capable of getting groceries" straw by process of somewhat sad and pathetic elimination, and we had reached the part where M---, one of the baggers I know, was bagging my groceries.

M---: Do you mind if I make the bags kind of heavy? They'll hold a lot, but some people don't want them heavy.
me: Go ahead. I'm strong even when I'm feeling gimpy.
M---: I always thought that about you.
me: Why, thank you, M---!

Seriously, I was touched. This is a thing people almost always underestimate about me, even though I am sksperry's favorite Valkyrie. I think because I am femme and a nerd? I don't know. But it has been one thing after another, and then my bagger always thought I was strong? Okay. Okay. Yes. I can keep that. Anyway, so M--- kept bagging my groceries in my sturdy cloth bags that I love, and he was not sure he was going to get them into two tubs of bags to go out to the pickup lane.

M---: I don't know, I don't know. Can I do this? I don't know.
me: I believe in you, M---.
M---, looking up from his bagging in surprise and utter sincerity: Thank you!

Maybe M--- was having one of those weeks, too. Maybe he wasn't. He has some challenges in life, and hey, don't we all. But one of his regular customers believes in him, and he always thought she was strong. So hey, that was a ten minutes at the check-stand well spent on both sides.

How about you? What small thing went right for you this week?

So. I have just had a lovely squash crepe with a spinach salad on the side, and I am not quite ready to dive back into the story I'm trying to finish. Seems like a reasonable time to recap.

Yesterday was the first day in 16 that I was not Having An Official Rest. There was significant enforced resting before that, too, but I was doing serious, serious rest in that period. No cooking, no errands, no laundry, no chores, no writing, no nothing.

It was extremely good for me in some interesting ways. One of the rules was that I could write down new things (ideas for stories or snippets towards stories I already had) but could not pursue them. After the first two days, that started happening a lot. Not working on old ideas made my brain go, "Oh, not those? Okay, how about this? Or that? Or this other thing here?" And that was extremely good for me, and I think a lot of those ideas are going to be solid and interesting and good.

I also feel a lot less exhausted--I can watch a DVD at 8:00 p.m. and not fall asleep, is the main example I've been giving people for the less-exhausted. Eight hours of sleep in a night is feeling a lot closer to enough, which was my standard before the vertigo started acting up lo those many years ago. Dealing with vertigo is extremely tiring, and I will probably need to take rest periods like this sometimes as long as I am.

What the rest did not do: it did not affect the vertigo. Not even a little bit. If you'd seen me yesterday trying to stand by the kitchen counter to cut an avocado...the swaying really alarmed timprov, and he's been seeing the vertigo-related stuff for years now.

What this means: things have been getting bad enough again that I will have to go back on a med with significant side effects. I am not thrilled with this, but it helped last time, it will probably help this time, and I'm just not safe like this. The falls, the near-misses...they're not safe. So I need to deal with the side effects.

One of my friends was praising my patience with this today, and it's not that I'm patient. It's that the impatient bits don't do anything. They don't help. So there's not a lot of sense in expressing them, because they don't go anywhere. Makes a lot more sense to talk about books, or that soup I'm trying to figure out how to make, or what hilarious and wonderful thing my godson said last week. But I said I was doing this rest thing, so I figured I should let you know how it went.

I am not even sure what to say about this week. New stuff, private stuff, other people's private stuff, yet more stuff. And stuff! Data sets: they are kind of hard work even when oneself is the experimental subject.

But! This new book I am working on. It is fun, and it is good for me to be working on a new book.

Also I sent The True Tale of Carter Hall to people who said they were willing to read it, so...that should be off my plate for a bit in favor of the new thing and short stories. Unless the aforementioned volunteers are really really speedy. I didn't do it deliberately so that it would go out on the day the Wild season opened, but on the other hand I have been going around singing the hockey anthem all day long. (ETA: It is not, in fact, Saturday. Oh. So okay then.)

On the other other hand, that's largely because Certain Parties Who Shall Remain timprov had "The Guitar" playing on their computer when I went downstairs to say good morning, and I am trying desperately to get it out of my head get it out get it ouuuuuut.

So hi. I haven't been posting much lately because I have either a) been doing other things or b) been collapsing after the doing of other things. And sometimes we get too much into "Let me esplain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up," mode around here. So here I am, summing up. ( state of the Mris, including concerts and vertigo report and who knows what else I'll get to )

I have alluded previously to the fact that we are trying a different treatment for This Stupid Vertigo Nonsense.

I guess what I want to say here is that it is being kind of hard right now, and if I don't get back to you in a timely fashion about something or if I don't pick up on cues you would usually expect me to, please note that my processor power is going to fighting nausea and discomfort a lot at the moment, and pain somewhat. I had gotten to the point in dealing with the vertigo where I was fairly familiar with what it was throwing at me. It was by no means easy or convenient, but it was familiar. This is some new stuff and not as familiar. (The nausea is not new. But the levels of it are new.) It's physically and emotionally wearing. I'm finding it harder to keep up with stuff. I'm finding it harder to let myself make minor mistakes. I'm appreciating gentleness from people when you-all can spare it.

If you're wondering whether I've described the new treatment in detail and you've missed it, the answer is that I haven't. There is only so much in the way of Helpful Suggestion I can deal with at the moment, and one of the ways I'm limiting that is by limiting the amount of detail I'm putting out there. Also, and quite frankly, I am really bored of talking about it. You can only repeat, "This is what we're trying and how it's working and NO that isn't a good option for me and YES we've thought of that and YES we tried that already and NO it didn't work and YES that other thing is still on the list but it's further down the list than what we're doing now for the following reasons so maybe in July if this isn't working by then and thank you but that doesn't apply to me at all and NO that's something else entirely" so many times while trying to get your head and your hands to stop hurting before you break down and Do Something Drastic.

There are things I can do now that I couldn't do two months ago, and on the other hand there are things that are much harder than they were two months ago. So. We are, to take a page from Real Genius, cha-cha'ing.

On Sunday, porphyrin said, "Bad day?", and I took breath to start minimizing, and then I stopped and took another breath and said, "Yes." Because I realized that she wasn't asking, "Can you find absolutely nothing redeeming about this day? Are you slagging on all the nice things that have happened today? Do you have no appreciation whatsoever for the pleasant breakfast conversation you and timprov had in the early morning, the quiet midmorning you had, and the lovely date you and markgritter had at the Count Basie Orchestra concert in the afternoon? Are you, in fact, completely insensible to the pleasures of your substantially pleasant life?" No. She was asking, "Friend whom I love, is today physically difficult?" And it was. It really was. And it was okay for me to say so.

I'm breathing much better. My speaking voice is strong again, and my singing voice is getting there--missing some of the upper register still. When I wake up in the morning I'm able to do stuff rather than feeling really run-down right away.

The feeling really run-down waits until afternoon to kick in.

So as a result of that, and also as a result of trying to do some time-sensitive stuff quick, before time runs out, I am behind on e-mail and behind on my to-do list. If I owe you e-mail, it's not you, it's me. If I don't comment on an lj post or come to a large group social event or whatever, it's not you, it's me. We're doing pretty okay around here. We're just really tired and trying not to start another round of sick and trying to keep on top of the stuff that absolutely must be kept on top of. Which is a weird mix of productivity and tea-drinking.

I am unduly relieved to find that I scheduled my doctor's appointment for a time that just flat-out would not work and had to reschedule it for the first week of November. It's not that there was anything particularly off-putting about this trip to the doctor, it's just that it was one more thing at a time when I really need no more things. (Of course, putting it off does increase the likelihood that it will be one more thing then. But it looks more cope-able at that time, from where I sit now. No impending foreign visitors. No likelihood that my suitcase will still be only half unpacked. Etc.)

The gutter cleaners also called to reschedule, as for some reason they did not want to be cleaning our gutters in the middle of Wintry Mix. Go figure. I don't even like Wintry Mix, and I love cold fall rain and I love snow. But not Wintry Mix. Anyway their rescheduling was a neutral in terms of Stuff, and there will still be clean gutters when Johan gets here, which I'm sure is a priority for him to report back to the rest of the family in Sweden. ("Wall," he will say, "the soup was lovely, and she has family things around the house and the linen runner we sent on her piano, but the biggest relief is that the gutters were clean." Isn't that what you say after a visit? I thought so.)

Also yesterday the basement fella rescheduled because his kid was sick, but she's better today, so he's back making that patch of basement into a Real Live Bathroom. Which is good, because that's why we've given him sums of money and will give him more in a bit.

It's not a woe is me time. It's a whoa is me time, though. Whoa. Stuff. And other stuff.

Soon I will be excited about everything else I figured out needs to go in The True Tale of Carter Hall, and it will be fun to put it there, but right now it is making me eep in quiet little overwhelmed eeps. (Eep.)

Onwards.

I have had opportunity to notice, in the last several months, that grief comes in different layers, sort of strata if you will, and that as dhole can tell you from a different perspective, the layers don't really settle into flat, perfectly even planes that can be lifted out neat and whole.

On one front: I find that we are much more comfortable speaking of what Grandpa would have liked, what would please him, what would honor his memory. We did so all along, but now it can be casual, conversational, unfraught. And that seems like a really good step to me, that good things that remind us of Grandpa aren't making us swallow hard every time.

And I'm feeling like I can deal with the world a bit more again after Uncle Rudy's death, so that's good. Useful like. I am nowhere near done with this. That should be obvious to anyone who has ever lost anyone. But the idea of calling the plumber, for example, does not seem like more than I can handle. I am no longer in one foot in front of the other mode for the time being, and that's good.

On the other hand, there was a photo on the front page of the Strib today where a protester was holding up a sign reading, "I will not discuss my end-of-life options with anyone." And I looked at it and had this wave of rage, and I said aloud, "You selfish, worthless piece of shit." Which is maybe not the most proportional response a person has ever had to the newspaper.

See, one of the gifts my grandpa gave us on his way out was that we knew his wishes. We knew his priorities, we knew what he wanted and under what circumstances. We had all the pain of losing him. He made sure we didn't have to add the pain of uncertainty about his wishes to that. Because he discussed all that with us. And the idea that this is a matter for aligning oneself with one political party or another is just such filthy garbage, and so likely to bring pain to people just when they can't deal with more pain.

You don't have to like the President's health care ideas; you don't have to prefer them to what we have now. Heaven knows my grandfather probably wouldn't have. But to try to convince people that discussing end-of-life care is the same thing as suicide or euthanasia is WRONG. When you discuss your end-of-life options with your loved ones and your doctors, one of the things you can tell them is, "I want you to keep me twitching for as long as possible. If you can force air in and out of my lungs, do it. By any means necessary, up until the very end. Absolutely to the limits of medical science." And then, if that's what you want, the people who love you will know. And you can talk about how important it is to you to be clear-headed vs. pain-free, if that's a tradeoff you find yourself having to make, and you can go through all of the other very personal, no-single-right-answer sort of questions.

Look. Many people want to check the box reading, "No end for me, thanks, I'll just keep going robust and healthy indefinitely," on the end-of-life checklist. It turns out that is not an option you can responsibly expect to have, and it is not an option you can responsibly expect your friends and family to have on your behalf. President Obama didn't make you mortal. You came that way. And one of the many gifts my grandfather gave us was facing that with peace and dignity and love and humor. Argue about how things should be funded and by whom and under what circumstance; that's fine. But don't try to act as though there are only hard decisions to make at the end of a person's life if one political side in one debate in one country wins out, because that is not the world we live in.

I would believe all that even if the grief wasn't fresh. I just wouldn't necessarily want to track down that one particular person from the Strib photo and take them by the shoulders and shake them until their teeth rattled. (Oh, Ms. Alcott, you have so much to answer for regarding rattling teeth.)

The other thing--now that I have brought up one of the most controversial political issues of the day, wheee--is that I am feeling extremely conflict-averse. Even invited levels of discussion that have remained totally civil are making me nervous right now. I recognize that this is irrational, and I don't want to refrain from conversation or only converse as long as everyone sings the Gilbert and Sullivan song about how I am right and you are right and all is right as right can be. But for a variety of reasons most of which are not mine to go into and most of which are not about me directly, I'm feeling pretty shaky about it right now.

Another thing is that I have decided that there are limits to my reading of my grandpa's books. Specifically, if I read several books in a series and am not finding anything to like in that series, I don't have to read all the rest. I don't have to do this at all--I didn't promise Grandpa or anyone else. But I want to, bit by bit, and some of the books are good, and others are interesting in different ways. I just need to set some limits for myself on this, and that's one of them, and I think that's okay.