adventures in elementary polychromatism

Sugar Trap

Tue, 15 Jan 2019 02:21:37 GMT

Today was a rollercoaster day, so it was no surprise when I drew the reverse VII of Wands at the end of it. I was ready to indulge in a night of heavy wallowing and anxiety, as my neurology appointment is tomorrow and my mom is going with me (which could be, like, a book-length post). Instead, I decided to make a playlist that might make me feel stronger. I'm listening to it right now, and it's working.

I'm thinking about the Then/Now memes going around and how many people disdain or cringe at their former selves. I don't feel that way, despite the fact that Previous Me's did things that I'd never do now. I know why I did those things, and how they contributed to who I am now--I don't flinch when I look back. Right now I'm channeling a version of me that survived some shit that Now Me probably could not. That version of me bore me to a place where I wouldn't need to be so hard. But I still need that strength sometimes, and if I hadn't been through all that, I wouldn't be able to call upon it now. So I'm grateful. And those Previous Me's weren't all terrible and miserable! They were, and are, me.

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The Hours

Thu, 10 Jan 2019 01:36:51 GMT

( I hate to use this journal just to whine and complain, but my pain levels are getting to absurd extremes. )

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Formica

Wed, 09 Jan 2019 07:51:29 GMT

It's almost 1am my time, and I can't sleep because my lower body spasticity has been out of control for 24 hours and facial parasthesia (like spiderwebs or threads being drawn across my face) has been going on for hours, non-stop, and what I really need is either a devastatingly strong sleep med or a hug forever. Ugh. What the hell is happening to me?

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arts and letters

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 03:39:21 GMT

I got my official acceptance for grad school today, so hopefully more on that whole thing tomorrow. I was going to make an actual update tonight, but I'm too sleepy now!

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chronic illness means

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 03:34:49 GMT

You can tell the exact moment at which your meds are no longer in your system and automatically run the "can I get to my pill box before things really go south" calculus while shooing away the voice in your head trying to harangue you for not dosing on time (again). Seriously, that part of you should know by now that the rest of you is simply not conscientious enough to set an alarm or Just Remember or whatever.

Edited to add: And you know you are autistic when demand avoidance makes it impossible to Just Get Up and take the meds your executive functioning disaster made you forget!

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end of year meme, three days into the new one

Thu, 03 Jan 2019 15:59:15 GMT

( Behind the Cut, the Meme: )

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QotD

Sun, 30 Dec 2018 22:25:28 GMT

questionofthedayasks: What social media platforms have you quit? Why? (question submitted by fucktheg0ds)

My answer: I'm going to restrict myself to platforms on which I participated actively for more than a few months, because I've definitely dabbled in some and then dropped them when they seemed Not For Me.

MySpace: I left this one when my friends abandoned it for Facebook, which was around 2008? I used it mostly to find new bands/artists, and I miss that. Bandcamp doesn't quiet fit that purpose as well.
Livejournal: Most of my friends stopped posting there around 2009-2010, but I stuck around until the last server moved to Russia. Though I'd always been too shy to post much in communities, I loved Livejournal and I miss it. Dreamwidth is, of course, similar, but I'm not a fannish person, so although there are a bunch of communities of interest to me here, most are inactive or never even got started. LE SIGH.
Tumblr: I used Tumblr on and off between 2013 and 2018, but finally deleted this month because Jeffrey did and he was pretty much the only person I actually communicated with through that platform. I never really had problems with the bots on there because I never had many followers, probably, but I wasn't pleased with the Female Presenting Nipples nonsense and the constant shadowbanning and harassment of sex workers. Also the mobile app was seemingly designed by kobolds.
Mastodon: I tried Mastodon in 2017, but gave up after the instance I used exploded in a firestorm of petty drama and ridiculousness and was then deleted.
Facebook: I hated Facebook from the start and deleted recently after the latest algorithm changes meant that all I saw on my feed, no matter what, was the same four posts from a page I followed. Not any of my friends, just this one page.
Xanga: I almost forgot about this one, but I had a Xanga account in 2003-4? One of my friends convinced me to try it, but it was really unintuitive and frustrating, so I didn't stick with it or post consistently.

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10 Points

Sat, 29 Dec 2018 15:50:57 GMT

I forgot to mention that Korean and German have emerged as the languages I want to learn this year. Too much? Probably! But I'm enjoying poking at both so far, and they're so different from one another that I imagine I won't have the difficulties I had, say, learning French while building up Spanish. Who knows.

I don't speak or read French--I gave that up after a semester because I hated not being able to pronounce anything even passably well. Mandarin was easier for me to speak! I enjoyed learning Mandarin, also, but reading and writing it was overwhelming and ultimately I decided I prefer alphabetic languages over logographic-based ones, as far as learning-for-fun goes. (Mandarin didn't have much immediate applicability for me, so I dropped it.) Neither Korean nor German have much immediate applicability for me, either, but the barrier to reading and writing is much lower than for Mandarin, and so far pronunciation hasn't been nearly as difficult for me as French! I considered Japanese, as well, but the triple writing system ruled it out. Also,I read The Hole, by Hye-Young Pyun, this year. Despite its almost clinical tone and simple prose, the book was positively dripping, oozing with existential dread. It was inexplicably terrifying and unsettling, like being viscerally uncomfortable in a friendly-enough person's tidy house. The fact that a search for "Korean horror novels" (and any variation thereof) turned up nothing but this book, which had been shelved as horror at the library despite containing no traditional horror elements, made me really curious about Korean literature. (I've since learned that the short story is a common and celebrated form in Korean literature, and that Korean lit has been largely ignored by the Western world until very recently.) I like reading texts in their original languages if I can. I can do this with Spanish, though it usually involves some dictionary work. I can understand most of what I read, but my vocabulary is smaller than I'd like because I don't force myself to practice. SIGH, I suppose I SHOULD...

Anyway, one of the most fascinating things about Korean, for me, is how easy it is to become functionally literate in it when compared to Mandarin or Japanese. I read that this ease was derided by Chinese and Japanese scholars, which has made me more curious about literacy and literature in East Asia and how it's changed over time. Hangul is really young, too, compared with other alphabets, so that's interesting, as is the impact of language suppression on its development. I don't mean to sound indifferent to the obvious painful legacy of imperialism (after all, my own background means I'm very aware of what it means for people to be stripped of their ancestry, traditions and language). So while I'm pretty giddy about the prospect of learning a language that's so unique, I'm fully aware that many of the forces shaping it were oppressive and damaging. It's an inspiring and intriguing language story so far, and I'm looking forward to broadening my understanding of cultural, geopolitical and historical elements surrounding it. I don't like to learn languages in a vacuum, so to speak, as that's not how they exist, and since the thing I love most about language learning is literature, it's ridiculous to exclude people and places from the study!

As for German, I've studied it before and enjoyed it. I've always wanted to visit Germany and Austria, and I've wanted to return to it since reading Süskind's Perfume my sophomore year of college and wondering what it was like in the original. I've more to say on the subject, but my eyes are telling me it's time to step away from the screen for awhile!

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Holiday Whirlwind

Sat, 29 Dec 2018 15:14:55 GMT

I've been meaning to post about our Christmas holiday since, well, Christmas, but either I was busy holiday-ing or working or recovering from one of those! We did have a very nice holiday. We didn't end up going to UU service on Christmas Eve because we got distracted by our cookie-baking adventure. We're both pretty terrible bakers, but decided we were going to try a sugar cookie recipe from YouTube. It took quite a long time, and Jeffrey's arms were falling off from all the stirring and rolling (my stand mixer is in a storage unit 1500 miles away, a story for another day) but they turned out very well. All except for the icing, which was a hack job. We made such a mess that one of the cookies just says, in sloppy script, "We Tried." Still, they were delicious.

On Christmas Day, we exchanged gifts in the morning. I got him a Harvard University hoodie, a pretend doctor kit and a little stuffed dog wearing scrubs. (He's hoping to go to medical school after he finishes his bachelor's--a dream sort-of long deferred, similar to mine--so it was all related to that. He's not planning on Harvard, but that's what we say when we're cheering him on.) He got me a mermaid tail blanket and a framed photo collage of pictures of us and some of my favorite kind of socks. Yay! He then spent most of the day cooking. He made prime rib for the first time, and despite being very nervous about the whole process, did a magnificent job. Prime rib, mashed potatoes and roasted Brussels sprouts. It was delicious and we ended the evening watching Hulu, my other present to us, since we don't have cable or access to network TV and our library doesn't have most of the things we want to watch OR there's a 100-person waiting list for each thing.

The rest of the week was pretty ordinary. I registered for a fourth class for the spring term, and continue to grow more excited about the three I already have. Turning that over in my head led me to accept that the MA in English is what I really want (though the doctorate is the Dream) and that it's not Impossible, especially here, and that I should consider trying for it. If I don't make it, I still have the MEd program on deck. I'm also exploring options for online teaching. It's become obvious that full-time classroom work is not a great option for me because of my health, and the last thing I want is to have to leave my students in the lurch to go on disability leave (again--that has happened to me before). I'd be happier and safer working from home. I've avoided considering online teaching as a possibility mostly because I'm unfamiliar with it and scared to fail. But I want to teach, and right now classroom life, especially in southern Arizona where our high schools are sprawling, open-air campuses, isn't really doable. I'm also considering the possibility of doing some freelance proofreading. My journal is sometimes full of errors, but I can be professional when necessary! (And I have done professional editorial work before, in addition to tutoring/revising/proofing academic papers for college and graduate students For Pay,) Again, I avoided freelancing because it was intimidating and confusing. Anything is, when you only devote fifteen minutes to learning about it, ostensibly to prove to yourself that it's impossible and not worth attempting...

Lastly, I got in to see my ophthalmologist yesterday to see about the pain, headaches and new floaters. She didn't really pay attention to anything I said or read the notes and didn't mention anything unusual in the exam. The giant freckle in the back of my left eye is unchanged, though I didn't expect it to change. (It never has.) I do, however, need a new prescription, so maybe that will alleviate the headaches and pain? And I suppose the floaters are just...part of getting older? My dad, whose vision problems have been the model for mine, didn't get his first ones until a few years ago and he is 76. I guess I'm on the accelerated track! Oh, well. At least there was nothing hugely alarming, and I get to get new frames, finally. Mine are all pretty beat-up, but I've been holding off until an exam. I usually buy my glasses online because I can't afford hundreds of dollars at a brick-and-mortar. I find they fit well enough and last long enough to satisfy me. I'm pretty hard on them, so I'd rather spend, say, $60US on a pair that I step on than $300--neither one is going to survive that, no matter what Lenscrafters tells you. I found a pair of sparkly, pink, acrylic cat-eyes that I love, so once I get my prescription, I'll get them for myself. Yay!

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thinking about

Tue, 25 Dec 2018 02:12:51 GMT

Thought of Everett Patterson's "José y Maria" today, and how many little references are hidden in it. It's such a neat illustration, and seeing bumper stickers today about America being "full" and that stupid wall getting a bazillion dollars and babies still being separated from parents who wanted safer lives for them... The only volunteer event I could find in Phoenix tomorrow is with the Salvation Army, a hate group. I wish I'd researched this earlier, but hopefully I can come up with something positive to do tomorrow.

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QotD

Mon, 24 Dec 2018 15:56:31 GMT

From yesterday (12/23):

questionoftheday asks: Do you sleep in silence, or do you have to have background noise? Is there a reason for this? How about light? Does it have to be pitch black, or do you need at least a sliver of light to sleep?

My answer: I actually prefer to sleep with the TV or a podcast on, but my husband usually prefers neither. The house is never silent, though, thanks to a noisy fishtank filter, two light-sleeper dogs, a loud neighborhood and a darling husband who snores. I like having some level of white noise because it sets me at ease, but if it's too loud or too interesting (music fails here, which is why I prefer podcasts or TV) it keeps me awake. As for light, I prefer as little light as possible. I'm pretty photosensitive, so darkness is a much-needed break from feeling like my eyeballs are on fire. In our house, pitch blackness isn't really possible (unless we got blackout curtains for every window, which...no...). Unfortunately, I get up a lot at night, and total darkness is not optimal for that, as I always end up tripping over one of the aforementioned dogs or bumping into furniture, etc.

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this is just to say

Mon, 24 Dec 2018 00:40:24 GMT

The rumors may be true...low-rise may...rise again...

Honestly? I like low-rise. I have a fairly boyish figure, even without HRT, and I don't like having tight or non-stretchy fabrics at my waist. That's ED-triggery and physically uncomfortable. My favorite pair of jeans right now are fairly low-slung straight-cut men's jeans, so I am definitely ready for the return of such things. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't daydream about the resurgence of the late-90s delia*s catalog...

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turnabout

Sat, 22 Dec 2018 22:56:41 GMT

I applied to an MEd in ESL at one of our state universities a few weeks ago, when I was wrangling my various certifications and figuring out what to do with my teaching life. I meet the requirements for a provisional ESL certificate here, but the master's would allow me to teach it anywhere. Teaching ESL in the K-12 world means getting to work in an array of content areas, with a range of age groups...I wasn't expecting to be admitted, but I got my informal acceptance notice today, and I'm super excited! Linguistics and teaching--yay! Of course, now I have to do the financial aid/scholarship scramble for the next few months to figure out how I'm going to fund this adventure. That's OK--I'm thrilled to be going back to grad school sooner than I thought.

I'm still taking my literature classes in the spring term. I'm really looking forward to them, and it'll be a fun way to get myself back into the swing of studying and writing regularly. And if I decide to go the comparative lit route later on, those connections could still help. 2019 is looking better and better. I'm excited to study English again, both literature and language. Hooray! I'm also turning over languages in my head, trying to decide which one I want to focus on. I already speak and read Spanish passably well. The contenders are French, German and Japanese. I have solid reasons to study each of them, but I can only pursue one foreign-to-me language at a time (past experience says I just can't juggle more than one). HMM.

Jeffrey and I are heading out to see a performance of The Nutcracker in a few minutes. It's been a good day.

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student blues

Sat, 22 Dec 2018 07:38:08 GMT

One of my favorite things has to be when I see reviews of English professors online where students whine about being expected to read...in 200-level literature courses. I've taught high school English here, so I know that many of the students we send on to college are totally unprepared for any level of collegiate-level reading (I had seniors complain to me about having to read short stories more than half a page in length and legitimately lack the stamina to do so when their mewling came to nothing, never having been expected to read anything remotely rigorous in their lives), but it's still staggering how vehement and offended these kids are. They cannot believe the nerve of these professors, expecting them to do HOURS of reading in an AMERICAN LITERATURE class. And not just some of the reading--you have to do all of it and then write papers using legitimate citations that demonstrate you not only read, but understood the texts and can apply analytical concepts to them?!? This is probably why so many instructors use Norton anthologies here, which I cannot stand. But if you can't reasonably expect your students to read a novel in its entirety, why not?

Anyway, I'm taking three English courses through the community colleges near me in the spring because this Brush with my Mortality has motivated me to pursue graduate English, something I've avoided since before I even completed my bachelor's. I have a master's, but it's in teaching. I was always scared that I'd wash out, be intimidated, etc. in a graduate program, so I refused to try. (There's something in there about the personality disorder that I now work very hard on with a very persistent and patient therapist, but that's for another day.) But fear of death without doing something I truly, madly, deeply love has galvanized me. (None of the possible explanations for my issues thus far has actually been a terminal one, but I always get scared of the worst possible outcomes because, you know, catastrophizing.) I'm very excited about one of them because it's a Gothic Lit class and the professor has Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and CARMILLA on the list. And the actual comics for The Crow. And Radcliffe's Sicilian Romance. It's not just a Brontë/Shelley fest, which is really exciting. Frankenstein is included, which is fine, but I love that she's exploring modern treatments of the gothic and multiple formats, not just The Novel. (Plus Carter is one of my favorite favorites, so, bonus!)

I didn't really make connections with my faculty in undergrad for many reasons, not the least of which was that I was undergoing a profound mental breakdown during most of that time and transferred between five schools before finally graduating) and my grades were not spectacular, so I need to make some now as well as get back into the swing of academic writing.( I got my teaching degree with a 4. 0GPA, though, so I have improved my study habits since undergrad, at least.) That's easier and much less expensive to do at the community college level than it is to do via the graduate non-degree/student-at-large method. I definitely can't afford to pay over a thousand dollars out of pocket to take one class! My GRE scores will be good--they were when I took it the first time, but that was too long ago to use them--I think, so I do stand a chance of getting into a not-super-elite program. My big dream is to teach community college English anyway, so a terminal master's would be enough to get me there. I'm also certified to teach high school English and (next year) ESL, so I don't necessarily have to worry about making a living in the nightmare landscape of adjunct-land. I don't harbor any illusions about full-time tenure track faculty life--this is just something I've always wanted to pursue, and now I'm able to support myself no matter how it turns out, which makes me a little grateful, actually, that I took such a roundabout route.

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Happy Yule/Solstice/Friday!

Fri, 21 Dec 2018 14:42:39 GMT

Yule always makes me think of Dark Williams's "The Christians and the Pagans," so here's that:

And a happy winter holiday to those celebrating one today!

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QotD

Thu, 20 Dec 2018 23:24:42 GMT

questionoftheday asks: What is the most interesting coincidence or series of coincidences that you've experienced? Do you think it was a coincidence, or did you see it as something more?

My answer: I almost never think of anything as coincidental. Call it magical, mystical thinking, but I always think things are connected. Anyway, one of the most fortuitous set of coincidences I've ever experienced was probably getting my alternative ed. teaching job. I moved to Arizona and took a job at a horrible, awful charter school because it was hard to find anything for a first-year teacher from out of state. I quit very soon after the year started because I couldn't be part of the unethical, insane things that were happening. I got a call from the alt. ed. principal who'd randomly pulled my name from the substitute pool and wanted to know if I might be interested in long-term subbing for their English slot, which had just been spontaneously vacated. I was waiting on the state to clear my English cert from Illinois, which their principal did not know, as it wasn't listed in my documents yet. I played phone tag with him for about two weeks until finally going in for an informal interview. I ended up taking the sub job, getting converted to staff and having a radically transformative experience teaching there. I had to quit when the landslide onset of physical disability struck, but I'll always be grateful for the opportunity to spend two years learning and working with those students and staff.

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QotD

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 21:56:21 GMT

questionoftheday asks: Have you ever met anybody important to you (a friend/significant other/etc.) online? How did you meet and are you still close with them? Have you ever met face-to-face?

My answer: No! I'm generally very shy on the internet and hardly ever even "speak" to anyone, let alone meet them in person. The closest experience I have to that is rabbit_paladin, whom I met once, almost 18 years ago, and have kept up with in the ether ever since. I'm trying to be more outgoing online at least, though, so maybe one day!

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in dreams

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 14:32:40 GMT

Normally, my dreams are incredibly boring. I dream about things like putting away laundry, waiting in line at the bank and going to the grocery store. It's embarrassing. Last night, though, I had two exciting ones! In the first, I was traveling to California through what looked like Moab, Utah. I'm not a particularly adventurous person nowadays, and I'm physically disabled, but in the dream, it was like I was my Former Self. I was trail running and sliding down these big hills and climbing--I woke up wishing I could do those things again. Maybe I can, if I modify them somehow? Anyway, there was a sense of urgency about the journey, but I don't really know why. When I got to California, I checked into a fancy hotel, but then the dream shifted so I don't know what was happening there.

In the other dream, I was part of the Harry Potter cast (which makes sense, because Jeffrey and I have been re-reading those books together and watched the first movie again after finishing the first book). We were having a set teardown party, but it was at a gigantic shopping mall. I was saying tearful goodbyes to everybody, but I was supposed to get on the bus to get to the airport. The bus left without me, so I chased down another one on foot and jumped onto it, clinging to some post or something, begging the driver to take a detour. She did, and I raced through the airport, Home Alone-style, to find the person I was traveling with. We met up and boarded the plane. The interesting thing here is that the airport I was flying into was Chicago Midway, and that was "home." I think my unconscious is putting homesickness into overdrive now that I've reinstated my Illinois teaching license.

I think part of the message my unconscious is really trying to send, though, is a sense of freedom. I'm breaking up with medical science, which is allowing me to shift how I take care of my body to something more intuitive and less pathologized. I've gotten my license back, which means I'm very close to getting out of a job I hate. I'm also doing a lot of work on a personal level to remove barriers that I erected myself (for good reason, but they're no longer needed). Yesterday, I did a three-card tarot spread to get myself thinking about the paths I might take. I won't go over the two I did not choose--suffice to say they were grim trudges, much like what I've been slogging away on for the last, oh, 17 years. The third path, the one that made me feel hopeful and probably gave my brain permission to dream about things like travel and adventuring and trail running, was the Page of Pentacles. Here is Rachael Anne Jolie's piece on the Page of Pentacles from her Comrade Femme Tarot series.

I've always wanted a tattoo that said "MANIFEST." Maybe now is the time? It's been difficult to accept that one of the biggest obstacles to living my best life, as the internet says, has been me or, more specifically, my fears. That's understandable, given Reasons, but it's time to face those. A very nice palmist once told me that my cane was a crutch from the past, and that I needed to stop leaning on it. She understood that I needed it sometimes because I do actually have a Disorder. However, she was absolutely right that I have leaned heavily on the notion of being sick, broken, too different to fit in--it's made me feel like a frail outsider, unwelcome everywhere I go. Fear of being torn down, of rejection and of failure has made me unwilling to try, gesturing vaguely at my various disabilities and differences as justification for remaining on the margins when that isn't 100% my situation. It's true that it's probably a bad idea for me to go trail racing through Canyonlands in midsummer. But that doesn't mean everything I long to try is a bad idea. It's time to get out there again, but to consider this time not what everyone else might want or expect, but what I want and need, and to trust that if I get out there in good faith and reach out, friends will be there, not just harpies and vultures waiting for me to fall.

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not otherwise satisfied

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 15:09:47 GMT

Edited to Explain: This post was written right after a visit to my primary care doctor. The first time I brought up a weird symptom to her, she asked, "Why is this the first I'm hearing of this?" despite the fact that I had only ever seen her...once...before that, and it was about something completely different, and this issue was in my old records. This time, I went through everything I could come up with (and stuff my husband helped me remember) because I'm scared and wanted to know if neurology was the way to go, as had been suggested by my urologist, and her response was, "Well, you should be prepared to hear a neurologist say that coming up with a list this long of stuff that could be explained by lots of things just means you have OCD and need to see a shrink." It took hours to come up with this list, and I only gave it to her because she was annoyed last time that I hadn't been Comprehensive.

It's not a secret (though perhaps it should be) that I went through a bit of a riot grrl phase in college. I knew the white feminism in the genre was pervasive and toxic, but what can I say? Kathleen Hanna's angry little girl sound resonated with the parts of me that were processing an abusive suburban upbringing despite our demographic differences. Anyway, there's a line in a song by the Fakes (a Hanna-driven collaborative project) that says:

You teach me I don't know the things I know.
(I know.)

And that's largely how I feel whenever I go to the doctor. ( Continued after the cut... )

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December 2018 Books

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 20:03:14 GMT

Trail of Lightning (Rebecca Roanhorse)
One Salt Sea (Seanan McGuire)
The Black Maria (Aricelis Girmay)
The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror (Mallory Ortberg) DNF
American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America (Linda Godfrey)
Not Here (Hieu Minh Nguyen)

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premature catastrophe: intro post

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 19:54:20 GMT

I decided to match up all of my accounts with roughly the same name, a silly nod to Marimite (マリみて), one of my favorite adorable things. (Can I say how sad it made me that I couldn't find any fansites or shrines or anything when I looked for a link other than a wiki? The Internet is a cold, barren place.) Anyway, Rosa sericea is known as the silky or winged thorny rose:

Left: Silky rose blossoms (white, open flowers with orange anthers and yellow filaments). Right: Silky rose stems with wide, bright red thorns.

Anyway, I was on LJ for a million years, Tumblr for a few years...I've never been very fannish, though, so getting my footing on Dreamwidth has been a bit of a challenge. Most of my identifiers are kind of in flux right now, but I'm in my 30s for a few more years. I'm queer and married. I'm disabled and an English educator by training. I love sweet, cute things and also true crime books and podcasts about bizarre serial murder. David Lynch and David Fincher are my favorite directors. Favorite bands include alt country, old college rock, hardcore punk, goth, shoegaze, thrash metal and twee-ish artists, but my favorite Musicians currently Musicking are Zoe Keating and PJ Harvey. I Read, and love a good fairy tale treatment.

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