I’m breaking up with you. From now on, you’re just another human being I’m related to, not my poor pitiful long-suffering mother or personal cross to bear or anything else that resembles a shadowstep in the waltz of recursive martyrdom you try and bully me into dancing with you, just because I’m your daughter.
Go check out this beautiful rant by Joy Nash on being fat in our culture - I’ve tried to embed it but the YouTube code keeps horking my wa, so you’ll have to be clicky instead. I found it on Ariel Fox’s blog, posted in honor of Love Your Body Day, which I sadly missed… not surprising considering I love my doctor more than my body at the moment.
Check out Ariel’s way cool Sticker Sisters loot while you’re at it - it’s pro-woman so scary to lots of people who damn well need to be scared. I particularly like the “I Fight Like A Girl” poster - oh yeah baby.
This is fucking upsetting - I was rambling about the blogosphere this morning, merrily tripping down a thoughtpath from writing to writers to other writers and ended up on a blog I’ve never seen before but really liked. Checking out the sidebars, I see that this blogger did a blogathon last August to benefit the National Fibromyalgia Research Association through her Zazzle store. This is a cool thing, I think, because I have fibro and am getting better and it’s amazing how much people don’t know about it so research and public education are all to the good, so I look at the Zazzle store and there are tee shirts and I feel like I’ve been slapped across the face.
The first 5 tee shirts I get - either Fibro Friend or Fibro Caretaker or Hug Gently (gods I know that one - I hate it when it hurts to be touched) or Friend in Pain are all messages that inspire questions and thus are opportunities to raise awareness. The last two I have a major issue with - they proclaim, respectively, that the wearer is Disabled or Broken. To which I can only reply, despite the no doubt best intentions of the person who created these shirts for sale and most certainly not directed at her specifically, but more at the universe and at the mindset that this sort of abject labeling is okay…
Fuck You.
I am not broken.
I have never been broken and I will never be broken. I’m not a clay doll or some other subhuman overobjectified girlthing that can be taken out of its shiny pink can and rattled around and banged on the floor then stuffed back inside when cracks start to show, when chunks split and flake off, when juice starts leaking out. I am a human being, and parts of me have been broken, yes - bones, specifically, and my internal thermostat in general after getting severe heat stroke, and on regular occasions a fingernail or two - but I as an entity, as a human being, am not broken with the implied semiotic associations of defective and disposable simply because I have chronic pain and fatigue and many of the other fun things that go with fibromyalgia so have to take vitamin and mineral supplements and get enough rest and eat right and pay attention to my body in a culture that asks me to deny it to the eradication of self if it’s not Barbie-perfect.
I have to wonder at the mindset of someone willing to assume the label of “broken.” Are they asking for a lifetime hall pass for whatever they don’t feel like dealing with? Are they genuinely convinced that it will never get any better and this is what their life is relegated to? Is it tongue-in-cheek, ironic or sarcastic? What the fuck?
When I was first diagnosed with fibro back in July I had a problem with the diagnosis - mind you, I’d gone to my doctor with the comment that all my stuff sure resembled fibro, but argued that it couldn’t be because of course I was in constant pain, I’d broken too many bones and had osteoarthritis in my neck and knees and and and… she gently pointed out to me that bodies heal and that it’s not normal to have constant pain at the site of an old break years later. Much less at the site of every break. And at other sites that were not directly associated with broken bones or soft tissue damage. Or to have to sleep 12 -15 hours a day to feel clearheaded and able to focus. She was right. It’s not normal. But it’s also not a permanent state of being, despite Western medicine’s lack of a cure. She offered me prescriptions for antidepressants and NSAIDs - an SSRI would help somewhat with the constant pain and the NSAID would help somewhat more. The thinking in Western med is that fibro is somehow triggered by a sleep disorder - they have no cure for the disorder, don’t fully understand its causes yet, but the bandaid logic is that if you lessen the pain you can relax enough to sleep, the body can heal and refresh, which lessens the pain some more, relieving some of the fatigue, and so on and so forth. It doesn’t work for many people, and I wasn’t willing to dope myself up on the off chance it wouldn’t totally fuck me up, so I refused the meds. Instead, I went on the internet, my source of all things wacky and informational.
First thing I found were support groups. I get that as they stand, they work for some people, but after skimming the posts for a few days on the couple of groups I joined, I was suicidal or homicidal, take your pick. I’ve rationalized that everybody there was using the forum to vent to others who got it, but what it felt like to me was a big whine-fest. Some of the most vocal were also some of the most helpless by choice. It’s a vicious cycle - in pain, nothing works to relieve the pain, feelings of hopelessness and depression set in, pain becomes the focus so feels worse, still nothing works, etc. That’s a cycle I can never let myself fall into. It’s a place I simply will not go. I bore the pain for years, back into my teens as long as I remember it was always there - between one injury and another sparking pain into a slow burn that accelerated into a conflagration I ignored because it was one more barrier between me and a life I wasn’t having any fun in. I like my life now and am no longer willing to live with the pain, to bear it like a dumb animal with no hope or realization that there can be another way. Those support groups don’t see that there can be another way, they accept what is as what must be. Fuck that too.
I’m doing better now, taking one day at a time and experimenting with some new boundaries around what I am and am not willing to tolerate for myself. Sleep, enough sleep as represented by enough time to lie down and rest because I am not cramming my day full of busywork or running so fast I can’t feel anything but pain nipping at my heels or clawing into my spine, has become my lodestone. With enough sleep, anything is possible. Without it, I’m a bombed-out shell of myself. Cutting down on sugar and caffeine has been amazing - when I go for the fudge or the double latte at 4:0 p.m. I pay a price within 48 hours - not instant feedback but pretty damned close. I cried when I first came home with the eight bottles of vitamins and minerals and supplements that, by group and preliminary scientific consensus, seem to be effective in treating fibro. Never mind that most of them - the multivitamin, the mineral supplement, the glucosamine/chondroitin horsepills - are things I feel better taking anyway. The others are optional, and a few I’ve stopped as they seem to have no real benefit, but that first day that I stood at my dining room table and took the wrapper off each bottle felt like I was capitulating to something insidious.
I’ve come to realize that it’s just maintenance, like sleep and exercise and real food - taking care of myself. I’ve been getting regular acupuncture treatments at the doctoral pain clinic at my school and have had entire days with no pain for the first time in years. My energy is returning as well… maybe I’m not quite at my Type-AAA personality zoom levels, then again, maybe I should never go back there whether I am able to or not. Maybe it’s not the best way to go through life - running as fast as I can to avoid being present. I’ve been down the last week with the flu from hell that’s going around, but if I hadn’t been laid up, I would have been going for walks. That’s how healing works for me. One foot in front of the other and keep moving. When it gets overwhelming, which it sometimes does, I remind myself that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, and since it’s a big fucking elephant, I’ll eat while I walk. I have been folded, spindled, mutilated and bent, but I am not broken.
Cybele’s bloggy goodness I do good to remember:
“Lower your expectations, broaden your horizons. Life’s too short to keep talking yourself out of it. It goes for most other things in my life: If you want to do something, stop listing the things in your way and just do it. You wanna run, start running. Worry about distances later, worry about shoes later. You wanna write, start writing. Worry about publishing and format later. Do it now and if you want to do it better, do it again.”
And a funny passed along by herself on the Failures of the Bush Administration (originally from The Daily Show):
Abu Graib
Bin Laden
Chalabi
Deficit
Enron
Failure to find WMDs
Halliburton
Iraq
John Bolton
Katrina
Locusts
Mars Attacks
North Korea
Osama & Jenna
Pregnancy: Osama & Jenna
Queer Revolt
Rodents of Ununsual Size
Syrian War
Tigers
Unicyclist, Nuclear
Voldemort
WW III
X-Rated Tape: Osama & Jenna
Yam Shortage
Zero People Left on Earth
And an even funnier perpetrated by Amazon on John Scalzi (via *my* recommendations page at Amazon) - everybody’s blinking innocently at everyone else at mention of the butt plug and his novel Old Man’s War being somehow conflated into mutual reference.
The Grand Poobah has been posting over at LAVoice - he write pretty.
Finally, it’s Talk Like A Pirate Day!!! Arrrr….
We can never rest, never surrender, though justice may not be served in time for the living.
By whose definition? Hat tip to Joe Katzman of Winds of Change for the link that led me to the comments. North Korea, Bosnia, Sudan… I’d rather not go on. But they put the lie to “never again” - we musn’t forget that. Ever.
No, it’s not the latest bumper sticker for my new car, it’s how I’m feeling… not that I wouldn’t like to sleep. In fact, I’d like to very much. Just seems like I can’t manage enough of it lately. All kinds of things in my head about that - I come from a line of people who don’t need more than 4-5 hours a night. I’m dating a guy who doesn’t need more than 5-6 hours a night. I need 6-8, depending on how much exercise I’ve been getting, how much the job has been eating my brain, how much pain I’ve been in with the knees and other crap I’ve been dealing with lately that I’ve been too grumpy to blog about (I have standards here… I believe that a good blog entry should have more than just a string of profanities in 7 different languages). If I’m writing and on a burn with it, I’ll wake up after about 6 hours all rarin’ to go and hit the keyboard, the notepad… hell, I’ll even scribble on the back flaps of a paperback if that’s all I’ve got close to the bed and pen (note to self, keep notebook next to bed for writing emergencies). I feel like a wimp. I should be able to get by on less sleep and function just fine. THEY all do it. Bastards.
*whimper*
So of late, I’m not punch-drunk, exactly. I just feel all muzzy and greyed out in my head, like a screenfull of static is playing an endless loop in my mind. Part of the exhaustion has been a new learning curve at the day job, part of it has been dealing with assorted and sundry physical stuff, and part of it has been wondering what to do next. I’m tempted to hole up in my apartment with 5 boxes of pizza, a couple liters of Coke, and my PlayStation and ignore everything, but since that would only get me even more overstimulated than I already am and would definitely not lead to restful sleep in any way, I’m thinking not. Charming an image as it is ;->
Maybe I need Provigil. Maybe I need more sleep. Maybe I need someone to protect me from the clowns in my head by beating me repeatedly over same until I pass out and thus get rest. Think I’ll get a triple latte instead. Hey, it’s a stopgap, and no post-concussion syndrome (BTDT - no thank you very much). And look ma, well-caffeinated, I’m writing! I even got a rhyme in there. Sorta.
Zombyboy and Tacitus have both made some excellent points by way of mild- and not-so-mild-mannered rants about Spain’s prime minister-elect, Zapato, and his intended withdrawal of Spanish forces from Iraq.
I can only echo that standing fast in the fire obviously isn’t in Zapato’s mind, nor is any real acknowledgement of Spain’s cultural and remembered significance for modern Arabs as a glorious and shining light of Islamic civilization during the reign of the Umayyad caliphs who had fled there to escape from Abbasid rule in Damascus in 711 CE, and remained there until King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella reconquered all of Andalusia for their Christian empire in 1492 CE (when they also kicked the Jews out of Spain).
Fact is, radical Islam lives in an even more romanticized and twisted version of the past than the rest of the Islamic world, and can never forget that Islam once ruled in Europe. Many Arabs have never forgiven Spain for the loss of Al-Andalus and consider losing such a jewel in the crown of Islam a burning insult gone unpunished. Spain was a logical target by radical Islamist standards for that alone by way of payback for seeming historical wrongs; being our ally didn’t bring this on them, being Spanish did. Maybe Zapatero thinks that if he runs back inside and hides under the bed, the bad men he told to stay off the lawn won’t burn down his house.
I think Hezbollah’s announcement after the recent prisoner exchange with Israel speaks for itself: Hezbollah: Group May Kidnap More Israelis. Why, you readers three might ask? So they can free more Lebanese prisoners.
Yeah, that whole negotiation thing is really working out there, isn’t it? Next Israel will be trying to deter suicide bombers by paying for makeup artists to primp the wanna-be martyrs at their final photo shoots - make ‘em purty enough, they won’t want to die. I can see the headline now: “Hezbollah: Our Martyrs Say They’ve Never Looked So Good, Are Thrilled To Die Young And Leave A Beautiful Corpse” Wait, didn’t The Onion already run that one?
This isn’t gonna be a regular post, I won’t stay on topic, and most likely none of it will make sense. But that’s okey-dokey. (It’s the new, improved, mellower me… see how long it lasts.) (Oh, about five minutes.) I’ve been reading the LA Times website, much to my mellower me’s chagrin - everything I see is making me feel disgruntled and fluffy.
I don’t hate this, especially if the fees collected are put toward mitigating the public heath costs incurred by those people who simply won’t pay attention to what and how they eat, then have the nerve to be surprised when the fire department has to cut them out of their toilet, bedroom, car, whatever, in order to transport them to the hospital in the event of a medical emergency. Being freed by the Jaws of Life ain’t free, ya know. It’s a matter of personal choice and responsibility right up to the point that my tax dollars are going to pay for someone else’s poor choices and lack of personal responsibility. Same thing with the helmet laws. And yeah, that’s a broad, sweeping generalization and patently unfair to a lot of folks, but I’m all seditious and irritated about my tax burden right now, so deal with it.
And another thing that’s fucked up - finders-keepers, losers-weepers? The woman loses her dog, finds it again, only to be told it’s no longer her dog? At that point it’s called kidnapping - she should sue for emotional damages and whatever’s the most expensive charge that would result in the greatest public outcry. The new *owner* (heartless bitch) of the dog in question should be slapped upside the head and possibly smacked around a bit too - and her house should be TP’ed. What ever happened to common decency, much less a sense of honor, honesty or justice? (Yes, I get the irony in the previous two statements being strung alongside each other - reference the above fluffy and seditious state of my brainpan and deal with it.) Just because I find an empty wallet on the street and decide that I like the wallet doesn’t mean that I get to keep it if the original owner shows up - it’s still someone else’s property.
Back to my tax woes, ‘cuz I’ve gotta bitch to someone and I’ve already bitched to almost everyone I’ve spoken to on the phone recently and they’re tired of hearing about it - I changed my filing status from married claiming 8 deductions because of the house, to single claiming 2 deductions ‘cuz I am no longer landed gentry nor married. The dang-gummed gummint is taking another $800/month outta my wallet. Gol-dangnabbit revenoooers! I’m gonna go take over a small island, or possibly just a relatively stable sandbar in the middle of a wide and muddy river, and glare menacingly at anyone who looks remotely like a G-man. And I’m gonna make all my own moonshine and grow my own carrots. Anybody who doesn’t like it can shoo. Worst part is, that was my gun money. No shiny new toys for me for a while. *harrumph*