http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/26/musical-synchronicity-of-a-certain-miserable-sort/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18704

It may just be me, but I think the lead characters of these respective and currently popular songs deserve each other. Listening to the lyrics will help to explain why.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/26/dont-go-into-the-basement/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18701

If you’re a vegetarian, that is, because the standing freezer down there is now full with roughly 250 pounds of beef. Krissy went in with a co-worker on half of a locally bred and butchered steer, and her quarter of a steer is now taking up several shelves in the freezer. Athena, who is our resident vegetarian, registers her (entirely posed) horror.

Actually, this is a fine moment to note that Athena recently passed her one year anniversary of being a vegetarian a few weeks ago. She started doing it to see what she thought of it and has kept at it ever since, with all of us doing a bit of research to make sure she’s getting all the nutrients she needs and so on. It does take some effort to keep a vegetarian lifestyle around here — Athena is one of the very few in her school who does — so I’m pretty proud of her for making the choice and sticking with it.

Massive purchase of beef notwithstanding, we’ve all cut down our consumption of meat here at the Scalzi Compound (the massive purchase will last us quite a long time), and Athena’s commitment to not eating the stuff is the major reason why. So good on my kid.

How long does it take for a new cat and the old ones to stop hissing at each other? I want to give Reba a chance to settle before I give up, but Mulder and Gytha have to feel safe in their own home.

I just had a fascinating conversation about restoring the metalwork in historic buildings with a guy dressed as a Klingon. God, I love conventions. ♥

The past week, foreshortened by recovery and then my mom's birthday dinner and the lecture, has been much about me utterly unable to focus. I didn't know why - my brain WANTED to work, and there is, dog knows, enough work for me to be doing....

And then I thought about what I'd said in an earlier entry, how my apartment didn't seem quite 'right' to me when I got back, and thought about past periods of distraction, and went "oh." Because I'm very smart, but sometimes not so bright.

So today - in between passes of writing - has been all about cleaning and sorting and the usual summertime rearranging of furniture (moving the sofa so it doesn't block the AC, etc). Because I am very fond of CatSitter B, but her staying here had made it not-quite-so-much-my-own-place. And now it's mine again, properly sorted and everything where I want it to be.

I suspect the focus will be much more, well, focused, going forward.


(it had BETTER be. So damn much to do OMG)

I filled out the functionality report this week, which is a many-pages-long form that they send you when you apply for disability. You have to fill it out and send it back, and they use your answers to help them decide how fucked up you are.

What a bastard.

I had not expected it to be as difficult as it was. It's like the world's worst homework. Ever.

First, the Y/N questions. "Do you finish what you start? (For example, conversations, chores, watching movies, reading books.) Y/N" "Are you able to leave the house? Y/N" "Do you prepare your own meals? Y/N"

HOW ABOUT "Y/N/SOMETIMES?" Radical notion.

Most of those questions came with a space for you to explain any "no" answers, so I put down "no," and explained the shit out of that. But some were just Y/N, and left sitting there on the page like an unburied cat poop.

That was just annoying, though. That wasn't really painful.

What was painful were the six lines they give you to answer "Explain how your condition affects you."

I told Bat_Cheva that I could do it in four words: "Fucks my shit up." But they want specifics. "Fucks my shit up on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. . . ." is not the sort of specifics they want.

Maybe for someone who is missing part of a leg or has no arms or is blind it is easy to describe how you are affected. At least the people looking over the application most likely have arms and legs and eyes and so on, and therefore no matter how stupid or non-empathic they are, must have at least a rudimentary idea of what those parts are used for and what it might be like to not have them.

With mental illness, not so much. Being crazy fucks up parts of your mind you didn't even know you had. Parts of your mind that lots of people don't even believe in. Like, all those "You can choose to be happy!" people who are all "You can look at the negative or the positive, so look at the positive, and everything will be fine!" and don't just apply it to themselves, but to you, too? Those people? They Do Not Get It. I can look at the positive all I want -- I do -- but when the problem is "I am frequently incapable of feeling happy, or even somewhat content," all the half-full glasses in the world won't do a damn thing to change that.

So you are left trying to describe the horrific thing that is devouring your life to someone who a) does not know you and therefore does not in any way care, b) is motivated to find reasons to reject you, and c) might not even understand that depression is a real thing that screws up even the most basic parts of your life.

Then there was the part where you have two lines to explain how your social life has changed since you became disabled, or describe what things you are no longer able to do that you used to be able to do, or the bit where it asks how often you are able to do things that normal people do every day and you have to admit that you are able to do them maybe a couple times a week, if it's a good week.

Or they part where they ask you to describe your typical day, and you do, and then you feel like a pathetic failure because it goes pretty much like this:

Get up. Brush teeth. Get reminded three times to take your fucking pills. Surf the internet. Wait for someone else to cook your goddamn food. Try to write something meaningful. Fail. Watch Youtube videos of explosions and bathtub farts. Try to make something pretty. Fail more often than not. Think about calling a friend. Decide that the phone is evil and should be avoided. Play video games. Think about doing some chores. Decide that you would rather give yourself a lobotomy with a rusty icepick. Watch a movie. Fall asleep halfway through. Answer some email. Pet the cat. Maybe take a shower. Go to bed. Get up, take pills you forgot to take. Go back to bed. Sleep badly. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Which, admittedly, describes a not-very-functional person's day, but you try writing that about yourself without feeling crappy about it.

It's not that I judge other people for being this way, or judge myself. It's that I hate that I -- or anyone -- must live with this. It's that it genuinely does suck, it sucks unbelievably, and having to describe it is so depressing. Especially when odds are good that they will look at this and somehow decide "Yeah, this person could totally go and get themselves a 40-hour job and support themselves without going completely off the deep end."

It doesn't help that my typical day during which I am supposedly disabled looks a whole fucking hell of a lot like most folks' days off. You know, excluding the failing at doing anything constrictive bit, and the part where I am crushingly depressed some days, and the bit where I can't cope with normal things like going three different places in one day or making food for myself or cleaning up the goddamn kitchen.

Frankly, most of my time involves sitting around desperately bored and wanting to do something else, and wishing like hell I felt like doing something else. And we are taught from a very young age that this is wrong. Not just an incorrect way of feeling, like giving the wrong answer to a simple question, but a moral failing. When you say "I wanted to go and paint and I tried and I couldn't," or "I wanted to write, but I couldn't," or "I wanted to get my room cleaned up, but I couldn't," people hear "I didn't want it enough."

Believe me. I want it. I want it so fucking bad. But we are taught that if we want something really badly, we can get it. You just have to want it enough. We aren't taught that sometimes, just wanting will not bridge the gap between desire and ability to execute that desire. We are not taught that we may have drives and desires and hopes and dreams that cannot be fulfilled. We aren't taught how to deal with that, not for ourselves, and not when we encounter it in others. And when people like me complain that we are not made for what we want to do, we are told we are spoiled, that we expect engraved invitations and silver platters, that we should be ashamed, and we should shut up and work harder. Or we are told that we should want something else, as if it is just that easy.

During the evaluation for the low-cost mental health care I'm in the process of getting, the trainee doing my intake survey asked me "What is your purpose in life? What is your goal, what do you want?"

I thought about it, and I told her that at one point I would have said "It's to be the best companion I can be, the best person, the best friend and partner. To be a good person. I am here to make the world a better place."

Then I explained that, fuck that shit, I want to be the best at doing the things that only I can do. I want to write the stories only I can write and make the art only I can make. As far as I am concerned, that is why I am here. That is what I have to offer that no other human being could possibly offer. Yes, I want to make the world a better place. I want to do it by expressing myself fully, not by trying to make other people happy.

I am a good companion, a good person. Not perfect, but pretty good. It's not what I'd call easy, and I am working within some limitations, but I can do it. I don't need to make it a goal. I am already there, and part of being there is that you never stop trying to be a better person. So, you know, I actually think I'm doing okay there.

I certainly don't need to make my value to other people as defined by what those people consider valuable part of my goal in life. If I did, I'd go back to starving myself. I'd have gone to college.

I only need to care about the things that make me valuable to me. And that is what is fucking murdering me by inches every day. Those things, the things that I love and which define me to me -- specifically, the writing -- are inaccessible. Gone. The things I care about most are out of my reach. The things that make me me are out of my reach. I am unable to be myself in the ways that mean the most to me.

THAT is the effect that this shit has had on my life.

That is what I cannot put into six lines or less, and what they probably would not care about even if I did, because all that matters to the government is whether I can Keep A Job, no matter how soulless. I'm so goddamn broken-down from not even being able to be myself, there is not a chance in hell I could Keep A Job, even a wonderful one. I can't even cope with scooping the goddamn cat litter, or washing my sheets. I can barely cope with having a set time to get up once a week. Twice a week is out of the question. How in the name of Zeus' butthole could I work 40 hours a week? I am not kidding when I say that even if I was working at the all-day kitten-snuggling and incredibly attractive Brazilian model grooming and obedience training day center, I still could not do it every day. That, my friends, is sad.

So I had to finish that seven-page travesty and turn it in, with all the weight of what cannot be expressed in a few short answers to a few inadequate questions pressing in on me, and all the things I cannot say suffocating me slowly, with the knowledge that it will most likely be denied. That my human pain will be weighed, measured, and found wanting.

But I still fucking did it.

I think I did a pretty good job, and I feel sort of like a rock star.

Mad props to Sargon, who also filled out the version of the quiz for the person who knows you best, which can't have been easy. But I can't write about that, because I didn't have to do it. If I get through this at all, it will be because of him.

X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:

A stand-alone SF novel.

Publication year: 1962
Format: Audio
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Narrator: Kevin Foley
Running Time: 8 hrs and 20 minutes

( Read more... )

For many of us who grew up in the 1970s, Paul Williams was a constant presence, whether he was on TV or on the radio. He wrote the themes for "Love Boat" and "The Muppet Show," among others. At the time, I think everyone identified with one or another of his songs. For my mom, it was "You and Me Against the World." For me, it was "Rainbow Connection," which I learned to play on my guitar and which I suspect I still can if I fiddle about with it first. He was one of the people in the media who defined the era for me. When I saw the trailer for the documentary about him, Paul Williams Still Alive, I went back and forth about seeing it, and then I decided that my awareness of his presence in that era had been too important for me to miss this film. I felt compelled by that experience, so I went. shelly_rae joined me for the movie.

Stephen Kessler, the director, approaches the story as a fan would: I thought Williams was dead; turns out he's very much alive and well; what's he up to? Williams is not an especially willing or cooperative subject for a documentary. He comes across as baffled by Kessler's interest and a little cantankerous about the project. But once he proposes that Kessler step in front of the camera with him, that they just talk about stuff, things begin to change as does the nature of the project. The film goes from being a documentary about Williams' rise, fall, and recovery to a sort of road movie/buddy flick about the filmmaker and the musician getting to know each other, with Kessler's almost Woody Allen-esque voice-over telling the story. The film, of course, is rich with archival footage of Williams in movies and on television, live performances, and contemporary footage of him, his wife, his longtime music director, and Kessler on the road traveling from gig to gig and talking about Williams' life and career. The movie doesn't dwell overmuch on Williams' addiction and recovery, though pretty revealing moments in the interviews show just how much that experience has colored and changed Williams as a person (he's now a certified recovery counselor and speaks on the subject). But he's also still very much active as a composer and performer, and is the current president of ASCAP about which he is quite passionate. Overall, the documentary isn't anything usual--it's funny and poignant and, in embracing the serendipity of Williams' proposal to step into the frame, Kessler has created a very personal story about two guys--who just happen to be idol and fan--getting to know each other in a unique way. I definitely recommend it.

Kessler and Williams were at the theater for Q&A after the movie, and I stayed to listen. Williams talked with conviction about his work as the president of ASCAP defending the rights of artists. He talked about how "Rainbow Connection," "Evergreeen," and "With One More Look at You" (from A Star is Born) were all written. He talked about working with Brian de Palma on Phantom of the Paradise. He was funny and generous with the audience. Kessler pretty much ceded the stage to Williams though he'd had his moment before the film began, and was very sweet about the whole project.

After they finished their Q&A, Williams and Kessler came down to the side of the theater and talked to audience members. And that's when I realized why I was really there. Sure, I'd been a fan of Williams' work, but I was also there for my mom, to whom "You and Me Against the World" had meant so much. So I went up to him, and I told him I didn't want an autograph or a picture, just to thank him for that song and told him why. He asked me my name, and told me that that's the sort of feedback that meant the most to him, that the song touched someone or made a difference to them. He said that, having been mostly a weekend dad, the song meant a lot to him too. He asked if my mom was still with us; I told him no, but that I was there for her. He was gracious and kind, and held my hand the whole time we talked. I thanked him for his time and then took off, since others were waiting to speak with him. I was really very impressed with him, and I'm glad we got to talk.

Yesterday was even more entertaining that Thursday. I cracked my happy ass out of bed extremely late by my own standards, hit the health club for some time on the stationary bike, then caught breakfast in the Green Room. After some bloggery and email time and whatnot, I had my massage — And how cool is it that World Steam Expo has a masseur on retainer for the pros!? — and then went exploring. This eventually involved use of the hot tub, among other things.

I spent a decent chunk of the day hanging out with the inestimable Howard Tayler, who created a truly impressive steampunk caricature of me. (When I get home, I shall scan and post this, but at the moment it is my badge art.) Howard is his own self hanging out in the Aegis room, which is basically a camp for combat geeks. Inside the Con hotel, these cats have a rappelling tower, weapons training with actual pointy objects, a bunch of Nerf weapons, and a Victorian encampment. They are pretty much a real life incarnation of the Black Briar group in J.A. Pitt's Black Blade Blues [ Powells | BN ]. The Aegis group helped me make a notable entrance to opening ceremonies.

Also spent a lot more time partying with The League of S.T.E.A.M. and a whole bunch of other folks, including briefly running across the few people besides Howard that I actually knew before I turned up here. Specifically, Gail Carriger, G.D. Falksen (who has an important planet named after him in the Sunspin universe) and Evelyn Kriete (who is responsible for me being invited to this convention). I caught the last part of the The Men That Will Not be Blamed for Nothing concert.

I even got a bit more work done on Going to Extremes.

Today I have lunch with Howard, a High Tea to host, and a plan to hear some more excellent performances. A bit more programming tomorrow.

Interestingly, I am way off my normal schedule here, even my normal convention schedule. I'm not sure what clock I'm living on, but it's neither Jay time nor Con time. I'm just going with the flow. Which it turns out is remarkably difficult for me to do. I feel twitchy about not being up at 5 am exercising (hard to do when you're going to bed at 2 am) and why I'm not writing more.

But I'm here to have fun, which I am decidedly doing; and to see and be seen, which I am decidedly doing.

Is this what time off feels like?