serizawa3000

Once more into the fray.
Into the last good fight I'll ever know.
Live and die on this day.
Live and die on this day.

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Indeed, it is my birthday. And here I am, some -08 years after my unlikely birth in the year 1964 (of the Gregorian calendar). And, oh my mother fucking god, I just fucking realized something amazing! 1964 was a leap year, so, on years that are not leap years (like this one), my birthday is actually May 27th. Motherfucker. Weird. Anyway, my thanks to everyone who has sent well wishes and gifts. There are truly too many of you. It makes my head swim a bit. Life may be a steaming shitstorm, but at least there's you lot, kittens.

I'm hoping that I will soon be able to make an announcement about the future of the Alabaster comic. Hang tight.

Spooky is having a Caitlín Was (Most Years) Actually Born on the 27th of May Sale in her Dreaming Squid Dollworks and Sundries Etsy Shop. Cool and bow-tie stuff, with FREE SHIPPING, which will run through Monday. In order to take advantage of the sale, you need to use this code during checkout: CRKBIRTHDAY.

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Last night was Kindernacht, of course. After the ritual of an atomic fireball (complimentary from Acme Video), we began our double feature with Olivier Megaton's Colombiana (2011; a film made with the involvement of such film heroes of mine as Luc Besson, Ridley Scott, and Tony Scott). A very enjoyable crime thriller, and, hey, a big dose of Zoe Saldana! Also, Cliff Curtis, and I never get enough of him. The film is smarter and darker than I expected. The ending didn't flinch from the logical consequences following from it's events, a thing always and forever to be admired.

But, Colombiana paled into insignificance by the unexpected jolt of our second feature, Joe Carnahan's The Grey (2011), which I'd not heard of and picked up based on the synopsis on the box and the fact I find Liam Neeson sexy. Anyway, now, here's the director who made Smokin Aces (2002) (a good film, but...) and (**cough cough**) The A-Team (2010). The very last person on earth – okay, that's a lie. Still. Not the man I'd have expected to make the best film I've seen since Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (2011). I am not heaping hyperbole. This film instills one with a nigh unto indescribable sense of cosmic wonder and dread, and it is beautiful. The cinematography (Masanobu Takayanagi) and the score (Marc Streitenfeld) went a long way to setting this film on the road to brilliance, and every performance is marvelous. Okay, I'm saying too much. You simply have to see it. Please. Trust me.

And Now I'm Even Older,
Aunt Beast

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:

Оригинал взят у ochendaje в Деревянные куклы от Юлии Сочилиной

Ok so I am back for a longer post this time :) Basically just a bunch a photos!
( Life )

I named a character once in The Bone Palace, an offhand reference that didn't warrant an entry in the dramatis personae but is still in print. Now I find myself needing to write more about that character and a) not liking his name much anymore, and b) finding it a bit too similar to someone else who shows up quite often. How many of you would be wildly irritated if I changed someone's name between books? (I doubt most people even remember that he was ever mentioned, but somewhere out there is the reader who will.)

I thought I'd go with an astronomy/sci-fi theme today and for the next two Fridays :)
~~~~~~~~~~
Albedo \al-ˈbē-(ˌ)dō\: : reflective power;
specifically : the fraction of incident radiation (as light) that is reflected by a surface or body (as the moon or a cloud)

Etymology: Late Latin, whiteness, from Latin albus

Trillian found this darling house spider and her eggs in one of the cabinets working hard to guard our food! She is part of our army. I did a few macro shots of her egg basket too -- looks like we're about to have 50 babies!!! Cigars for everyone!

She's about the size of a lentil, her eggs might be the size of pinheads.

( behind this cut to avoid the freaking out of the people who would freak out if there was a spider in front of this cut )

Thanks to whafford for being the voice activated light stand.

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[Roller Derby Portraits]

For anyone near Copenhagen next weekend I'm a Guest of Honor with Alistair Reynolds at the Danish annual convention Fantasticon. For anyone in the vicinity, here's a link to the website and my schedule: (I'm not sure what a few of the panels will entail but am assured I will be told :-) )

http://fantasticon.dk/fantasticon2012/

Friday 17:00-17:20, Kultursalen
Opening ceremony
Everybody

Friday 17:30-19:00, Cafeen
Videnskabcafeen: The dead, the undead and the vampire romance
Ellen Datlow, Stig W. Jørgensen, Steen Langstrup, Gert Balling (m)

Saturday 12:00-12:50, Kultursalen
Stories we haven’t seen: The good short story
Ellen Datlow, Knud Larn, Henrik Harksen, H.H. Løyche, Ralan Conley (m)

Saturday 2:00 p.m. to 2:50 p.m., Heerupsalen
interview Ellen Datlow
Ellen Datlow, Ahn Lars Pedersen (i)
Saturday 15:00-15:50, Kultursalen
Genres – Necessary distinction or annoying restriction?
Ellen Datlow, Alastair Reynolds, Anne-Marie Vedsø Olesen, Stig W. Jørgensen (m)

Saturday 20:15-??, Festsalen
The banquet

Sunday 13:00-13:50, Heerupsalen
The fairy tale in modern fiction
Ellen Datlow, Nicolas Barbano, Lars Ahn Pedersen (m)

Sunday 17:00-17:50, Heerupsalen
The last panel – final remarks before the convention (end the world?) ends.
Ellen Datlow, Alastair Reynolds, Klaus Æ. Mogensen (m)

After my long absence I return with the newest chapter of my story Criminal.

Criminal Seventeen
Also, the other chapters can be found on my page.

FEEDBACK WOULD BE APPRECIATED, especially if you've read previous chapters.
Thank you, Lydia.