somniloquence

It's been so long again! I swear I am going to do my Bear season 3 and Grand Unified Theory of Season 3s soon! Really, I will! Today is not that day, though.

It feels so weird to not be doing Yuletide this year. I literally don't understand what to do with myself, because this time of year is always spent with 1) birthday fic panic and 2) Yuletide panic. But this year, I was up against the dreaded "there is nothing I want/can write that anyone else wants/offers" and I'd either end up not being able to get matched (this has happened to me before) or having to find something popular that I could match on and being stuck.

Also, last year was one of those rare years where I got my dream assignment (I've had those a few times and it's so fucking great), and it was also kind of my dream assignment because I'd wanted to write it for a looong time and one of my dearest friends requested it, so I knew all of her happy places and it just worked out so perfectly... Those have been my fave Yuletide fics, I look back on them so fondly because I not only got to write someone else's dream, but my own came true as well. And those years, so so rare, where you not only get to write your dream but someone else writes you your "someday, my prince will come" true love fic?? Hard to top.

So in a way, that kind of helped me make the decision to skip this year, but it just feels so wrong after so many years! I have to see if I can find some way, somehow, to actually write a birthday fic. My b-day is on Thanksgiving this year, and it's a milestone one, so I was feeling...incredibly weepy about it. I used to love Thanksgiving, not because of the meaning of the day (with its baked-in colonialist racism) but just because of the food and I always loved it when sis_r and I had our birthday on it, because it was like best food AND birthday cake. I'm ashamed to say I got super weepy about being alone this year, knowing I'd be sick because I have chemo the day before, in front of my ex, and he texted me a few hours later and said "It's official and there's no arguing, you're coming over for thanksgiving." His wife is an amazing cook, they live a few blocks away, so...it's something. I won't be lonesome all day, at least. It's not the same without my sister, of course, but what is.

I am starting a new drug regimen today (copyeditor life complaint: WHY can no one get this right? It's regimen, not regime (system of government) or regiment (military unit); this drives me nuts), some of which is forced by my insurance, grrr, but I've been plateaued on my most important number marker for whether I can achieve a remission for over seven months, and my oncologist told me about stuff we could do. I chose this new drug (it's also a thalidomide analog, but I guess a kind of next gen one that is supposed to knock residual myeloma cells out) first, and said if that doesn't work, we could escalate to the next treatment, which is less ideal, and so on. I'm a little scared, I took my first pill today and it has some more intense possible side effects than Revlimid, but I'm keeping my Apple watch on in case I like, keel over or something.

They won't accept the most-used drug for multiple myeloma first-line treatment, Velcade, which I've had injected into my tum-tum fat weekly for over a year and a half, so now I guess I will only be going once a month to the clinic, which is odd. I mean, it's okay, in that I'm so tired and have been waffling about stopping treatment because of being le tired, but at the same time, I finally finally had movement on my number and it was so close to the magic zero for remission standard, and now I don't know what will happen.

Plus it took forever because at first insurance denied coverage of the thalidomide-based pill, and so I haven't been taking the other most important drug for these few weeks, which means I don't know what will happen now to my M-spike number. Arg! I hates it so much, precious. I had been hoping to talk with my doc about getting rid of dexamethasone, but it's a requirement for insurance coverage of this new drug.

And it might all be moot anyways! I have to go on Medicare Nov. 1, and I'm in limbo till I get my Part D and Part G information. That has added a lot to my stress, since I had a deadline of October 31 to get this new medication, and it costs 18k a bottle for a three-week supply. America! There's a new Medicare law that starts in 2025 that will help me with this (well unless Assface wins the election), but for November and December, I'm not certain how I will be able to pay for it, because most of the financial aid has been given out in January and February. That's a future me problem though.

I've been so lonesome and bored that I decided to try out this thing I'd read about, where people go to cafes and bars and read books for an hour--it's basically a reading club, but you can read whatever you want. This one is an offshoot of a larger group called Silent Book Club. I went to a coffeehouse near me and it was super crowded, so I ended up in a corner by myself and didn't have anyone near to talk to, so half the fun of it was mitigated, plus I felt weird and awkward as hell. But it was nice to get out of the house, and OMG, get back to reading for leisure instead of work. I haven't read a book of my own choosing for years and years, since I started copyediting fiction basically. It's such a busman's holiday, but I'm getting less and less work these days so I really wanted an impetus to get back to reading for pleasure. I recommend it, if you're looking for something to prod you to get out.

Funnily enough though, one of the major clients who ditched me last year has suddenly come back in need of my services. Right when I had a book proofread that's due on Monday. Ha ha ha.

I have been rewatching so many older shows. So many of them, I'm like, man, I almost wish I hadn't revisited this. But I'm in S2 of Fringe and that's definitely not the case with this one--the ep Jacksonville, which I watched last night, is still my fave and even though I felt the show really fell down by S3, especially when they seemed to change the focus from Olivia to Peter (and also kept killing off characters I adored), it's still so good and I wish so much there'd been more support for it. Also wish they could have kept filming in NYC because it all felt so different when they moved to Vancouver. Excited to be coming up on White Tulip!

Dropped my ballot in the drop box (we're all mail-in in Washington) the other day, on my way to see Venom: The Last Dance. Happy about the voting, but wow, the movie was...not so good. I'm glad for the people who love the Venom movies, but they have just not done it for me at all. I was happy to see Mrs. Chen again, though.

It's been such a busy few weeks, and getting busier -- two potential jobs coming on top of a new book I got today that is the first for a major travel book publisher. I'm very nervous about this one -- even though it sounds like I passed their (insane) test with flying colors, I still feel like it's a lot of work and very unfamiliar territory. The copyediting isn't really, in many respects, the big issue, it's more about the codes. They have the most convoluted typecoding system I've ever seen, and every single thing is coded, so the page is a morass of complicated Quark codes. Still, they give new CEs and proofers 2 hours of paid time on top of the estimated time for the book, so you can peruse their lengthy guides and codes and whatnot.

It's something I'm going to have to do on the couch, because I still can't sit here in my office for very long. I finally ended up at a new chiropractor -- I have always been afraid of chiropractic care because it just seems so incredibly dangerous to have people jerking your spine around, and every time they snap your neck, I am totally skeered that I'm going to be paralyzed for life. But the first time I went to one I was in so much pain that I literally couldn't move, someone had to help me walk from my office chair to my car so I could get to the place, and I instantly felt relief in a way that muscle relaxants and pain pills hadn't given me. I've only been a few times since then, and it took a lot for me to go this time, but my acupuncturist sent me to her guy, and already things are a tiny bit better.

But this time I'm in it for a longer haul -- they're working with me on costs and stuff, so I can do this, but I really wasn't surprised when he showed me how badly out of whack my hips and lower back are on the X-rays. I know it's going to be more than a few treatments; we're talking about probably three to four months before I begin to get a little better. The hard part is taking it easy -- like right now, there is so much work, and the yard is a mess, and so on ad infinitum. Plus, honestly, I'd really like to do something fun, like writing or vidding; not to mention that Yuletide is coming up (although apparently I completely missed all the deadlines for Festivids, c'est la vie).

I have started writing in one of my blogs but it's not much so far, I'm mostly trying to get back in the swing of things. For weeks I was a nervous wreck about this workshop I was doing on Saturday, and it's such a relief now that that's over with and seemed to go well, allowing me to concentrate on funner things. And I even started a tea blog just for the hell of it so I could keep track of all my tea tastings. Which means I'm not without some creative output, but it's not necessarily fannish in nature and I kind of miss that.

The hard part is just that there's nothing that really makes me feel that incredible rush of fannish love right now. I feel like I need to talk about my love/less than love with Fringe right now (I'm so torn! There's Charlie and Broyles in hot, tight black t-shirts in the alternaverse, but I really don't like the alternaverse! I don't like alternaLivia! Walternate creeps me out in a bad way! But then... then they do things like the twin storyline, which just... well, come on. Those of you who know me will know how deeply that story touched me --I was pretty much a blubbering idiot afterward). I'm waiting for next season of Justified. New Burn Notice this week. Chuck is... I don't know what Chuck is right now for me.

Until end of January, I have all the pay premium cable stations, which means I've been able to watch Boardwalk Empire and Dexter in real time (and was able to catch the end of True Blood in real time, too, which was awesome), and Dexter is intriguing me a lot this year (though I am seriously hoping they don't do with Lumen what they've done with everyone else who knows about Dex in the past, I think it would jump so far past the shark if they follow formula here), plus there's bonus skeevy Peter Weller, which is awesome.

Yet even with all this bounty o' TV, I don't feel that heart-fluttering need for fannish content the way I used to. Where is my Buffy equivalent, or my Mag 7 or Fast and Furious passion? I don't know. Maybe it's just that I'm so lonesome lately, and I don't have anyone nearby me to share passions. Most of the shows I watch, I used to watch with other people. That would certainly help a lot. I don't even really have online communities I feel part of for that. I wonder if at Escapade I'll feel as dissociated as I did last year? There's a lot to be said for having fan friends... I'm looking forward to watching Mag 7 with some newbies in a few weeks and seeing how people react to it (and keeping fingers crossed for some fannish interest).

I know some of it is the time of year, too -- as the birthday creeps ever closer, and the feeling that I have nothing to do on that day (everyone's usually busy or gone on T-day weekend) but sit home alone and be reminded that sis_r is gone, overwhelms me, it adds a lot of gloom to an already dark, dreary time of year. I just feel so isolated and alone, and having to be home, resting my back so often makes me feel like even more of a shut-in. I wish there were fun things to do in November. A lot of times I've gone up to Vancouver for my birthday, but this year the person I usually go with is gone. And anyhoo, I have this new job, which is due the day after.

So, I need to go ice my back, and start reading all this material on coding and processes and what have you. Fifty pages of basics, and that doesn't even count the manuscript!

Tonight was second-to-last class of the quarter. I can't wait for it to end, but it's a long way from over -- I still have to review all 15 of the quarter-long projects, and there's really not a single student who is clearly a rock star, like I've had each year. Some of them I just despair of.

I needed money for parking, and also something to eat before class, so I stopped at the store and picked up a baguette (mmm... french ham and butter, so simple and so divine) and pop, and got $20 cash back from the checkout. The guy after me was pushing me out of the way, so I grabbed the money, receipt, and debit card and shoved them into my purse rather than putting each one in my wallet. It's a very windy stormy day, and I guess the flap of my bag must have been open enough or something, but the $20 seems to have pulled a Michael Scofield at some point between car and checkout. Got to the parking window on campus and ... no $20 bill. I searched everything and everywhere, but nada. I even called the store to see if I dropped it at the counter when pushy guy was pushing.

I don't know why it bugs me so much but I nearly cried. Probably just that I don't have $20 to lose. It definitely smarts. Arg. Why am I so stupid?

I'm so tired but I really want to watch Fringe. Tomorrow I have a ton of volunteer meetings and then a metals patina class in the evening, so I really should sleep, but man, Fringe. I'm so very glad I gave that show a second chance -- I rarely do that, and it's been worth it this year. vonnie_k said something really interesting about it, that it's been about grieving a lot this year, and I think that's why it speaks to me so much. There are times I ache for the characters in the show, which is really rare for me, and it gets so much of that whole carrying grief around with you as if it's part of your body thing that those of us who have lost someone important or been through something traumatic understand. I don't usually think of JJ and his team as being very deep or understanding of grownup issues, but in Fringe, they do very much appear to understand that feeling, the weight of it, the heaviness of heart and soul, that it forces you to carry.