But oh look! He’s brought that character back to life in a new tv show!

I was all excited until I discovered what that meant: Joss Whedon is showrunner and one of the writers for “Agents of SHIELD.”

And THAT means, given how few canon characters he’ll be using, that he can do whatever the fuck he wants.

And that means I am not watching that show.

I love Agent Coulson to bits, I adore him, but I am not in any kind of mental headspace to let Joss “I Made The Audience Cry That Means I’m A Good Writer” Whedon anywhere near my media intake.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and it’ll go the Firefly route, get cancelled before he has a chance to Whedon it up. THEN I can safely watch it without risking my mental health (Whedon provokes a unique blend of self-hatred, heartbreak, and loathing in me, and that’s not a healthy place  to go).

I’m not holding my breath.

Five Things I was Doing 10 Years Ago

Lessee, that was… 2003? Oof, hard to remember exactly. I shall use the blog archives for reference.

1. Recovering from having my ovarian cyst removed in late 2002.
2. Working nine jobs. (Jeez, I always think of my high water mark as six).
3. Writing movie reviews for the local paper (and finally getting paid for it).
4. Obsessing over Harry Potter.
5. Living with my parents in the house where I grew up.

Five Things I am Doing Now

1. Unpacking from the move to Portland.
2. Learning to take care of myself (I now only work three jobs).
3. Writing movie reviews for said local paper.
4. Obsessing over Deadpool and Marvel comics/movies in general. (tip: do not get me started on how that awful Wolverine movie got Deadpool wrong)(I MEAN SERIOUSLY HE’S THE MERC WITH A MOUTH HOW DO YOU DO DEADPOOL WITH NO MOUTH WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE)
5. Living with my sweetie.

Five Snacks I Enjoy:

1. Kettle chips.
2. Baby carrots and hummus.
3. Chocolate in almost any high-cacao form.
4. Organic strawberries.
5. Uhhh… I’m not that much of a snacker anymore, I’m out of ideas.

Five Things I Would Do If I Were a Millionaire, in no particular order:

1. Pay off all my debt.
2. Pay off my family and sweetie’s debt.
3. Buy an old house here in PDX and remodel it: strip it to the studs and make it crazyawesome. Ethernet jacks in every room, good drywall instead of plaster, finished basement, that kind of thing.
4. Invest the rest and see if I could get enough in interest income to quit my dayjob.
5. Back a ton of Kickstarters.

Five Jobs I Have Had: (in no particular order)

1. Substitute teacher (junior high and high school)
2. Freelance writer/editor
3. Freelance web designer
4. Technical writer
5. Envelope-stuffer

Like, how much is this flower pot really worth to me? Or, more importantly, how much is not having to figure out how to get it to Portland worth to me? This turns out to be a complex equation. I just negotiated with a complete stranger and cut a deal whereby she is taking pretty much my entire container garden for a surprisingly low amount. Why? Because she’s willing to take the whole damn thing, and thus I don’t have to figure out how to get any of it to Portland OR relist it on Craigslist. Also she charmed me by spotting that we both have the same “oh, there’s some space… let’s put a plant there!” tendency. Plus she knew what crocosmia were, so I know my plants will be in good hands.

I’m learning that I have an irrational attachment to some possessions (a toy camel from when I was little) and not others (wind-up leiderhosen from… I have no idea). Further, I have decided that this is okay and I am not going to guilt myself about it. If I want to keep something, I am keeping it. There’s going to be PLENTY of room in our POD.

I learned that having a yard sale is actually pretty fun and not a total waste of time/energy when you firmly decide not to stress about it AND you also do it with a pal. I basically made over $100 by sitting around all day chatting with one of my oldest friends.

Moving is educational!

It’s like I was juggling a few tennis balls and someone tossed a chainsaw into the mix. Some of those balls are gonna be dropped. It’s inevitable.

So, no more movie reviews til after we’re settled in. No Aikido (though I’m not really in any shape to be doing it anyway; at least now I don’t feel guilty for not going). No video games, or at least almost none. I gave up on planning a going-away gettogether because the thought of having one more big thing to do made me want to break out in hives.

Unfortunately, I’m also dropping balls that are important and useful. Yoga. Walks. Getting enough sleep.

The one thing that I’m managing to keep sacrosanct is my weekly Day of Rest (a day where I only do things that are peaceful and restorative, like reading and knitting). On some level I can tell that if I drop that ball, I won’t be able to handle the chainsaw any better. In fact, I’d probably lose my rhythm altogether and catch the chainsaw by the wrong end.

With my head.

We’re moving up the weekend of 4/13, which means packing has begun in earnest. Gah. I hate this part of moving. Having even some of my books packed up makes me feel like ants are crawling under my skin. Plus, I can’t pack everything because some things are still in use, but I also need to get as much packed in as orderly a fashion as possible pronto.

I’m considering packing my main piece of luggage with enough clothes for a week and then living out of it while I pack all my other clothes away. I don’t really need access to every single tshirt I own right now, let alone my Halloween costumes and fancy-dress clothes, right? Right. Plus, then I’d have room in my closet for boxes.

That’s another problem: our apartment was never exactly spacious to begin with, and now that we have boxes and partially-empty furniture, it’s getting really crowded. It’s kind of like playing Tetris, but in real life and with boxes that are heavy enough to hurt your back (because if you’re me, you’re apparently not capable of doing half-books-half-other-stuff to make the boxes less heavy).

Further, there’s the lingering guilt of moving away from my home town. I hate the thought of making my parents and my friends sad. But I gotta go, you guys! The Bay Area has been great, but Portland is like a giant electromagnet or beautiful siren or some other metaphor for inexorable drawing.

Overcast days here in the Bay Area make me homesick for Portland, and we don’t even live there yet.

I can’t wait to be moved, y’all. Seriously.

Next weekend we go up to PDX to look at houses for rent.

Like, this move thing? Actually happening.

Also happening: a huge launch at work.

And: me, losing my mind. So I’ve been bailing on commitments left and right, trying to make time to finish my huge decluttering project and get enough sleep to be on the ball for work and make arrangements for house tours and and and.

So if I’ve bailed on you or totally failed to return an email or whatever, this is why. Sorry, people. If I allowed myself to blog about work, I would have a shitton of blogging material, but… that’s a terrible idea. So no.

I’ll try to blog about our house touring adventures, though! Stay tuned!

Regardless, I’m glad I did, because holy crap this book is so good.

Stedman is currently the assistant Humanist chaplain at Harvard, and he’s an incredibly active force in the interfaith movement. Yep, that’s right: he’s an atheist and he’s big on interfaith. That contradiction is a huge part of what Faitheist is about — how he went through the phases he did and wound up where he is.

The underlying question of the book is one that I’ve been struggling with off and on since the 2012 election cycle got started: how does one have a respectful, serious discussion about intensely personal subjects (like religion or politics) with someone whose views are radically different from one’s own? I refuse to believe it’s not possible, in spite of the flame wars and Facebook kerfluffles I’ve seen over the years.

Stedman’s story proves that it is possible, and actually necessary for people with deep ideological differences to have these discussions with each other — in part because that’s how we find the ways that we are similar and become able to work together toward peace and other valuable goals. It’s a really inspiring idea, atheists and the religious working together to make the world a better place. If a gay atheist like Stedman can do interfaith with the profoundly religious, surely I can figure out how to talk about important stuff with my deeply conservative relatives.

The other thing I loved about this book is Stedman’s honesty. He has gone through problematic phases, said and thought nasty things, and had some awful experiences. He tells these stories with a humility that really impressed me. He doesn’t shy away from the discomfort of sharing them with his readers.

I tore through this book, and am actually looking forward to rereading it in a month or two, at a more sedate pace, to really savor what Stedman has to say.

He’s pretty young (and even mentions in the book that he feels a little young to be writing a memoir-ish sort of thing), and I can’t wait to see what he does next. I hope we have many years yet to come of this unusual and inspiring man’s work.

Working from home has acclimated me to silence, and I’m finding it very difficult to focus without it. Worse, I’m finding myself preferring silence over music or talk when I’m doing things like cleaning or bookbinding or sorting through the detritus I have accumulated over my 10-ish years living mostly under my own auspices.

Why is this a problem?

I love podcasts. LOVE THEM. There are so many to love! This American Life. Elemental Castings. StarTalkRadio. Fucking While Feminist. The Bugle. And on and on.

Pretty much the only time I listen to podcasts is in the car when I’m commuting.

Now that I’m commuting very infrequently, my podcast-listening time has been cut by about three-fifths.

Needless to say, this is becoming an issue. I’m getting backlogged! UNACCEPTABLE!

So aside from screeching “ONE MILLION YEARS DUNGEON!” whenever I notice that my Episodes list in BeyondPod is impossibly full, my solution is to find times when I CAN listen to podcasts. I haven’t figured out what those times might be, yet, but I’m gonna find ‘em, by golly.

I’m sure some wiseacre is gonna comment “So unsubscribe from a few podcasts until you have a number you can keep up with!”

To you I say: UNACCEPTABLE! ONE MILLION YEARS DUNGEON!

Yes, I love Adventure Time. Does it show?

Loads of spoilers below, okay? Loads.

I have seen a lot of sexist bullshit on the silver screen over the years, but I think “Side Effects” may take the cake. Let’s take a moment to look at the major characters, shall we?

Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law): psychiatrist. Treats Emily for depression. In the past, was framed by a schizophrenic patient so that everyone thought she killed herself over an affair with him (bitches be crazy! also liars!). When Emily murders her husband under the influence of a med he prescribed, his career is immediately headed into the toilet. Woe.

Emily (Rooney Mara): patient. Depressed. Murders her husband while sleepwalking. Is horrified, woe, etc etc. However, it’s eventually revealed that she wasn’t under the influence of the med at all, she teamed up with Dr. Siebert! It was all a plot to make money by shorting stock in the company making the drug she was on! Bwah hahahaha! Bitches be evil, amirite?

Martin (Channing Tatum): Emily’s husband. Jailed for insider trading but otherwise a fairly nice guy? He gets killed off before we get to know him very well, but he seems to genuinely care about her and want her to be happy. They don’t communicate well, but he doesn’t show any signs of actively being awful. Then she kills him, because bitches be crazy. Also evil.

Dr. Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones): psychiatrist. Gets Banks to prescribe the problem med to Emily. Is in cahoots with Emily — and also having an affair with her! Whoa! Those bisexual bitches be evil, amirite? When Banks’ digging starts getting too close to the truth, she sends photos that make it look like he was having an affair with Emily to his wife, causing her to leave him.

Dierdre Banks (Vinessa Shaw): wife of Dr. Banks. Unemployed and weepy about it. Believes the photos rather than her husband and leaves him immediately, without giving him a chance to explain. Once the “happy ending” happens, takes him right back, no issues. She’s proven wrong and put in her place, by god. The shot we get that proves this, the only shot that shows her being back with Banks, is the two of them picking her kid up from school. How domestic.

Not good, nu? All the women are either crazy or evil or both, except for Dierdre, who’s more or less useless and manipulated.

What really kills me is the way the film wraps up the plot. The villains (Emily and Victoria) get their comeuppance — Victoria goes to jail and Emily winds up committed to a mental institution thanks to Banks’ ability to lie like a cheap rug about her symptoms and behavior.

That’s right. He literally gets her locked up permanently and forcibly medicated, all by lying! And this is our hero! Making a happy ending!

AUGH!

I do not understand at all how I’m the only one I see online jumping up and down screaming about the sexism in this film. It made me so angry that I was in physical pain by the end of the film. Just… no.

ARGH.

When I had knee problems as a kid, and the first orthopedist we went to said something like “eh, if it hurts, she shouldn’t do it,” she took me to another. And another. And another. And when we’d seen all the ones in our local medical group (and gotten a diagnosis that was essentially “you will have shitty knees forever, suck it up”), she took me down to Kerlan-Jobe, one of the foremost orthopedics and sports medicine clinics in the country.

She didn’t give up. She didn’t listen to the doctors who said stupid shit (like that as a girl I shouldn’t be so active anyway), or the ones who had no helpful suggestions (“well, there’s this surgery where we even out your knees by damaging the healthy muscle so it’s as weak as the weak muscle…”). She went for second and third and fourth opinions, until we finally saw a doctor who was knowledgeable and willing to work with us rather than just trying to get us out of the office. (He basically said, “welp, your knees suck. Let’s talk about pain management and how to do the sports you want to do without making them worse.”).

I learned a lot from watching how she dealt with doctors. Let’s talk about the things I learned.

• The most vital piece of information: Doctors are not gods. They are not your boss. They are not in charge. Period. Doctors are consultants you pay to share their expertise and experience with you so that you can make informed decisions about your health. They are service providers. They’re like the President’s Cabinet (this means you are President, btw). This means if they are jerks or stupid or whatever, you can fire them and find someone else. Now, depending on your insurance situation you may be stuck with what you can get, but that doesn’t change the fact that the doctor works for you.
  As an example: I don’t let doctors weigh me (I make an exception for anesthesiologists because I don’t want to wake up during surgery). Any doctor who gives me shit about this will be fired on the spot. So far I’ve had no issue, though.
• You have to be persistent, whether that means seeing doctor after doctor or hassling the one doc your insurance will pay for. Don’t give up until they treat you with respect and help you get better (maybe not well, but at least better!). It can be exhausting, and that sucks. But! In the long run, your odds of getting better are way higher if you can reframe things as a game or a challenge or a marathon and just keep pushing. See the comments to my previous post for a great story about this.
• You are the expert on your own experience. Some doctors will try to gaslight you and convince you that you don’t have symptoms you know you have, or that you do have symptoms you know you don’t. Some will blow you off and say you’re making a big deal of nothing. But it’s not nothing. If you feel sick, you feel sick. They don’t live in your body, you do. You are the expert on your symptoms, not them.
• Do your own research on your condition if it’s a chronic one. I’m not talking about looking at shit on webmd, I mean looking for research papers and studies. Print ‘em out and take ‘em with you if your doctor isn’t listening to you, or if you find a new treatment that sounds promising, or whatever. If you find a doctor who frequently mentions new research, and who is clearly paying attention, hang onto them! This is an important quality which many doctors lack.
• If you’re in any way active, sports medicine specialists will probably make the best GPs for you. Now, this is just my experience, I haven’t run into anybody else preaching this particular line (unlike most of these other tips, ha!). However: sports medicine is all about the balance between healing up and staying active. In my experience, a regular doctor will tell someone with a chronic illness to give up most of the things they want to keep doing, while a sports medicine one won’t. They might say that to do X you have to do Y, where Y is something really unpleasant (take massively powerful drugs, do 10hrs/wk of physical therapy, whatever), but at least they’ll give you the information and let you make up your mind.
• If you’re seeing doctors that aren’t all in the same network, keep detailed records and bring them with you to every appointment. All my physical-body doctors are in the same network (ob-gyn, GP, etc). They share a single file on me, and can see my history and prescriptions and everything. This kind of thing is useful and important, and when I made an appointment recently to get a second opinion on something, I sent a copy of that file to the new doc so they’d have it too. Information is important, and helps doctors do their jobs better. You can’t remember everything perfectly, so simplify your life and keep notes and records.
• Track your symptoms. I’ve been trying to nail down the cause of some recurring abdominal pain and started marking its severity, location, and occurrence on the “year all on one page” calendar at the back of my planner. It was REALLY useful when I went back to my ob-gyn and basically said “look, the whole “take painkillers and deal”we tried is not cutting it. This is happening all the damn time, SEE?” — and that calendar helped her make a way better diagnosis than the first time I saw her for the issue, when I only had memory and two months of data. Spreadsheets, notebooks, apps, whatever — find a method that works for you and use it, especially if you’re trying to nail down an issue.

So that’s what I do. What other things do y’all do, my readers?