This week two of my favorite internet people - journalists, writers, bloggers, bad-ass women, Susannah Breslin and Xeni Jardin - revealed they have breast cancer.
I don't know them personally but something...clicked in my brain and my heart when I heard this. They're not personal friends to me, but they know each other (sometimes their twitter conversations with photographer Clayton Cubitt are hilarious!), and within three days of Breslin's diagnosis, Jardin's comes and I want to hug them!
Susannah Breslin writes about her experience on Forbes.com. Xeni Jardin tweeted her first mammogram, culminating in the diagnosis.
As I read Ms Breslin's post I'm reminded of how these things change you and your perception of the world. Something becomes askew and no matter how hard you try to express it, frankly, if you don't have cancer, you can't ever know. Your perception of yourself is two-fold: you begin to look at yourself, probably as damaged and fragile, and you begin to look at yourself physically, trying to find this thing inside you, as if you can see it crawling just beneath your skin, partly out of fascination and partly out of being scared.
I've never had cancer, but when I first discovered I was HIV-positive, it was the single thing that changed my life the most, not in an outward way, not even physically nor emotionally, but it fundamentally changed the way I see myself in the world. I mentioned to Ms Breslin how it reminded me of this, her post.
I have this idea that a few months, maybe a year or so down the line, once both Susannah and Xeni beat this, they'll be having a good ol' chat over coffee somewhere in New York (I'm not really sure why NYC), and laugh and talk about it. Maybe they'll commiserate. Maybe there'll be tears...
...I don't know, I'm sort of a little weird this way: sure, it's fucking cancer, but at least you're not alone. Is that terrible to think? I remember last year (man, time flies!) when Corey and I had that conversation about strangers reaching out to us about being HIV-positive.
No, I don't know Susannah Breslin and Xeni Jardin. But in a rather odd and a bit sad way, Ithink I do. And if you know them, give them a hug for me.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Yesterday
When I was a kid - what, something like around my late teens - I used to think to myself that if I hit thirty-five, that would be a long enough life. Everything afterward was just gravy, you know? And I used to go around believing television and comics and not real life as to what life would bring with it.
Adventure! Heartache! Travel! EXCITEMENT!!!
Of course, growing up, everything is a process and all of these things DO come along. It'd be dismissive to not acknowledge all of it: for one day I was in New York City, for instance, and lived all of it!
The scary things that come with life aren't ever given a face when you're growing up, however, because no matter what you may imagine will come, you're an indestructible piece of flash machinery and unstoppable. Nothing is a monster when you're a kid!
Recently, as ridiculous as it sounds, as I'm reading some really smart, fun, and entertaining books (Richard Kadrey's ALOHA FROM HELL, Chuck Palahniuk's DAMNED, William Gibson's PATTERN RECOGNITION), I appreciate these little stories for what the truth they share...and still glance at them as bullshit. Paradoxically, as I'm reading, I want to scream into the pages that what they're selling isn't real life. Then I think of this quote from Grant Morrison.
I've not been very happy for a bit and what's getting me down aside from the typically mundane things like money woes, debt, work, friends, family, illness, is the lack of excitement I used to have for tomorrow. I used to be excited by the idea of tomorrow. Not in a conceptualized, futurist way (I think), but the very cliche that everything exciting is waiting tomorrow. How's that for cynical: thinking all the excitement's run out in my life.
Think I'm a terrible rut.
Recently, the best friend and I have spent hours talking boys and girls, and even that's lost some luster because it's become routine. It's become daily life. I feel weighed down by everything that's become my universe. Most folk, I think, can appreciate all of these daily trials because there are things to be learned from all of this. I know this too. But this isn't what I signed up for when I was born. Is that terrible?
I don't know.
Home life, work life, personal life, none of it is horrible and obnoxious and sad. Not really. Taking in the bigger picture as it is, I'm pretty damn fortunate. I don't think I appreciate it enough, frankly, and all of these things I think are perhaps a form of selfishness. At work this week, in talking with the boys there about marriage, one of them said that I had passed the point in life where that was something to want. And I wonder as we get older does that keep happening? Like a road trip, is life a long journey and the stops are places off the side of the road that you pass by after you consider stopping and then say to yourself, "There'll be something else up ahead," not considering that perhaps there won't be? Not that I'm regretting ever investing time with someone enough to want to make them my life partner. I don't feel that. But I wonder if all the excitement I used to feel about tomorrow's now an off-ramp that I passed years, weeks, days, hours ago.
Me, nattering like this, is what annoys me the most.
Yesterday, while looking through the company's intranet, I discovered openings at work that aren't necessarily interesting but look like might be fun. Puerto Rico, New York, California. Wishful thinking in a way. Because responsibility isn't easy to slough off, right? And I then make myself upset by conniving ways to make things happen where everyone is happy first and then myself. Which is NOT a way in which to do things in life. I've learned that much.
I think, the work thing notwithstanding, that I'm looking for the fun that I always believed would exist along with the idea of tomorrow. I'm not an old man, not yet, and I'm wondering where all the fun went. My idea of fun.
I turn thirty-five in two months.
Adventure! Heartache! Travel! EXCITEMENT!!!
Of course, growing up, everything is a process and all of these things DO come along. It'd be dismissive to not acknowledge all of it: for one day I was in New York City, for instance, and lived all of it!
The scary things that come with life aren't ever given a face when you're growing up, however, because no matter what you may imagine will come, you're an indestructible piece of flash machinery and unstoppable. Nothing is a monster when you're a kid!
Recently, as ridiculous as it sounds, as I'm reading some really smart, fun, and entertaining books (Richard Kadrey's ALOHA FROM HELL, Chuck Palahniuk's DAMNED, William Gibson's PATTERN RECOGNITION), I appreciate these little stories for what the truth they share...and still glance at them as bullshit. Paradoxically, as I'm reading, I want to scream into the pages that what they're selling isn't real life. Then I think of this quote from Grant Morrison.
I've not been very happy for a bit and what's getting me down aside from the typically mundane things like money woes, debt, work, friends, family, illness, is the lack of excitement I used to have for tomorrow. I used to be excited by the idea of tomorrow. Not in a conceptualized, futurist way (I think), but the very cliche that everything exciting is waiting tomorrow. How's that for cynical: thinking all the excitement's run out in my life.
Think I'm a terrible rut.
Recently, the best friend and I have spent hours talking boys and girls, and even that's lost some luster because it's become routine. It's become daily life. I feel weighed down by everything that's become my universe. Most folk, I think, can appreciate all of these daily trials because there are things to be learned from all of this. I know this too. But this isn't what I signed up for when I was born. Is that terrible?
I don't know.
Home life, work life, personal life, none of it is horrible and obnoxious and sad. Not really. Taking in the bigger picture as it is, I'm pretty damn fortunate. I don't think I appreciate it enough, frankly, and all of these things I think are perhaps a form of selfishness. At work this week, in talking with the boys there about marriage, one of them said that I had passed the point in life where that was something to want. And I wonder as we get older does that keep happening? Like a road trip, is life a long journey and the stops are places off the side of the road that you pass by after you consider stopping and then say to yourself, "There'll be something else up ahead," not considering that perhaps there won't be? Not that I'm regretting ever investing time with someone enough to want to make them my life partner. I don't feel that. But I wonder if all the excitement I used to feel about tomorrow's now an off-ramp that I passed years, weeks, days, hours ago.
Me, nattering like this, is what annoys me the most.
Yesterday, while looking through the company's intranet, I discovered openings at work that aren't necessarily interesting but look like might be fun. Puerto Rico, New York, California. Wishful thinking in a way. Because responsibility isn't easy to slough off, right? And I then make myself upset by conniving ways to make things happen where everyone is happy first and then myself. Which is NOT a way in which to do things in life. I've learned that much.
I think, the work thing notwithstanding, that I'm looking for the fun that I always believed would exist along with the idea of tomorrow. I'm not an old man, not yet, and I'm wondering where all the fun went. My idea of fun.
I turn thirty-five in two months.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
David
I was twenty-one so it was 1998. I remember meeting a friend of a friend, but I'm not certain why I needed to meet him. Best friend at the time had started a new job and she really liked her co-workers, I remember that. So, I went with her to one of her co-worker's house to pick something up, or drop something off. He came out to meet us and they talked about whatever and I was introduced and he had dimples and a cleft chin. This was David.
This was maybe a year or two after I'd come to terms with my sexuality. This was when I was at my awkward best.
I remember talking about him non-stop. He was just so pretty. It was the first boy I'd met who'd made want to know more about him, to maybe kiss him. Maybe. When he gave me his phone number it was a pretty special day, let me just tell you. I remember using up the break in between classes to call him up and talk on the payphone in the student union. I remember he liked the Disney villain Malificient and thought Bruce Willis was hot. All it ever came to, as always, was my immaturity and a PULP FICTION viewing at his house, where his parents looked at me like an escaped felon, and a group date to see Grease. He held my hand the entire time.
I wrote about him a lot at the time. I used to write a lot then. And I wrote about how I wanted him and how he made me feel and how beautiful I thought he was. I remember all of it. I still have that notebook. I just remember him smiling at me atop that hill where his house was in San Pedro.
(Unfortunately, my memories of this boy are tied to the fact that my two brothers read everything I wrote about him and told my parents and then, well, everything turned out the way it did. This created a huge rift between my family and me that lingers to this day. That day, when talking with my father, was the worse moment of my young life. It was the last time he ever struck me.)
But every once in a while, I tell someone this story, all the details I remember, and it makes me happy because I remember this unassuming boy whom I adored to no end, and it was the first instance I felt I was normal. If you're straight or gay, you wouldn't understand.
It always makes me happy to think about him.
Earlier today, while online on my phone, talking with strangers on a hook-up site, a man sent me a message and we started talking for a bit and he was nice and playful and cute. He's attractive. And he reminded me of someone I used to work with. But that wasn't right. It lingered with me for the entire afternoon when I realized who this stranger online reminded me of David. The stranger's smile wasn't familiar but it wasn't a strange one either. A couple hours ago, as I'm making my way from Orange County, it hit me: was this David? Something clicked into place. While this man and I were flirting online in the way guys do online (read: being explicit), I needed to log off but I thought, fuck it, and gave him my number. On the freeway, I kept checking my phone for a text or call. I realized he never told me his name, and he didn't give me his number. Playing coy, my plans was that the next move would be his...
...BUT NOW I WANT TO KNOW IF IT'S DAVID!!
Isn't that crazy?
What if it is?
Most likely, it isn't. And like with certain strangers on the internet, I will probably never hear from him again. I latched on to a weird set of circumstances that have made my heart go all a-flutter, and when I never hear from this man, I will forget about him in the way we do sometimes. A stranger on the internet called me hot and I'm having fond memories about him already.
But that's okay.
I will still remember David. Not because he was the love of my life. But he was one of the very first.
This was maybe a year or two after I'd come to terms with my sexuality. This was when I was at my awkward best.
I remember talking about him non-stop. He was just so pretty. It was the first boy I'd met who'd made want to know more about him, to maybe kiss him. Maybe. When he gave me his phone number it was a pretty special day, let me just tell you. I remember using up the break in between classes to call him up and talk on the payphone in the student union. I remember he liked the Disney villain Malificient and thought Bruce Willis was hot. All it ever came to, as always, was my immaturity and a PULP FICTION viewing at his house, where his parents looked at me like an escaped felon, and a group date to see Grease. He held my hand the entire time.
I wrote about him a lot at the time. I used to write a lot then. And I wrote about how I wanted him and how he made me feel and how beautiful I thought he was. I remember all of it. I still have that notebook. I just remember him smiling at me atop that hill where his house was in San Pedro.
(Unfortunately, my memories of this boy are tied to the fact that my two brothers read everything I wrote about him and told my parents and then, well, everything turned out the way it did. This created a huge rift between my family and me that lingers to this day. That day, when talking with my father, was the worse moment of my young life. It was the last time he ever struck me.)
But every once in a while, I tell someone this story, all the details I remember, and it makes me happy because I remember this unassuming boy whom I adored to no end, and it was the first instance I felt I was normal. If you're straight or gay, you wouldn't understand.
It always makes me happy to think about him.
Earlier today, while online on my phone, talking with strangers on a hook-up site, a man sent me a message and we started talking for a bit and he was nice and playful and cute. He's attractive. And he reminded me of someone I used to work with. But that wasn't right. It lingered with me for the entire afternoon when I realized who this stranger online reminded me of David. The stranger's smile wasn't familiar but it wasn't a strange one either. A couple hours ago, as I'm making my way from Orange County, it hit me: was this David? Something clicked into place. While this man and I were flirting online in the way guys do online (read: being explicit), I needed to log off but I thought, fuck it, and gave him my number. On the freeway, I kept checking my phone for a text or call. I realized he never told me his name, and he didn't give me his number. Playing coy, my plans was that the next move would be his...
...BUT NOW I WANT TO KNOW IF IT'S DAVID!!
Isn't that crazy?
What if it is?
Most likely, it isn't. And like with certain strangers on the internet, I will probably never hear from him again. I latched on to a weird set of circumstances that have made my heart go all a-flutter, and when I never hear from this man, I will forget about him in the way we do sometimes. A stranger on the internet called me hot and I'm having fond memories about him already.
But that's okay.
I will still remember David. Not because he was the love of my life. But he was one of the very first.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Read: Damned
Madison Spencer is dead. DAMNED is the story of her time in Hell. Is all this obvious? Perhaps: there IS a devil on the cover.
But what follows is walk through a thirteen year old girl's life that ought to have been great, ought to have been the type of life contemporary thirteen year olds yearn for: super-rich and super-famous and, sadly, super-liberal movie star parents; houses in every possible continent, access to drugs, and Hello Kitty condoms. But Madison isn't happy. No, not until she meets her parents' new pet adoptee, Goran.
After she dies, Madison takes you through Chuck Palahniuk's version of Hell that's complete with the Swamp of Partial-birth Abortions, Shit Lake, and...well, you get the idea. Also, Hitler shows up because why shouldn't he?
This is Palahniuk at his nihilistic, most acerbic best. He's not reached this height of humor and cynicism and truth in a very long time (TELL-ALL read like a warm-up exercise, RANT was a bit too loose, SNUFF wasn't what it could've been, HAUNTED tried and failed at clever). What he does in having Madison guide us through Hell isn't to show how frightening that prospect is, but rather how easy it is to being damned. Through her monologues, Madison discovers along the way that we're all so close to eternal damnation, even taking all the vitamins and recycling everything isn't enough to save anyone. Surely, according to her, nearly everyone's already earned a trip to Hell by age five for peeing in pools - there's a limit, you see, to how many times you're allowed to pee in pools before you're damned and it's two.
But all through Madison's adventures through Hell, it isn't that we're learning along with her the rules of this place or why people wind up here, but more about what we tell others and ourselves to make us seem less likely to die as sinners. We want to win when it comes to our eternal afterlife, never realizing our afterlives are already decided. But this isn't a religious book. Not really.
DAMNED, similar to Palahniuk's other books, is about being happy with who and what you are. About not giving a whit about what anyone else says. About self-determination and self-reliance. DAMNED is about forgetting everything everyone else thinks about you and being the only you the world deserves. Madison can only be that once she dies. Even despite the fack her parents tried and tried to be better than any other parents, they failed in nurturing the person Madison needed to be in this world. But it was only by dying and going to Hell that she sees this, that we see this. When everything is demons and death for eternity, it's easy to see that who we are in Hell isn't who we are on Earth: who we are in the latter is not us.
Palahniuk brings us back to self-destruction as self-realization. Realizing that people who're still alive and their terrible superiority complex over the dead is only transitory and only death is certain.
The imagery in the book reminded me of Chris Weston's Hell in LUCIFER and his work in THE FILTH, how I imagined it as I read: I'd love to see his version of the Sea of Insects. Palahniuk doesn't go into lots of detail with his Hell, but when you read his topography, it's hard not see a certain...aesthetic. What do you imagine when you read the Great Ocean of Wasted Sperm?
And, finally, as Madison confronts Satan himself, Palahniuk manages a pretty nasty trick on her that I want to spoil so badly but wont. Because in that exchange, when I wanted a suave manipulator akin to Neil Gaiman's and Mike Carey's LUCIFER, I got a more "real" Satan: a Satan for the post-Hollywood world.
I laughed along with this book not because of its outlandish scenery but because it's more honest about what life is on Earth than I was taught in Catechism. It's honest when Madison says that we all think we're better off than the dead because we're simply alive. It's honest when she says that everyone, like her parents, obsessed with remaining youthful will end up as worm fodder. But unlike FIGHT CLUB, DAMNED doesn't say there's worse things than death. Madison is our avatar through our own stories, regardless of age, full of ridiculous experiences that we allow to define ourselves in the bigger picture, the bigger picture being life.
But what follows is walk through a thirteen year old girl's life that ought to have been great, ought to have been the type of life contemporary thirteen year olds yearn for: super-rich and super-famous and, sadly, super-liberal movie star parents; houses in every possible continent, access to drugs, and Hello Kitty condoms. But Madison isn't happy. No, not until she meets her parents' new pet adoptee, Goran.
After she dies, Madison takes you through Chuck Palahniuk's version of Hell that's complete with the Swamp of Partial-birth Abortions, Shit Lake, and...well, you get the idea. Also, Hitler shows up because why shouldn't he?
This is Palahniuk at his nihilistic, most acerbic best. He's not reached this height of humor and cynicism and truth in a very long time (TELL-ALL read like a warm-up exercise, RANT was a bit too loose, SNUFF wasn't what it could've been, HAUNTED tried and failed at clever). What he does in having Madison guide us through Hell isn't to show how frightening that prospect is, but rather how easy it is to being damned. Through her monologues, Madison discovers along the way that we're all so close to eternal damnation, even taking all the vitamins and recycling everything isn't enough to save anyone. Surely, according to her, nearly everyone's already earned a trip to Hell by age five for peeing in pools - there's a limit, you see, to how many times you're allowed to pee in pools before you're damned and it's two.
But all through Madison's adventures through Hell, it isn't that we're learning along with her the rules of this place or why people wind up here, but more about what we tell others and ourselves to make us seem less likely to die as sinners. We want to win when it comes to our eternal afterlife, never realizing our afterlives are already decided. But this isn't a religious book. Not really.
DAMNED, similar to Palahniuk's other books, is about being happy with who and what you are. About not giving a whit about what anyone else says. About self-determination and self-reliance. DAMNED is about forgetting everything everyone else thinks about you and being the only you the world deserves. Madison can only be that once she dies. Even despite the fack her parents tried and tried to be better than any other parents, they failed in nurturing the person Madison needed to be in this world. But it was only by dying and going to Hell that she sees this, that we see this. When everything is demons and death for eternity, it's easy to see that who we are in Hell isn't who we are on Earth: who we are in the latter is not us.
Palahniuk brings us back to self-destruction as self-realization. Realizing that people who're still alive and their terrible superiority complex over the dead is only transitory and only death is certain.
The imagery in the book reminded me of Chris Weston's Hell in LUCIFER and his work in THE FILTH, how I imagined it as I read: I'd love to see his version of the Sea of Insects. Palahniuk doesn't go into lots of detail with his Hell, but when you read his topography, it's hard not see a certain...aesthetic. What do you imagine when you read the Great Ocean of Wasted Sperm?
And, finally, as Madison confronts Satan himself, Palahniuk manages a pretty nasty trick on her that I want to spoil so badly but wont. Because in that exchange, when I wanted a suave manipulator akin to Neil Gaiman's and Mike Carey's LUCIFER, I got a more "real" Satan: a Satan for the post-Hollywood world.
I laughed along with this book not because of its outlandish scenery but because it's more honest about what life is on Earth than I was taught in Catechism. It's honest when Madison says that we all think we're better off than the dead because we're simply alive. It's honest when she says that everyone, like her parents, obsessed with remaining youthful will end up as worm fodder. But unlike FIGHT CLUB, DAMNED doesn't say there's worse things than death. Madison is our avatar through our own stories, regardless of age, full of ridiculous experiences that we allow to define ourselves in the bigger picture, the bigger picture being life.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Free Life
Went to the movies today. I shouldn't have because payday's next week and there's insurance to still pay. But I went and had a big ol' cry there due to the movie not necessarily because I was/am terribly sad or anything like that. Still, right? Anyway, afterward, I spent another $5 on a coffee and a shortbread raspberry cookie thing because I left a voicemail for my best friend and was still a little shaken. So strange how things affect me. Or not. I think I'm made of metal and then I'm melted.
Honest: for a long time - almost two years now - I've had a terrible idea not everyone I know and don't know would like to hear and that is going of the meds for the extra cash.
Just right now I was thinking, suppose I'd never had to go to the doctor four years ago and I never discovered I'd HIV, where would I be now? I don't know and neither does anyone else because that never happened. But, what if, you know?
I wonder how we got to this point where this is even worth considering. Years ago, if someone mentioned this to me, I'd tell them they were insane, and here I am thinking this. But is it that bad? No, not really. I could use five grand right now and I know lots of us could as well but that isn't going to happen. or, if I did indeed stop the the meds for the money, I think it would be easier to just spend it on something wholly necessary.
The family is in really bad form right now. Not only financially. Not a lot of us are happy. I'd go even a little further into it: I don't think a lot of us are content or satisfied with what's happening, any of it. Who is, really?
So, I'm at the movies and guy in the movie says he just wants it to stop, the disease he has. And that's where I am and I think using the family trials as the reason for it to stop is kind of a cop-out. Isn't it? Is it?
What if I decided to stop treatment, would you hate me, shun me, support me, or say nothing? Is this one of those cry for help things? Do I mean a slow-speed suicide? What is it?
As I've written many times over the last few years, I want it to stop, all these pills every week; the way in which everything my family says around me is tinged with sadness and fear; the way in which whenever I mention being sick all I get is silence; thinking the pretty girl I want to ask out from work will just walk away when I tell her; the way my mother looks at me sometimes. And the way I see myself daily. I just want it all to stop so I can be normal again.
Haven't had a fit like this in a while. I don't really know what normal means.
But, as I said, there's lots of things to take care of for the family. I hate my living situation but without me they can't keep the house nor put food on the table nor even enjoy a smoke every now and then. Silly to even type all that. But it's true. And me, without them, I don't know really where I'd be. So the family must come first. And I'd be no use to them dying in a hospital or dead in the ground.
Way the world works is my life is the only thing I've a say over. That's it.
Way to return to the blog. I should not be allowed to go to the movies unescorted.
Honest: for a long time - almost two years now - I've had a terrible idea not everyone I know and don't know would like to hear and that is going of the meds for the extra cash.
Just right now I was thinking, suppose I'd never had to go to the doctor four years ago and I never discovered I'd HIV, where would I be now? I don't know and neither does anyone else because that never happened. But, what if, you know?
I wonder how we got to this point where this is even worth considering. Years ago, if someone mentioned this to me, I'd tell them they were insane, and here I am thinking this. But is it that bad? No, not really. I could use five grand right now and I know lots of us could as well but that isn't going to happen. or, if I did indeed stop the the meds for the money, I think it would be easier to just spend it on something wholly necessary.
The family is in really bad form right now. Not only financially. Not a lot of us are happy. I'd go even a little further into it: I don't think a lot of us are content or satisfied with what's happening, any of it. Who is, really?
So, I'm at the movies and guy in the movie says he just wants it to stop, the disease he has. And that's where I am and I think using the family trials as the reason for it to stop is kind of a cop-out. Isn't it? Is it?
What if I decided to stop treatment, would you hate me, shun me, support me, or say nothing? Is this one of those cry for help things? Do I mean a slow-speed suicide? What is it?
As I've written many times over the last few years, I want it to stop, all these pills every week; the way in which everything my family says around me is tinged with sadness and fear; the way in which whenever I mention being sick all I get is silence; thinking the pretty girl I want to ask out from work will just walk away when I tell her; the way my mother looks at me sometimes. And the way I see myself daily. I just want it all to stop so I can be normal again.
Haven't had a fit like this in a while. I don't really know what normal means.
But, as I said, there's lots of things to take care of for the family. I hate my living situation but without me they can't keep the house nor put food on the table nor even enjoy a smoke every now and then. Silly to even type all that. But it's true. And me, without them, I don't know really where I'd be. So the family must come first. And I'd be no use to them dying in a hospital or dead in the ground.
Way the world works is my life is the only thing I've a say over. That's it.
Way to return to the blog. I should not be allowed to go to the movies unescorted.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The Milk
Since I lost my job over a year ago, every week seems to feel longer than it really is. Of course, when things are bad, I'm sure this changed perception of time is prevalent. How could it not be - we say, "Time flies when you're having fun," and all that. And what came along with that, and continues until just a few moments ago, sometimes just makes me so angry and sad and bitter and defeated.
Okay, so at my new job, I've medical insurance. It's one of those things that with losing the previous gig was a huge worry for me (nevermind, the rest of the family - they were a mess). Paying hundreds of dollars a month, even with not enough money coming in, for COBRA just so that I could continue to pay a couple hundred dollars on top of that for medication and more doctor's visits seemed so ridiculous. It's one of the reasons last year the president let me down by not pushing for Single-payer Healthcare. But anyway, so am covered now...
Late last week I called in to have my two prescriptions filled because it was time. And it was the first paycheck where the new gig was paying me decently, finally. Not great, but every dollar counts, after all. I went a couple of days ago to pick them up and was told that my COBRA insurance had lapsed. I figured, so what, I've a shiny new insurance card (the cost attached to my meds then I've talked about before). So, pharmacy guy does whatever it is they do and comes back and tells me it'll be $500 for both. Turns out I need to pay my deductible before the insurance covers what it used to. This was a rather unexpected thing to have happen.
Just got back from paying this and I am still a bit embittered and sad by the whole thing. I drove to the pharmacy crying.
Honest: one of the things that bothers me the most about this is the contrasting example of the ex and my situations beyond us both being HIV-positive: I've worked for years, paying my taxes and insurance costs and all that; he's claimed disability for a lot longer than I've been taking these fucking pills: I pay what I pay for doctor visits, emergency room visits, and medicine (the most total was in 2008 which came to roughly $4000); he pays nothing. The juxtaposition is glaring to me and shows me such an unfair disparity that it simply infuriates me, and has ever since I first discovered this. And it isn't so much because it's the ex, no. It's more due to the fact that it seems that when you play by the rules in this fucking country, well, who the fuck cares, even when it comes to staying alive. To be fair, I don't know and don't recall the details of the ex's then-situation when all this came to pass for him, nor much do I care now. What stays in my mind, and did as I drove to and back from the pharmacy just now, is that while we were together, the ex said he could get any medication he wanted and he'd get it for free (I was present first hand when he had some pills for some friend of his (hair-growth pills or some such) and I know first-hand he has easy access to boner pills (he took some when we were in San Diego last year). This is the disparity: all I want is what I need and am willing to pay for it; he's one of those people others complain about abusing the system while not paying into it.
(Okay, since am on a tear about the ex, this: I am not certain of what constitutes being disabled due to HIV-infection or AIDS - if I remember correctly, he'd said to me once that he was so sick before he couldn't work. And I'm sure this is how one does this which is fair and right, especially without access to healthcare any other way. However, in the intervening years, although I'd only known him personally for about three years, from my very biased and outsider point of view, he is not disabled any longer. This is a man who gets steroids from the public clinic he goes to because he doesn't want to loose muscle because...I think he said more muscle mass is necessary to fight off HIV cells? Something like that. I'm sure there is truth to this to a degree. But I believe it is primarily so that he doesn't become physically unattractive.)
God damn but am I angry today.
I paid my $500.
Hopefully, as it was explained to me earlier by the insurance rep, I won't be paying as much next month and so on.
Sure, I'm all "woe is me" right now, but that'll pass. This is initial shock. And it's due to having to, first, spend money that I need for other things, and, two, the fact that someone like me even has to spend money on HIV medication. This is a case, for me, where I see me as part of the working class in America and I am not catching a break: from one end of the spectrum (the ex and those like him) to another (those for whom medical care is an afterthought-expense), there is a gap wherein most of lie where we have to choose between everything that is necessary (meds, food, shelter, etc) or losing most of it. It isn't fair and it isn't right. This blog post is completely biased and written in anger and may be completely offensive and all that bullshit, but who cares? It's all of it spilled milk.
Okay, so at my new job, I've medical insurance. It's one of those things that with losing the previous gig was a huge worry for me (nevermind, the rest of the family - they were a mess). Paying hundreds of dollars a month, even with not enough money coming in, for COBRA just so that I could continue to pay a couple hundred dollars on top of that for medication and more doctor's visits seemed so ridiculous. It's one of the reasons last year the president let me down by not pushing for Single-payer Healthcare. But anyway, so am covered now...
Late last week I called in to have my two prescriptions filled because it was time. And it was the first paycheck where the new gig was paying me decently, finally. Not great, but every dollar counts, after all. I went a couple of days ago to pick them up and was told that my COBRA insurance had lapsed. I figured, so what, I've a shiny new insurance card (the cost attached to my meds then I've talked about before). So, pharmacy guy does whatever it is they do and comes back and tells me it'll be $500 for both. Turns out I need to pay my deductible before the insurance covers what it used to. This was a rather unexpected thing to have happen.
Just got back from paying this and I am still a bit embittered and sad by the whole thing. I drove to the pharmacy crying.
Honest: one of the things that bothers me the most about this is the contrasting example of the ex and my situations beyond us both being HIV-positive: I've worked for years, paying my taxes and insurance costs and all that; he's claimed disability for a lot longer than I've been taking these fucking pills: I pay what I pay for doctor visits, emergency room visits, and medicine (the most total was in 2008 which came to roughly $4000); he pays nothing. The juxtaposition is glaring to me and shows me such an unfair disparity that it simply infuriates me, and has ever since I first discovered this. And it isn't so much because it's the ex, no. It's more due to the fact that it seems that when you play by the rules in this fucking country, well, who the fuck cares, even when it comes to staying alive. To be fair, I don't know and don't recall the details of the ex's then-situation when all this came to pass for him, nor much do I care now. What stays in my mind, and did as I drove to and back from the pharmacy just now, is that while we were together, the ex said he could get any medication he wanted and he'd get it for free (I was present first hand when he had some pills for some friend of his (hair-growth pills or some such) and I know first-hand he has easy access to boner pills (he took some when we were in San Diego last year). This is the disparity: all I want is what I need and am willing to pay for it; he's one of those people others complain about abusing the system while not paying into it.
(Okay, since am on a tear about the ex, this: I am not certain of what constitutes being disabled due to HIV-infection or AIDS - if I remember correctly, he'd said to me once that he was so sick before he couldn't work. And I'm sure this is how one does this which is fair and right, especially without access to healthcare any other way. However, in the intervening years, although I'd only known him personally for about three years, from my very biased and outsider point of view, he is not disabled any longer. This is a man who gets steroids from the public clinic he goes to because he doesn't want to loose muscle because...I think he said more muscle mass is necessary to fight off HIV cells? Something like that. I'm sure there is truth to this to a degree. But I believe it is primarily so that he doesn't become physically unattractive.)
God damn but am I angry today.
I paid my $500.
Hopefully, as it was explained to me earlier by the insurance rep, I won't be paying as much next month and so on.
Sure, I'm all "woe is me" right now, but that'll pass. This is initial shock. And it's due to having to, first, spend money that I need for other things, and, two, the fact that someone like me even has to spend money on HIV medication. This is a case, for me, where I see me as part of the working class in America and I am not catching a break: from one end of the spectrum (the ex and those like him) to another (those for whom medical care is an afterthought-expense), there is a gap wherein most of lie where we have to choose between everything that is necessary (meds, food, shelter, etc) or losing most of it. It isn't fair and it isn't right. This blog post is completely biased and written in anger and may be completely offensive and all that bullshit, but who cares? It's all of it spilled milk.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Crime
It dawns on me that I cannot commit a crime and get away with it. It isn't even forensics. I'd be caught in three minutes.
Not that my crime spree was forthcoming. Just saying.
Not that my crime spree was forthcoming. Just saying.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Read: Falling Man, Richard Yates, and Player One
Over the last couple of years I've not read as much as I used to. Mostly, I think it's due to work and the internet. Obvious, really. And the third culprit is being ridiculously emo a lot. So, it goes. I'm so glad that the last couple of months have sort of included a few novels and comics re-reads. These are the last three books I loved very much.
Don DeLillo's FALLING MAN is the story of Keith, a man who survived the September 11th destruction of the World Trade Center, and how it affected him, and his estranged-wife, and life in general. What made this particularly startling for me was, as the story unfolds, it tells the story of a man who isn't necessarily the best man - arguably, someone who might've not deserved to survive - and at the same time, you can't help but place yourself in his shoes, not during this period of time, but all the time: I didn't think about what I would've done if I was Keith, but more what I would be doing now and tomorrow. It sort of contextualizes me along with Keith in a place after this particular disaster. It isn't that Keith remains unchanged, but how through this unenviable experience, his wife Lianne, seems to think there's more changed than not, while her mother points out that Lianne isn't seeing that it's the world that's different and it's the world that's making her believe Keith is different. As much of UNDERWORLD, DeLillo uses events as a driving force in the lives of individuals, his characters and me, and in showing us this, for a brief moment we can see it but forget it once the moment is over. Which is the main reason why for me, it isn't Keith who is the Falling Man, but we all are in that we attempt in separating ourselves from history when the world changes. Sure, I wondered many times if I were Keith would I be doing the same things I was doing while reading the novel, but that is all. I had no context save the book in the same way Keith September 11, 2011. It is why Keith, eventually, would remain in hotels gambling, further distancing himself from history (a futile exercise) and me still believing I was him even though so much time had passed. The story does have a few threads I didn't care for: Justin, Keith and Lianne's son and his friends vigilance over the New York sky seemed too predictable, and didn't add much for me nor did I think it served any real purpose in the story save in a "think about the children" sort of way. Another was the performance artist known as Falling Man, who would re-enact suicide leaps from building and bridges all over New York while wearing a suit, which, after the attacks, took on a more sinister meaning beside the fact he was doing nothing new. While initially too obvious, I became tired of his final appearance before Lianne: again, for me, it served as nothing more than a cartoon and an expectation in the context of the story (I don't know if this was a real person DeLillo used, or if Falling Man was made up). And the last thread I'm not sure I liked but did find a little interesting was the few sections featuring the planning of the attacks and a young man named Hammad being trained for the very purpose. While still connecting the thread of the downward man from the title, I think not so much that these few scenes add much to the whole. I find them interesting as a literary exercise, but I think had they been left out, the book would not have suffered.
I came across Tao Lin via COMING & CRYING, my favorite book of 2010. It featured an excerpt from SHOPLIFTING FROM AMERICAN APPAREL and when I saw that his new novel, RICHARD YATES, was out via the internet, I figured, why not? A young writer from New York - Haley Joel Osment - is internet friends with a teenage girl from New Jersey named Dakota Fanning, and this is the story of their relationship, how it was built and how it eroded and how it suffered...but not quite sure how it would end. Osment likes Fanning and vice versa, but her being a teenager and suffering from that makes her erratic, potentially mentally unstable, curious, but ultimately normal. The older Osment, by some six years or so (he's twenty-two), however, ought to know better in a lot of ways but he likes the young Fanning, I think, because he's simply lonely. Connecting on the internet, both see themselves in each others odd observations and declarations (both at various points tell the other they're going to kill themselves) because, as anyone who's met anyone on the internet, you play off each other really well when there's an electronic wall between you. When Osment and Fanning are finally together, neither is fully at ease with each other, and at one point in the beginning of their face to face relationship, it is Osment who first contemplates abandoning Fanning in a school bus yard. But he doesn't, and they muddle through a rather dull relationship but I think that's the very point, and very in contrast with how we learn of them, of how they learned about each other via the internet. For various reasons, I found this story and the character's dynamics rather familiar and how it plays out until the end is dull, yes, but very realistic in a way that not a lost of stories can be. Osment's force of nature way in commanding aspect's of Fanning's life resonates because there is that dynamic in a relationship between two people, romantic or otherwise. Fanning's near submission to this is very indicative of, not just her age and maturity, but of how lonely she is as well. How a relationship works in the confines of the novel escapes both of them and muddle through it in spectacularly disastrous fashion. At various times, Lin is hilarious and rather sad and wistful. And what Lin did for me was show me that sometimes, perhaps, loneliness's cure isn't another person. Whatever the intent, Lin's novel gives me a good impression of what younger folk (my generation and all proceeding it) go through individually, hoping another person will "cure" them of their angst (this might be the wrong word) and frankly maneuvering through their lives. RICHARD YATES is hugely entertaining if you love people, I think. If you love someone, it's hilarious to a point. And if you're lonely, it certainly crystallizes a few things for you (it did for me). It reminds me that 1 + 1 does not always equal 2. And that it's perfectly fine that way too.
PLAYER ONE is Douglas Coupland's most recent novel and tells the story through five points of view: Karen, off to meet a man off the internet; Rick, the bartender where Karen is waiting; Luke, a pastor whose lost his faith but stole his congregation's money; Rachel, a stunningly attractive fluke of nature; Player One, a seemingly omniscient force that knows what's about to happen and wonders why humans are this way and that. All five are trapped in Rick's bar when suddenly, the world explodes into violence, oil prices skyrocketing to the stratosphere, chemical attacks, and a sniper. Through forces they do not understand or even know existed, these five are forced to fend for themselves in the hope that something will be waiting for them on the outside once the fires are out...but do they want to? When the world ends and you get another shot at life, would you still be the same or would you change? When given a new world, do you even want to change? Coupland revisits all of the themes he's known for nearly in every page: modernism, the meanings of time and space for us, post-millenial tension, technology, the individual and her/his place in the world, commercialism, stories as a salve, religion, faith, death, love, and the ever-present question of what makes us US. What he does in PLAYER ONE is give his characters flaws necessary to come to certain conclusions (is the fact Rachel might begin to believe in God part of her brain dysfunction? Or also that the sniper's religion what ties him to her and to his violent acts?), but it doesn't feel fabricated. None of these people seem one-dimensional in the way people on television are, and you always want to root for them. Coupland uses himself as inspiration as various bits of dialogue and narrative are featured here, verbatim, which illustrates, I think, the huge thematic web he's created with all his work: that we are all more alike than not, and it fucking works. The question arises that while none of these people generally believe in fate (Luke: "Fate is for losers."), is there are reason why it is them that are holed up in an airport lounge as the world ends? The answer is no, but only I know this because I am not in the story...or aren't I? You're in there as well, having this discussion about what's going to be waiting outside your door every morning because whether you see it or not, the world is ending, and as soon as you step outside into it, you're deciding who you want to be in a particularly base and fundamental way. Or not. PLAYER ONE presents us with characters that are excitingly human because they're as boring as us, but their questions about life and death and beyond and the future are our questions, only we're not trapped together by the apocalypse to fully express them to each other. Coupland does an excellent job in tying his entire work together with PLAYER ONE for me. It has placed not just his characters - all of them - in a certain place of history (and not just literary history) but in a certain place of time: the future, and they're just as scared and unknowing as we are. In PLAYER ONE, one of the ideas that is presented is that humans unlike animals have a concept of time. However, we don't really have a concept of Eternity.
All three books about very different things have a few things in common: the relationships we have with people in general and the world, what makes us US, and what we're willing and not willing to do in the world like change ourselves from time to time. Like Keith in FALLING MAN, do you pretend that you're damaged when you're not really and use it as an escape? Like Rachel in PLAYER ONE, even if you're damaged by birth, how badly do you want to be like everyone else? Like Fanning, would -be love, is that sufficient to change everything about yourself even if you don't really want to? How do the people around us make us US, and how much of ourselves are we willing to share? In the even of catastrophe, why do we use this time to do more change than we normally would? What are the forces in the world keeping you in the place made for you, and is there even one? In my reading of these three novels, I internalize and personalize a lot, which is something we all do, I think, and left me with a sense of wonder in way. What's going on in the world currently is evidence that the world is nothing but change, yet I am relatively the only constant in my life.
I think I've gone on too long already.
Don DeLillo's FALLING MAN is the story of Keith, a man who survived the September 11th destruction of the World Trade Center, and how it affected him, and his estranged-wife, and life in general. What made this particularly startling for me was, as the story unfolds, it tells the story of a man who isn't necessarily the best man - arguably, someone who might've not deserved to survive - and at the same time, you can't help but place yourself in his shoes, not during this period of time, but all the time: I didn't think about what I would've done if I was Keith, but more what I would be doing now and tomorrow. It sort of contextualizes me along with Keith in a place after this particular disaster. It isn't that Keith remains unchanged, but how through this unenviable experience, his wife Lianne, seems to think there's more changed than not, while her mother points out that Lianne isn't seeing that it's the world that's different and it's the world that's making her believe Keith is different. As much of UNDERWORLD, DeLillo uses events as a driving force in the lives of individuals, his characters and me, and in showing us this, for a brief moment we can see it but forget it once the moment is over. Which is the main reason why for me, it isn't Keith who is the Falling Man, but we all are in that we attempt in separating ourselves from history when the world changes. Sure, I wondered many times if I were Keith would I be doing the same things I was doing while reading the novel, but that is all. I had no context save the book in the same way Keith September 11, 2011. It is why Keith, eventually, would remain in hotels gambling, further distancing himself from history (a futile exercise) and me still believing I was him even though so much time had passed. The story does have a few threads I didn't care for: Justin, Keith and Lianne's son and his friends vigilance over the New York sky seemed too predictable, and didn't add much for me nor did I think it served any real purpose in the story save in a "think about the children" sort of way. Another was the performance artist known as Falling Man, who would re-enact suicide leaps from building and bridges all over New York while wearing a suit, which, after the attacks, took on a more sinister meaning beside the fact he was doing nothing new. While initially too obvious, I became tired of his final appearance before Lianne: again, for me, it served as nothing more than a cartoon and an expectation in the context of the story (I don't know if this was a real person DeLillo used, or if Falling Man was made up). And the last thread I'm not sure I liked but did find a little interesting was the few sections featuring the planning of the attacks and a young man named Hammad being trained for the very purpose. While still connecting the thread of the downward man from the title, I think not so much that these few scenes add much to the whole. I find them interesting as a literary exercise, but I think had they been left out, the book would not have suffered.
I came across Tao Lin via COMING & CRYING, my favorite book of 2010. It featured an excerpt from SHOPLIFTING FROM AMERICAN APPAREL and when I saw that his new novel, RICHARD YATES, was out via the internet, I figured, why not? A young writer from New York - Haley Joel Osment - is internet friends with a teenage girl from New Jersey named Dakota Fanning, and this is the story of their relationship, how it was built and how it eroded and how it suffered...but not quite sure how it would end. Osment likes Fanning and vice versa, but her being a teenager and suffering from that makes her erratic, potentially mentally unstable, curious, but ultimately normal. The older Osment, by some six years or so (he's twenty-two), however, ought to know better in a lot of ways but he likes the young Fanning, I think, because he's simply lonely. Connecting on the internet, both see themselves in each others odd observations and declarations (both at various points tell the other they're going to kill themselves) because, as anyone who's met anyone on the internet, you play off each other really well when there's an electronic wall between you. When Osment and Fanning are finally together, neither is fully at ease with each other, and at one point in the beginning of their face to face relationship, it is Osment who first contemplates abandoning Fanning in a school bus yard. But he doesn't, and they muddle through a rather dull relationship but I think that's the very point, and very in contrast with how we learn of them, of how they learned about each other via the internet. For various reasons, I found this story and the character's dynamics rather familiar and how it plays out until the end is dull, yes, but very realistic in a way that not a lost of stories can be. Osment's force of nature way in commanding aspect's of Fanning's life resonates because there is that dynamic in a relationship between two people, romantic or otherwise. Fanning's near submission to this is very indicative of, not just her age and maturity, but of how lonely she is as well. How a relationship works in the confines of the novel escapes both of them and muddle through it in spectacularly disastrous fashion. At various times, Lin is hilarious and rather sad and wistful. And what Lin did for me was show me that sometimes, perhaps, loneliness's cure isn't another person. Whatever the intent, Lin's novel gives me a good impression of what younger folk (my generation and all proceeding it) go through individually, hoping another person will "cure" them of their angst (this might be the wrong word) and frankly maneuvering through their lives. RICHARD YATES is hugely entertaining if you love people, I think. If you love someone, it's hilarious to a point. And if you're lonely, it certainly crystallizes a few things for you (it did for me). It reminds me that 1 + 1 does not always equal 2. And that it's perfectly fine that way too.
PLAYER ONE is Douglas Coupland's most recent novel and tells the story through five points of view: Karen, off to meet a man off the internet; Rick, the bartender where Karen is waiting; Luke, a pastor whose lost his faith but stole his congregation's money; Rachel, a stunningly attractive fluke of nature; Player One, a seemingly omniscient force that knows what's about to happen and wonders why humans are this way and that. All five are trapped in Rick's bar when suddenly, the world explodes into violence, oil prices skyrocketing to the stratosphere, chemical attacks, and a sniper. Through forces they do not understand or even know existed, these five are forced to fend for themselves in the hope that something will be waiting for them on the outside once the fires are out...but do they want to? When the world ends and you get another shot at life, would you still be the same or would you change? When given a new world, do you even want to change? Coupland revisits all of the themes he's known for nearly in every page: modernism, the meanings of time and space for us, post-millenial tension, technology, the individual and her/his place in the world, commercialism, stories as a salve, religion, faith, death, love, and the ever-present question of what makes us US. What he does in PLAYER ONE is give his characters flaws necessary to come to certain conclusions (is the fact Rachel might begin to believe in God part of her brain dysfunction? Or also that the sniper's religion what ties him to her and to his violent acts?), but it doesn't feel fabricated. None of these people seem one-dimensional in the way people on television are, and you always want to root for them. Coupland uses himself as inspiration as various bits of dialogue and narrative are featured here, verbatim, which illustrates, I think, the huge thematic web he's created with all his work: that we are all more alike than not, and it fucking works. The question arises that while none of these people generally believe in fate (Luke: "Fate is for losers."), is there are reason why it is them that are holed up in an airport lounge as the world ends? The answer is no, but only I know this because I am not in the story...or aren't I? You're in there as well, having this discussion about what's going to be waiting outside your door every morning because whether you see it or not, the world is ending, and as soon as you step outside into it, you're deciding who you want to be in a particularly base and fundamental way. Or not. PLAYER ONE presents us with characters that are excitingly human because they're as boring as us, but their questions about life and death and beyond and the future are our questions, only we're not trapped together by the apocalypse to fully express them to each other. Coupland does an excellent job in tying his entire work together with PLAYER ONE for me. It has placed not just his characters - all of them - in a certain place of history (and not just literary history) but in a certain place of time: the future, and they're just as scared and unknowing as we are. In PLAYER ONE, one of the ideas that is presented is that humans unlike animals have a concept of time. However, we don't really have a concept of Eternity.
All three books about very different things have a few things in common: the relationships we have with people in general and the world, what makes us US, and what we're willing and not willing to do in the world like change ourselves from time to time. Like Keith in FALLING MAN, do you pretend that you're damaged when you're not really and use it as an escape? Like Rachel in PLAYER ONE, even if you're damaged by birth, how badly do you want to be like everyone else? Like Fanning, would -be love, is that sufficient to change everything about yourself even if you don't really want to? How do the people around us make us US, and how much of ourselves are we willing to share? In the even of catastrophe, why do we use this time to do more change than we normally would? What are the forces in the world keeping you in the place made for you, and is there even one? In my reading of these three novels, I internalize and personalize a lot, which is something we all do, I think, and left me with a sense of wonder in way. What's going on in the world currently is evidence that the world is nothing but change, yet I am relatively the only constant in my life.
I think I've gone on too long already.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
It Goes...
Of course I miss 'em. All of them.
But not more than I miss being stupidly drunk, out somewhere in the middle of the night in a stranger's bed.
But not more than I miss being stupidly drunk, out somewhere in the middle of the night in a stranger's bed.
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