Frustration
I feel as if my emotions were snarled hair; it hurts to comb them out, but it also bothers me to let them alone.
Part of it is the sore on my right leg, which is leaking lymphatic fluid. Lymphatic fluid is acidic, so the place where the blister broke is scarlet and raw and burning. It looks like it should be bleeding. The sore is covered by a Kotex overnight napkin, because it is soft and absorbent and hypoallergenic. The Kotex is attached to the skin by Nexcare Flexible Clear Tape, which is not too sticky--which is good, since sticky bandages just exacerbated this situation in the first place--and is Latex-free. Ridiculously, I'm allergic to Latex, which is used in just about every bandage and tape in existence, and to the glue on most tapes. For someone who needs bandages the way I do, these are not happy allergies to have.
It is also time to apply for ConnPace again--the prescription program that pays for much of my medication. I don't object to applying. I object to having to apply every single year. It is as if the state of Connecticut lives in constant expectation that someday I will be healed of all past, present and future disabilities and will also discover a money tree growing in the backyard.
So. Time to ransack the tax forms and the birth certificate info again. Fun fun. What's really frustrating is that I spent almost two months getting all the correct documentation, forms and finances together last year to be sure I wouldn't be cut off...and it took nearly a month for ConnPace to kick in because of departmental backlog.
Not looking forward to this again.
I am also reading a disturbing book called Girls of Tender Age by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith, which is an odd mixture of childhood memoir (which has the added advantage of being set in Hartford, Connecticut) and true crime. Part of the book deals with a friend of the author's, who was murdered on December 10, 1953 in the backyard of a house on Coolidge Street in Hartford--four houses down from the house where I would live until I was six.
And you know, I never heard that little girl's name before. I never heard of the case. But I do remember my mother losing it if I walked so much as half a block away from the house on my own, or if I left the backyard or came into the house without telling her. "You must always, always tell me where you're going," she said a thousand times. "Never stop. Never talk to strangers, not even if all they say is hello. If they talk to you, you run and don't stop until you find a policeman or get home." Her voice would drop dramatically then. "A little girl was killed on this street, you know."
I wasn't sure whether the little girl was real. But I knew that my mother believed she was. It's a shock to learn, forty years later, that the little girl was not an urban legend but a real person.
Also, it's becoming increasingly apparent that I will not get a book done by September, which makes me feel like a failure. This is because the planned book was a romance...and after trying to write this book for three years and attempting for seven futile months to write a fandom OTP that I ship incredibly hard, I've decided that I'd better just own up and admit that I don't know how relationships develop, nor have I ever seen people courting save in books or in movies. (I can't even fall back on my own experience, as I managed to get engaged without being in love with the guy at all. He claimed to love me, and I figured that I could learn to love him, because at least he was interested. But I never did learn how.)
While I'd like to write for publication, I don't know where to start in a genre that isn't romance; almost all of the submission calls for specific markets seem to be for romance or erotica. I'm more interested in things like adventure, urban fantasy, alternate history, re-imaginings of stories. All very well and good, but I know of few markets for such things. (Actually, I know of a few professional publishers of urban fantasy...and that's it. And, to quote Jean Kerr, a mountain climber doesn't START with Everest.)
If anyone has information relating to writing and publishing in the genres I like and think I could write well, I could use it.
And just to top it off, it's been a really shitty week for my friends, healthwise and family-wise.
I would like very much to K.O. an elephant right about now.
Part of it is the sore on my right leg, which is leaking lymphatic fluid. Lymphatic fluid is acidic, so the place where the blister broke is scarlet and raw and burning. It looks like it should be bleeding. The sore is covered by a Kotex overnight napkin, because it is soft and absorbent and hypoallergenic. The Kotex is attached to the skin by Nexcare Flexible Clear Tape, which is not too sticky--which is good, since sticky bandages just exacerbated this situation in the first place--and is Latex-free. Ridiculously, I'm allergic to Latex, which is used in just about every bandage and tape in existence, and to the glue on most tapes. For someone who needs bandages the way I do, these are not happy allergies to have.
It is also time to apply for ConnPace again--the prescription program that pays for much of my medication. I don't object to applying. I object to having to apply every single year. It is as if the state of Connecticut lives in constant expectation that someday I will be healed of all past, present and future disabilities and will also discover a money tree growing in the backyard.
So. Time to ransack the tax forms and the birth certificate info again. Fun fun. What's really frustrating is that I spent almost two months getting all the correct documentation, forms and finances together last year to be sure I wouldn't be cut off...and it took nearly a month for ConnPace to kick in because of departmental backlog.
Not looking forward to this again.
I am also reading a disturbing book called Girls of Tender Age by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith, which is an odd mixture of childhood memoir (which has the added advantage of being set in Hartford, Connecticut) and true crime. Part of the book deals with a friend of the author's, who was murdered on December 10, 1953 in the backyard of a house on Coolidge Street in Hartford--four houses down from the house where I would live until I was six.
And you know, I never heard that little girl's name before. I never heard of the case. But I do remember my mother losing it if I walked so much as half a block away from the house on my own, or if I left the backyard or came into the house without telling her. "You must always, always tell me where you're going," she said a thousand times. "Never stop. Never talk to strangers, not even if all they say is hello. If they talk to you, you run and don't stop until you find a policeman or get home." Her voice would drop dramatically then. "A little girl was killed on this street, you know."
I wasn't sure whether the little girl was real. But I knew that my mother believed she was. It's a shock to learn, forty years later, that the little girl was not an urban legend but a real person.
Also, it's becoming increasingly apparent that I will not get a book done by September, which makes me feel like a failure. This is because the planned book was a romance...and after trying to write this book for three years and attempting for seven futile months to write a fandom OTP that I ship incredibly hard, I've decided that I'd better just own up and admit that I don't know how relationships develop, nor have I ever seen people courting save in books or in movies. (I can't even fall back on my own experience, as I managed to get engaged without being in love with the guy at all. He claimed to love me, and I figured that I could learn to love him, because at least he was interested. But I never did learn how.)
While I'd like to write for publication, I don't know where to start in a genre that isn't romance; almost all of the submission calls for specific markets seem to be for romance or erotica. I'm more interested in things like adventure, urban fantasy, alternate history, re-imaginings of stories. All very well and good, but I know of few markets for such things. (Actually, I know of a few professional publishers of urban fantasy...and that's it. And, to quote Jean Kerr, a mountain climber doesn't START with Everest.)
If anyone has information relating to writing and publishing in the genres I like and think I could write well, I could use it.
And just to top it off, it's been a really shitty week for my friends, healthwise and family-wise.
I would like very much to K.O. an elephant right about now.