Aquacel and Fictional Worlds of Choice
After a battle royale to obtain the Aquacel AG for the leg--a battle mostly between my doctor, who thought of this as over-the-counter medicine and the Home Health place, who wanted medical justification for putting this on back order--I finally have the stuff a week later. FYI, Aquacel is not cheap. Fourteen sheets of it--I currently have six, with eight on back order--cost almost three hundred dollars. This initially was not going to be paid by Medicare, either...and I ask you to imagine my panic when I heard THAT news. The doctor had to fax infinitely more medical info to the Home Health place. So now my main and supplemental have picked up the cost. Thank God. There is no freaking WAY that I could have paid for that on top of my other bills.
What makes all this completely ludicrous is that while my doctor and the Home Health place tussled over the expensive treatment, my leg responded to antibiotics costing, in toto, 5.49, fourteen bucks' worth of Kotex and a 2.99 tube of zinc oxide.
I will have use for the Aquacel at some point. It's just...GAH.
fannish5 is asking an interesting question this week: Which five canons would you NOT want to live in, and why?
I'm interpreting this as "five canons you follow," rather than "canons you've only heard about." Otherwise, we'll be here all night.
The problem is that what makes for a good story isn't usually what makes for a comfortable or pleasant world. So with that in mind, here are my five.
1) The Dresden Files (bookverse). I'd be willing to try living in the TV series because a) it doesn't seem quite as hostile to the human race and b) I'd dearly love to meet and get to know Bob. I heart that ghost so very much.
But the books? NO. This is a world where you can't win. If you're a normal person, you're cannon fodder. If you're a normal person and you find out about the supernatural, the odds are that you'll go into terminal denial just to stay sane, and if you don't deny what happened, you might well lose your reputation and your job, and people will think you're dishonest or crazy. If you're a wizard, you have to deal with four different vampire courts (well, three now--the Black, White and Jade Courts), insane FBI agents, gigantic psychotic werewolves, a governing body of wizards that's been infiltrated and manipulated by its enemies and that routinely beheads people who break the Laws of Magic, six faerie queens (two of whom are dangerously cunning, utterly without scruples and ruthless, and all of whom are powerful and deadly), necromancers trying to raise and/or become a new evil god...and I don't even want to discuss the Eldritch Abominations or the psychotic (and mostly voluntary) hosts of fallen angels. This is not a human-friendly world.
Also, I wouldn't be able to survive either as a wizard or as a mundane around wizards, because wizards and magic canonically make technology go boom, and that would not be good for my lymphatic pump, my cell phone or my computer. These are necessities of life, people.
(As my computer guy pointed out the last time he was over here, as the human world of the Dresdenverse becomes more technological, wizards are going to have to develop a sizable network of non-magical people to run technological interference for them: setting up websites to advertise goods and services, creating answering services for cell phones, paying bills online, buying things for the wizards with the wizards' credit cards and powers of attorney, and so on. None of which is impossible, in Dresdenverse terms. It would just mean that the Masquerade was over.)
So no. For a plethora of reasons, I don't think I'd survive in this world.
2) A Song of Ice and Fire (bookverse). Westeros is embroiled in a three-way civil war (which means that the ordinary people are caught in the middle, poor guys), the church has just imprisoned two queens who are both awaiting trial. there's a power struggle in the region that's the equivalent of the Mideast, there are conquests and slave revolts across the sea, nonhumans called "the Others" are battling soldier-guards in the remote North, shadows are committing murder and the dead are coming back to life. Oh, and a lot of crops have been ruined by war and a years-long winter is in the offing. And this world is the embodiment of Anyone Can Die. Doesn't sound like a great place to live, all told.
3) Buffyverse/Angelverse. I don't want to live in a town on a freaking HELLMOUTH. Not to mention, have you seen the body count in that town? And the evil law firm of Wolfram and Hart is disconcertingly like several places where I worked as a paralegal.
4) Harry Potter. I love the canon, but I have serious issues with a world in which the afterlife is known to be a fact that routinely has monsters suck out and eat the souls of criminals as punishment for crimes. Also, there's my old issue with mind control and privilege--why do wizards think that they have the right to erase true memories from Muggles' minds and implant false ones? Oh, right, because they can. Also, not thrilled with a world which refuses to change any of its political or social policies even after a couple of major civil wars. And again, lack of electricity. (Tell me, why is it that wizards who can't use electricity always go for candles and torches rather than kerosene lanterns and oil lamps?)
5) Doctor Who. While I dearly love the Doctor and would jump in the TARDIS right now if I could, I wouldn't want to live in his universe full-time, because Earth is always being overrun or invaded. And while the Doctor generally eliminates the immediate threat, he's not always good at solving the long-term problem. And there's also the fact that ordinary people have a tendency to die or worse before the short-term threat is dealt with...like the bride who was "converted" into a Cyberman on her wedding day.
What makes all this completely ludicrous is that while my doctor and the Home Health place tussled over the expensive treatment, my leg responded to antibiotics costing, in toto, 5.49, fourteen bucks' worth of Kotex and a 2.99 tube of zinc oxide.
I will have use for the Aquacel at some point. It's just...GAH.
fannish5 is asking an interesting question this week: Which five canons would you NOT want to live in, and why?
I'm interpreting this as "five canons you follow," rather than "canons you've only heard about." Otherwise, we'll be here all night.
The problem is that what makes for a good story isn't usually what makes for a comfortable or pleasant world. So with that in mind, here are my five.
1) The Dresden Files (bookverse). I'd be willing to try living in the TV series because a) it doesn't seem quite as hostile to the human race and b) I'd dearly love to meet and get to know Bob. I heart that ghost so very much.
But the books? NO. This is a world where you can't win. If you're a normal person, you're cannon fodder. If you're a normal person and you find out about the supernatural, the odds are that you'll go into terminal denial just to stay sane, and if you don't deny what happened, you might well lose your reputation and your job, and people will think you're dishonest or crazy. If you're a wizard, you have to deal with four different vampire courts (well, three now--the Black, White and Jade Courts), insane FBI agents, gigantic psychotic werewolves, a governing body of wizards that's been infiltrated and manipulated by its enemies and that routinely beheads people who break the Laws of Magic, six faerie queens (two of whom are dangerously cunning, utterly without scruples and ruthless, and all of whom are powerful and deadly), necromancers trying to raise and/or become a new evil god...and I don't even want to discuss the Eldritch Abominations or the psychotic (and mostly voluntary) hosts of fallen angels. This is not a human-friendly world.
Also, I wouldn't be able to survive either as a wizard or as a mundane around wizards, because wizards and magic canonically make technology go boom, and that would not be good for my lymphatic pump, my cell phone or my computer. These are necessities of life, people.
(As my computer guy pointed out the last time he was over here, as the human world of the Dresdenverse becomes more technological, wizards are going to have to develop a sizable network of non-magical people to run technological interference for them: setting up websites to advertise goods and services, creating answering services for cell phones, paying bills online, buying things for the wizards with the wizards' credit cards and powers of attorney, and so on. None of which is impossible, in Dresdenverse terms. It would just mean that the Masquerade was over.)
So no. For a plethora of reasons, I don't think I'd survive in this world.
2) A Song of Ice and Fire (bookverse). Westeros is embroiled in a three-way civil war (which means that the ordinary people are caught in the middle, poor guys), the church has just imprisoned two queens who are both awaiting trial. there's a power struggle in the region that's the equivalent of the Mideast, there are conquests and slave revolts across the sea, nonhumans called "the Others" are battling soldier-guards in the remote North, shadows are committing murder and the dead are coming back to life. Oh, and a lot of crops have been ruined by war and a years-long winter is in the offing. And this world is the embodiment of Anyone Can Die. Doesn't sound like a great place to live, all told.
3) Buffyverse/Angelverse. I don't want to live in a town on a freaking HELLMOUTH. Not to mention, have you seen the body count in that town? And the evil law firm of Wolfram and Hart is disconcertingly like several places where I worked as a paralegal.
4) Harry Potter. I love the canon, but I have serious issues with a world in which the afterlife is known to be a fact that routinely has monsters suck out and eat the souls of criminals as punishment for crimes. Also, there's my old issue with mind control and privilege--why do wizards think that they have the right to erase true memories from Muggles' minds and implant false ones? Oh, right, because they can. Also, not thrilled with a world which refuses to change any of its political or social policies even after a couple of major civil wars. And again, lack of electricity. (Tell me, why is it that wizards who can't use electricity always go for candles and torches rather than kerosene lanterns and oil lamps?)
5) Doctor Who. While I dearly love the Doctor and would jump in the TARDIS right now if I could, I wouldn't want to live in his universe full-time, because Earth is always being overrun or invaded. And while the Doctor generally eliminates the immediate threat, he's not always good at solving the long-term problem. And there's also the fact that ordinary people have a tendency to die or worse before the short-term threat is dealt with...like the bride who was "converted" into a Cyberman on her wedding day.