Author: Frances K R

Still aten’t dead.

If say it was a very busy weekend, but honestly it was just a very sick one. Which naturally cleared up just in time for work Monday. Probably for the best, all told. Paycheques and all that.

Currently hoping to be at work on time despite being stuck in traffic so slow that I could get out and walk faster. Tired. Worrying about the holidays, and not being able to get the people I want to give things the stuff I’d like to get them. It’s a matter of time rather than money, which I guess is good in terms of what it implies overall? That I’m busy, and that I’m not broke.

I just want ten hours of uninterrupted sleep, dammit. It’s not the holidays alone, or work alone, or cleaning, or any one thing. But I just need to stop feeling like I could fall asleep at my desk.

(Going to theatre tomorrow. Horribly horribly afraid I will fall asleep during and incredibly hurt the feelings of person I am going with. Coffee with dinner, I guess…)

AHS again

Alright.  Caught episodes 7 and 8 of American Horror story a couple of days ago, and taken together I’m actually really annoyed with the way the story is going.  Spoilers follow.

First off, I know part of this might be annoyance over Tate being written as such a villain and so heavily coded as a rapist.  I liked him.  Yes, there was the shortcut through my consideration that the trope “mentally ill person wanting to get better” does if it’s done at all well, but justified or not, sourced in misjudgement or not, I liked him.  And he was monstrously cruel, and that it was in such a cowardly way upset me even more.  He’s hanging around Nora, and he takes her shaken comment as a reason to go killing and– the sheer abdication of resposibility, I mean I get it, but–

Agh.  Dammit.

Don’t know what they’re going to do with him now.  Suppose I will be interested to watch; it this a turning point in the presentation of the character?  Meant to be just a speed bump?  What?

*grumble*

John noticed Ben being drawn to the house; I blinked past it, but he’s right.  He got shot and he doesn’t leave the house.  I understand wanting to stay with Violet, but he got shot.  Even if the writers are not up on exactly how weird this reaction to a gunshot is[1], it does not seem like Ben would skip getting checked out.  And he’s always coming by, always stopping over; yes, he works there, but if he tried I’m guessing he could find some other place to see people.

The house does seem to have a fondness for medical professionals.  Even when it was a sorority, it was a sorority whose members all seemed to be nurses.  Leads me to wonder if there’s any intent there, or if there’s simply a groove worn into reality that has things keep slipping back to the same patterns, an echo of the way the house preserves things.

—
[1] Was looking up gunshot wounds at one point.  One accidental shooting where the bullet “went right through” took sixteen months to heal up.  No, sure, get a bandage and go lie down, that’ll fix it…

American Horror Story episode 9

…..aaaaand Ben just became unspeakable.

Given that about five minutes ago Constance turned into one of the more likeable characters on the show, and she hasn’t changed much, this should indicate that the bar is currently set really bloody low.  There was a moment where I really felt for Moira, which I don’t usually when she’s been seen by Ben.

*sigh*

It’s touching on the obsessed-over ideals of fame and love pretty well.  Really well, actually.

We haven’t seen Violet yet, and only seen Tate for thirty seconds.  And I’m feeling sorry for Hayden; I want to smack her,  and I think she’s seeing things with a warped perspective, but I’m feeling sorry for her.

Right.  Working on finishing up the second half of my reaction to the last two episodes.  I think Constance might end up dropping back down to Ben levels of–

Oh holy fucking hell, yay Moira, yay, I am going to keep watching now.

(Even if they are dragging in something in by the heels that makes me hope the writers are screwing around, because in terms of plausibility it’s reminding me of the opening to Deep Blue Sea where the sharks attacked a ship because red wine was spilt into the water.  And you know, it’s red stuff spilling through the water!  That’s what sets them off, right?)

It’s the little things.

The depression came up in a way I would honestly not have expected today.

I’ve got a cold.  A really pretty vicious one–I sound worse than Harold, all wheezy and cracked, and as shall shortly become apparent, I am having trouble focussing.  I made it out to the drugstore and got orange juice and tissues and Powerade and expectorant.  And then I came back, and I discovered that that cough medicine in question advises that I consult a doctor before taking it if I am taking medication for depression.

It turns out that it can have some really fun interactions with my meds; I couldn’t made sense of that, but I managed to find a couple of people who were very kindly willing to explain, and the short version is something like “your meds slow down metabolism of that drug, how do you feel about potentially extreme side-effects including seizures?”

One of them also suggested calling a medical professional to check, which was helpful because that possibility had honestly not occurred to me in my current state. Despite the label on the cough medicine saying “Talk to a doctor before using this product if…”

Yeah, I’m that level of sick-and-out-of-it.

Anyway, I got a callback from the doctor’s office, and it should be okay.

It’s just…

There’s a very good analogy about spoons that explains how you need to manage things, think about things that most people get to take for granted.  And I’m not saying that tripping up on taking cough medicine is the same as having Lupus!  But needing to check, consciously learning that I need to pay attention to labels (even in this state, where I looked at the label before buying the stuff and didn’t even register that bit until I got home), it’s a weird feeling.  A reminder that yes, this is part of my life and it’s going to mean paying attention, and sometimes the same condition that puts me in a state where I need to pay attention to things is going to be the condition that means I’m not able to do it.

It’s tiring, I guess.  I wish I had a better word.

(In the meantime, though, I have made sure that the light of my life has the information on exactly which drugs and at what dosage I’m on, readily to hand.  Between this and the “it should probably be fine”, I am going to stop sending energy on worrying and go drink a lot of orange juice.)

The week too young, the day too old.

This Saturday, in Toronto, there is going to be a release party for Future Lovecraft. I was really hoping to go–I like Innsmouth Free Press, I like trips, I like anthologies and the Mythos, I highly approve of the Merril Collection, and three of the book authors were going to be there.

Sadly, between the cost of travel and the small fact that I’ve spent the last two mornings coughing up muck, I don’t think I’m gonna make it. 🙁

That said, since I do have one more book that I am letting myself buy this year, I think it will be Future Lovecraft. It’s still on pre-sale, and hey, it’ll be here in time for Christmas. It’s got a Nick Mamatas story, and one by Molly Tanzer–she wrote the Ivybridge Twins story from Historical Lovecraft, which is quite seriously awesome–and between the table of contents and the sample story I am quite looking forward to it.

Meantime… well. It’s almost December, and I’m tired. I think it’s about time to turn in.

World can’t drag you down if you start so low.

Notes on the latest Walking Dead;

I despise Shane.  I deeply, truly, honestly detest him in a way… well, honestly, I’m sick and I’m tired and I’m thinking a bit fuzzily.  But I can’t remember the last time I saw so little about a character in a TV show that I could like.  He walks over to talk to Laurie and the clearest thought in my head was “Oh, good, at least she’s got a knife.”  Not “I hope this doesn’t go too badly,” not “I can see where he’s coming from,” just a general attitude of “here comes the shitstorm, head down and shoulders up and let’s get through it.”

I can see where he’s coming from.  But it’s not a place I can feel for.

I’m glad he’s there as a character, but it’s in the same sort of way that I’m glad there are zombies.  This is a story with a threat that isn’t empathic in the slightest, that wants but doesn’t care, not now.  Everyone knows that the zombies are like that.  No-one seems to have fully internalized that Shane is.  (Well.  One person might be doing it; I refrain from saying who since I’m nearly done and am too wiped for talking around the spoilers.)

What else?  Still liking Glenn.  Watching the Daryl/Carol relationship, and liking how understated it is, since the bit about the Cherokee Rose.  Loved the ending,which is not to say I found it at all happy. Want to smack Andrea, but unlike my reaction to Shane I want to smack her in a way that’s like wanting to yell at a dumb human who could learn better.

Annoying Horror Story.

Alright.  Caught episodes 7 and 8 of American Horror story a couple of days ago, and taken together I’m actually really annoyed with the way the story is going.  My reasons are split up into a couple of posts, just because the rant about one particular issue was getting a bit long. Continue reading “Annoying Horror Story.”

Strange indeed.

Was over at my in-laws for dinner.  One of them is an amateur genealogist (do you get professional genealogists? I suppose you could…), and he plugged my dad’s name and birth date into the program he uses.  From what I have garnered, it is a loose cloud of information floating somewhere in the internether.  You build your family tree there, other people build theirs, if the two of you happen to have a common point then the data which you’ve chosen to make public can overlap.

Someone else had already created an entry for someone who could have been my dad–a couple of data points met–and it included a picture, so I got called over to take a look at it.

It was him.

It was taken in the mid-late 40s, I guess; the scan of it online[1] is greyscale and not very big.  You can make out four candles on the cake balanced on his knees (birthday picture, is the guess), but he’s clearly way more than four.  I looked at it for a second, and I couldn’t say one way or the other if it was dad, and then there was this realization that I’d seen that expression on his face before, that exact expression, and I felt… nothing as strong as stunned.  Taken aback, maybe, or pleasantly surprised, or something.

Part of it was understanding that someone else knew about him; someone I’d never had reason to imagine existed found a picture of him and figured out or was told who he was.  Part of it was that he looked happy.

Also I have now learnt my paternal grandmother’s names, and picked up a smidgen of detail about the trip she took to come over from Italy.

—
[1] I had a moment of thinking “Am I sure it was a scan?” and then being slightly disconcerted to realize that yes, of course I am sure.  Digital pictures were so not an option at that point, after all.

That time of the month. –no, not *that* time.

There’s this thing I do sometimes–towards the end of the month, usually.  I mean, not every month, but the end of the month is when it’s most likely to happen.  Needing to buy something expensive can do it.  Putting money in the bank can do it, especially if I’m anxious and paying attention to how much the amount goes up by.

Anyway.  This thing is the thing where you start figuring out exactly how much money you have and how long you could manage for if there was absolutely no more income.  I had to go pick up my meds and I spent a dozen minutes wandering around the groceries section of the drug store[1] figuring how much I could get in the way of groceries if I cashed in all my rewards points.  (The chain has a pretty standard spend-money-get-points-redeem-points thing going.)

I have no idea why I was doing this math.  Things are fine, I know this, and even when I’m thinking about it I’m not worrying.  It’s more just a very very absorbing problem, like a Sudoku with addition.

—
[1] Always makes me think of the description of the drug superstore in Stephen King’s “The Sun Dog”.  Household goods and widgets and toiletries and food and cleaning supplies and toys and candy and way at the back, the pharmacy.  Because it is still technically a drug store.

Happy endings.

Tired, and busy–work is done in seven days (work days), and the crunch is really coming down.  But I found some happy things, and thought I would share.

I shall plan my cousin’s escape from that Canton madhouse, and together we shall go to marvel–shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many–columned Y’ha–nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.
– H.P. Lovecraft, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”

There were faces at the window and words written in blood; deep in the crypt a lonely ghoul crunched on something that might once have been alive; forked lightning slashed the ebony night; the faceless were walking; all was right with the world.
– Neil Gaiman, “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire”

For now, they had simpler concerns. Keeping the children from the roofs at night; the bereaved from crying out too loud; the young in summer from falling in love with the human.
It was a life.
– Clive Barker, Cabal

Well.  Endings that make me happy to read, at any rate.  Good stuff.