A Quick March Bloglet
Folks, I continue to recover from last month’s illness, so I haven’t had much to say lately.
Now, do I have opinions? Yes. Do I want to discuss some things with you all? Again, yes.
But my mind feels a bit off, and I’m using almost all of my energy to help others (there’s no alternative but me, most of the time anyway). I have edits to finish, stories to finish, poems to finish, and music to finish composing.
I don’t know about you, though…sometimes, I look at all that, and I feel completely daunted.
Then again, there is the way I generally go about taking care of these things, which is very simple: One step at a time.
So, I’ll keep taking small steps, and hope it’ll lead me somewhere wonderful.
Back to the blog in a week or so, I hope.
State of the Writer, February 2023 Edition
Folks, I figured as it’s been a little over a week since I last blogged, I’d better give y’all an update.
(BTW, someone asked me a while back why I, as a Midwesterner born-and-bred, use “y’all” so much. It’s because of my German teacher in high school. He said English needs this word. I agreed with him then and I still do. Moving on…)
My health is a little better. My face is again my own; the swelling has gone, most of the redness has gone, and I look like I never had that nasty bacterial infection at all.
So, you may be asking why it’s only a little better. The main reason is that I’ve been exhausted for a long time. This is partly because I have fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis, among other ailments, and having both means I get tired more quickly and need more rest periods. (This is the best way I have to explain it, especially when I’m in what’s known as a “fibro flare.”) Both of these things cause pain, and dealing with pain is tiring enough. Then add in some sleep disturbances (nothing like having a swollen, messed-up face to help you sleep, hey? Sarcasm is a wonderful thing…), and voila!
The secondary reason is because the infection was so bad, and took so much out of me, that here’s how I’ve lately had to do things:
- Rest
- Small Errand (milk/eggs/butter/bread)
- Rest
- Drive
- Rest
- Get food inside and repeat as needed.
Is this normal for me? No. It’s not.
But the last few days, I’ve been able to cut out some of those rest periods. I still have to move slowly and cautiously. I know my energy is not right, and won’t be probably for several more weeks, and I’m still ramping up my editing and writing again accordingly. Yet I have been able to do a bit more without becoming quite as exhausted, so I’ll take it.
(As if I could do anything else, right?)
My hope is that if I am cautious enough, I can finally get a few pending edits out the door, or at least back to the client if changes need to be made (and if they wish me to review them). That way, I can resume my life as best I can without getting laid low by something else.
Also, I am still talking about cover art with a good friend for my post-apocalyptic romantic military suspense novella. (Say that five times fast.) It’s done, at least in the novella form. (I want to write a sequel to it and eventually hope to have enough for a conventional sized novel.) I want to get it out there, because I haven’t released anything by myself since early 2017.
Yes. Six years ago.
That’s too long.
Yes, I have short stories in several recent anthologies (most recently in Fantastic Schools: Hols). Yes, I’m still a working writer as well as a working editor.
Still. Something needs to go out under my own name, by myself, so folks maybe can find me and appreciate what I do. (Even if they don’t, I have to do it for me.)
Oh, I almost forgot: I have a YA story (novella length) set in Michael’s Atlantean Union universe that’s almost ready to go, too. That may be out by the end of the year if all goes well.
And, finally, I still plan to get an Elfyverse short story collection out but need at least two more finished Elfyverse stories to make it happen. (For those of you who’ve read the Elfy duology, what stories would you most like to see? Maybe I can make it happen…)
Unapologetically Low-Tech…or Something…
Folks, I’ve been thinking about many things as I continue to convalesce from the serious illness I told you about last week. (Two antibiotics, an antiviral, and prednisone are nothing to be sneezed at, after all, and that’s what I’ve been taking to get well.) One of them is about the prevalence of technology in our society.
Don’t get me wrong. The Internet is a Godsend for a writer, or for anyone who wants to do background research. It can lead you to the right books, right sources, and help you find a handy library where you can check those books and sources out without necessarily having to pay (as sometimes the library in your area only has so much, and interlibrary loan — ILL — can’t always help, either). It also is helpful for communication, for writing blogs (natch), and in disseminating information (which can be good or bad, especially if what comes out first turns out to be wrong and has to be corrected later).
But I remain split with regards to everything else.
We have smartphones. These are quite helpful and useful on the one hand, and on the other, they keep us tied to screens far more often than we should be. It’s harder to appreciate nature, or other people in our lives who live close or are personally visiting, if we stay on our phones all the time.
More problematic than that is the advent of “smart home” technology. “Hey Google,” or “Hey Siri,” or “Hey Alexa,” all have pluses in that you can do things more quickly if you have this set up (such as playing a favorite song or arming your alarm system). But look at all you give up if you have this! These things can be hacked, and when you’re asking Google to do this, that, or the other for you, while someone else is watching/listening, that’s an invasion of privacy at the very least.
Of course, our computers now seem to spy on us as well. They have “smart algorithms,” meaning they figure out what we like to usually read. (In my case, there’s a lot about Star Trek and SFF&F, a great deal about MLB and the Milwaukee Brewers, quite a bit about the NFL and the Green Bay Packers, and of course I also see a ton about the NBA and the Milwaukee Bucks.) These can be interesting, though if you want to research something else, it’s good not to be bogged down by the latest deep dive into Jeri Ryan’s character and life choices (as Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Picard).
Hey, I have to admit that I am a big fan of Jeri Ryan. Have been for years. Not picking on her. Moving on…
In addition to all of the stuff in our personal life that we choose to use that can potentially be spied upon (sorry to use that term, but with all of the various spy balloons and objects that have been shot out of the sky in the US and Canada this past week — at least four — privacy violations are on my mind), we also have seen an advent of cameras added by local municipalities to make it easier for law enforcement to do their jobs. I’m mostly in favor of this, but I do wonder at where the “slippery slope” ends.
Look. We are in unprecedented territory. There’s so much information out there about us. There’s so much that companies collect, with regards to data, that goes to attempt to shape us psychologically, personally, and otherwise that it seems like a flood that can’t be stanched with our hands alone.
That said, somehow we have to figure out how to be our authentic selves and make true human connections with others despite all the electronic noise.
I don’t know how that’s going to happen. I just know that we have to try, possibly harder than ever, to remember what the real world is as well as appreciating whatever gives us value in the virtual world. (The virtual and real worlds sometimes do collide, too, but that’s a separate issue and I’m not touching that with a ten-foot pole right now. One issue at a time.)
So, for the moment, I’m going to continue to be unapologetically low-tech, or something like it anyway, considering I use a computer at least eight hours a day and read books via Kindle often and also have a cellphone. I’m going to do my best to remember what the real world is, see the beauty in it as well as the ugliness, and keep on going.
Folks, I ask you, on the eve of Valentine’s Day, to consider what’s real in your life. Who the people are that matter in your life, too. And what you can do to promote greater and happier bonds between you, so you can not only live an authentic life, but perhaps even a happy one.
Stranger things have happened.
Illness. Again.
Folks, I am ailing.
On Monday morning, I woke up and saw that half of the left-hand side of my face was bright red. It was swollen, hot to the touch, itchy, and painful. I thought I was having an allergic reaction. I thought maybe a spider bit me.
It wasn’t that (though I may have been bitten by a spider; they can’t tell as my face is too swollen). It’s cellulitis. On my face.
What I’ve found out in the two days I’ve been treated for this illness is this:
It makes you tired. It makes you unsteady on your feet. It gives you horribly high temperatures (101, 102, close to 103 at one point, despite me normally being quite a bit lower than normal). It makes it harder to think.
The worst part of it is that my left eye is a slit right now. (Not infected, according to the doc I saw yesterday afternoon.) The bottom eyelid is swollen and red. The top eyelid is fine.
So, not only do I have to deal with being sick, I also have to deal with the knowledge that I look a sight at the same time. (Why I care about this, I don’t know. But I do.)
To make matters even worse, I suffered a fall Monday night, and it was an ordeal getting back up again. Took over two hours. I made at least fifty attempts, but my right knee kept balking and did not want me to get up. So, I was telling myself, aloud, “You have to get up. You have to get up.” And I couldn’t do it until my father came to check on me. He was able to help, thank goodness.
On the plus side, I did manage a short shower today. (That made me feel a little better, and I didn’t fall. I’ll take it.)
Later today, I am going in to see the folks who do my Warfarin levels checking, as that’s important when you’re on antibiotics as they can skew the results quite a bit. I then hope I can get the meds — two painkillers — the doctor prescribed yesterday. (He said that the hydrocortisone creams, even the prescription ones, would not help at this point. I have the OTC 1% hydrocortisone cream but it’s doing nothing.) Those are the two things I absolutely must do today…anything after that is gravy.
By the way, about an hour ago, I saw another of those spiders — a fuzzy black spider, possibly a Wolf spider. It was crawling on me. I killed it without thinking.
Now, normally even though I do not like spiders, I try to avoid killing them. I’d rather put them outside than kill them.
But in this situation, there’s no way I want a spider anywhere nearby. It’s possible that a spider bite caused something else to get into the skin of my face, and that’s what caused the infection. (It is a little better at the bottom of my face on the left-hand side. I wish it had chosen to heal the eye area first, though…)
Now, when I get sick, I almost never have high temps. I can get unsteady on my feet, but I usually think better than this. My reflexes are slower — they’re still decent, but it’s not what I’m used to out of myself. I have to be deliberate when I’d rather be floating above or at least walking confidently, cane at my side and unworried about falls (except on ice).
So, everything this week — my work, my writing, my helpful efforts with my family — is going to go by the boards until much of my face has healed. (That it’s both painful and itchy at the same time is very frustrating, too. You can’t scratch it because if you do, it makes everything worse. All you can do is lightly rub it.)
This is not how I planned my week to go. But it’s what I have to deal with, so I’ll do the best that I can.
You Must First Try Before You Can Do
I know Yoda said, long ago, that “there is no try,” but I disagree.
When you’re learning something new, you can’t help but try to figure out exactly how this new thing will work. For example, if you’re learning a new fingering for the clarinet (the altissimo register, or highest notes, can require some unusual fingerings), you try the new fingering out. You see if it works by itself, then you add in other notes around it to see if it works in context with the music. Then, finally, you try that fingering after playing in a lower octave (composers often write urgent things in piercing registers, or at least we can; lower registers are more about steadiness, sometimes, or at least about a rich sonority as the notes are easier to play), and make sure it works no matter what register you’d been playing in beforehand.
So, when you’re learning something new, you try it out.
Here’s another example. When you go buy a new car, you try it out. You see if it seems like something that will work well for you; you see if it’s comfortable, easy to manage, has enough room to carry your groceries or other important items on occasion, and you envision yourself in the car even as you’re taking it for a test-drive. All of the various amenities it has, or doesn’t have, don’t matter as much as what I’ve just mentioned. What does matter is how the car feels as you test-drive it — in other words, how it feels as you try the car, and put it through its paces.
Even in our personal lives, there is an example.
When I was younger, before I married for the first time, I had no idea of what I was getting into. Yes, I’d taken or at least sat in on a “Marriage and Family” course, I’d tutored some kids in high school who took similar classes also, and I thought I had a good grasp of what marriage entails.
I was wrong.
Why was I wrong? Well, I was envisioning only myself, plus the perfect husband for me, who would do everything right, all the time, without prompting, without me ever saying anything to him because he’d know everything before I mentioned it.
(Do you know how unreasonable and unrealistic this is? I didn’t, not at age twenty or thereabouts.)
See, I expected that anyone I was attracted to would be the same as myself, at least in one way. That way was regarding making the commitment to be with each other every single day. That meant that every day was a new one, where we built on what we already had while adding even more to the edifice…I know discussing a marriage like you’re building a house is an inexact metaphor, to say the least, but it’s the best I can come up with even with my additional experiences.
How did I get those additional experiences? I tried various things. I learned different, disparate things about myself along the way. And by the time I met my late husband Michael, I knew exactly what I wanted out of myself and exactly what I wanted and needed from him. I knew he could provide it, too, because he not only said the right words. He backed them up with the right actions.
(Perhaps that’s not a surprise, as Michael was a Zen Buddhist. They believe in Right Action as one of their tenets, I seem to recall. But I digress.)
I could do, by that time. But the reason I could do was because I’d tried and failed so many other times.
Here’s a final example. Musicians are told to practice often, including major and minor scales, scales in thirds (these are small jumps, for the nonmusicians in the audience; for the musicians, think C-E D-F E-G, etc.), sometimes even scales in sixths, to make playing any sort of music far easier from the technical standpoint. If we get the technique down, we can concentrate instead on other things, such as breath control (for wind musicians, this is essential!), blending with the others in the group, intonation (you don’t want to be sharp when everyone else is flat, or vice-versa, though it’s easier for people to hear “sharp” rather than “flat” for some reason), and actually making music rather than just playing a bunch of shiny little notes.
(I have nothing against shiny little notes. I use quite a lot of them as a composer. Moving on…)
What I’m saying is this: Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid of trying multiple times before you can do something, much less do that same something well.
Persist. Keep trying. Keep motivating yourself as best you can, because it’s not likely anyone else is going to do so…and start believing that the best, in some ways, might just be yet to be.
Only then can you proceed from mostly trying, to mostly doing.
Damar Hamlin Released from Hospital, Sent Home to Recover
Folks, I am very pleased — and relieved — to know that Damar Hamlin, safety for the Buffalo Bills, was released from the hospital in Buffalo and was sent home to recuperate. This is not an outcome I would’ve expected last week when Hamlin suddenly, and scarily, fell backward. But it’s happened, and to me at least, it seems like a miracle.
Granted, there’s a saying I’ve heard that goes like this: “Miracles can happen through human hands, with God/dess flowing through.” That is, if we’re willing to help, if we’re willing to do whatever we can, then sometimes the Deity can use us. That certainly seems to be the case with Hamlin, as the trainers went right out and started CPR, then got out the AED (auto-defibrillator) and made sure his heart was in rhythm before the ambulance came to take him away.
One of the doctors at the previous hospital in Cincinnati said this is not only a very good outcome, but the rapidity of it seems remarkable. (I am giving my best paraphrase of something I saw on TV two or three days ago, so I hope this makes sense.) It’s an outcome that no one could’ve expected to have so soon…but it is warmly welcomed.
From what I heard tonight, it sounds like Hamlin will be working with the athletic trainers for the Bills along with a bunch of other specialists to help him heal. That he can do it from home, rather than from a rehab hospital, is possibly the biggest and best piece of news I’ve heard thus far.
See, recovering at home, when you can, is by far superior to having to stay in a nursing home (rehab place). You have more freedom, more autonomy, you can make more choices, and it’s far easier to relax in your own home, besides.
When I wrote the first blog about Hamlin last week, I had no idea what would happen. Like a lot of others, I prayed for a good outcome for him, as he’s only twenty-four. (I’d have prayed anyway, mind you, no matter what his age.) I hoped he’d wake up, know himself, know his family, know his team, and what he’d been doing before he collapsed, and he’s done all of those things. In addition, in the last couple of days (since this past Sunday, for sure), Hamlin has been Tweeting, and he’s also using his entrepreneurial spirit to sell t-shirts to raise money for the first responders who helped him.
So, in the span of about ten days, he went from sudden collapse due to a cardiac arrest to resuscitated due to the quick-acting and quick-thinking first responders to waking up and asking questions (including whether or not the Bills won the game) that showed he was “neurologically intact.” (This phrase was used several times by the Cincinnati doctors.) Then, after that, the ventilator was taken out, he started talking, then he started to Tweet again, was released from the hospital in Cincinnati to be flown to a hospital in Buffalo, and now he’s been released to go home so he can rehab on his own (with a lot of helpful people on his side, to be sure).
That’s amazing.
That’s the outcome everyone I knew was hoping for.
To my mind, it’s a medical miracle that Hamlin not only is alive but seems to be thriving (as much as anyone can, ten days out from a cardiac arrest).
Again, I am very, very happy that he’s back home and doing so well. May it continue to be so.
Tuesday Insight: Love and Meanness Do Not Go Together
Folks, I’ve thought for a while about writing something on Tuesdays that would be more introspective — similar to what I often write on Sunday, except without as much of the spiritual element. Today’s blog is the result.
Recently, love has been on my mind.
This is not much of a surprise. There is an element of romance with nearly every story I write. Furthermore, my late husband Michael also wrote romance into many of his stories — though his romances were usually subtler than mine.
So, you might be asking yourself, “Barb, what brought this on today?”
It’s simple. I started thinking about how love should be patient, kind, honest, sincere — and completely without gratuitous meanness.
Tennessee Williams’ play A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE has a line spoken by Blanche (the main female lead) that goes like this: “Some things are unforgiveable. Deliberate cruelty is unforgiveable.”**
In other words, if someone is going out of their way to hurt you, they do not love you.
You may be wondering about someone who tries to make up for their utter rudeness and complete and total lack of respect. I can almost hear you say, “Isn’t that good enough that they apologize?”
It depends on the circumstances. If someone came home from work, needed to be alone for a half-hour (or however long), and said so, but their significant other gave them no space, then I might understand why someone was curt or to the point when it wasn’t necessary.
But rude? Outright nastiness just to hurt you?
No. That should not ever be tolerated, because that’s how people start to hate one another. Or at best, treat the other with contempt — contempt being possibly the worst thing that can enter a long-term relationship — as both of you pretend to still care, but actually don’t.
Yes, one of you in that scenario can still care, and often does, for that matter. But if you both aren’t in the marriage 100%; if you both aren’t pulling together at least 95% of the time; if you both aren’t trying to “fight fair,” and instead bring up old and dead topics again just to make the other person angry…well, if you are doing any of that, your marriage (or long-term relationship) is probably doomed.
You see, I’ve been there. (Not with my late husband, obviously. But with previous exes.) And while I’m glad those relationships ended, so I could marry Michael and know what love truly is all about, I went through a lot of pain and heartache to get there.
Anyway, what you must remember about love is that it truly should be patient, kind, trustworthy, and caring. Yes, everyone has disagreements, but a loving couple fights fairly and asks, “is this what you meant?” in as level of a tone of voice to make sure you’re understanding your spouse (or partner) if there’s any ambiguity about what the other person means.
So, a relationship that’s healthy and helps both you and your spouse (partner) to live a better, happier life needs cooperation, contemplation, sharing, kindness, honesty, a willingness to communicate even on (or especially because of) tough subjects, a rock-solid commitment to doing what you say you will and saying only what you will do, and much, much more.
What it should never contain is gratuitous, willful cruelty.
Now, I figured I’d also point out that most people want to believe the best of the person they’ve chosen to spend their life with. That’s fine, providing you are being honest with yourself when you do it.
In other words, if you would not want your best friend to be treated the way you’re being treated — or a sister, cousin, aunt, uncle, etc. — why are you putting up with it?
I do have a solution for you, though. It’s counseling. That will help you learn how to fight fair and treat each other the way you want to be treated. (If your partner refuses to go, please go alone.)
If you can’t afford counseling, pick up my friend Karl Ernst’s book ROCKING CHANGE: Changing the World Through Changing Ourselves. It’s eye-opening, refreshing, and different. (I know this, because I edited it.) Read his book, think about it, and then ask yourself why you are with a person who only seems to care about themself, rather than you, your kids (if you have any), your friends, or your job (in short, anything that matters to you besides them).
Karl’s book is about $10 at Amazon as an ebook. You may think this is a steep price, but I don’t. Compared to counseling — especially if you need it badly, and don’t have insurance — ROCKING CHANGE is downright cheap.
———–
**I was reminded of this idea after reading a Washington Post chat led by main advice columnist Carolyn Hax from May 6, 2022. (The WaPo is behind a paywall, so I don’t know if you’ll be able to see my link. But if you can, read the entire chat. It’s quite insightful.)
Goodbye, Faithful Old Car
This past week at Chez Caffrey was a difficult one, but not for a usual reason.
My old car, a 2010 Hyundai Accent — what I once called “non-working” rather than admit it was broken — was going downhill fast. Then, on a very foggy night, I drove over a curb and the exhaust system gave out. I was confused, as the muffler didn’t drag on the ground or fall off; still, it was very foggy, so I checked on the way back home to see if there were any parts of the muffler on the ground.
There weren’t.
If this had been the only repair I’d had to deal with this past fall/winter, it would be one thing. But it wasn’t. I’d had to repair several other things, including my power steering at one point.
I think I managed about two weeks’ worth of good steering before the exhaust system went out. This, after knowing the suspension needed serious work, after I’d had two tires go flat and replaced them this past October…the car had become a money pit.
I felt it was worth asking the mechanics what was wrong with the exhaust. I had hopes it wouldn’t be a tremendously expensive repair.
Wrong answer.
It would’ve been $1400 to fix, minimum. The muffler didn’t fall off because it was scored down the middle — meaning it had somehow cracked there — and all of the pipes going to it were ruined.
The Accent wasn’t even worth $1400 by this time. So, it was time to get a different car.
I felt bad about it, because I had my Accent for a bit over eleven years. I was used to my car. I didn’t care if people thought my car was ugly or too big of a mess (it wasn’t ugly, but I used to call it “the world’s messiest car”), because it was my car. It had been more faithful to me than many things, to be honest, and it was nice to have one thing I could depend on most of the time.
And it really was “most of the time,” ’cause some of the Accent’s quirks in its age were that the defroster wouldn’t always work, or the heater either (the rear-window defrost always worked, I’ll give it that), not to mention bad shocks, bad struts, and more. Yet I still loved my car. I knew what it could do, I knew exactly how much room I had to park, I knew exactly how it maneuvered in stop-and-go traffic, and I felt comfortable.
My father and I went out and found a new-used car. (New to me but used, I mean.) This car is a 2018 Hyundai Tucson. (You may be asking me why I didn’t go with a similar type of car to the Accent. This was the smallest car on the lot, and it was called a “compact SUV,” of all things.) I switched over the insurance, cleaned out my old car, and told it that I appreciated its many years of good service.
Now, you might be asking why I did this. I know a car’s not an animate thing. But whoever and whatever watched over me while I drove that car made sure I was safe. I wanted to thank whoever or whatever that was, so I just thanked the car in lieu of God/dess or angels or my late husband’s spirit or whatever.
Also, I did this because my car was going straight to the junkyard. There wasn’t enough left of it to salvage, really. So I was the last person to probably ever drive that car, unless for some reason a mechanic out there wants a fixer-upper that still has decent tires and good brakes.
In the long run, I’m going to be much better off with the new car. It’s fun to drive, it’s easier to see things (though I am not looking forward to parallel parking) because it’s a bit higher off the road, and the suspension is excellent (among many other things). The main drawback is that it doesn’t have a CD player, but that’s not standard in cars anymore. (I guess there’s a way you can hook one up, and I may look into that. While I do have a smartphone now, it’s not on any given plan, and only works on my home’s Wi-Fi, so it probably won’t work for MP3 files. Then again, I’m new to both smartphones and this car, so perhaps it will work. We’ll see.)
Because the car is larger than any car I’ve driven regularly in over twenty years, I’ve got to remember how big the car is and give more than enough room until I get used to driving it.
Even knowing all that, I’ll admit to you folks right now that I am still going to miss my old car. It was faithful. It reminded me some of my previous car, a Geo Prizm, which was the last car Michael ever drove, because it drove in almost the same way and reacted almost identically in traffic.
Even when you know it’s time to change cars, it can be bittersweet. That’s where I’m at, anyway…even as I enjoy the new car, I can’t help but miss my old car.
So, goodbye, faithful old Hyundai Accent. Hello, new-to-me Hyundai Tucson.
All that’s left to say is…drive on?
Barb Caffrey's Blog 