sundries

[rm]

As applicable, L'shanah tovah! But hey, why not? I'll take all the good wishes I can get.

Tomorrow it is also International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I feel like this might be taxing, although, to be fair, I generally find it vaguely annoying.

Yes, bodlon, you can stop laughing now.

Meanwhile, things I'm working on:

pro:

- Lesbian werewolf story (deadline, front of brain!)
- Expansion/focus of the Nick Cave thing (front of brain)
- abstract for Bristol (front of fucking brain!)
- gay airship pirate thing (very much not front of brain right now)
- chick lit novel (front of brain!)
- Mairome novel (not front of brain right now)
- WWII novel with Kali (not front of brain right now)
- Fantasy novel with Kali (more front of brain than it's been in a long time)

fan:

- TW virtual series -- and I actually did work on it today! (I'm really glad I'm working on this as it's forcing me to write plot-heavy with less sex and less obvious emotion, and it's a skill of use and that I'm actually quite good at, I just never default to it).
- Jack/OMC, post CoE very much in the tone of the Annie fic... um, yeah. (front of brain)
- Jack/Weeping Angles (front of brain)
- Jack/OC 1930s (so back of brain right now)
- Torchwood/West Wing AU (want to get this moving up the list)
- Gwen, Rhiannon post CoE (mid brain)
- EtGB, chapter 3 (currently in Kali's hands)
- Descensus with Kali (really, it's returning to our thoughts)

I'm relatively happy with this mix of pro- and fan- work as well as mix of tonal qualities, skills, emotions and issues they're all working with.

I sorta want to make a tiny color coded little chart, so I can post what I worked on each day, as I do touch a lot of these things briefly every day, although that's not always apparent in output.

My whole life, whenever I got sick, it was always "what did you do?" from my parents. It's harder to blame them for that now, when it seems like that's our national consensus on illness. We asked for it. Especially if we're people of color or female or queer or poor.

As much as we need a public option (and I'm very possibly in favor of total single payer, because FUCK THESE INSURANCE COMPANIES SO HARD), what scares me the most about healthcare reform is that in a country of our biases and religious neuroses that public option seems as if it will get easily hijacked by various people's harmful, hateful moral agendas and simply wind up not helping lots of people who get sick, because their illnesses were fucking earned. It's that like awful phrase from the 80s about the "innocent victims of AIDS."

I'm very concerned that the inadequate deal with the devil we're going to have to make will further enshrine the idea that the sick are the guilty.

Abstractly, America is so interesting: to be unlucky is a sin! Living it at both the small and large scale kinda sucks though.

Patty was home late last night after many adventures, but we had the most fun when she got home, and I even did a little cleaning and redrew our whiteboard calendar before she did.

Comments

[sykii.livejournal.com]

"What did you do? Did you touch a pigeon?"

[rm.livejournal.com]

POISON

[kshandra]

Regarding the confluence of your first two bullet points: Shanah tovah, matey!

(link courtesy kightp, also known as the TLAPD WebWench)

[sethg]

I hate it when the front of my brain gets crowded. Maybe I should look into relieving the pressure.

[kireishojo.livejournal.com]

well specifically talk like a pirate day is the 19th.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhh, well that still coincides, but I will update post.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

That looks like a good little ledger, yes!

Color-coding isn't a bad idea at all! I know someone who uses that for a similar purpose.

And agreed on the "earned illnesses". Same goes for "earned debt" or "earned poverty". "Judge not lest ye be not judged" seems to have been erased even from certain Christians' versions of the KJV Bible.

[sethg]

Not to mention the line in Matthew about praying in secret rather than announcing your piety in front of everyone.

And most of the Book of Job...

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I <3 Talk Like a Pirate Day. But that's because I AM a Sparrow and a goofball as well.

I'll probably just play too much pirate music, maybe put up bits of my wip pirate novel (sequel to the one currently out) and have a glass of grog.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Tomorrow it is also International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Hoshit I have research to do.

(The last few years, I have had a lot of fun with this. :D)

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

I look forward to reading everything! \o/!

Abstractly, America is so interesting: to be unlucky is a sin!

That is an awesome line, and also a fact.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

It's reassuring to see someone else working on as many projects. I've got five current yarn projects going. Four are front burner and one is back burner. Not to mention the sewing projects fluttering about my head.

I want the insurance companies to go bankrupt because there is universal, cradle to grave, comprehensive, public health care. They have done such evil with their commodification of health care that they deserve whatever they get.

Health care is advanced enough that people shouldn't have to decide between making their lives better and paying rent or eating. Medicine is no longer a 50-50 proposition. Most people survive medical procedures and they help way more than not. Sending people into bankruptcy so they can stay healthy is evil beyond belief.

And yes, we are currently wrangling with our crappy insurance over a $4100 dollar bill they are refusing to cover, even after checking ahead of time that it was. Fucking bastards!

[1-mad-squirrel.livejournal.com]

- Jack/Weeping Angles (front of brain)

Emo geometry? ;-)

[gina-r-snape.livejournal.com]

L'shana tovah!

Illness and blame

[newwaytowrite.livejournal.com]

Back in my prison days we had the first federal inmate with AIDS (at least first known) at our facility. There was some thought by many who thought he should be housed in the dissociation (punishment) and segregation (generally for the purposes of staying alive in the general population of the prison -often to do with being considered a rat or having been convicted of a sexual offense or thought to have been) for the length of sentence.

It was the words of my Mom, a lifetime of experience in health care that struck such a chord in me about her level of wisdom laced with compassion.

" He has been sent to prison as his punishment for his criminal activities. You can not punish him further because of an illness."

International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Ignore the Pirate thing if it be aye vexing annoys, and enjoy Hermione Granger's birthday instead.
And all the very best for you and yours in the coming year!

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Evidently people can read the New Testament all their lives without getting as far as the Gospel of Matthew!

FUCK THESE INSURANCE COMPANIES SO HARD

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I am completely clueless as to what to advise the people of the United States of America in regards to their national neuroses.

This here is the most red neck-conservative, Bible Fundamental-y part of the country, yet when the Provincial government, which has been in power like whoa forever, quietly tried to defund sex reassignment surgery, the public outcry was all ARE YOU NUTS???

I love your country, but someways you are just screwed up some good!

Re: FUCK THESE INSURANCE COMPANIES SO HARD

[rm.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think it can't be fixed. Maybe it can for straight, married cis women who will never use birth control and have no auto-immune (in american read: "things women make up" or "gay plague") or sexually transmitted diseases.

But there will never, ever be adequate healthcare for huge swathes of the population here. We won't fund it. Never, ever ever.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Grog in a glass?

Re: FUCK THESE INSURANCE COMPANIES SO HARD

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I refuse to believe that of your country.
It's hard, but I insist.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Actually probably a big gold plastic mug that used to have my university mascot on it before it wore off in the intervening 20 years.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Now that's more like it!

Re: FUCK THESE INSURANCE COMPANIES SO HARD

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

I just don't GET us. And I've lived here all my life.

[kargashina.livejournal.com]

selective reading, apparently

[awils1.livejournal.com]

It seems that North Americans are crazy and awfully neurotic—I've no suggestions, because at least my country generally recognizes that illnesses are not tattoos in the way that you earn them as a result of a `sin'. We fund healthcare, regardless of race, sex, gender, ability, or mental state.

Re: FUCK THESE INSURANCE COMPANIES SO HARD

[awils1.livejournal.com]

This.

If you funded the Internet, you can totally fund health-care.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we were founded by the religious fringe, and it keeps on going.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Shana Tova!

I'm seriously looking forward to your writing (any chance you'll let us know what anthologies you original fiction is going in?), can you tell I'm a fangrrl? ;-)

Religious nuts are chewy and should be brushed away every night. In my part of the world, because of the "Be Fruitful and Multiply" thing (which is the first Mitzvah of the 316 irrelevant mitzvot a Jewish person i.e. man is supposed to perform) IVF and fertility treatments are covered by our public HMO's.
It goes around in so many ways.

[sethg]

What, you think they read it in order? They read tracts and sermons that very helpfully tell them what individual verses they ought to read, and how those verses should be interpreted. That's Biblical Literalism for you.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Exactly. They don't read the Bible, they take the guided tour.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

And by North Americans, we mean the Gringos!

[awils1.livejournal.com]

The odd people in the middle!

I'm not sure why I used a continental reference there---I think I edited it from people of the United States---apologies for spreading the crazy!

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Why not call them the people of the United States? That's how we refer to them.
That's our story and we're sticking to it!