(no subject)

My endurance is temporarily shot. I will no doubt be fine by morning wherein I will succor myself with some fanfic editing (TW fic in the next 36 hours!), but the intersection of the utter bullshit, lying inanity of tonight's debate and my seriously ill, uninsured friends has been profoundly unpretty in my head.

Perhaps there will be eloquence tomorrow.

I can't tell you how sick I am of needing to be eloquent though.

maybe if I write this I will feel better

While my coming out process was both vague and not narratively interesting, I've noted before and will surely note again that V for Vendetta (the graphic novel, thanks) played a role in it. I wrote this for Yuletide a few years ago, and if you ask me to tell you why fanfiction matters, this piece is part of that story.

I cannot believe that I sat on the couch last night watching the men vying to be president seriously (such as it is) debate whether healthcare is a right or a privilege. Leaving aside matters of capitalism and socialism, our broke ass country and our ideological fears -- doesn't everyone have a right to live? to be helped if they can be helped? Isn't it simple? At least philosophically?

So today I am angry.

I am angry that someone I've known for fifteen years is facing a medical crisis that may very well affect the rest of his life: if not in terms of health, then surely in terms of finances. Because he's uninsured.

I am angry that his partner is facing racism and insensitivity from a medical staff that doesn't seem to understand that we fight for those we love, even when they're uninsured, even when we're scared.

I am angry that I have so many friends who are also ill and uninsured and facing what seems to be a constantly combative medical system.

I am angry that my mother, who is insured, had to pay for an MRI out of pocket because her insurance company told her she'd have to wait 6 months to have another one, eventhough the suspicion of cancer was there then.

I am angry that my own very real medical condition which has ruined my teeth, given me permanent nerve damage, increased my risk of cancer and has caused me immense amounts of pain went undiagnosed for 30 years because I was merely a woman who was oversensitive in the eyes of doctor after doctor and even in the eyes of my family.

I am angry at a medical establishment that wants me to be ashamed of how I look, because of the very same disease they weren't willing to discover I had.

I am angry at doctors who tell you to lose weight before they even look at your stats.

I am angry at the medical fetishization of pregnancy and aging, that taxes our system and harms the experience of natural processes when drastic interventions are not needed.

I am angry at a drug industry that concentrates on the most lucrative therapies instead of the most needed therapies and pushes pills with significant side-effects and low efficacy for non-life threatening conditions.

I am angry that my trans friends have to be declared mentally ill and then save and save and save to afford treatment insurance deems cosmetic.

I am angry that a woman I fence with couldn't even get the shattered teeth removed from her mouth when she was in a bicycling accident, because again, just cosmetic!

I am angry (and grateful and sad) that every broke, struggling, one bit of bad luck (or less, some of them are already there) away from a system that won't help them person I know is digging deep to help the person who won the bad luck sweepstakes this week. But I don't want these lessons in the beauty of our friends or the eternally exhausting nature of triage based on convenience and money.

I am so angry.

I am angry that sitting on the couch last night watching the debate with Patty, I felt like Ruth and Valerie.

And so I am angry at the people who tell me the results of this election won't really matter, won't really change my life, won't really put me at risk, won't really be the possible end of all things.

I am angry at people who tell me to calm down, as if I am merely a hysteric. As if my friends aren't at very real risk of dying from failed policy.

The election matters, and lives do, in fact, hang in the balance.

And if you think that doesn't include yours because you are insured, healthy, financially stable, straight and not in the military, well good for fucking you.

But it's now looking like equal marriage rights will be outlawed in California. You know what that affects other than human dignity? Health insurance.

Get it?

right

So there was just a fire in my office building.

Everything is fine now.

But hello, Wednesday!

Hey, at least I got paid (allowing me to renew our donation to Lambda Legal and also pay my very late SAG dues).

Spirit Airlines

The manifestation of pure evil? Y / N

(as in, is the cheap airfare to LA going to make me wish I'd spent the extra $50 when it all goes to hell and I am not at the bar, drink in hand Thursday evening before Gallifrey One?)