Sometimes My Guts Hate Me
Cross-posting this from a status on my RP and ARPG account because I am a bad social media-ite and neglect this account (which will hopefully change soon, but I digress). That said, who wants to hear about Dizzy's struggles with a literally crappy disease?
I think I made myself very sick on something this week. I woke up in the middle of sleep in the worst pain I've had all year and spent far too long in the bathroom nauseated, feverish, and unable to not make very loud, mother-disconcerting moaning noises (thank you, Mom, you won't read this, but your attentiveness to my suffering is a gift I'm not ungrateful for). The total agony lasted for no more than an hour, but during it was absolute hell.
As to culprits, I'm blaming the pumpkin pie. It has both milk, and pumpkin, and was far afield of my normal consumption, thus a likely candidate for the severity of my gastroenterological distress. That and I seem to have already been flaring colitis-ly for the past couple of weeks (I guess? Mine is atypical, so I don't really know if I ought to call it a flare, I just don't wish to go into details publicly because it's an inflammatory BOWEL disease) so that may have factored in.
In any case, I shall forego the locally made premium lavender ice cream in the freezer tempting me and HARD avoid the dairy for the next while or so because I do not wish to be in that much pain again. Ever.
As a consolation, I can at least crack a few jokes about it all, as the wonderful thing about ulcerative colitis is that while most people can say that "[insert person here] really hates my guts", only me and mine can say that "my guts actually hate me!" : D
Oh, hi. It's Dizzy. What a surprise. Long time, no post. This account is not "dead", per se, I just haven't done anything worth posting here in awhile. Anyway...
I am real-life lonely, and been that way for longer than the rest of you all cloistered by COVID 'cause I got me some crummy disabilities. Consequently, I spent too much time watching YouTube videos in order to hear the sound of a human voice. Apart from the standard pop-culture fare, I also I tend to watch a lot of historical and political YouTube, and even with my pop culture YouTube I tend to prefer creators who address the social, cultural and political themes in fiction. Just now, actually, I was watching one such video, which quoted this particular snippet by Toni Morrison quote:
All good art is political! There is none that isn't. And the ones that try hard not to be political are political by saying, 'We love the status quo.'
Hearing this quote was the catalyst that inspired me to write this journal, which started as a status post, but got longer, as I have a lot of feelings about it. I like this quote, because it's true. Everything is political, and practically every piece of narrative-focused media we create is political as well. To escape politics as an artist working in narrative is an extraordinary challenge.
Stories are unmeshed in politics. Depicting individuals dabbles in the "politics" of what gender means. To depict groups of individuals brushes against our notions of family, or community, of home, work, and leisure. To construct narratives about societies—both believable and fantastical dramatizations of the real world and fantastical settings built up brick-by-brick from the fertile ground of imagination—requires a work to subscribe to at least some form of governing principles, be they monarchal, republican, dictatorial, fascistic, democratic, or anarchist. Everything is political, it's a mere matter of what politics we consider "normal". "Normal" is a definition that varies. The time we live in today is vastly different from the state of the world a hundred years ago. For one, the world a hundred years ago was racist, and terribly so. What is isn't political today would have been political then. Take for instance any media that were to depict a black person and a white person kissing. This today is normal, and often goes completely unnoticed. In centuries prior in my country, this was terribly taboo.
Given the nature of politics in story telling, this quote is relevant to the world as my country reckons with police violence and reevaluates its relationship with racist monuments. It's also been relevant in my personal life, namely, my writing. Forgive me, as this journal is about to get more petty than it would appear at first blush, but though that quote was the spark of this particular piece of writing, it was some of my past personal creative experiences that fueled to this authorial fire.
In case you're wondering, to be clear, yes, this journal is partly a vague post. I am vague posting. If you're reading this and think it might be about you, it is definitely about you. You know who you are. I'm simply too autistic to pretend I'm not writing this with a specific past experience in mind, and if I tried it wouldn't feel honest to me.
It should be noted that I like history. I like it very much. I like historical weaponry, I like historical fashion, and I very much like playing with all these wonderful snippets of knowledge as an artist. You can see this with a peek at some of my older arts...
Because I like history, I like historical fiction. I adore fantasy fiction with historical inspiration (which is what Beached is) and straight-up historical fantasy. This is why the other me has been working on a historical fantasy collaborative writing project with friends for the past several years. I mention all of this as receipts that this for me is no mere passing fancy. This is what I like. It's what motivates me. It's what got me started writing at age 14 and it's what I still write at age 26. This matters to me, and it's why I feel so passionate about the fact that introducing historical elements or themes into a narrative is almost inescapably political.
Now, I guess I suppose I should get to the vague-posting. To make a long story very short, I was previously involved in a historical-fantasy writers group online, doing collaborative literature. I used this creative outlet to craft a narrative exploring certain political themes about rights, justice, and freedom, themes which mattered greatly to me. Other history buffs were equally invested in this project, and in writing about such themes. To my disappointment and frustration, though, there were certain other people involved who discouraged us in our efforts. "This story isn't political" we were told, and told this in spite of their portions of the story involving illegal drugs, secret rebellions, police, protests, riots, and a non-representative form of government.
Looking back, the statement "this story isn't political" was likely spoken in ignorance, but when it was used, its effect was to shut us down. It came off to us as saying, "Those aren't the politics we want to promote because those politics are too controversial." Even now I find that attitude concerning. Without going into detail, when four people whiter than a stick of butter call current issues surrounding the American Indian struggle to preserve their historical land "too political" to include in the narrative, it speaks more of the political leanings of those people than anything else.
Ultimately, being upset with those individuals and it won't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of life, but their perspective isn't solely theirs. The experiences I've had online speak to a larger issue with white liberal people offline as well, the sort who will agree "yeah, racism is bad" with little understanding what racism is. Too often in our society, white people broadly condemn racism, only to balk at change when presented with real world examples of it. It's indicative of an overall trend of a creative climate replete with privileged people disinterested in broaching subjects too "political" and ignorant of how fictional portrayals of certain issues can have a very real impact on the opinions of people in the real world.
To bring this spontaneously composed thought train back around on itself like a malformed, screed of an ouroboros, another quote that I first heard from a YouTube video is a joke told by David Foster Wallace in a commencement speech:
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"
I like this quote, though not for its initial context about faith and the meaning of life. Rather, this parable speaks to me about the nature of what we consider to be "normal" in society. We all start out as little fish swimming through our watery world, blind to fluid flowing around us. We don't question its pH or mineral content, nitrates or nitrates, and we don't think about the salinity so long as its tolerable to our personal needs. Many of us are the sort of fish who can tolerate any water conditions. Others aren't, but we've no notion of them. We're so submerged in the water that we don't question it because we aren't even aware of it. Those, then, who start talking about "the water", especially about how the contents of it are hurting others, seem terribly peculiar. It doesn't make the water any less real, though, whether you are or aren't aware you're swimming through it. The water doesn't appear when you notice it. You instead learn to perceive the water.
The political status quo is the water and "how's the water?" is a critical question we need to ask. Fictional narratives are not apolitical. There's politics in every story. Some little fish just haven't learned to see it.
Anyway, all that said, please watch this video. I just discovered this channel, I love this man, he is a hyperactive goofball, a cheeky year-old german shepherd in human form, and there is nothing I want to watch more today than a nerd dressed in elaborate costumes put on funny voices to talk about history:
This is a test of the new journals. I feel very lost, there's no text sizing? Who designed this? Part of blogging is the ability to customize what you're writing. This largely feels like a big middle finger to the entire notion of blogging. What I love about DeviantArt was the ability to have an art gallery and a blog combined, but this just takes away so much of the functionality of having a blog attached to my art.
Why is it like this?
Who decided to make it like this? Have you ever read a blog? Have you ever seen a blog? Could you not just make journals into a blog? Did a blog hurt you as a small child so you have deep-seated anti-blog prejudice? I just wanted the ability to make a proper blog, not writing in this white blank page with a swelling rage.
I feel looooooooost.
Why is the header so big?
Where's the bottom of the page? WHY AM I TYPING ON THE BOTTOM OF MY SCREEN, THIS IS THE WORST WRITING EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE, NOT EVEN THE PRESSURE OF CONCISION THAT TWITTER PLACES UPON MY STANDARD VERBOSITY IS THIS MADDENING.
It is not normal to be forced to type on the bottom of the page. I've been complaining that Sta.sh Writer has a few... holy beans, did you just auto hyperlink? Could you NOT? AS I WAS SAYING, I've been low key critiquing Stash (screw your hyperlinks, you can't make one if I don't give it a period, HAH) Writer for a few years now, about how there was no CTRL + K hot-key to make a hyperlink. That was annoying. This is much, much more annoying.
We're not five, we know how to use moderately complex text editing interfaces. REDDIT EXISTS. AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH.
WHY IS IT LIKE THIS, THIS IS LEGITIMATELY WORST THAN TRYING TO WRITE IN MAC TEXT EDIT. CURSE YOU, WIX, YOU AND YOUR HATRED OF REAL BLOGS.
My Current State of Things
The short answer to the question of "how has Dizzy been feeling lately" is "absolutely awful, but hopeful things in the new year will improve". The long answer is optional, and if you'd rather not read it all and you just want to know when the next Beached chapter will be posted, I suppose I should admit that Beached will be on hiatus indefinitely. I may pick it up again at some point in the future, but I can't kid myself that I have energy and muse at the moment to put towards it.
The truth of the moment is that I'm a very lonely person in my offline life. I barely get out of the house and I don't keep in face to face contact with any of my friends (though one's coming to visit rather soon, so don't feel too bad for me). Writing has thus morphed into a more communal activity for me and collaborative projects are giving me greater fulfillment. At the moment, I'm happier writing collaboratively than I am writing alone, so I will be focusing my attention on what makes me happy, as 2017 and 2018 were extremely rough years for me.
To recap those two devastating years, my colitis developed into enteropathic arthritis starting early Summer 2017 right after getting home from Cornish. The progression may have been from the stress I went through of being anemic and exhausted while juggling a full load of courses, but it was extremely startling one day to be walking down the local waterfront and suddenly realize my knees were stiff and I was struggling to keep pace with my family begging them to slow down and let me catch up. It's only gotten worse from there. The arthritis has spread from my knees and it now affects my ankles, my feet, my wrists, elbows, and hands, and my hips and shoulders to a degree as well. I slowed down, my steps became shaky, I experienced a few falls and began walking with a cane to steady myself. As someone who always to great pleasure in zipping around at an aggressively fast walking pace, it's been a great frustration to lose the ability to walk freely and unhindered by stiffness, unsteadiness and pain.
I can no longer leave the house without help and I now have a disabled parking permit and a wheelchair that make venturing out with the assistance of my family possible. My wheelchair made it possible to manage navigating the airport when my family visited the extended clan in California at the start of end of November. I don't know how I would have survived the trip without it. I do feel somewhat foolish that I need the wheelchair when I'm technically able to walk, just slowly and painfully. The wheelchair is inconvenient for my family, especially my mother who is over 50 and has a hard time getting it in and out of the back of the SUV. I've tried to go without it, but going without the chair turns simple errands into a painful exhausting ordeal.
There are some days when I can barely walk around the house itself without my knees and feet putting up an undue amount of fuss. Even on "good" days, my joints click so loudly coming when I have to do stairs that one would be forgiven for thinking the stairwell was infested with crickets. I'm also so very exhausted much of the time, and there's days when simply standing to attempt a simple chore leaves me breathing hard.
With the pain and fatigue I've been dealing with, I haven't been able to get my home life in order either. My room is still not organized since moving back in from school, though my family is finally helping me make some progress on the nightmare it's become in preparation for the aforementioned friend's visit.
All if this really wouldn't be so bad if I felt good emotionally. Loss of health certainly sucks, but it would be manageable with high spirits. Unfortunately, that's not been the case over the past two years. Starting in early 2017, I was experiencing a situation in which people I knew were behaving in upsetting ways towards me, and it escalated that summer into emotionally abusive behavior. Throughout the experience, I was put in the position of believing that I was the problem in the relationship. I was definitely naive and unequipped to engage the situation with social confidence and competence, but in retrospect, that didn't warrant the kind of treatment I was receiving. I was being suspected of being manipulative and dishonest, called "passive-aggressive", "combative", and "domineering", accused of self-centered focus, told I was "inventing vendettas in my head" against me, reprimanded for accidentally offending people, and subsequently told I needed to move on when I brought up how hurt I was feeling. In retrospect, it was an extremely toxic situation for me to be in, but I put up with it and I kept apologizing for things that were never my fault because my own sense of guilt and the insistence of others tricked me into thinking I was to blame.
I'm away from that situation now, and I'm doing better, but the experience still haunts me and there are certain subjects and various otherwise benign topics I have to avoid to keep from sparking traumatic memories, which have at times left me hyperventilating and struggling to hold it together. I suffered with some social anxieties prior, but I was starting to overcome them before the situation escalated, and it's been quite the set-back.
Additionally I also have worked as an Administrator for the ARPG DracoStryx continually for over two years and while the job has been extremely rewarding, it's also been stressful at various times, sometimes intently so. As I've mentioned previously, as well, my beloved dog Casey passed in October while my parents were out of town after a month of severely declining health and I was solely responsible for making the call of when to take her to the vet to end her suffering.
All of this and other matters which I'd rather not mention publicly have left me going through quite a bit. Some days takes significant effort to crawl out of bed due to physical pain and emotional numbness.
At the moment, I'm just trying to find ways to survive the struggle, free myself from the perpetual knot of stress in my chest that hasn't gone away in months, and work towards experiencing simple happinesses again not numbed by the ache of all that's occurred. It's been a long year, but I'm glad it's finally over and I'm hopeful that even if my health doesn't improve (which it likely won't any time soon) that somehow I can heal enough to find a sense of joy and emotional investment in things again.
This sounds small and silly, but I'm looking forward to spring and the hope of growing peas. I love peas. There's something magical about peas for me. The peas make me feel this sense of aliveness and the intimate connection I have with the earth.
So I suppose here's to peas, still being alive and the hope that 2019 sees some kind of improvement for me, even if it's just in my power to cope and do it with a smile.
Casey, a Very Good Girl
* * * *
My dog Casey was a very good girl. She was my second dog. I got her when I was nine years old.
As she grew, we trained her to do the basics. Sit, down, come. She was never any good at stay. As I got older, we tried out 4-H. We weren't very good at it, but I have fond memories of it anyway. Maybe we weren't good at 4-H, but I trained her to jump through a hoop. I taught her to shake, to high five, to jump up and put both paws on my outstretched hand. She'd do anything for a treat.
She used to love the snow. She'd race through the snow at high speed and come in with little balls of ice clodded to her belly fur. I had to dress her in tank tops to make that stop. She loved to run, too. We used to play "pass the Casey". We'd stand on either end of the park, one of us holding Casey, the other shouting like an idiot and she'd go flying over the grass.
I begged my parents to let me have dogs in my room. They relented and Casey started sleeping upstairs with me. She'd sleep on the floor. She felt to naughty being up on the bed. I think that time one night when I caught her on the kitchen table licking soup or cereal—I can't recall, it was so long ago—from a bowl, making the spoon go "clink, clink" I yelled so loud she never wanted to climb anything ever again.
She was a cheeky girl nevertheless. I don't think she was full eskie. Eskies aren't supposed to howl, but Casey would "rooooooo" whenever she wanted attention, or treats, or to be let in from outside. I loved her all the same, more for it actually. Her sassy little "roos" were the best sound ever.
As she got older, she started slowing down. I stopped having her jump through the hoop. It was too much effort on her. I didn't make her sit to come inside. It hurt her poor little hips. She still loved going on walks, though. We'd take our time and enjoy ourselves. It was a healthy pace. After I started slowing down from my arthritis the walks we took were slow and casual. Everyone adored her and we were stopped like we always had been by people begging to put her.
This year, she turned fifteen years old. Her pancreas started acting up. She couldn't stomach her food any more. The vet prescribed her a special diet. She hated the food and started losing weight. Slowly, her stiff hips became stiffer. As the summer came to a close she went from bounding out the front door to go potty to doddering slowly at the sight of the leash. We built her a ramp because she stopped being able to do the front steps. She soiled the kitchen floor because she didn't have the energy to go out. She tripped over her own feet and fell into the ravine. The she devoloped a bad cough.
Mid-September she laid down and she never got back up again.
For the past three weeks, we have prayed and fretted and agonized over her. We fed her cheese and boiled chicken after she refused all other food. We changed her potty pads and doggy diapers when she soiled herself. We bathed her so that she stayed clean. The vet took x-rays and found a tumor in her chest. It was probably cancer, she said.
Today, Casey died. Last night she was in a terrible state. She refused food and I bundled her up on the bed beside me and we just stayed there together until I had to lay her on the floor so I could sleep. This morning she ate as much cheese as I would give her but between the bites she'd cringe in pain. I knew it was time and we went to the vet.
At 4pm, October 4, 2018, Casey died. I held her head in my hands the whole time. When the vet said she was gone, I screamed. My good girl was gone.
It hurts. I don't know if I made the right choice. All I know is that she was a good girl. She was my friend, and I love her.