Natalie Luhrs

April 17, 2021

Saltiness and Other Topics

Things about which I am salty, an unordered list:

WordPress. They did something with one of the recent updates that makes the featured image appear at the top of the post, even if it was already there. It might be a problem with my template. I am mad about it either way. I fixed a bunch of the recent posts, but you stalkers who are reading my archives, you’re gonna have to deal with duplicate images until I get this sorted. Or, you know, you could find something else to do with your time.
Speaking of: the passage of time. You’d think that with not having a job and all that I’d have time to do all the things and yet…I do not. This irks me and I don’t think this is something I’m going to get sorted. Productivity gurus, please get on this, kthxbi.
Etsy. I honestly hate how you have to go through their website to fucking track your fucking purchases that have nearly always been shipped USPS. Just give me the damned tracking number in my email, I don’t need three new tabs opened in my browser. (I am extra-salty about this right now because I have blocked myself from looking at shopping sites so I can’t track anything that I ordered before I put the block in place).
Salt. So meta, I know. I’m supposed to “watch” my sodium intake because of the whole stupid fluid issue and dammit, salt is tasty, salt is good. I like salt. It’s a food group. I keep trying to quit it and…not succeeding.
I am getting approximately 7L of fluid drained from my abdomen every two weeks. This is about as fun as it sounds. Especially when you’ve only had 2 hours 0f sleep because of anxiety and all you want to do is snooze between the invasive bits and you get the chatty nurse who will not leave you alone.
- Fun stats time: I have had 31 paracentesis since August 2018 with 161.5L total drained. I get them on average once a month–but since last December the average has been once every three weeks. The average fluid accumulation per day is about 0.25L. They sometimes knock me on my ass for an entire day. I honestly would not wish this nonsense on my worst enemy and that means you. Yes, you.
Blood thinners. I had my annual poke and prod last month and I literally hard to warn my ob/gyn about the bruises on my legs in advance. And I got a replacement IUD and literally bled for three weeks. That was fun. On the other hand, I am convinced that being on blood thinners was a factor in me having an exceptionally mild case of COVID–I had a bit of a cough and a bit of a sore throat for about 3 days and that was it. My antibody test came back positive, so I definitely did have it. Thanks, emergency room where I was stuck for 6 hours, half of which I was barely conscious. That was great.
Speaking of: use the guard on your mandoline. Do not be me and slice off a nice chunk of your finger making quick pickles, of all things. Finger’s healed, the pickles were delicious, but there’s nothing quite like being that dumb-ass with an entirely preventable injury in the ER (they got me in and out in an hour which was an actual record; I suspect it was because I was literally bleeding through my homemade bandages every 10 minutes or so and they didn’t want to deal with calling Environmental to come and clean everything–as with everything else in the world, if it bleeds, it leads).

Please do not offer me medical advice. I have something like 10 doctors and it’s already A Lot to keep up with what they want me to do on a day to day basis to manage everything. I do not have the bandwidth to process any advice that doesn’t come from one of my doctors, no matter how well meant the advice may be. Thank you!

Non-Salty things, of which there are a few!

Despite the appalling fluid situation, I am feeling well enough to get outside and walk! I’ve been able to manage several mile-plus long walks over the last few week and my goal is to get to 3 walks a week so I can re-start my long-quiescent project of walking to Mordor and back. I had made it back to Rohan before I got sick, which is as good a place as any to spend three years, I suppose. (Ugh, I see it’s an app now and no, everyone must use a deeply nerdy spreadsheet for this.)
Also despite the appalling fluid situation, I am having way more good days than bad–apparently getting the hell out of a toxic and abusive work situation was good for that? (I am still waiting for my severance payment which I am supposedly getting at the end of the month, when they run payroll. Because they couldn’t let me have it 2 days early when they ran March payroll, nope.)
I got my first COVID shot two and a half weeks ago, thanks to the wonderful Annalee finding me an appointment when I was out of can to find one myself. I am Team Moderna, which I assume means that I’ll be able to cast summon(DollyParton).Jolene in a month or so. Please don’t tell me otherwise.
My insulin pump! It is so so so so great and awesome. It does a pretty good job at keeping me on an even keel, even if I’m not thrilled with the direction my endocrinologist’s office is taking the weekly tinkering. But it has reduced the cognitive load of diabetes and not having to give myself injections a million times a day is just amazing.
Also my A1C was 5.8–which is in the “pre-diabetes” range for non-diabetics. For an insulin-dependent diabetic, that’s a really good number.
I am finally getting evaluated for ADHD/other executive function disorders. However, that’s not happening until the end of June. In the meantime, please enjoy my complete and total lack of executive function and inability to stay on topic for more than 60 seconds at a time if we interact in any way outside of email.
My garden is looking absolutely lovely and I am charmed by how aggressively cheerful–and aggressive–the creeping jenny is. It has plans to take over the world that are only stymied by the sidewalk-house-porch fencing it in. The back yard is less lovely and that, too, cheers me because I know it irritates the ever-living shit out of our neighbor and since it’s not viewable from the street, she can’t do a damn thing about it. I have also learned that she has been known to call county on people as far away as four houses down, so she is apparently a Known Nuisance.
We rearranged the living room and it’s how I’ve wanted it since we bought the house in 2014 and I love it. It feels so much cozier than it did. The cats like it, too.
That Hugo ballot, y’all. It’s such a good ballot and it makes me happy.
I have an idea for a really big project and it terrifies me and I don’t know where to start. But it’s a good idea and if I can get a handle on it, it’ll be really great.
My online coding classes continue to go really well. I’m having fun and learning new things and that’s all good in the long run. And git sure is a thing, folks.
Finally: Ivan snores and it’s the cutest damn thing.

Here’s hoping everyone has a fan-fucking-tastic weekend. I know I’m planning to.

April 13, 2021

2021 Best Related Work Finalist!

I am so honored and thrilled that my essay, “George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun, Or: The 2020 Hugo Awards Ceremony (Rageblog Edition)” is a finalist in the Best Related Work category of the 2021 Hugos.

I can’t say how much it means to me that my writing–as disrespectful as some may perceive it–has been recognized with a Hugo nomination. The last 27 months have been the worst of my life, with the last 16 or so really ramping up the horridness, between my health simply not improving, work being such a tremendous stressor, then getting laid off and realizing that my career was over, and finally my current wrestling with a bunch of existential questions (from which I have spared the blog thus far and not all of which have been bad).

Science fiction and fantasy books and stories have been a lifeline for me and so many others. And for a long time, we didn’t see ourselves reflected in the fiction we read or in the awards that were given out. Fortunately–both for us and for those who come after us–that is changing.

Joanna Russ may have described this in the best possible way in How to Suppress Women’s Writing:

Well, as in cells and sprouts, growth occurs only at the edges of something. From the peripheries, as Klein says. But even to see the peripheries, it seems, you have to be on them, or by an act of re-vision, place yourself there. Refining and strengthening the judgments you already have will get you nowhere. You must break set. It’s either that or remain at the center. The dead, dead center.

I’ve been trying to finish this monster for thirteen ms. pages and it won’t. Clearly it’s not finished.

You finish it. (132)

My heart is full to overflowing and I am out of words now, except for the two most important ones: thank you.

March 11, 2021

What Comes Next

So I’ve made a decision or three.

Decision the first: I’m applying for SSDI instead of looking for a new job. The main reason for this is that FMLA doesn’t apply unless I work for a company with >50 employees, work for them a year, and work more than 1,250 hours (60% of full time). My health simply isn’t stable enough for me to manage that. I have too many doctor’s appointments and too many procedures for me to be able to take on a traditional job without getting fired for absenteeism. I really don’t want to go there.

Which leads to decision the second: I am open to a limited amount of freelance writing and coding work (more about the coding next). If you think you have a project that I’d be a good fit for, fill out this handy form and I’ll get back to you within 24 hours.

Decision the third: I’ve brushed up on my HTML/CSS skills and am learning Python and Django. I’m also planning on learning Javascript and how to code WordPress child themes (if for no other reason than the fact that this site needs a refresh). It’s been really fun and a good challenge, even if there has been more than a bit of cussing about git and GitHub. Once I get more comfortable with Python and Django I’m planning to look for open source projects that I can contribute to.

Financially, we’re okay for now. I’ve found that my need to buy random shit online has subsided since I stopped working. So that’s helping the budget tremendously. However, my SSDI attorney wants to wait until September to file, as Social Security wants folks to not work for five months before getting benefits. He thinks I have a very strong case–he was very complimentary about my organizational skills–and that I stand a good chance of being approved sooner in the process as opposed to later. So things are likely to get pretty lean later this year unless I can bring in a some freelance income.

So that’s my path forward, at least for now.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time reading. I’m currently working my way through Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be An Antiracist and it’s interesting and quite challenging–but challenging in a good way.

I’ve also been watching a lot of Star Trek. Specifically Deep Space Nine. Can we talk about Kira? I’m really worried about her mental health and stability, especially now that they’ve killed off Bareil for entirely stupid plot-coupon reasons. Also when I watched the episode where Odo met his “family” I kept yelling, “They’re evil!” at the television (I have turned into that person who talks to the people in the talky picture box). Also I kind of ship Odo and Quark and that makes me feel like a very bad person.

Health-wise, I’ve honestly been feeling a lot better since I stopped working. I no longer have a feeling of dread hanging around me, I don’t get anxious when I go into my home office, and I’m just overall feeling stronger. Getting the space away from my former employer has really made me realize how abusive my former department was. My manager was able to make it such an environment because she isolated the analysts from the rest of the company–anything to anyone outside Engineering or higher than her on the org chart had to be mediated through her–and was able to impose her version of reality upon us.

Also! Also also also! After four and a half months, I am getting an insulin pump! It’s been shipped and everything. So the next time I get around to updating here, I’ll be a cyborg. I’m looking forward to having more fine-grained control over my insulin, as it’s pretty challenging to dose myself correctly with insulin pens that only dispense in whole units when I need to be able do fractional units.

Hope y’all are doing well, too.

January 31, 2021

Recent Reading, January 2021

I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading these days, which has been really great. I feel like I’ve found my reading mojo again–finally. So here’s a few things I’ve read recently:

First up is Eva Leigh’s Union of the Rakes series. These two books were a lot of fun–fluffy Regency romance with protagonists of a scientific and economic bent, respectively. I’ll likely pick up the third book when it comes out.

So then I decided to read Eva Leigh’s Wicked Quills of London series. The first two books in the series, Forever Your Earl and Scandal Takes the Stage did what they said on the tin–women writers trying to make a go of it in a world that gave them short shrift and they were both delightful and somewhat plausible–as plausible as any wallpaper romance is, at least.

The third book, Temptations of a Wallflower, was absolutely dire. I had to force myself to finish it, because I hate DNFing books.

It was so stilted and hard to read and so many things about it were just unbelievable. I didn’t believe the central conceit of the book, that Sarah was secretly writing erotic novels that were selling like hotcakes in Regency London–she has no friends but spends hours a day in a room writing correspondence and her family never stops to ask who she’s writing to? I didn’t believe that Jeremy’s father was given an earldom for being morally and ethically upright and I didn’t believe that Jeremy was so tied to his father’s purse-strings that he’d take on a ridiculous quest like “find the person who is writing these dirty books and unmask them so your father can continue to be seen as a morally superior human being” so he wouldn’t lose his allowance (on top of his living as a vicar). Also, the book makes it sound strange that Jeremy, as a third son, was a vicar–my recollection is that younger sons were often sent to make their way in the Church, so that was weird, too.

Honestly, the book felt like it was being written out of a sense of duty and that Leigh put a lot less care and effort into it than the other two in the series.

I also read the first issue of Mermaids Monthly, which I backed on Kickstarter. I love the concept of a limited series publication with a narrow focus, so I’m really looking forward to what the team does over the course of the year. That said, not everything in issue one really worked for me. What did work for me was Brigit Truex’s poem “Selkie” and Annika Barranti Klein’s “The Little Sea Maid.” I bounced pretty hard off of Patty Templeton’s story, “Pep and Luna’s”–both the voice and the conceit really didn’t work for me; it felt very contrived. And I wanted to love L.D. Lewis’s “From Witch to Queen and God,” which started out so strong and then faltered at the end; I think the ending needed more work and another editing pass to really meet the standard set by the first half of the story. The illustrations are great, especially the cover image. So overall, a bit of a mixed bag for me, but that doesn’t dim my enthusiasm for the project or for future issues.

And finally, I read T. Kingfisher’s The Twisted Ones. I am not normally a horror reader. I really, really, really don’t like horror. But I trust Kingfisher (also known as Ursula Vernon) and that trust paid off and I liked the book well enough that it gets a proper-ish review. And I should probably disclose that Ursula is a friend.

Mouse has been asked to clean out her recently-deceased grandmother’s home in rural North Carolina. Grandma was both a hoarder and an incredibly nasty human being, so this task is something that will take both physical and emotional fortitude–and when Mouse discovers the holler people through the journal of her step-grandfather, she finds that she’ll need every ounce of fortitude she can muster, and then some. There is a hound named Bongo and I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that nothing bad happens to the dog. There’s also a colorful cast of characters, from the folks living at the commune across the way from the house to the barista at the town’s coffee shop. I really want to know Foxy’s backstory.

In many ways, The Twisted Ones reminded me of the novels of Barbara Michaels–but with the creep factor turned up to 1,000. In Michaels’s novels (which are sadly unappreciated nowadays), there’s always a heroine at loose ends who ends up having to deal with a house. There is often either a recently dead or almost dead malevolent grandmother, and there are intimations of supernatural happenings around the edges. Kingfisher takes those intimations and makes them real, in a visceral and terrifying way–but because the book is written by Mouse as her recollection of events, you’re always sure she’ll make it at the end.

Kingfisher’s voice comes through loud and clear in this book, it’s a practical and to the point sort of voice and I find it very comforting (I suspect that’s why A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking did so well–not only is it a wonderful book, it’s also so reassuring. Also Bob.). Even as Mouse is surrounded by horrors, there’s a sturdy practicality to her that grounds both the reader and the narrative.

Let me put it this way: I liked this book so much that I immediately started reading Kingfisher’s second horror novel, The Hollow Places. Even though I really, really, really don’t like horror.

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
Publisher: Saga Press
Format: Ebook
Purchase: Amazon
Rating:

My Fake Rake by Eva Leigh
Publisher: Avon
Format: Ebook
Purchase: Amazon
Rating:

Would I Lie to the Duke by Eva Leigh
Publisher: Avon
Format: Ebook
Purchase: Amazon
Rating:

Forever Your Earl by Eva Leigh
Publisher: Avon
Format: Ebook
Purchase: Amazon
Rating:

Scandal Takes the Stage by Eva Leigh
Publisher: Avon
Format: Ebook
Purchase: Amazon
Rating:

Temptations of a Wallflower by Eva Leigh
Publisher: Avon
Format: Ebook
Purchase: Amazon
Rating:

January 23, 2021

Could I possibly catch a break now?

Oof. The last three months.

A few days after my last post, I ended up back in the hospital with E. coli again. I was inpatient for a week and a half and was sent home with IV antibiotics.

Thanksgiving week, I went to Jefferson for an ERCP for a pancreatic stent placement. It went well.

Finished up the course of IV antibiotics, and a week later, back in the hospital with E. coli for a week. Discharged with IV antibiotics until January 26. Also came home with a bit of a cough and sore throat (this is important).

Last half of December, was on vacation from work and it was great. Super chill and relaxing, took lots of naps.

First week of January: had my performance review and it was again a less than positive one–I was placed into the “needs improvement” category (the lowest) despite being told all year that I was on track to be “successful”–my manager said it “felt right” to put me there, despite the fact that I either accomplished or made tremendous progress on all my goals, because she decided I was inconsistent (giving no specific examples). So no merit increase and the bare minimum bonus again, this time after busting my ass and documenting it all year. The printout of my review is eight pages long and it’s because of everything I put in the system–and it’s not even everything, I summarized a lot. Before I became ill, I was ranked as high as it was possible to get–for me to suddenly become a poor performer after becoming disabled, despite not only doing the same work but taking on a lot of extra work, is certainly something.

Second week of January: I had a scheduled ERCP at Jefferson for a second pancreatic stent placement. Two days prior, I went for my pre-procedure Covid-19 test. It came back positive and my procedure was rescheduled for February. (See, I told you the cough and sore throat was important–I probably caught it in the hospital ER, I had those symptoms about a week after I spent 6 hours down there waiting for a treatment room.)

Third week of January: I get laid off. A lot of people got laid off and it was the sort of layoff that felt like a mandated cut of a certain percent of headcount. And since I had a track record of poor performance according to my manager… My last day of work–at a job I’ve had in one way or another for 18 years–is January 29. I’ll get full pay and benefits for two months after that, and then a severance package equal to 2 week of pay for every year of service. Which, for me, is 6 years since I was a contractor for the first 12/13 years. I haven’t actually seen the paperwork yet, because apparently they’re snail mailing it to me instead of emailing it.

Two days after the super-awkward meeting with my manager and HR, I’m back in the hospital with absolutely horrifying abdominal pain and nausea/vomiting. Which is where I am now, in fact. I have a horrible, loud roommate who has the TV on 24/7 and is constantly on the phone, sometimes both the room phone and her cell phone at once.

Infectious Disease is extending my IV antibiotics for an additional week, to cover me for the ERCP at Jefferson. There are possible plans to discharge me tomorrow. I have to “transition” my work to the one remaining analyst next week, which is going to be a joke because the remaining analyst is less that savvy when it comes to tech.

And here I am, trying to figure out how I’m going to find work in a pandemic while having a disability. I have a couple of leads that I just need to get my resume polished up for, but other than that, I think I’m going to take a bit of time to decompress and really work through what I want to do.

I also still don’t have my insulin pump because the DME hasn’t been doing the appropriate follow up and I’m having to chase every bit of paperwork through the system. They’ve had the paperwork since December 3. The American healthcare system is fucking ridiculous.

I would like to reboot 2021, please. I desperately need a break and I am struggling to see how I can make one happen.

But I will be available for freelance writing and spreadsheet wrangling starting February 1.

Or you could throw a in a few bucks at Ko-Fi and I’ll put it into savings for a rainy day. Because I’m sure there’ll be more than a few of those in the future.