Bread and Circe

Since many people have helped me in my time of need, and I have been so touched and surprised by the power of the Internet and its users to help people, I am posting this in the hopes that someone may be able to help one of the worthiest people I have ever known. Betsy (bizetsy) and I met on LJ and used to work in the same building downtown, many years ago when I was at Internap. (Some long-time readers may remember our coffee-break adventures at Tully's that involved sugar-y frozen drinks and made-up songs.) She and her husband, another old friend of mine, met at my 24th birthday party. We haven't been in close touch in a long while, though I always read what's up with her with great and fond interest. Betsy is truly an incredible woman - a funny, charming, grade-school teacher with a killer wardrobe and beautiful tattoos, whose smile would light up a whole city block.

Anyway, she has been struggling for a while and needs help now and I can't think of anyone more deserving of it. Here is what she posted today:

Dear everyone,

I apologize earnestly for my mass message; my energy is in such short supply that I have been unable to speak to most of you for quite a while. I hope that you are well and happy. I have very important news to share, and a request for help.

* I have been diagnosed with several serious, and at this time, incurable, diseases.
* I have 2 neurological diseases: POTS and orthostatic intolerance. Both are types of dysautonomia: the breakdown of the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system controls ALL major functioning body systems: respiratory, cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine, reproductive, etc. My cases are severe.
* I also have been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury/brain damage from my April 07 car accident (when you are hit by a semi going 80, it doesn't work out in a small car's favor).
* I have multiple severe sleeping disorders. I am told I get about 3% of the rest of an average person. This means that if I sleep 8 hours, it's like you sleeping for 20 minutes. This makes it very hard for me to heal when I get other maladies.
* Along with this, I have a severe case of fibromyalgia.
* I have been rated 100% completely disabled by multiple doctors


I have a team of doctors searching for further understanding as to my poor health, as well, as I might have more illnesses. On a very good day, I can run a small errand or attend one activity. On a bad day, I am confined to my bed and must crawl to use the bathroom. I have had many more bad days than good lately, and have been almost totally confined to my apartment for the past months, going from dehydration to two kidney infections as well as dealing with effects of trying new, risky medications to attempt to decrease my dangerous symptoms. My infections got so severe that one of my drugs was a chemo drug; I have lost weight, lots of hair, and lots of lunches. (Bad humor attempt)

The good news is that these diseases are chronic rather than deadly; I am alive. I went from Fulbright scholar, teacher, and full-time graduate student to someone who can't walk sometimes. BUT, like I said, I am alive. I see grace and goodness in many small things that I ignored before. I am seeing a world-renowned rheumatologist on Bryan's insurance, and he has diagnosed more in the last 2 months than I had learned from many other doctors in 2 years.

The bad news is that so far, I have received not a penny in disability, social security, unemployment, or any other type of compensation in almost 11 months. I am told the wait on this is between 1-3 more years, and that for some cases, it takes 7 or more. Short term disability rejected my initial claim and I have to appeal (I am told this is pretty standard diversion.) I am being as proactive as my disability allows, but there is only so quickly that the government moves. I spend NO excess money: I do not go out to eat, buy clothing or get hair cuts or anything that is not mandatory. I only buy essential healthy groceries (at very low cost based on researching sales, coupons, rebates, etc.). Other than that, my money goes to doctors and medications. I had a savings account, emergency fund, everything you're supposed to do. Bryan has done everything he can to help me, but the medical bills--my medications alone are over $1,000 a month. Add testing, doctor visits, treatments, , on top of our very frugal living costs, are just too much for one salary to bear.

My money is gone. My credit card debt has reached a place I can not pay. I have $75 in my life, and I owe over $25,000 in medical bills (mostly on my credit cards) at this time. I promise you that I have watched every penny. However, my savings is gone. It is hard for me to ask, as I believe my place on this planet is to help others. I realized I needed to ask you this when I have had to cut down my medication doses and avoid new appointments because I can not afford them. That is dangerous. So, I now humbly ask for your assistance.

If you can make a donation of any size, I would be very grateful. If you wish, I will give you an itemized note of exactly where your money is going. I stretch every penny and promise I would not waste anything. If you can donate, please click here:

If you have no money to send but can send good wishes, thoughts, prayers--whatever your belief system is--I would very much appreciate that, too.

In return, I am setting up a website called thegrocerygirl.com to show people how I routinely get savings of 75% and more on groceries and home essentials (the only money I have spent for months), to try to help you and others. I will post as I am able.

Please feel free to re-post this in your journal.

Thank you so much for your time. My love to you all.
Betsy

Thanks for reading, y'all.

As I think more and more about what I want to do with this space, I realize that I do want to have a space for the things I love - art history stuff, academic stuff. I've never known how that was going to take shape, but I feel so familiar with the bones of Dreamwidth, built (and improved/innovated) as it seems to be on LJ's open source code, so maybe now's the time.

Things posted here may start out as placeholders and then get fleshed out a little more. I'm really, really burned out on academia right now, as much as I still love it. I'm in the middle of a spring quarter and took the hardest midterm of my life last Friday. It kind of broke me, but in thinking about it I realize that it kind of remade me as well. Still, I feel wrung out and unable to focus - though that might have more to do with the fact that I'm sick, too.

I'm not even sure I'll keep this name. I've been Kill for so long, but maybe it's time to start writing as ME, at least about the things that I love. Still, there's a certain freedom to partial anonymity. I'm not the sort that really likes a lot of responsibility (another reason I'm sort of burned out on academia) - I just want to love things and...well, not leave them, but be able to move on to other things if I want to.

We'll see.

In the meantime, here's a look at Titus Kaphar, who is the inaugural Gwendolyn Knight & Jacob Lawrence fellow at the Seattle Art Museum. I have not yet been to see his work, but I want to place these video here because I am fascinated by his process.

Once again, a painting made me cry today.



Franz von Stuck, Der Abendstern (The Evening Star), 1912


The JPEG doesn't do it justice, at all. It looks so simple, here, but in person, the pink of the sunset glows, the tenderness of the kiss is so simple, and then - the star, singular in twilight and reinforced by the strength of the impasto used to paint it, virtually cuts into the sense you get of the painting.

I have long been a fan of the Frye's most recognized painting (Stuck's Sin, painted in 1893) -- heck, they use her face as an icon on Twitter. (It's also the icon I'm using, but in the interest of readability I cropped it from its insane gold-painted frame, which must be seen to be believed.) I visit it every once in a while, along with Gabriel Cornelius von Max's Botaniker (The Botanists). But truth be told I haven't been to the Frye as much as I ought. I need to change that.

The Munich Secession exhibition at the Frye ends Sunday, so I decided I'd better go see it. I almost didn't go, mainly because I have a lot of work to do, but I figured it couldn't hurt (this will be funny in a second) to take an hour to go see it. I'm glad I did. And if you're in Seattle, you should too before it goes away.

The funny part I mentioned above is not funny ha-ha, but funny "damn, this sucks" -- after I sat watching the painting for a while, I stood up to go see Nathalie Djurberg's eerie stop-motion animation in the Black Box and realized that my back was out. So much for it not hurting to go to the Frye. I do notice that my back tends to be a little more sensitive right around that certain time of the month, so I need to watch that in the future. I am home now and making some notes about the exhibition, having taken pain pills and muscle relaxants, and am going to try to get some reading done. I just hope I don't get too loopy.

Sigh.

Sometimes a musician just exists in your life, and you know them for a long time, and they become part of the background of noise that you exist with, maybe since you were a little kid. And the songs start becoming manipulated and co-opted for advertisements for various things from minivans to television shows. And then one day, you're driving home from work, and the sun is breaking through the pink and orange clouds, and the musician's song starts playingn on the radio, and you're inspired to turn the volume way up, and you realize you are A Fan of The Musician?

I am a fan of Joe Cocker.

If you have an hour, DO check this out: An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube. It was made by Dr. Michael Wesch, who teaches at Kansas State University and has made several other videos regarding technology and learning and how they interact.



I think a lot of what he's saying about the internet and Web 2.0 and community and connectivity applies to Livejournal, too. I remember the difference between having an online journal, which I made with HTML and had at my own website, and what happened to my world after I got a Livejournal. People could respond with the journal I used to have at onesandzeroes.net, but only by email. Everything changed with LJ: my friends, the way I communicated with them, the tone and breadth of my posts, all of it.

This video made me cry, but I'm emotional lately. It made me cry about the Numa Numa guy, for chrissakes.

I am very emotional today. There is no reason, other than that I am extremely tired and that I am PMS-ing, and it makes me act like a petulant child, and everything threatens to spill over. I did finish a final exam essay that I was worried about, but not until about 2 am. This morning I went to the Seattle Art Museum to look at a collection George de Forest Brush's "Indian paintings" that he did in the 1880s. The exhibition presents him as one of the only White artists that worked to portray Native Americans in a sympathetic manner at that time.

I walked into a room, drawn by the small bust portraits of several men, and I turned around and saw the painting that I've put behind the cut. It is a moving picture, no doubt, but my eyes welled up and my throat tightened so fast that I thought I was going to have to run for cover of the restroom, for fear of becoming a messy blob of tears right there in the middle of the gallery.

( George de Forest Brush's -Mourning Her Brave-, 1883 )

I stayed for the gallery talk and now I am at work. I still have quite a bit of studying left to do, but by this time tomorrow I will be done with the quarter, and though I am always sad to stop studying certain things, it will be a relief. And I will immerse myself in library books. And internet teevee.

'Til then.

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This is the first time that I've ever answered one of these questions, but antipodes did it and I was inspired.

DVDs I would bring with me:

1. Love Actually. I know, I know, it's a cheesy rom-com, but I love it.
   
2. Harold & Maude. If anything could cheer me up on a desert island (besides a hatch to play with and maybe some Dharma mac & cheese), this would be it.
   
3. The Cockettes. This is a documentary that Mjark showed me and I absolutely love it. It would inspire me to do things with fronds the likes of which you've never SEEN.
   
4. I'm gonna go ahead and say that Special Edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. That probably counts as more than one, but if it comes in one package, it's probably okay, right?
   
5. Ditto the two new Batman/Dark Knight movies. Why so serious?

I want to go dancing. I'm not meant for it, anymore -- I've nothing to wear, and I'm too fat for the stamina it requires, but I miss the sweat and the smoke and the lights and the floor of it.

That is all.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
The last time that I read any Russian literature was in high school, and it was the better-knowns like Crime and Punishment or The Metamorphosis. My boyfriend studies Russian and came home with a recommendation for this, and I finally got around to reading it. Bulgakov is funny as hell (ha!) and I really enjoyed this story, which offered another side to the traditional feuding between the dark and light. I'm afraid I probably didn't understand its more nuanced parts, thanks to such little background in Russian history and a failure to know Faust, a strong influence on this work, but even in a solely entertainment-oriented way it was a dreamy, scary trip. A few times, I seriously found myself in that state of mind you get into when you read horror on a dark-and-stormy night, like, "Maybe this isn't such a good idea, given the likely impending nightmares."


View all my reviews.

Scene this morning in the elevator, as I am arriving at school to take a final.

Old lady: We're all going to the Plaza! [sees me hit G for the ground floor, which is where the cafe and the supplies stand are located, sneers.] Oh. You're going to get food.
Me: Nope, just need coffee and a blue book for my exam...
Old lady: Oh, well that's much better. [Looks me up and down.] Good luck with your test.

The fuck? So what if I am going for food? At 7:30 in the morning on the day of a final, what, am I not allowed to eat fucking breakfast?

Newsflash to the world: Yeah, I'm fat, but that still means I have to eat every day. It's not like I store sandwiches on my hips and fruit in my boobs and wrap spaghetti around my arms under my skin. Body doesn't work that way, idiots.

Some people's grandmas. Sheesh.

Of course, I don't even know why I felt the need to explain myself. I always think of things to say too late.

Exchange at tonight's Ray Lamontagne show:

Ray: So, what do you call yourselves? Seattle-ans? Seattleites?
Guy in orchestra seating: LIBERALS!
Crowd: -laughs-
Ray: Yeah, thank GOD.

The concert was great. His voice was otherworldly. It was rockin' in parts and heart-wrenching in parts. Just how I like my Raycharles Lamontagne.

We totally did it.

I am amazed and proud and completely just . . .

I've never felt this way before.

I'm trying to find cheap trays made of foam in which Matt can store his Warhammer 40K miniatures ("foam figure trays") and keep getting advertisements for "full-figured foam padded bra." Hee.

Still not much is going on.

Bellingham was fucking lovely. Mjark had given me a budget with which to descend upon Display & Costume and buy costuming props. I didn't have any prompting, other than the following, which I will post here because LJ does this cute little "quotes" thing when I blockquote stuff:

From Display & Costume, any of the following they have on hand, in
quantities of 2 to 4 (and I will reimburse for all of this):
tiaras
feather boas
peacock feathers
costume jewelry of the clustered-diamond-bracelet/necklace variety
especially
Mardi Gras beads
nurses' caps
fake glasses
lorgnettes
long gloves
plume pens
false eyelashes
lace kerchiefs

When I pressed further, I got:

Basically the bulk of this is intended to provide flexible accoutrements
for the portrayal of, say, some debauched second-string Central-European
princesses between the late 1700s and maybe 1939, 1958 at the latest.
Some of the stuff is for less specific characterization -- the nurses'
caps, for example -- that may come in handy. Wigs would be on the list,
but they're SO particular...not to mention pricey...so headdressy stuff
may have to suffice (unless of course you see some Just Right wigs that
are $50 or less each).

ASK ME A HARD ONE!

So I had a great time at Display and Costume, after some consultation with the lovely Acataphasia Grey, who has an eye for such things and would certainly have been included in the weekend's fun had she been able to get away. She told me the things that she would be able to put together herself (including costume jewelry with paste jewels (MADE OF GLASS NOT PLASTIC THANK YOU BECAUSE THEY SHINE BETTER) and cardboard. I went to D&C on the night of the huge storm in Seattle and just ran through the aisles putting things willy-nilly into my basket, especially since Cat had warned me off the more expensive stuff (the fake jewels, in particular). I already had some Mardi Gras beads and feathered masks, so I brought those up too. I'm still gathering stuff to bring. I almost bought the pink Marie Antoinette wig but it was looking rather shaggy. I thought it might work for a while, but I don't think Mjark meant THAT second-string, so I gave it a pass, especially at $45. That's wot the internet is for!

As soon as I got to Bellingham on Friday afternoon we started pawing through the $291 score that I brought from Display and Costume. And then Mjark told me the details -- that we're going to be doing some historical reenactment à la Little Me, which Mjark loves and which is fucking amazing and great and you should get it from the library because it is hilarious. It is by Patrick Dennis, who wrote Auntie Mame (which I have still managed not to see, saving it as I have been for desolina).

So then things got out of hand and we took pictures. I don't have the JPEGs because I think Mjark is saving those for his projects but of course he's mailed me contact sheets of all the pictures.

Then we went and watched the fireworks from somewhere not too far from his house, but because we were already dressed up we each decided to go in the generic black eye-masks and cheap fake pearls we were wearing at the time. I'm sure Bellingham thought we were amusing! At least I did.

Later that night, we watched The Cockettes, which I find difficult to describe but which informed much of our weekend, and which I highly recommend to anyone.

The next day was pretty low-key, though we did hit a Salvation Army, where we found a choir robe and some terribly funny hats and a lot of stuff that was useless. Although we did find an old suitcase that was suitably aesthetically appropriate to hold all of the costuming supplies.

Then we went to Fred Meyer, at about 10PM, where our receipt listed the following items:

- facial cleansing pads
- men's underwear
- fishing line
- coat racks
- hairbrush
- a shitload of makeup
- plastic headband
- eye makeup remover
- Diet Coke
- curly bows
- hand mirror

Our checker commented on our loot, which of course tickled us.

All in all it was a great weekend. And Ian is coming to town in a few weeks, from Paris, and I've taken a few days' vacation from work so we can all go up there. I'm so excited! This time Cat will be able to make it (she was too exhausted from travelling to come with me this time).

That's all for now; more as the project(s) progress.