What I do when I'm not here...

Not as much as you'd think. I went to a comedy festival last month and wrote about it for The Austinot. Actually, I turned a review of the festival into a weird observation about comedians and mental illness and why I like comedians.

I read a lot of books over a long holiday weekend. I would list them here, but I can't remember all. Here are some:

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler (so good)

The Middlesteins: A Novel by Jami Attenberg (also good, heartbreakingly so...)

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard (my third or fourth re-read)

American Wife: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld (it's been on my list foreverrrr and she has a new one coming soon)

I am leaving off books I began and stopped reading because I lost interest. I never used to to do that; I really felt the need to finish a book even if it was bad, but now I feel like life is too short to waste time hoping something will magically get better. Also I add books to my Kindle wish list faster than I can read them. 

Watched a lot of television. It seems counter-intuitive, but I read almost as much as I watch TV. I watched the entire fourth season of Arrested Development. It was fun. I liked it. I'm not a critic. It broke my streak of binge-watching everything in the category of TV Shows That Have Been Canceled Even Though They Are Really Fucking Good. Like Fringe. And Alphas. And Touch (actually I'm cool with this one if Keifer is going back to the world of 24; also never really want to hear him say "Jake" or "sweetheart" a thousand times every episode again).

What else? I had brunch a couple of times. Dim sum. Sat on my back deck and watched a monster thunderstorm with big rain and hail one Friday night. Canceled my Match.com membership (see also: life is too short to waste time hoping something will magically get better) . Watched my adorable neighbors' adorable cats while they did adorable things in Switzerland (and brought me chocolate because they are...adorable). Sent my mom chocolate-covered strawberries. Went to the dermatologist expecting to have things removed and had nothing to be removed (see also: developed crush on my dermatologist). Went to the farmer's market in the rain and returned home with fresh peaches and pruney feet. Had some really good dreams.

There's more in my navel to be examined. I miss you.

An imaginary conversation with Elizabeth Wurtzel...

I "get" difficult women. I know a lot of them. I've worked for some and am related to several. I am one. I appreciate the stick-to-her-guns fuck you mentality of not caring (at least, appearing not to care) about what people think about you/her/us.

I read Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir, Prozac Nation, when it came out. I was in college. It spoke to me. I even saw the movie. It didn't speak to me. In the late 90s, I (still in college) read Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women. You probably heard me cheering about it at some point. I read her second memoir, this one on addiction, a few years ago. I don't remember a lot about it, but I know I identified on some level. I've never met Lizzie (but in my mind I call her Lizzie because I follow her on Twitter and that's what she calls herself and I think if we met in person she'd be cool about it), but in the past couple of years - since she's popped up again writing pieces for The Guardian and New York Magazine - I've been paying a little more attention. She seemed to drop off pop culture's radar for a bit, and I had the sense that she had gone through something similar to my own (hate to call it mid-life because I know I'll live past 80) crisis. A loss of voice. And these pieces, varied as they were, attempts to find her voice again. Kind of like I've been doing for a while now. Except a lot more public. And with comments. On the internet. It feels like an odd question to ask about someone who wrote a book in praise of difficult women, but I also wondered why all the hating on Lizzie?

She's a little bit older than I am, but I consider her a sort of contemporary. And when I read her most recent piece in The Atlantic, "I Refuse to be a Grownup," I promised myself I wouldn't read the comments. Then I read the comments, or the first 20 or so. I wished I knew her in real life so I could tell her that she's doing the right thing, this writing she's doing to get her voice back. And this is the most "back" I've seen her since the 90s.

If you know me personally, you probably know that I rehearse conversations in my head (and come on, you do too, right?). On my way home from work, during that cursed/blessed worst Austin traffic drive time, I had one with Lizzie. It went something like this:

Me: Hey, so good on you for the Atlantic piece. I hope you didn't read the comments.
Lizzie: (leaves her sunglasses on, which is fine because I am kind of the sophomore to her senior in this scenario) Nope.
Me: I mean, I don't know who has time...but the one from the "TL:DR what's the point?" guy...he didn't even read...
Lizzie: I don't read the comments. I don't care what people think.
Me: Hey, that's really great...so, you of you. There was that one "psychologist" who comment-diagnosed you with narcissistic personality disorder and that isn't even a thing anymore; it's not even in the latest DSM...
Lizzie: (icy silence)
Me: I wanted to tell you that I get it. I hate that you have to see criticism all over the freaking internet when you're just being honest, I mean who isn't a narcissist? What's wrong with not wanting to grow up? For those of us who choose not to get married, not to have kids, to remain emotionally...um, I want to say... immature? Why do people care so much?
Lizzie: I don't. So I wouldn't know.
Me: I wanted to say that I'm on your side. Write all the crazy. Just write. Let the haters hate and do it anyway, even if it's just for lines like "I wish people were judging each other a great deal more, and more carefully, but they are not. Knowing this, I have no trouble being myself. It works well. I will die screaming." BECAUSE ME TOO, LIZZIE, ME TOO.
Lizzie: Calm down. (exhales vapor from her e-cig)
Me: OK, so I'll let you go, but just one more...
Lizzie: No.
Me: DidyoutotallyfreakoutthatChristinaRicciplayedyouinthemoviebecauseherforeheadOMGherforehead...
Lizzie: No.

And that was it. She probably wouldn't like me in person. Nor should she. I wanted to tell her about that one time I was on Prozac because my best friend died when I was 23 but it didn't work and how my mom is a therapist and told me the worst thing with mental health issues is to "be in the system" so I always made sure I saw private shrinks, off insurance, sometimes under assumed names, and I think talk therapy is overrated and that most people think I'm younger than I really am too because I don't really have responsibilities, but I do have one cat and one dog just like she does but the cat has hated me for 14 years now and also sometimes I am ridiculous too. When people grossly underestimate my age, I assume it's not based on my appearance, but on my behavior. I don't behave like a person who has the weight of other people's problems on top of my own, rather, I behave like a person who thinks her problems are the only important ones. And, BAM!, right back to narcissism.

Hate her or don't. Hate me or don't. I have had worry. I have had grief. I have had despair. None of these things permanently damaged me. Not even a line on my forehead (yet, but totally fine when it does happen, because it will). So to the critics, to the commenters and trolls, to anyone who cannot follow her stream of consciousness while she reaches for the voice she might think she lost by detouring to law school and relationships and doing things other than writing - pay attention. You're not. She is. And she says it better than I:

"Nothing is more bracing than not being concerned about what other people think. I have no idea why anyone cares. Trust me: No one is looking. I know: I am looking. People are self-involved."

p.s. If you don't know who Elizabeth Wurtzel is or if you were in a coma in the 90s, here are all the Tumblr posts in the world tagged with her name. Enjoy.

You can sleep while I drive...

I can't think of anything more comforting than having someone you love offer to take over for a while, even for just a few hours. I love road trips, but not solo. I love the kind of road trip where you have someone to talk to and share driving and take turns napping.

One of my dearest friends visited last week for SXSW and, while we did get out and about, my second favorite thing about her visit (my first favorite thing was just seeing her damn face in person for the first time in a few years) was that she kind of took over. On the first night of her visit, as we sat in my living room eating salads from La Salsa, she looked around and said, "I really want to organize this area." And of course, I said "not on your vacation."

But here's the thing. She really wanted to. She's the kind of person who can take $50 and turn it into a showcase living area worthy of HGTV. She likes order. She cleans her kitchen before she goes to bed because she likes to wake up to a photo-worthy kitchen. So I let her drive. And she spent two days rearranging my furniture, office area, and electronics, plus picked up some globe lanterns (these were a mystery to me) and tab top drapes (and a tea kettle, mostly because she was aghast that I did not own a tea kettle considering the amount of tea that I drink). Let me add that the whole process was not without hilarity, as we resumed the roles in which Erin bosses me around and I let her, see this post from 2006 when she put my bicycle together for me.

It felt like she waved a wand and turned my relatively comfy living space into a showcase, but there was a lot of work and a lot of dust and other things I couldn't explain (like why my TV was in the corner of my living room or why I kept my desktop computer hooked up even though I don't use it). The photos don't do it justice. But here's one:

What this photo does not show: The "mental illness drapes" that had been my mom's in the 70s or 80s that I (literally) NAILED to the wall in a fit of pique my first summer in Austin because THE SUN, THE SUN, IT WAS TOO MUCH. They went into the bin and the trash man should be picking it up today so they will be gone forever.

So my dear friend, who breezed into my life and out again, leaving me this lovely place to come home to every day, probably doesn't know how much this meant to me. Even though I made feeble attempts to explain. What it is, really, is comfort. When I watched this past weeks' season finale of Girls, Hannah said the following mid-meltdown, trying to explain:

You know when you’re young and you drop a glass, and your dad says, like, “Get out of the way!” so you can be safe while he cleans it up? Well, now, no one really cares if I clean it up myself. No one really cares if I get cut with glass. If I break something, no one says, “Let me take care of that,” you know?

When Erin was moving my couches around, she found broken glass. Because months ago, my cat knocked a really heavy lead crystal bowl off of my desk and it basically exploded into a million shards. Some of it went under the couch and, although I swept and vacuumed and mopped and thought I had gotten every little piece of glass, it was still there. So yeah, that's what it was like, having someone come into my life and say "let me take care of that." It made me feel like I could breathe again, like someone had my back, like someone cared if I got cut with glass. 

/end sappy

What I do when I'm not here (besides watching TV and painting my nails): I wrote a guest post for my favorite organic beauty blog, Indigo+Canary. You should read it. Especially if you live in Austin.  

When politics gets personal...

(aren't all politics personal? Just wanted to share something here and then I'll shut up until after Tuesday.)

After I lost my job in 2008, I paid for COBRA for as long as I could legally do so. I did it on a freelancer's salary. I had little savings, which I was forced to use for stupid things like rent and food during the lean months. Then I moved to Austin for a job with a small agency that didn't offer health insurance (but hey, a regular salary and living in Austin? All good).

So in early 2010, my "healthcare" involved crossing my fingers, praying, and skipping medication (I take Metformin for Type 2 Diabetes) and meals to keep my blood sugar down. I lost 20 lbs. in the first couple of months after I moved, some due to stress and some from skipping meals to keep my BG low.

People who oppose "Obamacare" (mostly Republicans but I don't want to say ALL Republicans) think that people who don't have health insurance should just go to an emergency room if they get sick. There are a lot of problems with that logic, including the fact that taxpayers have to eat those costs when the uninsured person cannot pay an emergency room bill. Also, reactive healthcare is NOT THE SAME as proactive healthcare. I found out the hard way in March of 2010 when I ended up in the ER with acute pancreatitis.

I had been sick for weeks with nausea and pain in my abdomen. I was dizzy a lot, but attributed it to skipping meals. I had cut my dose of Metformin in half so I could make it last (my doctor in Charleston prescribed a few month's worth because she knew my COBRA ended the same month I moved to Austin). Even when it got so bad I could hardly stand up to take my dog outside, I didn't do anything. A few days later, I was working in my office at the agency when the pain in my abdomen was so bad I couldn't take a full breath. I called an "ask a nurse" hotline and they told me to get my ass to a hospital immediately.

I drove myself to the closest emergency room, which happened to be in the Catholic Healthcare system here in Austin. I don't remember a lot about it, other than I took my driver's license out of my bag and held it in my hand in case I passed out while driving. I remember parking in the garage, walking through the doors of the ER, handing the woman at the desk my ID, and nothing after that until I woke up with wires all over me hooked up to machines and tubes in my nose.

They took blood and x-rays and scans and finally told me I had pancreatitis. I knew it was something I was at risk for as a diabetic, but I didn't know how serious it was. Acute kidney failure. Respiratory distress syndrome. Heart failure. Before I even saw a doctor, the financial rep from the hospital came in and got my billing info. I was still in so much pain I was tearful, and even more so when I had to tell the money guy that I didn't have insurance. He told me not to worry because they "discount" bills for uninsured patients.

I had been in the hospital for less than four hours when they gave me some medication and told me I needed to stay overnight for observation. No. There was no way I could rack up an ER bill for an overnight stay and still keep my head above water financially. I wasn't keeping my head above water very well as it was. So after another hour of negotiating, they let me sign paperwork saying I wouldn't sue the hospital if I died and sent me home with medication and a three-page bill. For $4,500. I drove myself home and cried the whole way. I slept that night with the deadbolt unlocked and my phone in my hand in case I needed to call 911, but let me say at this point I had been sick and miserable for so long, I felt pretty ambivalent about whether or not I woke up in the morning. Just being honest.

So as a person without health insurance, the hospital also gave me information for one of its clinic affiliates so I could follow up and get medication and lab work for a co-pay based on my salary. I went to that clinic for almost two years, up until just a few months ago when I could use my new health insurance from my job (I had to pay into it for a year before using it because at the time they could still deny anything related to a pre-existing condition, in my case, diabetes). I was grateful to have any healthcare at all, but the healthcare you get at a "free" health clinic is vastly different from what you get when you have health insurance.

It wasn't waiting for hours for appointments, having my blood drawn by nursing students, or never seeing an actual doctor (I saw nurses and physicians assistants the entire time). I was accustomed to following doctor's instructions. When they prescribed a new medication, I took it. I had no other options.

Which leads me to now. Just a few months ago, I was able to make an appointment with a doctor in my preferred care plan with my health insurance. I found out a few things. One: I took two medications prescribed by the health clinic for over a year that are known to cause liver damage when taken together. Two: At one point earlier this year, I took a new medication for a couple of months (the clinic gave me a bag of samples) that my new doctor told me had been recalled in 2011.

I am lucky. I am OK. I have liver damage, but it isn't permanent because the liver is great at repairing itself. I have to give myself shots in my stomach for a month or two or three, depending on how long it takes, but I can afford the medication I have to inject myself with because I have health insurance. If I didn't? $470 a month for the medication, plus needles, sharps containers, etc.

Again, I was grateful to have access to ANY healthcare when I was uninsured. I finally finished paying off my ER bill early this year. And I survived. What makes me angry - furious, actually - is the way many people dismiss Obamacare by saying uninsured people can go to an emergency room or free clinic. The clinic I went to wasn't out to murder me, they have such a large patient load that they literally cannot keep up with things like recalled medication or which medications interact negatively with others. The PA I saw probably met with upwards of 50 patients a day. They're doing the best they can under the weight of a huge increase in uninsured patients (job losses = people who cannot afford COBRA, lengthy unemployment = COBRA runs out after 18 months). I am by no means a worst case scenario. I almost died. I was so sick I wanted to die. But other people without insurance really do die every single day because they don't have access to adequate healthcare.

The Affordable Care Act fixes these things at the root of the problem: Insurance and pharmaceutical companies. If it had gone into effect a year before it did, I would have been able to get my own insurance without being denied for having diabetes. I wouldn't have been charged more than a man my age for the same insurance. The medication I need to take would have been affordable. Every damn time I hear a politician dismiss Obamacare by talking about the "uninsured masses" that should just go to an emergency room when they get sick, I think about the people I saw in the waiting room every time I had an appointment at the free health clinic. Sick elderly people, pregnant women, children...I want every politician who opposes Obamacare to give up their own health insurance for one year and try to get healthcare. I want to see them with their sick kids, tearfully waiting for hours to see a nurse who may or may not help. I want to see them give up their fucking Ambien and Viagra and try to get help from an ER when they cannot sleep because they voted NO on a "let's help the poor people please" bill.

I haven't told a lot of people what happened to me when I was uninsured and what I am dealing with now as a result, so I think sometimes people get confused as to why I so adamantly support President Obama and his healthcare plan. To the Republican politicians who dispute the fact that uninsured people often DIE WHILE THEY ARE TRYING TO GET CARE, I say fuck you. Fuck you and your white collar golden fucking parachute health insurance. Fuck you and your salary. Fuck you and your summer home. Fuck you, your private plane, your wife's facelifts, your show horses, and your complete inability to relate to what the American public is going through every single day.

There are a lot of reasons why I voted for President Obama in 2008 and during early voting last week. The fact that he has a workable plan and genuinely cares about what the average person in the U.S. faces on a regular basis is just one. It will probably take more than four more years to fix the mess the Bush administration created, but I know he'll do his level best. For me, and so many, many others like me, it can mean the difference between life and death.

End rant. Thanks for listening. This is just my story and I'm glad I'm still here to tell it.

Yes, I celebrate my dog's birthday...

Every year. And I kind of make a deal about it. Like pupcakes and tiny hats and wrapped gifts. It's not because I wish I had children and I'm trying to fill that place inside of me (shut up) by lavishing my dog with affection and anthropomorphizing her every move. I do it because my dog is pretty awesome. I don't have to be fake maternal with her (because if you ever see me being maternal, I'm faking it). Lulu has happy coming out of her ears. She makes me laugh every day. She gets me out of bed every morning. And today, she's four.

Last month, I attended a super cool event called BlogathonATX (a whole day of blogging and meeting other bloggers and learning from experts...if you don't have something like this in your city, you should start one) and I met Allison from Printcopia, one of the event's sponsors. We had a nice chat about swag and Yelp's fingerless gloves (pretty sure the best goodie bag item ever). After the event, Allison sent me an email and asked if I'd be interested in a promo offer from Printcopia to try one of their new canvas prints (of course I was!).   

Since Lulu's birthday was coming up, I knew I wanted a canvas print of her, but because I have a million thousand photos of my babydog, I thought it was going to be a really difficult decision. Then I discovered that you can browse through your own Instagram and Facebook photos during the canvas print design process. Once I linked my accounts, it was easy to preview what they would look like on canvas. I played around with the design options (wrapping, colored borders, even enhancing the image quality). I finally decided on one, placed my order, and hoped it would come in before Lulu's birthday. It arrived just a couple of days after my order, early last week, and I was so excited that I opened it in front of Lulu and ruined the surprise. (Kidding, I actually know she's a dog and she gets excited about me opening anything. She doesn't even really know that it's a canvas print of her.)

The finished print is really beautiful. I haven't decided where to hang it yet because now I want to order four or five more so I can have a favorite Instagram prints collection. I thought about hanging in my office, but I already have it as the background on my computer and I work at home about the same amount of time as I spend in my office. So it's in my home office for now, waiting for a spot on the wall and a few more prints.

Happy fourth birthday to my sweet girl. I can't imagine not seeing this face every day.