Poppy Z. Brite's Blog, page 70

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

I've decided my "well-meaning" commenter from yesterday was actually Elton John. He didn't get the reaction he wanted from his "tough love" for Billy Joel in Rolling Stone, so he decided to bug me instead. With a sense of entitlement befitting a diva, he continued to comment and even promised me an e-mail after being politely told to go away, so Sir Elton is now banned. Seeya.

And thank you. I don't want this journal to turn into a place where people feel like they have to kiss my ass (and if that was what I wanted, I suspect most of you would leave anyway), but there are times when I sure appreciate your having my back. The aftermath of the federal levee failure was the greatest and still the most humbling example of this: Chris and I could not have been back in New Orleans nearly as soon without the incredibly generous donations from readers of this journal. This ... well, this is a small but important example. I didn't have the resources to even begin explaining how inappropriate that comment was, and it helped that there were people here who could and did.

Anyway, it occurred to me that I never told you all how The Story of the Boat ended. (Beware, because I probably slip into self-parody here, and Sir Elton has told us that's a Bad Thing.) When you last saw us, Billy, Trollface, and I were floating around in Oyster Bay on our magic boat, occasionally fighting giant squid, mostly just enjoying our luxury. Unfortunately, fantasies can turn on you, or at least mine can. One day, without so much as a by-your-leave, they drove the boat up to the Arctic and put me out to die on an ice floe, apologizing but saying I was too old and useless to live any longer. So thus ended that part of my saga. I can only hope a polar bear found my body before it rotted away to bones and was able to get some nourishment from my withered flesh. As Trollface is wont to say, "PROBLEM?"

Never Enough

Well, fuck. I was feeling pretty good (relatively speaking) until I read the comments on my last entry. If there's one thing I love, it's people I don't know telling me how I just haven't tried hard enough to get well. Sometimes they're talking about my back, sometimes they're talking about my mind, but somehow they always know best.

Fuck. I was watching the Carolina/Duke game and now I don't even care.

BOOTSTRAPS, DAMMIT!

P.S. Please keep any responses here or in the aforementioned entry, not in the commenter's personal journal. I'm ashamed of how I used to try to send flying monkeys. See, that's what makes this shit so confusing; sometimes I have this crazy idea that I'm actually healthier than I used to be.

Left the House, Bothered Ghosts

I went out by myself today. Bank and post office and drugstore. Not very challenging destinations, but this was the first time I'd left the house alone in ... mmm ... at least 10 days. And it went OK. I didn't have any wrecks, and I'm pretty sure I only said one semi-nonsensical thing to the bank clerk. (That's part of what scares me about going out. Sometimes my talker breaks and I have no idea what's going to come out of my mouth, and I end up trying to say something innocuous to somebody, but God knows what I really said, and they give me that are-you-from-Mars look and start edging away.)

The drugstore I went to was the one in our old neighborhood, the Walgreens at Napoleon and Claiborne. I was waiting in a long, boring line and decided to turn on my iPhone Ghost Radar app just for the hell of it. As it came up on the screen, I thought, "Christ, it's a drugstore, this is stupid," but then I remembered how near I was to the former Memorial Hospital, scene of horror, suffering, death, heartbreaking decisions, accusations of murder, terrible feelings, career-ruining controversies and more during the post-Katrina failure of the federal levee system, when the hospital was completely surrounded by water and only accessible by boat or helicopter. So I left the Ghost Radar on. And it immediately said "danger." And then it said "island." And then I freaked out and turned it off and felt sorry for bothering those poor souls, if I did.

Balls

Thanks for the good comments. Not to complain, but I can always use more; as greygirlbeast points out, even casual kind words can be more helpful than you might think to a cut-off, shut-in sort of person.

Anyway. Cheered up a little. Not that I'm dancing the two-step, but I decided to stay up and read instead of drugging myself to sleep as early as possible, and that, lately, passes for a victory of sorts. Also, Tristan, the older, abused cat we adopted last month, came up and briefly sat on my lap on the bed while there were other cats around. This was a big step for him, as he likes people but is terrified of most cats.

(As I type this, the zombie-thing from my last entry is in the pit of my stomach, speaking dolefully from there: Who do you think you're kidding, you haven't cheered up, you'll be the same or worse tomorrow, you suck, you're irresponsible, nobody cares about this shit ... Balls to you, zombie-thing.)

Sonnet by Roz Kaveney

In some happier parallel world, rozk and I are good pals. We really should be good pals in this world -- we share many dear friends, interests, and various oddities -- but somehow our paths have only ever crossed intermittently. We've waved at each other from our passing ships and occasionally managed to share a bit of conversation. Maybe someday we'll have a chance to ride on the same ship.

Anyway, Roz frequently writes sonnets in her journal, very good ones, many of them about deeply atypical sonnet subjects. This one is about zombies, presumably the literal, walking-corpse kind, but I kept reading it over and over and finally realized, "This is exactly how I've been feeling." I do fight. I do try to keep enjoying beautiful things even as my mind seems to grow more and more numb. I do expect my friends to start recoiling in horror soon (though I know they probably won't). I am that thing, and know. And I guess maybe that is the worst thing about zombifying depression: that you know you haven't always been like this; that you remember a time when you could feel interest and excitement and even transporting joy. But you remember it dimly, so dimly, and the idea of ever getting back to that time seems as ludicrous as that of a rotten, stinking zombie clothing his bones with new flesh.

Sorry, Roz. I didn't mean to drag your poem down to the depths of woe, honest I didn't!

"You have all the qualities of a maggot except vitality."

I'm tired of music (even Billy) and reading (even Steve) and the Internet (even Trollface) and pretty much everything but sleeping. I think we had better just declare me a big quivering lump of goo and then pour salt on it. Seriously, I can't remember a time when I've felt this useless, and not even just useless, but like an actual albatross to those I love. Well, except the cats. They need me even if they hate to admit it. And the snakes, who don't even particularly mind admitting it. There's that.

Every night I dream of being stranded in some unfamiliar place where I'm not welcome. I hope this is not becoming my mind's metaphor for the world at large.

Don't worry, got shrink appointment next week and not gonna do anything stupid in the meantime.

(The title of this entry is from Paul Theroux, though he attributes it to his possibly fictitious uncle.)

Out-of-Context Theater, or, You May Be Right

CdB: You need something to concentrate on. Something to get you focused.

PZB: Oh! I was thinking maybe I should get a video camera! And make a series of movies where I'm being stalked by Slender Man and can only protect myself by listening to the music of Billy Joel!

CdB: THAT'S A TERRIBLE IDEA!!!!!!!!

Bad Dreams

Dream scholars, mystics, and such: What, if anything, does it mean when you dream of seeing a beloved friend dead in their coffin, at their funeral? What if in real life the friend has been very sick, but is now better? My dream wasn't about anyone who reads this journal, at least as far as I know, so please nobody get paranoid. But it was vivid and convincingly detailed and populated and awful, awful, awful.

One thing I know it means is that I won't be taking goddamn Trazodone as a sleep aid again. It has given me nightmares before, and last night I took one for the first time in a long while. Am I correct in thinking there's a generic Ambien now? I kind of liked Ambien for occasional use -- it could be pleasantly trippy in the twenty minutes or so before it knocked me out, and I didn't do any sleep-eating, sleep-driving, or other weird actions that I know of -- but it was far too expensive.

Picture

I don't think I've posted a picture of myself here since I shaved my head (wonderful feeling!) and then let it grow back a little. Here's me, Ziggy, and Terrell the wannabe-snake-eater in a snapshot taken by the Photo Booth application I only just discovered after having had this Macbook for ... um ... several months at least.

Just A Reminder

(Or a PSA, I guess, for newer readers. NOT aimed at anyone in particular; just something that has bugged me on several recent occasions.)

I identify as male. I have done so for at least thirty years, but for most of my life (including my writing career) I presented as physically female, so I don't expect everyone to know. I try to be pretty open and easygoing about it and am generally happy to answer whatever (polite) questions people may have.

I am now in the early stages of FTM transition. Due to my health and financial issues, I don't know how far my transition will go, but I'm doing my best to live as male. For now, mainly because I know I'm nowhere near passing* yet, I'm not picky about pronouns. You can call me "he," "she," "they," "zie,"** or even "it" (though of course you should never call anyone "it" unless they have specifically said you could).

HOWEVER -- and I don't know why this should be any different from the pronouns, only that it is -- I am really bothered by feminine nicknames and forms of address. Please, please, please don't address or refer to me as "lady," "woman," "ma'am," "miss," "sister," "girlie," "Mom" (I only get that one at the vet or in other cat references, as if I'd birthed a litter of kittens), Chris' "wife," or anything else like that. I know you're just being friendly, not meaning to hurt, but it's like sandpaper on my spine. Thank you for respecting this.

*"Passing," in this context, means having other people physically perceive you as the gender you identify with rather than the one you were assigned at birth.

**Gender-neutral pronoun. I'm not crazy about these (zie, hir, etc.), but I'm beginning to see how useful they can be.