Mixed Signals

I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere. Around here, it'd be easier to get an appointment with the governor than schedule a new-patient appointment with a psychiatrist.

I've been on some form of medication (usually Zoloft) for around 10 years. Recently, I needed to find a new doctor so I found the one closest to me covered under my insurance and set an appointment. 3 months. 3 months is the average wait time for new patients. Every place I called had similar wait times, so I scheduled the appointment.

I followed my hastily scratched directions (Hey, not everyone has a fancy navigating system) to the address listed for the doctor. To my dismay, it isn't an office. It's a house. And not even a well-kept house. This place looks like a crack-house. Old, disheveled, and when I finally decided I needed my Rx renewed badly enough to brave this dump, I had to wait for one of the similarly disheveled miscreants inside to open the door for me because the door knob was broken and couldn't be opened from the outside.

Once inside, I'm rather relieved to see a standard reception window complete with plastic clipboard and chained sign-in pen. I sign in. The people inside are kind of freaking me out because, yes, I'm at a psychiatrist, but it doesn't mean I expect everyone there to be in immediate need of admission to the freakin' nut house.

The woman behind the desk took my insurance card to copy and placed it in a machine I'm sure was sold door-to-door sometime in the 80's. A humorously loud growling/squeaking sound filled the room followed by the receptionist's curses and complaints about how she'd have to get someone out to look at it and fix it because the doc is too cheap to buy a new one. To be fair, this beauty took up half of the office space so I'm assuming what it lacked in quality, it made up for in sheer size and volume.

I suffered through the coughing, smacking and mumbling of a room full of people I couldn't bring myself to make eye contact with (I'm no stranger to weird, but this was too much) and am finally called into the back. I almost turn around and walk out. If the front of this "office" is functioning under these conditions, what the hell does the back look like?

Luckily, entering the doctor's private domain didn't require me to sidestep any used condoms or shuttering crack-addicts. That was a plus, the only one I'd seen so far.

The geriatric, Indian doctor sat behind a gigantic wood desk, the only quality item on the entire property. He stared down his nose at me after looking over the one-page, five-question sheet I'd been asked to fill out. (This was also strange because usually there's a 3 page, front and back, thorough questionnaire to be completed for first time patients for the doctors I'd visited previously.)

The old bastard narrowed his eyes and said, "Tell me about this 'sexual assault'." He says it as though he's using quotations around the words "sexual" and "assault".

I'm thinking, no, I'd rather not tell him about it. But, I need my meds refilled or my family will suffer the wrath of my horrible mood swings and I don't want to put them through it. I can find a new doctor after this one. No biggie. So, I give him an edited version of the events.

He asked me, "Are you sure you weren't giving him mixed signals?"

What. The. Fuck.

Luckily the assault happened many years past and I'm no longer a vulnerable teenager who'll take those words and shrink into a dark corner to contemplate the validity of the claim.

I tell him, "Uh...no. Unless you consider crying and saying NO to be considered mixed signals."

He gets this creepy smirk on his face and says, "Well, you got into the car with him. That sounds like a yes."

Okay, I'm done. This is the craziest, most irresponsible response to rape I've been subjected to and I've only known this "doctor" for less than five minutes at this point. But ... I need that fucking refill. God, I miss the days when I had a pharmacist for friend and I didn't have to deal with this bullshit.

I finally get the prescription and walk the hell out of this messed-up twilight zone feeling like I'd just escaped a dark back alley after being mugged. As I'm sitting at the light waiting for a Green, listening to the soothing sound of the turn signal clicking away, I glance at the prescription. 1 month. 1 FREAKING MONTH W/NO REFILLS!

Then, then I let the tears come. Because the man was terrible, the house was creepy and smelled like urine and mold, and now I have to go back there again. No way can I get an appointment with a new doctor before I need the refill.

My appointment for the refill is on Monday, a few days from today. I'm already feeling nauseous thinking about it.

Strange Disappointments

For as long as I can remember, I've been a fan of old, black and white movies. I acquired a fascination for Humphrey Bogart sometime around my 13th birthday and the infatuation has held strong throughout the years.

“I was born when you kissed me. I died when you left me. I lived a few weeks while you loved me.”

-Humphrey Bogart

My mother, one of the few people with knowledge of my secret love affair with Bogart, gifted me with a book which held facts about famous leading men. I was so excited, flipping through the pages to find Humphrey's chapter. Then, it happened. His STATS, written out in black and white.

Height: 5'8"

What. The. Hell. was my initial response. No, no...this can't be true. In all the years I'd watched his movies, I never thought to look up anything about him other than quotes and maybe who he'd married.

I'm not sure why this disappointments me so much. I'll be the first to admit it's strange to feel like I've been told a lie every time I sat down to drool over one of his movies. I think it's criminal, somehow, for this man not to have been blessed with a 6'+ body, he certainly had the strong personality to carry it.

I remember also being shocked by how short Tom Cruise is, back when anyone cared about anything relating to Tom Cruise. Every time someone I find intriguing is confirmed to be of a height, I breathe a silent breath of relief and subtly warm towards them just a bit more.

Maybe it's because I've always been kind of tall for a girl at almost 5'9" and I hate feeling bigger than anyone, especially men. It's surely unfair of me to be so judgmental about something a person has absolutely no control over. Yet, I'm more inclined to forgive Cruise for being an insane Scientologist than for being so damn short.

Do you have something like this? Something strange that bothers you for no good reason, but bothers you all the same?

The Double Life

THE DOUBLE LIFE by Don Blanding has been my favorite poem since stumbling across it sometime during my teen years. I've found the sentiment to be profoundly prophetic. Each time I come back to this poem, no matter the years between, it always resonates with something intangible buried deep inside my heart. 

How very simple life would be
If only there were two of me
A Restless Me to drift and roam
A Quiet Me to stay at home.
A Searching One to find his fill
Of varied skies and newfound thrill
While sane and homely things are done
By the domestic Other One.


And that's just where the trouble lies;
There is a Restless Me that cries
For chancy risks and changing scene,
For arctic blue and tropic green,
For deserts with their mystic spell,
For lusty fun and raising Hell,


But shackled to that Restless Me
My Other Self rebelliously
Resists the frantic urge to move.
It seeks the old familiar groove
That habits make. It finds content
With hearth and home — dear prisonment,
With candlelight and well-loved books
And treasured loot in dusty nooks,


With puttering and garden things
And dreaming while a cricket sings
And all the while the Restless One
Insists on more exciting fun,
It wants to go with every tide,
No matter where…just for the ride.
Like yowling cats the two selves brawl
Until I have no peace at all.


One eye turns to the forward track,
The other eye looks sadly back.
I'm getting wall-eyed from the strain,
(It's tough to have an idle brain)
But One says "Stay" and One says "Go"
And One says "Yes," and One says "No,"
And One Self wants a home and wife
And One Self craves the drifter's life.


The Restless Fellow always wins
I wish my folks had made me twins.

Free Fiction Friday, CAGED IN MYTH

For Free Fiction Friday, I have a small snippet from CAGED IN MYTH (my LGBT YA WIP) to share. 

• Set up: The supernatural staff of the Bayou Zoo get a dressing-down from management after someone allows one of the deadly, magical creatures to escape.

"Even if some of you believe we will come out of the dark one day, would you have that day be one of bloodshed and terror?”

Vivek paused, seeming to touch each one of us packed inside the too-small meeting room with that intense, yellow gaze.

“Would you have us crawl out into the light of humanity on our bellies, groveling for lenience and peace instead of walking proudly into a new world where we can live openly among humans?”

Vivek’s jaw clenched, the muscle jumping as though he were forcing himself to swallow words he knew shouldn’t be spoken. The room was near silent in the aftermath of his speech, the only sound coming from the tinkling of aquarium gravel being scratched against glass as a red-eared slider turtle dug a divot to nestle down in.

I envied that turtle being able to dig out a spot, to burrow down in a cool, dark space where no one could see.

 

 

Famous Failures: Authors

Ernest Hemingway, regarding his novel, "The Torrents of Spring" was rejected with: 

-"It would be extremely rotten taste, to say nothing of being horribly cruel, should we want to publish it."

Carrie by Stephen King

-'We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.'

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

-‘... overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian … the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream … I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.’

Mr. Golding's Lord of the Flies was rejected by 20 publishers. 

-an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (later Sorceror’s) Stone was rejected by a dozen publishers, including biggies like Penguin and HarperCollins. Bloomsbury, a small London publisher, only took it on at the behest of the CEO’s eight-year old daughter, who begged her father to print the book. 



Now for a little Writer's Revenge:

Hunter S. Thompson in response to a biography written about him:

— McKeen, you shit-eating freak. I warned you not to write that vicious trash about me —
Now you better get fitted for a black eyepatch in case one of yours gets gouged out by a bushy-haired stranger in a dimly-lit parking lot. How fast can you learn Braille?
You are scum.

HST

 ****

I realize it's petty, but I fantasize regularly about writing Hunter S. Thompson style letters to those who've rejected my writing. Maybe I will write those ranting responses, attach them to the original rejection letters and then publish them all in one book when I'm famous. Yeah ... that would be awesome.

Being a Write-At-Home Mom

Any working mother will tell you it takes an amazing amount of skills to successfully navigate each and every day. Multi-tasking is imperative. A working mother must be chauffeur, chef, secretary and maid, in addition to the job they’re paid to do. 

When the job is writing, things can get a little more interesting. When you’re an accountant or history professor or waitress, you can separate your work life from your home life. As a writer, there is no “bringing work home”. A writer’s work is always with them, inside their head, fighting for attention. 

So, when I’m driving my kids to a doctor appointment or cooking dinner or fending off a grabby toddler while trying to fold clean towels, I’ve got a few other people inside my head saying things like “I wonder what would happen if …” and “Can you kill someone with a meat thermometer if you shoved it directly through the temple?” –The answer, in case you’re curious, is yes. At least in my new novel A LIFE BEYOND YESTERDAY the answer to the meat-thermometer-death-blow conundrum, is yes.

Unless you’re successful enough as an author to afford a nanny, working as both a writer and a mother can feel like the medieval torture of quartering. Sometimes I find myself feeling guilty for not giving my children 100 % of my attention 100 % of the time and then I feel guilty for not reaching my 2,000 words-a-day quota because I was busy with the children when they would have survived just fine playing safely in their rooms for an hour.
               

The answer? Do what you can, when you can, and hope for the best. If that means a question like “What’s that word? The one for having your body ripped apart by four horses?” creeps into your mind while changing diapers because you’re preparing to write a scene in which your main character feels torn in different directions, it’s okay. You’re not crazy, you’re just a writer.

What some people might call psychosis, writers call multi-tasking.

I'd Like To See E-Books Pull This One Off ...

How cool is this? A Tree made from books! In 20 years, I hope to have written enough books to build my own tree.

Also, Santa, if you're listening ... how about making my first release, A LIFE BEYOND YESTERDAY, a best-seller? Thanks!