Denise Covey: #JuneWEP - my #flashfiction, ESCAPE FROM MARIUPOL

Denise Covey: #JuneWEP - my #flashfiction, ESCAPE FROM MARIUPOL: Hi there! Time for the June WEP contest. This prompt Please Read the Letter required no thought from me. I immediately imagined someone esca...

Excellent writing. There are no words I can say to do it justice.

I sometimes despair that I have to live on a disability allotment of $1240 and get most of my provisions from the food bank. There is very little left after the bills are paid. My son often reminds me that even though our situation is difficult, we are in a better position than many people, even in the United States.

(My son is high-functioning autistic and not able to hold a normal job. He isn't on disability because one of us has to be able to amass savings in case of an emergency. I cannot have more than $2000 in savings.)

About Me Monday: Dis-Ability

 

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

A response to the following post:

https://rugby843.blog/2021/10/03/mlmm-saturday-mix-42

It may appear that I'm scolding the author for their thoughts. That honestly is not my intent. If I were still fully able-bodied, it is likely that I wouldn't have thought about the fact that being physically incapable of performing certain activities does not only affect the elderly. People can become disabled at any stage of their lives. There are elderly people who are more physically able than I am and young people who are less so.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am on the high side of 56 years old at the time of this writing.

Sometimes it isn't age hindering a person but physical disability. If my body had allowed me to, I would have been one of those people that participated in "youthful" activities at an advanced age. Unfortunately, by the time I hit 50, my crap endocrine system plus all the injuries over the years of working physically demanding jobs caught up with me and ran me over. At not even 60, I require a walker to ambulate more than very short distances.

This is something that I didn't mention in the original comment. There's a fellow in town who always takes it upon himself to give me pep talks whenever he sees me. "You're doing great, Honey, keep up the good work!" When I try to tell him that I'm just taking a walk and I don't expect any significant physical improvement, he tells me "you've gotta believe in yourself, Honey!" 

Sigh.

There's another fellow who always asks if I want help bringing my walker up the stairs. Unfortunately, we don't have the money to have a ramp put up. The walker isn't that heavy. It doesn't weigh more than 10 pounds on the outside, and I don't think it weighs that much. I leverage it so that "walking" it up the stairs doesn't hurt my lower back. 

I always tell this chap that if I can't do it myself, I can't do it, so thanks but no thanks.

It's one thing to offer help to a disabled person--or anybody--who is really struggling, i.e. with multiple parcels or such. I can't speak for everybody, but I've heard other disabled people say the same thing. We don't want pity, pep talks, or offers of help for things that we can do for ourselves.

If you really want to help me, you can come to clean my house. Housekeeping is something that I royally suck at. I sucked at it when I was able-bodied too.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Tanuj Handa from Pixabay

Ornery Owl has had enough of your shyyyyt. And by shyyyyt, I mean unsolicited pep talks.

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)

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Dark Hearts Love Too: Get Bent! (The Walker Strikes Back): A Choka

Dark Hearts Love Too: Get Bent! (The Walker Strikes Back): A Choka:   The Thing of Evil in front of the house where my son and I live. I cannot imagine why the hell anyone would want to use this picture, but ...

My walker strikes back at me for writing a derogatory poem about it.

About Me Monday: To Sleep Perchance?

 

Image by jay Clarke from Pixabay

This is a response to a post by Kendra about writers and sleep.

https://taintedtrinity.ddns.net/wordpress/2021/02/03/iwsg-sleep-and-writing/

Sleep and I have never seen eye to eye. 

My mother delights in telling people what an awful baby I was because I would, apparently, never sleep for more than two hours at a time. 

I learned much later in life that I had ADHD, which accounted for my being "scatterbrained," a "space cadet," and "flaky". 

However, my son also has ADHD, and while his sleep patterns are all over the place (sometimes he goes to bed around 6 PM, sometimes at midnight, sometimes not till the wee hours of the morning) he always slept well as a baby. In fact, I had to wake him up every 2 hours to feed him because his blood sugar was prone to crashing.

My son thinks that he may have a 25-hour circadian rhythm. It makes sense to me. He's high-functioning autistic, which may affect his sleep as well. Outside of his issues with anxiety and depression, his sleep issues are a key factor in why he has never been able to hold a "normal" job.

Back when I was still working, I had problems with not being able to fall asleep at night and, conversely, falling asleep during the day. Unless, of course, I wanted to. I had trouble falling asleep when I got home after working a night shift. However, I had to fight to stay awake while driving home. I would roll the window down to let the cold air blast me in the face. I would pinch and punch myself. I would blast music and sing at the top of my lungs.

The inability to sleep if I had to work in the morning may have been partly due to anxiety. I didn't really want to go to work and was afraid of fucking up. I got sent home from one temp job for being sleepy. Even now that I'm on disability and am usually able to fall asleep by midnight, I still have issues with daytime sleepiness, which was one of the issues that led to my being approved for disability. 

There is a huge stigma on people who aren't the "early to bed, early to rise" type. All you have to do is get to bed earlier like the Good and Saintly do. Easy enough, unless you just aren't wired that way.

~Sleepy Cie~

Faeries, Dragons, and Spaceships: #IWSG Balance and pivoting

Faeries, Dragons, and Spaceships: #IWSG Balance and pivoting:   

I was pushed off the regular job train by disability. I'm still waiting for SSDI to get their heads out of their backsides and approve me. I know it can literally take years, and it's unconscionable to me. 

I do write every day, but I don't have an exact word count. I write what I write. It probably averages 1000 words a day anyway. I have ADHD, and I'm always working on numerous projects.

I honestly didn't know who I was without my job, and it took me a long time to adjust. I started working when I was 16. Except for a brief period of time when my son was very little, I've never been without a job. 

I don't know how to take breaks. I tend to feel guilty when I do. I was always a workaholic, and that behavior led to my becoming disabled. 

I wish that society didn't encourage workaholism. Looking back, there were glaring signs that I was completely overwhelmed, but I ignored them until it was too late because I was afraid to look at who I was outside of my work persona.

While Nero Tweets, the Elderly and Disabled Suffer

 

Free use image by John Hain on Pixabay

This post is a response to this post:

https://kalpanawrites.com/shadow

I can definitely relate to the feeling of being a shadow of my former self. In fairness, my former self was a workaholic who didn't take care of herself at all. I'm kind of surprised that I didn't end up in an early grave.

I have been waiting on a disability determination for almost a year now. That people are punished for becoming disabled is unconscionable to me. However, seeing as my country is figuratively burning while Nero tweets (or he would tweet if he hadn't been booted off Twitter at least temporarily) nobody gives a rat's hindquarters about handicapped and elderly people, I can assure you.

Ornery Owl Has Spoken

Free use image by Open Clipart Vectors on Pixabay

 

Barriers

5 December 2020

Written in response to the Tale Weaver prompt “Barriers.”

https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2020/12/03/tale-weaver-304-barriers-december-3rd/

What barriers exist in your life?

Are they barriers that can be overcome?

I will probably use this prompt to create both a fiction and a non-fiction piece. It is inspiring thoughts for the latest chapter in my WIP, The Key Of Eidolon. However, I also have answers to the above questions.

I have both physical and psychological barriers to accomplishing my goals. They don’t stop me from trying, but they make things harder.

There are physical goals that I will never be able to accomplish because of my handicaps.

At this point, I can walk up to two miles a day using an upright walker. Without the upright walker, I can only manage between a quarter of a mile and a half mile, and a half mile is pushing it. I never thought I would be having to use a walker at 55 years old, and the promotional material for this item indicates that no-one else thinks that people my age are using such a device at my age either.

We need to stop with the assumption that only elderly people need assistive devices or that there is some sort of shame in needing an assistive device if you are not elderly. I have a lot of problems with my back. I am not ashamed to use this device, but I am very conscious of the fact that people are conscious of my use of it and some of them pity me for it.

I have diabetes. This is a disease that can be managed, but, conversely to the bill of goods that some overpriced snake oil sellers are trying to hand you, there is no cure for it. Type 2 diabetes does occasionally go into remission, but this happens so seldom that I do not expect it any more than I expect to grow several inches taller.

Diabetes does not really frighten me. I am aware that it makes me vulnerable to kidney failure, which also doesn’t particularly frighten me, although I would not want it. The one that scares me is the vulnerability to strokes and vascular dementia. Fuck a whole lot of that shit. Fortunately, I also take antihypertensive medication, so my blood pressure remains in the safe zone.

My thyroid destroyed itself when I was in my early teens, so I have been on and off thyroid medications since then. I can’t tolerate Synthroid. It gave me headaches and it almost put me in the E.R. because it was elevating my blood pressure and heart rate so much. Rather than consider that the Synthroid was the culprit, the doctor I was seeing at the time blamed my weight for causing my blood pressure to rise and put me on propranolol, which is a beta blocker. I have asthma. Beta blockers make me feel like I’m breathing underwater.

Because of the panic attacks I was experiencing when I became tachycardic (talk about your vicious feedback loops), he also put me on clonazepam. I tend to have paradoxical reactions to benzodiazepines, and I had the worst panic attack of my life. I went off ever single one of the medications. It took me three months to return to normally abnormal.

I have been on Armour thyroid for the past 14 years. My current P.A. has adjusted the dosage a couple of times to strike a balance between my TSH reading and my blood pressure and pulse. We seem to have found the sweet spot. I like my current P.A., who has been respectful and treats the patient rather than the chart.

Alas, although my TSH is now in the zone, I am still tired all the time. It is what it is.

I have been trying to get on disability this year. I have been working with a lawyer, and it is still taking forever. I lived in a state of constant anxiety for literal decades due to not being able to sleep properly because I was afraid that I would oversleep. I worked night shift because it worked out better for me than day shift. However, I can no longer do the punishing physical work that I used to do.

My son and I moved to a remote rural area in September of 2019, and we both love this house and this town very much. My son is high-functioning autistic. He has a lot of skills and he is physically able-bodied, but he has never been able to work a normal job.

Both of us would be happy enough to do certain types of remote work. However, even though it has been shown through the pandemic that certain jobs can be done remotely, nobody wants to hire the smelly poors or icky disabled people.

My physical appearance has also been a barrier to achieving certain of my goals, including, oddly enough, my writing goals. You’d think that it wouldn’t matter if a writer has a good face for radio, so to speak, but I’ve seen that, at least with female writers, people tend to want us to be pretty. Seriously, what the hell? Would looking like a beauty queen or a Playboy centerfold make me a better writer? I get so fed up with the bullshit and am disgusted that I’m still fighting the same battles at 55 that I was at 25.

So, what’s to be done? Well, I am nothing if not pig-headed, so I will keep hammering away at things until I make some headway.

I’ve been working to craft my Rough Writer monthly zine, which includes my WIP chapters, poems, and daily-ish nonfiction blather as well as anything else I may write in a month. Sometimes I think that this is a great idea and I’ll be sharing some wonderful wisdom. Other times I’m afraid it’s just another one of my crackpot ideas and that I’m not nearly as deep as I imagine myself to be. I suppose it remains to be seen, but at six bucks for some 50,000 words, you can’t beat the price!

And there you have my thoughts on the barriers in my life.

 ~cie~

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)

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Blow Your Stack Saturday: It's Not All In Our Heads

This is a response to a post on The Mighty regarding suicide ideation.

If I went to the E.R. every time I felt suicide ideation, I'd have to live there. However, it is impossible to talk about feeling this way for fear of being involuntarily incarcerated (and yes, I do think of it as incarceration) in a mental health facility. I made a promise to myself when I was sixteen, involuntarily placed on the psych ward at the hospital after cutting my wrists, and treated in a shameful and dehumanizing way, that I would never return to one of those places. I have kept that promise to myself for nearly 40 years, and I don't intend to stop.

I also heard many times over the years:

"Oh, just stop looking for attention."

"You're overly dramatic."

"Just stop feeling that way."

"Life's hard for everyone. What makes you think you're special?"

"You bring your problems on yourself."

I stopped telling people how I was feeling and just kept it inside.

Furthermore, there may be non-psychological reasons why a person feels less than thrilled with life.

Try living in extreme poverty (I made less than $5000 last year) but when you go to try and get EBT (food stamps) you and your autistic adult child (who was not even present at the meeting and thus not allowed any say in the matter) are threatened with jail time for "trying to defraud the system" and your physically disabled self is told that if you were "truly disabled you would need a caregiver." I don't need a caregiver, but I can't work a regular job. I do freelance work from home. How the hell many psychologically "normal" people wouldn't start to feel like taking the exit from life if this kind of crap was happening to them?

I've also come to be very angry because of how I was treated when I was sexually assaulted on more than one occasion in my life. It happened in 1980 when I was 15. There was no intercourse so I knew no-one would believe me, but it was sexual assault. I had been a formerly "good kid" except for the pot-smoking and the drinking because I needed an escape from the way I felt because I was constantly psychologically and sometimes physically abused at school, let's call "bullying" what it really is. I started acting out, cutting classes and then cutting myself. Instead of asking questions I was sent to the school counselor who called my parents. When I got home, my mother aggressively pulled up my sleeves and demanded angrily to know "what is wrong with you?" I knew better than to ever tell the counselor anything again. I may have been troubled, but I wasn't stupid.

I later engaged in consensual activity with a boy that I really liked, although this was an ill-advised idea. When I yelled in pain because it hurt, this made him angry or uncomfortable and he abandoned me. It was then that I made the suicide attempt that put me in the hospital.

When I asked: "why do boys only want girls for a piece of ass?" nobody caught on that I might have been sexually assaulted. I was told that I needed to keep myself out of situations where I might be used in that way. All of the onus was on me, none on the guy who assaulted me or the guy who wanted to use me for sex but then dumped me because I wasn't ready.

When I was sexually assaulted at 18, I was told by my father that I shouldn't have put myself in that position. I had a mental breakdown and ended up dropping out of college.

When I was sexually assaulted at 32, I was having back to back panic attacks for most of the day. I needed help. I was given drugs. I don't respond well to drugs. Prozac left me feeling numb and I sat there staring at my arm wondering if I should cut it to see if I could still feel. Xanax made me sedated and then suicidal. None of it stopped the panic attacks, so I stopped taking it. I had back to back panic attacks when I was awake for an entire year and the advice that I was given by my family was that I had gotten over it before when this had happened to me and I would get over it again. I had one so-called mental health "professional" who referred to me as a "basket case."

Although I do have legitimate psychiatric issues (type 2 bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and complex PTSD), there are also environmental factors that contribute to my suicide ideation. People never want to look at those realities. It's more comfortable to believe that the person experiencing suicidal thoughts is simply "disturbed" or "mentally ill."

Cie Has Blown Her Stack

Tan Renga Wednesday on Friday: Last Leaf

Image Source

a last leaf

swirls on the wind towards the east -

first snow falls gently

the falling snow is pleasant

the icy roads are not so

~Chèvrefeuille & cie~

notes

The Hokku stanza was written by Chevrefeuille. The Ageku was created by me. I do like the snow, but I hate driving on icy roads. I've had a couple incidents when doing so which left me with a bit of PTSD. I tend to tense up when I have to drive on icy roads, which makes doing so a bad idea.

I will try to catch up with the poems over the next few days. I was working on a short story for blog.reedsy.com. If you are looking for a short story contest with no entry fee, they have a weekly contest here. Go to the apps section of the page and choose "story prompt."

Also, if you're looking for help with editing or publishing your book, you can look at what Reedsy has to offer here. Using that link will get you $25 credit on any of Reedsy's services.

I believe I may have had another TIA. There always tends to be a cognitive shift when one of these happens. It's hard to explain. It isn't as if I'm having short term memory issues (well, no worse than I ever did). It's simply that the WAY I think changes. At this point, I find myself needing to be a little more measured in my output. I get tired very easily. It's frustrating because although I've never been a Type A personality by any means, I've always been very productive.

I know that I'm vulnerable to vascular problems because of my diabetes. Well, I'm perfectly happy to keep my blood sugars in check, which I can do if I have, you know, ADEQUATE INSULIN! Which my health care provider and Medicaid seem to be conspiring not to provide me. Going without insulin for weeks at a time is, I don't know, a bad thing when you're diabetic. 

The elite devils in charge of things don't care about that, though. They want the poor and the handicapped dead. Of course, then they won't have anyone to do the menial jobs that they revile, but I wouldn't give them too much credit for being smart.

Yeah, I said "handicapped" instead of the more politically correct "disabled." I honestly don't see what the difference is. I can apply both to my own condition, and I don't find either one offensive. Sometimes people become so busy picking nits that they forget to work on the issues that really matter.

Inner Champion Workbook Chapter 5: Take the First Step (Fat Friday Edition)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through any of the links in this post, I receive a small commission from Amazon.

Fair warning that I am having a dark day despite it being bright and sunny outside. In fact, the bright sunniness makes the inner darkness worse. I hate when people say things like "how can you be depressed when it's so beautiful outside?" Please, if you say that sort of thing to someone who tells you they're feeling depressed, STOP! It doesn't help.

And now, on with the show.

An important goal that I’m going to achieve:

I don't know if this will happen or not, but there is an empty building across the street from my home which is zoned for commercial use. I will be able to access my 401K without penalty at 59, in other words, about four years from now. If the building is still available at that point, I am thinking about investing in it and bringing my idea to life.

"It won't be available then, Cie," you are probably saying. "Real estate goes fast!"

In the city, yes. Not out in the middle of nowhere. The house I'm currently living in had been empty since 2013.

"Well, what the hell do you think you're going to do with a building in the middle of nowhere, Cie?" you say now. 

I am thinking about opening a goat yoga studio.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

"Goat yoga?" you sniff. "Who the hell is going to drive to your stupid goat yoga studio in the middle of nowhere?"

As my son observed when I postulated that I could probably pull in a few yuppies from Denver to drive out to Podunk on weekends for a goat yoga session:

"Denver? You mean Boulder."

He's right.

"Oh, and are you going to teach yoga, you disabled lardass? Who would want to take a class from you?"

No, I'm not, because I don't know the first thing about teaching yoga. I plan to put out a call for volunteer instructors, who would be allowed to record their sessions, pass out business cards, recruit people to sign up for their regular classes, and have a tip jar available.

By the way, a big rule at my studio will be this:

NO BODY SHAMING!

No fat-shaming.

No thin praising.

No encouragement of weight loss. No selling weight loss programs.

I want to provide an encouraging environment for every body. I want my studio to operate with a Health at Every Size (and every ability) approach.

Why this goal is important to me:

Most yoga classes shame larger students, behaving as if a literal monster just walked into the room when a big person comes in. It is also difficult for disabled students to find a class. I want the classes at my studio to encourage EVERY BODY, regardless of size or physical ability.

Image by filinecek from Pixabay

Why goat yoga?

Well, for those who have never heard of it, goat yoga is actually a thing. The presence of the goats is shown to have a calming and encouraging effect on those participating in the class. The goats won't have to learn the yoga poses. They'll be free to wander in and out of the classroom. And if a participant spends the entire session just playing with the goats, that's perfectly fine! Basically, the goats are therapy animals.

What has been preventing me from taking the first step?
Lack of access to funds.

How can I remove these obstacles or work around them?

Currently, I'm just waiting for four years and hoping nobody buys the place in the meantime. I also have a potential secondary site in mind.

The first step I am going to take toward achieving my goal:

I am currently making micro-investments with my small and undependable pay. I am hoping these will start generating passive income. I am also trying to promote my freelance literary services, as well as continuing to do reviews. I am going to apply to Kirkus Reviews at the beginning of next year in the hopes of bringing in another income stream.

For support and accountability, I am going to share my goal with:
My son knows, and now you all do too.

I feel better after writing this post. Sending positive energy to Lauren for the gift of her workbook, to Linda for the gift of Health at Every Size which helped me break out of the diet mindset almost 10 years ago, and to Caroline for the encouragement not to fall back into that limiting mindset.

Here are a couple more books to help you say FUCK YOU to diet culture and instead concentrate on REAL health, both mental and physical.

Insecure Writer's Support Group December 2019 Featuring Billy the Saw Puppet

"Let's play a game, Cie"

"No! I don't want to!"

December 4 question - Let's play a game. Imagine. Role-play. How would you describe your future writer self, your life and what it looks and feels like if you were living the dream? Or if you are already there, what does it look and feel like? Tell the rest of us. What would you change or improve?

Well, you had to go open the can of worms, and now I can't get Billy the Jigsaw Puppet riding on his tricycle out of my head. I'm honestly not a fan of the Saw movies, but I do like this creepy-ass puppet for some reason.

If I were in high school, I'd probably think this was a really great question. As someone who's already halfway through their life and has had a number of hard knocks in the past five years, I kind of want to make it into a paper airplane and throw it out the nearest window. 

I always hated the "what are your goals for the next five years" interview question too. The answer to that one was secretly: "hopefully to have moved on from working here, but I need a job now." 

Really, yer killing me here. I'll be 55 years old in two months and eleven days. I have a lot of health problems. I have no idea how much different Future Writer Me will be from present me. She might well be ashes in an urn. If I'm still alive, I hope that I'll find an audience for my work, but, realistically, I probably won't. 

I don't like to do the creative visualization thing of imagining I'm living the dream because it tends to make my heart hurt. I don't even know what the dream is. I hope I'll still be alive except for those times when I'm so depressed that I wish I was dead. That's kind of my life. I don't have big wild dreams about making the big time. I don't have any idea what that would look or feel like. I don't even know what it is to feel secure. 

You know what I want?

I want Trump out of office. In jail, preferably, but out of office anyway. However, as Chuck D wisely pointed out, Trump is a clown but Pence is a nightmare. At least with the clown, you can see him projecting his blatant moves. Pence hides in the shadows.

I want Medicaid for all.

I want everyone to have what they need. 

Then we can start talking about niceties. 

That's the real deal.

~Cie~

Sandcastle Creations

Image by Marjon Besteman-Horn from Pixabay

I remember playing in the sandbox as a child

Hands digging into warm orange-golden grains

My sandcastles were, in reality

Nothing but cloddish bucket shapes

But, languishing in my imagination

I saw them as wondrous perpendicular spires

Climbing up and up to dizzy heights

Where a virtuous knight played out his heroic role

In the theatre of my mind

I couldn’t have imagined then

How pedestrian my life would become

No longer able to earn a stable income

I sit before the computer’s typewriter keyboard

Praying that the laconic moments

Will be few and far between

As I attempt to form a story

Of a dashing but broken hero

Through the curtains I see shadows of branches

~Cie~

Notes:

I chose the picture because from the back, at any rate, this is very much what I looked like as a child. There is no way I could have known what would become of me or my life. If that little girl had known what kind of worthless and hideously ugly creature she would become, she wouldn't have wanted to live.

I didn't stay cute for long. Even around six years old, it was becoming apparent that I had a terrible overbite. Two years of braces and that dreadful Martian headgear left me with a crossbite, which doesn't play a part in my appearance, but it is uncomfortable. It also left me with dead nerves in a couple of my front teeth and it couldn't close the gaps between my teeth. I ended up having to get an abscess removed, root canals, and caps on my six top front teeth to hide the remaining gaps and the fact that my left front tooth and left incisor are black from the nerve damage.

Dental veneers can hide how ugly my top front teeth are, but nothing can hide how ugly my face is as a whole, unfortunately. I am not at all a good-looking person, and in a world that is biassed towards a certain type of beauty, it has hurt me very much to be as ugly as I am.

The Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp's Come As You Are Party + Ornery Musings: Why Book Reviews are Useful

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

As the late, great Shorty Medlocke used to say, howdy solks, I mean folks! If you don't know who Shorty Medlocke was, it's time for you to at the very least hit Wikipedia and brush up on your music history, and then go listen to some Blackfoot, where you can hear Shorty's grandson Rickey shred on some sadly underrated Southern rock masterpieces.

Sadly for you, this post is not about great blues musicians, twentieth-century radio hosts, or great guitarists. It's about book reviewers.

At the bottom of many posts, you will notice the image of a plump owl carrying a couple of books, one with a pentagram and one with an anarchist symbol. This owl is my alter-ego, my inner badass. Where I am infamous for apologizing for myself constantly and becoming defensive quickly, this owl never apologizes (unless she has actually done something wrong) and has no time for defensiveness. If she is under attack, she will fight back, but she doesn't harbor any of the insecurities that I do. Therefore, defensiveness is foreign to her. This owl is unapologetically, authentically herself.

Me, on the other hand, I tend to always wonder if I'm doing something (or anything) right. I am a horrible--I mean adorable--little (okay, large) bundle of insecurities. I have both physical and psychological disabilities, and I also have ADD and dyslexia. Dyslexia does not have only one manifestation, by the way. I read most things clearly, and I'm a relly gud spelur. My dyslexia tends to present itself with numbers more than words, and I have a great deal of trouble with tests involving pattern recognition, which led to me being labeled borderline retarded when I was in the sixth grade. That label was a thermonuclear hit to my already severely compromised self-esteem, particularly when one of my nastier classmates overheard my parents and the school psychologist discussing it in the hallway and proceeded to ask my father if I really was borderline retarded, to which he naively replied, "yes, I'm afraid so," rather than telling her to run along as he should have.

So, here I am in my fifties with a lifetime of abject failures behind me, disabled and living in poverty, and I review books for a living. Seriously, that is how I eke out a living, and sometimes I become rather cynical about it. Here I am, doing something completely useless yet again because being useless is my M.O. in life. I would do very poorly as something like a virtual administrative assistant or customer service agent. I have moderate anxiety about talking to people on the phone, and if I get bored, I get distracted. I would be fired from these jobs fairly quickly. However, I can read books. These days I prefer e-books because of my vision and because they don't take up space on my shelves. I also enjoy listening to audiobooks. 

Anyway, I possess the ability to read, opinions are like assholes, and I am an asshole with an opinion. So I sneaked in the back door at the Online Book Club and tried my hand at doing reviews for them. My first few reviews were unpaid, and then I started getting paid for my efforts. Doing reviews for paid review services like Online Book Club means that I can do reviews on request for independent authors without charging money. My costs for an independent review are as follows:

If the book is available on Amazon, you give me permission to have an affiliate link in my review post. You won't pay me a cent, but if someone buys the book through the link, Amazon will pay me a few cents.

If you like the review, you provide a link to it on social media.

You understand that providing me with a copy of your book does not guarantee a positive review. There may be reviewers who get their rocks off writing negative reviews and destroying authors' dreams. I am not one of them. I love giving positive reviews. With most of my less stellar reviews, I find that the problem with the book tends not to be the story itself, but the execution and lack of proper editing. By the way, I am also available as a beta reader.

Very rarely do I give scathing reviews. On the occasions that I have done so, it is because I find the author to be an odious jerk with awful opinions who targets vulnerable people for ridicule.

You may be saying (as I sometimes do), "well, that's all fine and good, Cie, but the world wouldn't stop turning if all the book reviewers were abducted by aliens. Book reviewers do not provide vital services such as emergency services personnel, medical personnel, construction workers, mechanics,  teachers, grocery clerks, customer service personnel, cleaning crews, or, pretty much anyone else provides. Reviewing books is fluffy stuff and isn't a real job. Like, you know, the kind of work that you claim you can't do anymore but probably could if you tried, and don't give me that 'but I can't walk very far or very fast, I can't stand up for long periods of time or my back will start hurting, or, but my diabetes fucks with me and starts making me weak and confused' bit!"

Well, you hopefully don't say that last part, but my inner voice is, not to put too fine a point on it, an absolute twat. Anyway, the overall gist is, most people find book reviewers to be non-essential members of society, and I sometimes feel angry at myself for doing a job that most people see as sprinkles on a cake, not even icing or pretty decorations, just sprinkles. The kind of sprinkles that come in a jar and you pay a couple bucks for them and you sprinkle them on your kid's birthday cake and it makes the kid happy. Except that I have the potential to make people's inner children unhappy with my words.

However, today I read a wonderful review from one of my fellow Online Book Club reviewers, and I would like to share that review and my thoughts on it with you. Please follow this link to read it.

Here is a copy of my comment for the reviewer:

Thank you for your lovely, descriptive review. I had tears in my eyes reading it. Although I grew up in a home with both parents present my family was inadvertently emotionally abusive and didn't understand someone like me at all as they were very perfectionistic and I had learning and psych issues (I have type 2 bipolar disorder that wasn't correctly diagnosed until I was almost 40.) I did a lot of the same things that Eva did, moving out with my now-ex-husband when I was 19, being divorced by 29, having a string of abusive relationships. I really appreciate reviews like yours which tell me everything I need to know about a book, even better than simply reading a sample. Have a good day.

Sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks. While being a book reviewer is not an essential occupation such as those mentioned in the previous paragraph, nor is it a meaningless occupation. Too many bullies calling themselves critics have given a bad name to critiquing. A professional critic should endeavor to be kind, discussing the best aspects of a work while, if necessary pointing out areas needing improvement.

~Cie the Ornery Old Lady~

Free use image from Pixabay

Cie reviews books and is no longer ashamed to claim it as her profession.

She is also available as a beta reader

Click the link to learn more

I'll bet that some of you would like to know which book I was referring to when praising my fellow reviewer. Well, now you know and can get yourself a copy! 

Disclosure: If readers purchase a copy of this book through the preview link, I receive a small commission from Amazon.

November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2019: Angie Blue

Image by Alexander Lesnitsky from Pixabay

in a time that came and went long ago

whether I was taking down my walking cane and hat

or wrapped up in my bell-bottom blues

I guess you could call me Angie Blue

I was that girl who lived my life in the songs I heard

on the rock and roll radio

I dreamed of wide spaces and endless love

and maybe if I'd been pretty

instead of an ugly duckling girl

maybe I'd have found something more

than fire that quickly turned to ice

and shallow-hearted boys looking for a hookup

that didn't last any longer than a song

you could call me Angie Blue

the ugly duckling girl who learned the truth

that there will never be a prince who rides along the sea and the mountain

my collection of colorful hats now sit collecting dust

my walking cane is now used to support

a body that doesn't work very well

the boys who wanted a good-time girl

are now middle-aged men cheating on their wives

with foolish young women not much older than I was then

I suppose it was better to live my truth

then to get caught up in a web

of love that was no more than lies

but I have been lonely

there is no one and only

unless you count only lonely me

footloose in my mind

with a body that can't dance in reality

and not so fancy or free at all

~Cie~

Note:

The November PAD Chapbook Challenge prompt for today asked for a poem about an article of clothing. I thought about the song Rubber Band Man which begins: "hand me down my walking cane, hand me down my hat" and of another favorite song from the same era, Bell Bottom Blues. The rest of it just flowed. The other songs referenced are Albatross, Angie Baby, At Seventeen, Endless Love, Factory Girl, Fire and Ice, Footloose, Jackie Blue, and Only the Lonely.

I was never the pretty girl that all the boys wanted to take to the dance. I was always the ugly duckling that sat on the sidelines, and guys sometimes asked me to dance if they thought that someone as dowdy as me would be desperate enough to do what they wanted. Usually, I knew better, which made them angry.

OctPoWriMo 2019: Day 16: Harried to the Grave

Image by fancycrave1 from Pixabay

it does not matter

matter one measure if

if you measure your time

time on an Apple watch

watch your time on an old

old beat-up analog tick-tick 

tick-tick the sound

sound as time is running out

out of your wasting life

life where triumphs come

come slowly and don't seem

seem to stick around at all

all the while your life is wasting

wasting away fast as a wish

wish you would stop

stop giving away 

away all your me time

time to see time as

as a commodity time

time does not come free

free time does not align

align with being a successful

successful mess who never

never ever stops

stops to wind her old watch

watch time slip away 

away until one day 

day when there are

are no more days

days are numbered from the first

first moment you take a breath

breath that leads to death

death comes for us all

all of us must fall

fall back into the time

time when time didn't matter 

matter meant nothing

nothing meant anything

anything was possible

possible dreams

dreams become schemes

schemes become obsession

obsession consumes life

life becomes lie

lie down and die

die and become

become as you were before earth

earth before your birth 

birth

earth

~Cie~

Note:

I was always one of those "I'll sleep when I'm dead" kinds of people. I worked long hours at physically taxing jobs. I worked long weeks filled with long hours. I was proud of being able to push myself well past the limits. 

My diabetes got worse, I had a small stroke, and I had a severe injury to the median nerve in my left arm. My ability to work long hours at physically difficult jobs was gone forever. At the point when I had a small stroke, I was fired from my job as a home health nurse.

I live with fairly frequent suicide ideation, but the actual planning levels are pretty low as a rule. After I was fired, I started making plans to commit suicide because I felt like the world's worst fuck-up, like without my job I was nothing. 

This is not going to be one of those "oh, but I'm so glad I didn't because I found God, got down to a single-digit pants size, somehow started looking half my age, married GQ Cover Model Guy, and now my life is a Hallmark Channel movie" stories. 

Nah.

Still a crabby, fat, romanceless, agnostic, middle-aged, broke-ass curmudgeon. Still would be homeless if it wasn't for my son's kindness. 

But I am glad I didn't commit suicide because if I had I wouldn't have been able to help my son get this house, and I wouldn't have found me.

Me is kind of an asshole, but we're on better terms these days now that I've had the time to get to know her a little.

Also, I have a feeling that sometimes those Hallmark Channel happy crappy stories about pretty people hooking up and living happily ever after might even make some people depressed. Like, you know, me. I think some people may need to know that an old crabby fat bitch learned that old, crabby, fat bitches have something to offer too without changing one fucking thing about themselves.

Carpe Diem Renga with Issa: Sparrows

Image Source

spring peace--

after rain, a gang war

garden sparrows

the seeds that I have planted

are a victory buffet

don't let the plum blossom guard

cut your tongues...

Sparrows! 

let voices be a whisper

until you are safely past

are the sparrows too

having a private party?

plum blossoms

no, I was not invited

I now watch from the window

while I watch

he's off to make a living alone...

baby sparrow

sometimes the ones who leave home
invite the parents to stay

living in harmony--

the sparrow has

both parents!
will the parents be able
to live in harmony too?

on the tip of the

newly sprouted bamboo...

a baby sparrow
a small and innocent thing
in a world without a heart

~Issa and Cie~

Notes:

The Hokku stanzas in these Tan Renga verses were composed by Kobayashi Issa (June 15, 1763 – January 5, 1828). The Akegu stanzas were written by me.

The Akegu in the last three verses are references to my son, without whose kindness I would be homeless. The property he bought will eventually also become home to his father who is currently living in Arizona helping his own father. When his father passes, he will sell the place in Arizona and move here.

We were divorced in 1994 when our son was four years old, and we have lived in roommate situations since then, although I was always relieved when he moved on to something else if I am honest. That probably won't happen this time, due to compromises in his health as well as mine. However, this is a big enough place that we should be able to keep from killing each other.