Well played, 2010. Well played.

This year so far has been a doozy, and it's barely more than halfway over. Two of my neighbors at Cooper Artist Housing have passed away (one of them I was fairly close to) and a...colleague at Pike Place Market.

Today one I found out that a friend from the Market, Graham Callan, is in an induced coma so that he can recover from a staph infection. Okay, tough. That sucks, it made me tear up, and I'm keeping him in my heart and thoughts. Graham is close to my own age (early-mid thirties) has a big heart and is an incredible artist -- I'm lucky enough to have not just a few of his prints, but an original of his that his now-wife, Pixie, sold to me for a song. It's beautiful: he's a gifted, dark, and nuanced poet and visual artist.

My sister called about an hour or so ago to tell me that my mother's lung cancer, which she had beat and was in remission, has metastasized to her brain. There is nothing to do but make her comfortable. She's got about three to six months.

My relationship to my mother is troubled at best: there are times when I'm fairly sure that my parents, though they have a good marriage and are great partners to one another, really should never have had children. She and I haven't spoken since 2006, almost exactly four years ago. I just don't know what to feel or do.

My heart is pounding, hard.

(Online) dating and mental illness.

I really should preface this with all my updates, since it's been a while, but for now, the only significant one is that James and I are no longer together, and haven't been for the better part of a year. You may have known that already. If not, c'est la vie, now you know.

Things have been pretty good, on the whole, though I feel like 2010 has been a big one-two punch of goodness and badness. I've had several friends and acquaintances pass away this year, which has been hard, but my first film, "Coffee", is in the New York Independent Film Festival, which is super awesome and exciting.

Anyway, after messing around in my personal life and being generally apathetic about dating, I'm starting to get back into it a bit. For those that don't already know, my preferred platform is to date online. Why? Well, I meet a lot of people on a daily basis. A lot. I work my day gig at a major tourist destination where hundreds of people from the local area converge for work on a daily basis, plus I work in art fields that are, by nature, social. So, in essence, nearly everyone I meet IRL is someone I work with. Dating those people is usually a bad idea, at least for me. It's just too much to worry about. Also, online dating, at least in tech-savvy Seattle, is basically a mainstream thing these days.

So, online. How else am I going to specifically target people of the appropriate age with similar interests in my area when I'm so busy? Well, that's where I met James and Mr. VNRS, as well as my friends Ian and Miguel and Jared and the man Jinny and I call Mr. Grey and lots and lots of other men and women who fall into every part of the Awesome-Sucks Spectrum. Seattle is a small town, some of those people were and are friends of friends, or someone that I almost knew through so-and-so...you get the idea.

I have a system. Want to hear about my system? When I was first starting to figure out what I wanted in a partner, I went out with every person who asked at least once, unless I got a "stranger danger feeling" or they flaked. (Note: stranger danger feeling happened twice in 3-4 years, and I have met a lot of people. Seriously. Them's good odds.) Of those first blind dates, I would say 75% of them I never saw again. Well, that might be an hour of my life over coffee or happy hour, and I never regretted it, because they were always interesting in some way and I was still learning what I wanted from a partner.

Specific lesson I learned number one: meet, in person, as soon as you can. Don't email a whole bunch, don't talk on the phone a whole bunch. You will create unrealistic expectations and preconceptions. Plus, there is no way you can fake the real, in-person, look-into-someone's-eyes chemistry feeling.

Back to the system: of the remaining 25%, perhaps only 25% of those made it past the first or third date. You can pretty much see where it's going now, so on and so on, until love and crap happens or doesn't. I've had a couple short relationships, one live-in relationship, and a lot of fun doing it this way.

Now the system is different, because I know exactly what I want in a partner. To boil it down, I want my best friend that I have amazing sex with. It's more complex than that and I have a lot of specific points (though, hopefully not too many!), but, yeah, that's it.

This brings me back to the title of my post. Having a love life concomitant* with your mental illness is hard enough when you factor in all the stigma surrounding being a "crazy" girl, even (or especially) a high-functioning one. There are potentially a lot of smoke and mirrors when it comes to meeting people romantically and getting to know them, but if you're serious about a relationship you have to be honest. Unfortunately, sometimes dating online makes the honesty thing much more challenging because we are required to not only show our best face as we do when meeting at a bar or suchlike IRL, we can take essentially as much time as we like crafting that face.

Therein lies the danger.

It's tempting. I can be, in my online life, whoever I want to be. I've chosen to be "out" about my mental illness both online and IRL because I believe that the net benefit -- in the quality of friendships I cultivate and the inherent activism of it -- is good for my life and the lives of others. So that brings us to: when to disclose?

Hm. Tough one. If I had a physical disability, like CP or being in a wheelchair, it would probably be pretty obvious. I have considered this myself and discussed with a similarly-tempered male friend who dates online the ramifications of putting "By the way, I'm mentally ill!" in my profile(s). His argument is, essentially, that I will scare some people off, people who might stick around otherwise, simply from the sheer shock factor and cultural stigma. However, he claims that I may also get the rare guy who is impressed by my honesty and likes the fact that I have disclosed early and often and he knows what he would be getting into.

My argument against is that I will get the "OMG I WILL SAVE HER WIF MY LUV" codependent guy with that strategy. That guy already loves me. I do not love that guy. Then there's that other guy, Mr. Grey, who literally fetishized my illness. *shudder* Gross.

Surprisingly, my friend usually has far less faith in in the general goodness of humanity than I do. He is just very into honesty because many people who date online suck at being transparent, and I don't blame him.

I have come to the conclusion that it's better to disclose at around the 3rd to 5th date. I will not continue something under false pretenses, but I also would like them to at least begin to see that I am functional on my own and I'm not seeking a partner in order to be my caretaker.

Being mentally ill is not quite the same as having a physical ailment, but there are some parallels we can draw. For instance, I have a chronic, life-threatening illness, much like, say, diabetes. Just like diabetes, I need to take care of my body (sleep/eat properly, get enough exercise), monitor my symptoms, and manage them with drugs and therapy if needed. If I don't do those things, I could die. It's pretty much that simple when it comes right down to it. The hard part is that my symptoms, unlike the symptoms of someone with diabetes, are not objectively measurable. They are subjective: how am I feeling today? Is it really good idea for me to have a drink, take that job, or choose not to go for a run? Am I going easy on myself because I am worried about my health, or am I depressed? Am I really excited and happy and full of energy, or is this the beginning of a hypomanic episode? Does it matter when they both feel the same way anyway?

And how do you communicate all that to a new romantic friend with hopefulness, compassion, and honesty, while still being open to and okay with the possibility of a core part of who you are being a dealbreaker?

I think the very fact that I'm considering these things, when and how to be completely honest, is a good sign of just how far I've come in recovery.

*LOOK A PSYCHIATRY JOKE ABOUT DATING. I am sooooooo funny.

An opening, a big move, and life goes on.

Oi. What a summer! Okay, the quick lowdown:

I'm in a show! Come see it, please.

I'm makin' a movie! Well, a short, with Gina Robertson, who is a former teacher of mine and also a lovely friend. A whole bunch of folks from the old Northwest Actors Studio days are involved (Tim Brandt*, for one, who is like family), so it feels like a reunion. We are planning a fundraiser during October with a screening, hopefully, this December. More details on both to come.

I moved into Cooper Artist Housing! I live by myself (James and I are still together, but not living together for the moment) in a live/work artist studio above the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center. I'm a Delridge Girl once again. My cat loves it, I loves it...what a beautiful decision. It was one of the other things that fell together for me this year. Not living in the basement of a Capitol Hill tenement can only be a good for my health.

I also have some (theater, feminist, experimental) stuff in the works with some girlfriends...watch this space. I'm so excited about it that I can barely breathe when I think on it.

I'm pregnant with a play. I can feel it kicking.

30 is a good year so far.


*Tim has become a really lovely actor. He was before, but he is coming into his own now.

And even more #theaterfail.

The Producing AD of American Stage Theater Company, Todd Olson, has issued a challenge to Mike Daisey: we broke it? You fix it.

How did he issue this challenge? In the most recent American Theatre.

Olson: You say the “dream” of theatre “is not quantifiable on any spreadsheet.” I say, “the hell it isn’t.” Artistic Directors have to do it every year.

Daisey: I know it is hard to hear, but if an artistic director has quantified the dream of theatre on a spreadsheet, they are dead already. I am sorry to tell you this, but it is true.

I've written about this a bit before. I've been on both sides here: Administrator and Artist. Olson really is brutal in this letter; according to his bio on the website he directs. Can you imagine being in a show with him? Ew. Well, I'm looking forward to Olson's response, if any is forthcoming. I doubt he expected Daisey to take the bait.

I'd like to point out that American Stage's website and promotional images are, in my professional opinion, terrible. The season's "posters" smack of the awful stereotype of tech-blind theater artists: they look as though someone gave a cheap (free) copy of a Photoshop-like program to an unpaid volunteer* who took a few pictures of actors that may or may not appear in the play (or, more likely, found open-source digital images) and made what any respectable marketing person would call a mock-up but in a "poor theater" is actually a real poster. God, I hope those aren't what go to the printers. And I could go on about the site itself. I want to throw Web Design for Dummies at it. It's ugly, inefficient, and boring: the Trifecta of Suck. One could theoretically find an intern that you don't pay in anything but theater tickets and beer who could do a better job, but I think that's not the point.

Everyone's got an idea on how to make theater better these days and no one agrees with anyone else. Right now I'm thinking of a conversation I had this week of one of the only friends I retained from the Stupid Theater Incident of my life. I told her about getting cast in a show** and her response was excited for me, but also boiled down to, "I'm not knocking it but I'm way too burnt out to even think about theater because theater is right now full of suck for me". And this was from a tough, smart woman who started her own darn theater because she was tired of how it was done. Ironically, the institution that we both survived -- were summarily drummed out of because we did not conform -- suffers from a radical case of just about everything Daisey claims is wrong with theater. The lovely lady in question has since moved to L.A. She is not the only refugee who left the state. Trust me, I've considered it.

For more fun, check out some of the responses on Daisey's blog and elsewhere:

I am becoming increasingly convinced that people in the theatre are not only completely lacking in critical thinking skills, but are barely literate at all.

That's completely true for me as well; said Stupid Theater currently features an AD who, literally, does not read the scripts he directs more than once. In fact, he doesn't always read them before including them in his seasons. The disrespect of that took my breath away. But I think this is an extreme example, though it's indicative of the kind of lazy behavior that certain theater professionals exhibit: to some, even when they work in theater, it's still seen as an "easy A", just like back in high school.*** The cognitive dissonance that this produces in the rest of us is mind-blowing and is the reason why I've been not working, not writing, not producing anything of artistic value for a year. I admit it: I can't handle working so hard as to literally break my health only to see ignorant asshats breezily producing 15-year-old plays that are already startlingly out-of-date to anyone paying attention (and therefore in my mind -- YMMV -- not currently worthy of reviving) because their wealthy, white, septuagenarian benefactors are comfortable with them. And will give them money if sufficiently impressed. And the cycle continues.

And this from a company that made its initial reputation not so long ago as an edgy, fringe-y, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants company plop in the middle of a major gay/counterculture-ish community. Three years to cultural irrelevance. I don't want to die that way.

I'm going to bed and pulling the covers over my head. Tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day.


(Via.)

*Yes, Olson says that his admin staff are paid and I believe him. But obviously he needs to pay them less (or more) if this is the quality he's getting. You can have simple and inexpensive that looks classy, not cheap.

**Oh, yeah, and I'll be in that weird Macbeth. I'm a witch and I sing. Yeah. Don't ask.

***But not, right? Because they spend long hours building stuff and making money! They are above Reading for Comprehension, no matter how much time we spent studying for it in the WASL.

I don't know yet if this qualifies as FAIL or not...

So, there is a knit-centric superhero comic book now. I haven't read it yet.

I'm...not sure yet how I feel about this concept. There's a certain knitting sub-community that is heavy into, shall we say, classic geekery: sci-fi, comics, gaming, and the ilk. This makes sense to me: there is a substantial overlap in personality types and interests in both groups, characterized in particular by an interest in maths, upon which knitting relies heavily. Yet, unlike at least the surface of the geek community, the knit community is populated primarily by women.

I have, shall we say, a history with the geek community that's not always positive, although that's a story for another time. So it's safe to say that I'm ambivalent when I run across the ubiquitous knit and crochet patterns for dice bags and Cthulhu amigurumi. But knitting (and crochet, and spinning, and other "distaff arts") and the reclaimation thereof are a significant component of the Third Wave feminist movement*, so even if I don't flip over your felted 20-sider I'm glad that something that's still mostly for us girls is getting it's own geeky life independant of the boy's club that is geekdom.

Yet...knitting, as a comic?

From the website's FAQ:

There isn’t enough knitting!
There will be. Not everything gets into every issue of a comic book. Jen owns a yarn shop. Ana and Alex both knit.

But...see...one of the first thing you learn as a writer is that, to make a good story, you need some kind of conflict. And there's just not really conflict in knitting. Okay, yeah, Continental vs. English**, the drama of the dropped stitch, wool allergies...wait, no, still no conflict. I cheer when I see people on TV shows that I like knitting, but if they were just knitting that wouldn't be so fun to watch. Hell, James complains if I knit too much and don't spend time with him. And yarn shops? Some of them rival libraries for their quiet, contemplative atmosphere.

So I'm wondering how there could be "not enough knitting"? When I'm not sure that it's even going to work as an active force in a comic in the first place?

Well, when I can afford it, I think I have to check this out just to see how tricky these writers are. It's an interesting experiment, and I need to experience this Handknit Heroes*** thing before I can decide how I feel about it.


*This a subject that we're looking to explore on the podcast as part of geekery and women.

**My Pennsylvania Dutch granny knit Continental, and that floated down in our family to my mother and me, but not my un-ambidextrous, poorly-socialized, math-loving programmer sister who didn't learn as a kid and now knits English. Cause I know you were wondering.
***I am pretty sure already that I hate that name.

More on How Theater Failed America.

Remember this post?

Check this shit out.

Via.

Um...

...yeah, so, super-viruses. We has them.

Looking at my blog, I just realized that I was sick for over a month.

#healthfail

Long time no blog.

I know, I've been derelict: mea culpa.

First of all, James is fine. We were both pretty shook by the whole ordeal, but no one is dead, only two parts fell off the bike (which we retrieved, one from a nice homeless guy that James gave all his money* to) which starts. James himself had a badly-sprained hand and some scrapes and a rude** awakening. I had awful anxiety for the next few days and James had his first-ever panic attack. I should bake him a cake or something.

I actually got so anxious that my neck, shoulders, and upper back broke out in hives. No shit. They're fading now. Also, I've been fighting an eye infection. I'm not too worried; I used to get them all the time (stress! graduation!), so I can deal fine.

Since then, I have had a streak of good luck. Who knew?

Go Team Me:

I felt able to audition for the first time since That Whole Thing Where I Got Screwed Over by My Theater***. It was for a Macbeth and I have a callback tomorrow.

I got a commission through Etsy. The client is awesome and will give me dollars. In return I will give her hours of my time spent poring over yarn and button samples. Oh, and knitting. Can't forget the knitting.

I got blogged about re: Etsy and how awesome I am and why haven't you bought something from me? Just kidding. I know that only dudes read my blog. Not that I couldn't make you something nice too, you know.

Kidding!

I actually got a freakin' interview for a day gig. An e-mail interview, but "there's a good chance for a fit". And they wanted writing samples (copy and client communication stuff). This was my first interview, literally, since the last time that I needed to interview for a job that I got, which was...oh...three years ago? And since December I've sent out my resume out dozens of times. Lordy, lordy.

In other creative news that may or may not happen:

I'm thinking of writing a novel. Hm.

[Male friend's name redacted] and I are seriously considering a podcast. Hey, we're both smart, we're both wonks/geeks, we're both kind of cranks (him more than me), and we both think that we could do it better. Some of the topics we're considering: geekery& women (so...much...material...), geekery and knitters (I'm also forming a blog on this!), Israel and the Middle East in general (yeah, we'll narrow that down for you), and fact that BSG is clearly a product of the Bush era while Babylon 5 is clearly a product of the Clinton era****. Oh, and [redacted]'s name is redacted because he doesn't want to use his real name, for various reasons. If you know me well, you probably know him, too, or could at least hazard a guess. He does not, for some reason, read my blog (and/or keeps forgetting that it exists), so it's probably not you.


*A dollar.

**Read: terrifying.

***There may be an satisfying coda to this in the next year or so. That's all I can really say right now. No, I am not going to blow up the theater, even though I have thought about it. Repeatedly.

****This is a real coversation that [redacted] and I have had, which may, in fact, count as the nerdiest thing I have ever in my life considered in this here my brain. Additionally, please do not talk to me about the series finale of BSG. I have not yet seen it for reasons and reasons and don't want it ruined for me any more than it already has been by virtue of spoiler-ish posting on Facebook. Curse you all.

"A man is like a deck of cards..."

"...sometimes you get a King, but most of the time they're all Jacks."

James crashed his bike about two hours ago.

Let's start with this: he's fine. Mostly. There's probably nothing broken.

It's his own fault, but that doesn't make me feel any better. He was drinking at his usual, the Twilight, and he rode home, not following the adage "two wheels, two drinks". At some point on Westlake (not far from our place, about a five minute drive away) he got confused by a car driving too close to him, took a turn wrong, and hit a road divider going about 40-50 mph. He flew about 25 feet, so we're lucky that he just had a sprained wrist and a few scrapes. And then he rode home. I got out of a late-night bath to find him wandering around our kitchen with fat, bleeding lips, so I cleaned him up and put him to bed, over his protests that he wasn't good enough for me -- which are usual when he's drunk, now even more so. He's just in a lot of pain* (and minor shock) now but resting.

I'm surprised by how freaked out I am. Also tired and hungry.

Probably more later.


*And he's in bed moaning, so I'm trying to decide if I go to bed or sleep out here on the couch. Both have tactical advantages.

Fun with dressing warmly.

So, James' bike (casually called Motopsychobaik, a name coined by my lisping toddler nephew) is up and running again, so we took it to Ballard to grab pho at Than Bros. Wheeee! ...it's still pretty cold out.

Also, my plans to get more items up on Etsy have failed, possibly for this weekend. I forgot to turn off James' camera last time I uploaded anything, so the battery ran down. Poop. And I have so much to do!

Death Virus 2009 (Spring Edition)

So...I still suffer from the death virus, which means nothing much has been happening. I'm stuck at home and I'm even beginning to be bored by the internet. It palls after, say, two weeks. Or less.

In good, non-sicky related news, I made some more stuff for Etsy and I'm hoping to get out and do a photo shoot this weekend, if the lovely, lovely sun holds and doesn't turn back into the freak snow we got night before last. Seriously, Winter, what the crap? Anyway, it's not knitted. And I love it so much that I wanna keep one or two pieces for me! Which I think is a good sign. :) Oh, and I wanna get my men's vintage pieces up, too.

James is wanting to get in on the Etsy action with his art pics now. I think we're going to put our heads together over that tomorrow. Oh! And I bought seeds (40% off Lilly Miller Organic seed packets at Fred Meyer yesterday!) and starters so that we can start our garden! I love spending time with this man. Plus he's getting me back into playing music, which has been really good for me since I'm so disgusted with Seattle theater politics anymore.

I may also be doing this awesome project. It looks pretty exciting, and I can see how it will be good preparation for the extended version of Hungry Ghosts (which I've given myself a two-year timeline on). I think it'll be a great way for me to stretch my wings and stuff. And I miss collaborating.

Oh, and...

...James takes all my Etsy pictures. It's handy having an art photographer in the house!

Sicky.

All quiet on my front...because James gave me some flu-like disease. Possibly the flu.

I have major cabin fever to go with my high-temperature-type fever, so I've been on the internetz a bunch, pimping my Etsy page. In the last two days I've been featured in two "Treasuries", which are a big way that you get noticed by other sellers and buyers on Etsy.

The links only stay up for a few days, but the first one is about natural, green items and the second is because I'm a good writer (no, really!). Anyway, that's been the highlight of my week on the couch.

Stupid Courage Campaign made me smear my eyeliner.

This made me cry, just like Kate Harding and all the other trendy feminist bloggers.


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Out of pills!

Well, I ran out of bupropion and don't immediately have the cash dollars to refill it my prescription...so if I'm not so communicative over the next few days, or refuse to get out of bed no matter what...well, it's just the faulty neurotransmitters talking.

CPSIA Update: someone out there paid attention!

So! A little while ago I posted about the CPSIA. Just thought that you'd all like to know what's the what on that one:

As you may be aware, beginning next month many of America’s small and home businesses will be forced to radically alter their practices and products as prescribed by the burdensome Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA). This bill mandates stringent and overreaching federal standards, under the guise of safety requirements that will unfortunately threaten the well-being and further livelihood of thousands of America’s workers and their families. It was my position when the bill was being debated on the Senate floor, as it remains today, that this bill could have -- and should have -- better balanced the need for safety with a common-sense business approach.

You can read the rest on Senator DeMint's blog.

Via The Storque.

My tummy feels funny.

So I joined Facebook after meaning to for pretty much ever. I mean, MySpace's code is awful, it's ugly and distracting, and all my "grown-up friends" are on FB. Anyway, Jinny "invited" me so I did.

Now it's setting off some disturbing social anxiety. Usually the only people who know where I am and what's up with me are James, Ian, and maybe my sister. Those are the only people that I've been communicating with on a regular basis.

Now I have coffee dates with a few dear friends who I haven't seen in a long time, so, no regrets. Just tummy rumblins and adrenal surges.

Much better!

The heat is back on now. I am warm except for my feet.

I. Hate. Being. Cold.

There is no heat at our house right now.

I want to go take a walk, but I can't, because I'm waiting for the guy to come make heat happen again. Meanwhile, I'm sitting on a heating pad and my fingers are seizing up from the cold and trying to knit, embroider, or write in the cold.

Me = miserable.

Oh, the cognitive dissonance of it all.

Anyway, I've been trying to lose weight lately. It seems that I've been successful: I've lost about 6 pounds in a month (plus a little more before I actually decided to start losing weight), which is a healthy rate. Now, I knew that BMI (Body Mass Index) was dumb: I have been in my life very muscular (though less so now), so it's never applied to me. I've mostly ignored it. I'm at just over BMI 27 at the moment (5'4"+ and about 158 lbs) ; the cutoff for women going from "normal" to "overweight" is 24 or 25, I think. So, I'm overweight.

The current thinking in the health community has more to do with hip-to-waist ratio for health. Mine is 0.73, as my waist is 30" and my hips are (dear me, it sounds awful, but I know that it's just my bone structure, I've never been less than 39"-40") is 41". Normal for women is under 0.86. So, I'm quite healthy. Um...

My hips (41") measure an American size* 12/14, my waist (30") a size 8/10, and my bust (36") a size 6/8. Huh?

I'm taller than average (though just barely) but "petite" dresses fit me better, because they're short in the waist, like me. Hmm.

And now I just read that the average American woman is something like 163 lbs. (more than me? but just barely...) with a waist of over 33" (also more than me? by kind of a bit!). What?

Add to all this my extreme body dysmorphia: to myself, I look exactly the same when I'm 115 lbs and 190 lbs. I can only tell when I gain/lose weight by how my clothing fits, but I always look chubby to me, whether I am or not. Sigh.

I have no idea what's going on anymore.



*Or more, or less, depending on the designer/brand.