When "Enough" Sounds like "I Love You, Neighbor"

My neighbor knocked on the door today to tell me from across the hall that he convinced his doctor to give him a prescription for the combination of hydroxychloroquine (and Zithromax) that Fox News has been talking up based on anecdotal evidence and some really shady trials.    He wanted me to do the same because he is my neighbor, knows I'm in more than one high-risk group, and cares about me.  He also hasn't talked to many people in a while, so I let him talk about the benefits and the deep state medical conspiracy keeping this treatment away from people for a while.  Then I sincerely thanked him for being concerned for me and wished him well and went back to working from home.  And being very concerned. 

It's not really (or at least just) that this treatment hasn't been proven to be safe and effective for treating this illness that concerned me.  It's not just that people desperate for a cure will buy things (possibly from the internet or the black market due to pharmacy shortages) that will kill them.  It's the further scarcity that could happen that has me most concerned. 1  2

He assured me that it's readily available and cheap because that's what Fox News told him, so it shouldn't be a problem for the Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis (and Malaria) patients who need it to have it.  However, the anecdotes I've been reading online have been from Lupus, autoimmune diseases, and Rheumatoid Arthritis patients who can't get their prescriptions refilled right now or in the possible future due to a shortage.

Yesterday the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services said the drugs could be stockpiled in the Strategic National Stockpile and could “be distributed and prescribed by doctors to hospitalized teen and adult patients with Covid-19, as appropriate, when a clinical trial is not available or feasible.”

I am not sure where my healthy but elderly neighbor falls in that wording, but he didn't get his from that stockpile, just from an unethical or worn-down-by-badgering doctor.  All I could think of after he got done proudly telling me how far he had to go to find a pharmacy that had any of these drugs he doesn't need that other people do need, is, "I wonder if this will cause a shortage that will cost people's lives."

If all of these healthy people convince their doctors to give them this thing they don't need, will there be enough of this thing for the people who do need it right now, people who are dying right now?  

Isn't this just another variety of hoarding?  Another way we are selfish and think about what we tthink we need to do to make sure we have enough no matter what even if we take what someone else needs away?  Like the people buying the groceries that WIC-dependent people have to buy when they could buy something else or make do with what they have already hoarded?  Like the people who bought 8 months of toilet paper in a panic, leaving none left for people who have none?

Maybe I'm overreacting.  Maybe the supply chain has fixed itself since those articles I came across the last couple weeks.  Maybe there is plenty to go around like my neighbor said Fox News told him.  Just like toilet paper still missing weeks later from empty shelves. 

Maybe people won't have to miss work and paychecks they are still lucky enough to have due to pain and debilitation. 

Maybe they won't have flare-ups that cause them to go to the hospital and be exposed to this illness when they are already immuno-compromised. 

Maybe people in hard-hit areas won't die because of those 5 doses my neighbor hoarded. 

Maybe my elderly diabetic father won't die because of those 5 doses my neighbor hoarded.  Or my immuno-compromised niece.  Or one of my other neighbors on this planet. 

Maybe hoarding what we don't need now against possible need later will have no consequences in this case. 

But maybe it will. 

And if it will, doesn't that mean I have a moral responsibility to my neighbors and my community to prevent that if I can?

So I am not going to talk to my doctor.  She would not be on board with this anyway because she is kind and compassionate and ethical. 

I just hope that if I do catch this illness and am in the hospital on a ventilator (if one is even available) dying, that there is enough of this scarce, potentially-lifesaving option available for me because it hasn't all been swallowed up by people who are well but incapable of foreseeing the consequences their hoarding can have for their neighbors.  Or their grandfathers.  Or their relatives with cancer.  Or that middle-aged lady with asthma and a sketchy immune system across the hall.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but just in case I'm not, let's all take a deep breath and say ENOUGH hoarding.  

If you bought too much toilet paper and don't need it, you can always give it to someone else, but prescriptions legally don't work that way.  Let's leave the medication in the hands of the professionals to make sure it's there for people who need it when they need it (including maybe you or someone you love) and not sitting in the cabinets of healthy people who just want to feel like they have some control in this currently scarier world we're all in together right now.

Let's love our neighbors by saying ENOUGH.

Vorkosigan Universe Goodness

I exceeded my monthly recommended dose of Ivan, and I feel fine!  Yes, I was patient until National Novel Writing Month ended to read the new Lois McMaster Bujold novel, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance.  It was my salvation from a couple of bad nights of insomnia, so I probably looked like a drunken zombie the days afterward as I squinted and lurched clumsily from lack of sleep and giggled at random while thinking, "Oh, Ivan . . ."

I was really pleased with what she did with Byerly, too.  He and Ivan made a hilarious and irritated team in A Civil Campaign, and they were excellent here, too.  I was glad to see them a little more grown up and no less entertaining for their additional maturity.  Ivan was less completely obnoxious than I remember him being in my first reading of a Civil Campaign.

In fact, he was less obnoxious than I remembered in A Civil Campaign, which I also read while on vacation. I think I saw that book in a gentler light after seeing Ivan without Miles to wind him up for most of a whole book. 

There was also that heart-wrenching bit with Mark and Ivan at the party in Mirror Dance, which I wound back around to read after skipping it this time through to try to keep up with the friend I was introducing Miles to.  I didn't mind sacrificing Mirror Dance, which is a tough book to read sometimes because of the dark places it goes.  Those, too, seemed shorter and smaller this time through, possibly because anything would likely seem less horrific after the Night Angel Trilogy.

By and Ivan were a pretty good comedy act all by themselves.  Illyan helped.  : ) 

Ivan is not Miles, so don't expect a Milesean adventure here.  This is a happy ending or two for some characters still loose in the Vorkosigan universe, and it is definitely one of the lighter, more mystery-based entries in the series.  After the way the last one ended, a lighter book was probably just what was needed.

Bujold has said that she considers the universe closed with the death of a certain character, as she had always pictured this character as the center/anchor of the universe with all stories taking place within this character's lifetime, but that doesn't mean she won't write more within that timeframe.  Personally, I want some Pym stories.  I consider wanting some young Aral stories, but then I remember what I know of him as a younger man, and I think maybe I don't want those stories.  Same with the Cetagandan Invasion stuff and the Komarr fiasco.  I might very much like some Miles' kids and Gregor's kids' stories . . .  She is currently working on a novella set in the universe (among other things), and she says she likes writing novellas better because they are so stripped down without side plots/characters, so fans may see more of those coming out in the future. 

Until then, you have all the other works in the series to pull out when the need strikes you.  : )  Enjoy . . .

Still on the shelf October 2012

Oh, books.  I'm drooling over you, but I'm trying to be an adult here and do responsible things on the weekend instead of drowning in you.  Soon the last applications will be completed and vacations will be had, and books will be read.  Oh, yes, they will.

• Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore:  This author has turned out two excellent books that take place in the same world.  The books were very different.  I am looking forward to a third excellent book that is also very different.
• Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare: Leave me alone.  : ) The dialogue is fun, and these characters have had less time to become tiresome.  It's a weird paranormal/steampunk vibe with very polite speech, and I liked the first one, possibly because I am a sucker for demon-drug-addicted-soulful-doomed-guys in books.
• City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare: Well, Simon is still pretty much awesome.  I'm really in it for him at this point, if you must know.  Certain other folks need to be kicked in the head until they stop acting like idiots.  Well, they needed kicking in the last book.  Now they need way more help than a swift kick could provide . . .  I must admit a sort of morbid curiosity about the upcoming movie adaptation for the first book.  I suspect it won't be nearly as much fun as the book unless they get some really snazzy actors and actresses. 
• The Fox Woman and Fudoki by Kij Johnson: Even the complaints on Amazon are promising. Something tells me I will adore these, possibly as much as the Tales of the Otori. I hope to find out this winter.
• Goliath by Scott Westerfeld: Will they stop the war?  Will he ever figure out why the perspicacious creature keeps saying Mr. Sharpe so sarcastically?  Will Alec ever get to be emperor and thus never be able to be in a romance with our other main character?  I don't know, but I will find out and then not spoil it for you.
• A Calculus of Angels by J. Gregory Keyes: We move to Russia, which didn't actually get destroyed in the first book, but the fallout from said book is pretty fierce even there.  That's all the further I've gotten, but I am looking forward to a day taking up a chair at Panera by the fireplace and finding out what on earth happens next in this fantasy/alternate history weirdstravaganza.
• A bunch of tween books: I don't know which ones yet, but I figure I ought to fill up the tank before I tackle my just-graduated-from-sixth-grade narrator for National Novel Writing month, which I can probably participate in since I have not destroyed any of my fingers in the last couple of months (fingers crossed).  I'm still not 100% there with the recovery from the August of 2011 smashing, but I'm told the nerves will eventually grow back right as rain.  Got any suggestions?  (For books, not for finger remedies.)  Finding contemporary-ish 11-13 protagonists in non-genre fiction isn't easy.  Good thing I like to read a lot. : )

So what's on your slate coming up?  Any books you've been saving to savor when you have more time?

Why you should keep writing

"Keep writing and submitting and asking and trying, but don’t forget that the joy of it is in the simple movement of pen over paper. Of finding the exact right word. Of finding yourself carried into the next paragraph by some wild thought. Of getting a new, startling glimpse of the holy. Publication may come, or it may not, but it will never get better than this." - Addie Zierman

Amen.

Why I'll probably never be that teacher

To be that teacher,

• I would probably need to get a PhD.  Not because it would make me a better teacher, but because schools like that, and they prefer to hire people with doctorates.
• I would need to be able to teach at least a couple of adjunct classes a semester every semester for several years to gain experience.  Better yet, I would need to be able to devote myself to adjunct teaching full time for several years.  Most places like experience, even if they don't know what kind of teacher you are. You need experience to make them even care to look into what kind of teacher you are.
• I would need to pursue publication seriously.  Not that publication is a sign that your writing is necessarily better than others, but having a publication record is important to schools, especially ones that want to be seen as serious schools.

Even if I could do all of these things, it would still not guarantee me a chance to try to be that teacher.  However, if I can't do these things, the chance of me ever getting to try to be that teacher is basically 0.  And the truth is that I can't really do these things.  Story of my life recently.  I don't have the time, money, energy, lowered standards, or stubborn willpower needed.  I am broken and hurting and not sleeping well and not at my mental best. It's all I can do to hold down a full time job with benefits to help me pay for all the medical treatments and medications. 

I have been thinking about dreams again lately.  I have wanted to teach since I was in high school, and I have taught, so that dream has come true.  If I'm honest, I'll also admit that what I wanted to do was teach full time.  If I pursue this desire, I will have to sacrifice many other things for the possibility that I may be able to do what I want and think I am gifted at. 

A problem is that I want to help people in my church and community now.  If I choose to live in the future in my dream, I sacrifice the good I can do now.  And that feels selfish to me right now.  Other people who are slaving and sacrificing for their dreams maybe don't feel that way, and I think that's fine for them.  More power to 'em.  But I don't think I can plan ahead like this anymore.  I think I want to help concretely now.  I want to be that teacher, too, but maybe some wants are more important than others.  Maybe those things are what I should be wanting more.

What do you think?

You can't read just one: Tamora Pierce's Mastiff and other books

I knew I shouldn't have started reading Mastiff by Tamora Pierce.  It was ginormous, and I had things on my list, and I should have waited until certain of those things were done, but at the rate I am able to accomplish such things these days, it could have been a year before I got to it.  And the cover was beautiful green with shiny bits, and it was on the top of the stack, and I have no self-control after four months.  So I started it.

It is difficult to inhale a book that big.  It takes days (literally takes away any illusion of free time I might have had), and it is like being on a mission.  Someone pointed out that these books are basically police procedurals, and they are a compelling, must-read-to-find-out-how-it-ends/happens/plays out reads.

When I saw indications that this would be the last book in this series, I was a bit sad because I really like Beka.  She's a different kind of heroine from the ones I've read most recently in Tamora Pierce.  Things are murkier in Beka's world.  It's more like the seedy side of the early Guards stuff in Terry Pratchett.  I mean, yes, it's a fantasy world, but it is not a bright, clean fantasy world that reflects idealizations.  The police accept bribes and often operate more like a protection racket.  Corruption is rampant in the courts and on the streets.  There are good cops and bad cops.  Justice is mostly for the wealthy.  In this world of Tortall (a couple hundred years in the past), Beka doesn't seem quite as noble as Alanna and Kel and even Alianne or Dane. 

No one could really accuse any of the aforementioned people of being "good girls," and all of these heroines share some similarities even if their personalities are very different, but Beka, well, there's something darker about Beka.  I wonder if it's the straightforward and pragmatic way she has of seeing her own darkness and the darkness around her.  She accepts her darkness but still trusts her moral compass to point her the right way.  All of these Pierce protagonists stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves in different ways.  I love all the different ways that manifests itself.  Knights errant, mages, police, knight commanders.

Once I finished this last Beka adventure, which had a coda scene connecting it to the future, I unfortunately found myself needing to read the first book in that referenced series immediately.  And then the next and the next and the next.  If only I'd started my Pierce binge chronologically.  After the sprawling and complex Mastiff, going back to the beginning with the Song of the Lioness quartet was a bit jarring and painful.  What, I felt myself asking, amazing things would Pierce do if she were to write the Alanna books at this point in her career? 

And please don't even look at the terrible more recent covers.  Tamora Pierce should sue her publishers for their obvious attempts to make everyone avoid buying her books because the covers need paper bags over them to be tolerated.  Not that I'm bitter.  I just hated recommending her writing to people always prefaced with, "Please ignore the cover.  No, don't run away screaming!  Please!  I swear the books are good!  And we sell book covers!"

The binge stopped for now because I don't have the Immortals series in this state (they are on the middle bookshelf in my parents' basement in a state far away), and I managed to convince myself the rest had to be read in order, so I could appreciate Pierce's growth as a writer and YA fiction's growth as a genre over the last 30 years.  Huzzah!

(Lack of) Regrets

.
I regret
that I was 100% utterly lacking
in the willpower needed
to prevent myself
from reading
"Borders of Infinity"
this weekend.

Really, I regret nothing.

Except not knowing
what happened
to a certain character
who got injured
in the home stretch.

I hope that character lived.
.

Reading Miles Again: It's okay if you don't love Miles as much as I do (we can still be friends [probably])

I am introducing a friend to the Vorkosigan books, and he likes them well enough for a single read but doesn't love them like I do.  (He had to take a breather after reading a bunch over break.  He left off with "Labyrinth."  Was it an email or a text that he sent when he kind of couldn't believe what was happening?  I don't remember, but it made me laugh hard.)  I am using his reading as an excuse to re-read, and I am giddy and full of MilesQuotes.  My friend seems apologetic about not being as enamored with Miles as I am, but I really do understand.  How could he be?  They've only just met. 

He is in his mid-twenties and meeting the younger Miles.  I would think that wouldn't be the stuff of epic book crushes.  I've known Miles for years.  I met him when he was 17 and I was 12.  I watched him grow up.  I watched him while growing up.  I've read some of these books more than a dozen times.  The kind of relationship that creates is completely different from the one created by a one-time casual meeting between two young men. 

The act of reading the same stories as a different person is a powerful one.  Miles, Ender's Game, the Bible: these are the books I've read so many times that they have to have affected me. 

My favorite Miles stories now are not the same as they were when I was in high school.  Or college. Or graduate school.  Growing up with Miles shaped my world; not only did the way I saw the stories change as I aged, but the way I saw the world changed as I looked at it through Miles as I changed.  I might be getting a bit out of hand . . .

One of my friends once said after reading Miles for the first time, "You're a lot like Miles."  I don't think he ever explained, but I was too busy basking in the glow of what I perceived to be praise to really push.  Years later, I think I asked him, and he didn't remember why he said it.

I tell my new friend that I understand that he doesn't love Miles like I do.  I suspect that his opinions may change a little further on, but I don't know.  It's the darkness in Miles that makes him tired, and the darkness doesn't really go away, at least not until A Civil Campaign.  So for now, we'll wait and see. 

I wonder whether I can hold off jumping ahead and reading "Borders of Infinity" . . .  Willpower!

The Rebel Jesus

I've been reading the gospels lately, and, you know what?  They tell a good story about a really compelling man (who was also God). 

Every time I read them, I am always shocked by how unsanitized He is in these books.  He is not a pious, clean, respectable man.  He is controversial; He does not pull punches.  He argues, He is sly and clever, He deliberately speaks in parables so people won't understand, He feeds the hungry, He is unpredictable, He seeks solitude and encourages His followers to do the same, He heals the sick even on the Sabbath.  He has no patience with those who aren't really seeking.  He is not nice.  He's loving and kind but not nice. 

I love Him with all my heart because He is so real. 

I'd rather be reading

The story of my life: I'd rather be reading.

I think I need this made into a bumper sticker.  Or perhaps a forehead sticker. 

I am a crabby jerk when I am in the midst of a long book I like but can't take time out to binge on.  Irritable and snappish.  It's not anyone else's fault that

• the book is 1,000 pages.
• it came late.
• I can't hold the monstrous thing while exercising for three hours.
• I'm being responsible right now and doing work first before I play. 

It's probably best that I pace myself.  I should string out the joy of this first read because I will likely be waiting at least two years for the next/final chapter.  I should let myself be happy that I'm being responsible and doing this in small bits in moderation in tandem with other things that really need to be done.  I should.

But I don't.  Sigh.

medical adhesive and love

As promised in another post, here it is:

It's designed to dissolve in a lot of really hot water, the tech tells me, and as I wash my hair I think, Some people's love isn't even strong enough to adhere in water of any kind, and I want to believe that the bonds between me and the people I love are not so weak as to dissolve in hot water, but experience may be teaching me otherwise, which is one of the reasons why I prefer chocolate, which never aspires to be eternal or adhesive even for one night.

Books I'm going to love this April: Jim Butcher's Changes

Oh, Jim Butcher, it was worth it to wait a bit longer for this one.  I know this without reading it.

At first, I was miffed that you didn't continue your trend of publishing a new Dresden Files book every Octoberish because I am an addict, and I didn't think I could wait that long for my next fix, but, because I love you, I was patient.  Plus, you finished another series, and I'm willing to cut you some slack for that accomplishment alone.  The whole publishing two books a year for several years all while writing them yourself and not as a corporation also earns you some deep forgiveness, should you need to utilize it in the future.

When I eventually get my pre-ordered copy and can carve myself out a whole day to just binge on it, I will love this book.  So much.  So, so much.  This is why I cannot save this one as a book to hold off on until I get a better job.  I have no willpower.

April 6, you're finally here!

Just say no to book piracy!

I've been really worried about libraries in this time of economic blech because I feel that libraries are one of the things democracies (even representative ones) need if they really want to have a chance of working.  I've watched local libraries cut hours and services with great trepidation.  I've observed and seen people using bookstores in place of libraries, as a place for free book access. 

Just because you have free access to read books at bookstores doesn't really mean you should use them to replace libraries.  If there's one thing the economic blech has reminded us, it's that the (book)stores might not always be around, and if they go under at a time when libraries have had their funding so severely reduced, you're going to find yourself with no access to the books you love and want to support.  You'll be too poor to buy books, and the authors will be too poor to be able to write them, and the world as we know it will end.  The book pirates will probably "win," but what a sad victory it will be.

Use your library!  The more people use it, the easier it is for the government to justify giving libraries more increasingly limited government funds.  Everyone can use libraries, no matter how poor or homeless they are.  I want to support the kind of situation where people have something akin to free access to information regardless of socioeconomic status. 

Here's a fun endorsement for libraries and against evil book pirates from author Sara Zarr.  Definitely check out Laurie's post and the comments it engendered.

- Read Laurie Halse Anderson’s post about book piracy. Even successful authors like Laurie are not rich enough to give away books for free. But, really, it’s not about that. Though it pains me to say it, even authors who are bajillionaires and write slasher pulp with the help of a staff need to be paid for their work. That’s how it works. Piracy is stealing, and stealing is wrong. Borrowing, however, is perfectly legal, and that’s why we have libraries. “But my library doesn’t have your book.” Ask for it! You can request that your library system acquire the book. Get a few friends to do the same and chances are good it will eventually get into the collection. Meanwhile, there are thousands of other books to read while you wait! Hey, I am not nearly rich enough to buy every book that we want to read. I usually have 10-15 books checked out from the library at a time. The free library system is one of the things that makes this country great! No matter how poor you are, if you’ve got a library card and you can read, you are one powerful person.

If you love books, really love them, and you can't buy them, you need to use your library.  It's the only way to act with integrity.

Do you agree or disagree with that?  Your thoughts on book piracy?

Why I'm Not a Critic

". . . just try and enjoy instead of being critical you might find you like it better that way."

This was the advice a fan gave to a critic, and it nearly made me snort milk out my nose. As a staunch non-critic, I agree that the sentiment makes sense, but good grief, what a silly thing to say to a critic. Critics do not get paid to like stuff. Critics do not get sent Advanced Reader's Copies for free so that they can enjoy them privately.

Critics are there to review the merits and drawbacks of whatever they're looking at and then communicate their opinions to others. How they do this differs greatly. Connie reviews her experience of reading the work in very conversational language. You can tell what ticked her off, what she really enjoyed, what she looked forward to, what met or disappointed her expectations, and what she's trying to be fair-minded about. Other reviewers give a brief, simplified summary of the contents and then some criticism about what was done well and not so well. Some use formal language. Some are vicious.  Some use ratings systems.  Some judge on set criteria.  (There are so many ways to review and critique!)

Some critics seem to live to hate everything, an understandable mindset when they have to keep cranking out reviews even when the last thing they feel like doing is reading another book. I'm sure if I even had to critically examine everything I read, I, too, would start to notice patterns and see similarities and long above all else for originality.  Since I don't have to review, and since I read so eclectically and widely and uncritically, I don't remember much of anything, so originality doesn't mean much to me. And if I don't want to read something, I don't have to.

My nephew can happily hear the same story every night and love it every night even as his parents go crazy and have it all memorized. (He's two.) How many times have I read my favorite books? It doesn't matter! I still love them!

I am not a critic. I don't like being a critic unless I don't like the book, and then it's nice to engage Critic Mode, so I can try to at least learn something from what I didn't like, thus giving it some sort of useful, redeeming value since it probably didn't have much entertainment value.

If I like something, I want to just like it. I want to focus on what was good, better, and best. I want to revel in the ways it brought me joy or pathos or whatever it brought me. I want to live in the moment where that one-liner was delivered perfectly.  Or that awful missed opportunity.  Or that scene with that twist!  I love being a fan!

I am not in school for this. I don't need to make the things I love justify themselves. If I did, I would kill them all. Reading would become a chore. I would hate that more than most anything else that could happen to me. I don't want that. Therefore, I make the conscious decision not to be a critic.

This resolution does not mean

• I don't see the point of critics.
• I brainlessly love everything about the books I read and like.
• I can't hold a reasonable conversation about books I love (if we have it soon enough after I finish).
• I never analyze at all for craft tips on pacing, setting, characterization, plot, or whatever. (Writers are thieves and plunderers, even when we are completely unconscious about it.  It's a spinal reflex.)

My decision not to be a critic means that I first read to enjoy. Anything else that happens is a bonus, an extra return for extra effort if I choose to make it. The glorious thing is that I don't have to make it, and I still get wonderful returns for my "effort."

This is why my dream job is reading books, not reviewing them or criticizing them, just reading books in a comfortable place somewhere. Of course, this idea is truly the literal definition of dream job because who would pay me to simply enjoy myself? No one. I don't have to be a professional fan. In fact, I pay for the privilege of being a fan. Ah, the freedom . . .

It's kind of a rush.

How about you? Fan or critic? Both? At different times?