#i am going insane. packing is difficult because i would much rather b working on my minecraft house

[shirtshawaiian]

OK google music to clean/pack to 

[itsclydebitches]

Hello, everyone! Can you believe this is the third time I've started the recap for this chapter? Between a dying computer and a mass edit during my monthly state of, "Oh my god get rid of everything we can't let people know that we wRITE!" this project is cursed. This is the version though, I can feel it. Be positive!

Now, where were we? It's been some months (RIP) since I last posted, so I wouldn't be surprised if everyone's forgotten what's going on in this insane novel. A quick recap before the recap then: new teams have formed, no one is happy about it, Sun and Velvet went off to a shady club run by The Crown and — shock shock, surprise surprise — got themselves into a heap of trouble. That's the long and the short of it. We have to wait a while to find out what happens to them though because this chapter is focused on Coco.

We learn that Professor Rumpole has sent Coco and her new team — Team ROSC — out into the desert to take care of the grimm around the city's borders. To say that Coco is disappointed in this assignment is an understatement. We learn that they've been at this for a week straight and have gone without showering or a change of clothes that entire time (no one packed a bag?), so for a second I was hugely sympathetic. You know this vine? 

I feel this vine in my soul. Give me hot water and hot coco or give me death. Besides, work is work and dangerous, physical work without a break or basic comforts is incredibly taxing. Toss in the extreme heat of a desert and I'd be pissed at everything too, no matter how important my work was. That's human.

Yet instead of humanizing Coco like this, it turns out she doesn't care at all about the hardship involved. It's fighting grimm that she's annoyed by. She thinks that "Searching for the person or persons kidnapping innocent people for some unknown but dark purpose was way more useful than fighting Grimm far from the city" and I'm just like, Coco, honey...

Do you know what your career path is?

IT'S TO KILL GRIMM.

Okay, there's admittedly a justification here, but it's a stupid one. Coco goes on to say that "This area was called the Wastelands for a reason." She's snarky about it, saying that it wastes “her time, her talent, and her patience," but the real takeaway is that it's, you know, a wasteland. Deserted of grimm and of people. What's the point of defending an area that doesn't need defending? A huntress' job might normally be to fight grimm, but when those grimm aren't around and kidnappers are, that's a whole new set of priorities.

The problem with all this is that the Wastelands is definitely not deserted and it's definitely not as far from the city as Coco would like to imply. In just a few paragraphs an alarm is going to trip and Coco will find six grimm roaming in a pack. Then she finds a person. Then that person says she needs to get back to see someone in the city within half an hour. So there are grimm, there are people about, and this area is apparently close enough to the border that you can get back to the city proper, on foot, and then get wherever it is you’re going in a bustling metropolis... all within half an hour. By that logic these grimm aren't out in the boonies, they're right outside everyone's door.

Yet Coco isn't convinced, saying that "Post Beacon [killing grimm] had been for a noble cause, but this just felt like … busywork." I cannot possibly emphasize enough that this is the job she signed up for. Not to be a detective specializing in missing people, not a war hero always on the front lines of a battle, but one of many huntsmen who perform the daily, routine, very necessary task of protecting the people from grimm. With "protecting" covering both immediate threats and preparatory work that ensures more threats don't come about — like taking care of grimm outside before they become a larger threat. You know what would have happened if Beacon had a daily chore of students killing grimm within a few miles radius of the school? There would have been far less grimm charging a mass of unprotected students when negativity unexpectedly skyrocketed.

And, as always, I am aware that Rumpole is the likely villain here. From a writing perspective, this is very much presented as her getting Coco out of the way so that she can go about her nefarious deeds in peace... but that doesn't erase the fact that the task itself is a sound one. Rumpole's motivations don't matter here, only Coco's annoyance that she... has to do her job?

I mean yeah, everyone complains about their job to one extent or another, but can you imagine if you stumbled across a firefighter complaining about all the kitchen fires they've had to put out lately? "It's so boring! There are much better things I could be spending my time and talent on. I mean, that inferno that took out a city block last year? Putting that out was noble. But routine fires? House fires? Giving lectures on how to prevent fires in the future? Ugh, I can't believe the department expects me to do this grunt work." Meanwhile, you're sneaking off, hoping that this firefighter is never called to your house, nursing mild worries about how much they're romanticizing the recent tragedy that took so many lives...

Complaints about the job turn into complaints about the teams, which makes far more sense for Coco's character. Anyone's, really. Despite my insistence that it's a good thing they're learning to fight with people other than their three besties, that was absolutely a sudden and rather traumatizing change, just given how attached the teams already are. I'm not at all surprised that Coco is struggling to cope.

She says she misses her friends, obviously, but also "surprisingly, Coco missed being in charge."

...That's supposed to be surprising? Coco, you love being in charge! How is this in any way a revelation?

Apparently it is though, stemming from how bad Reese is as their leader. As with so many things in RWBY, I find myself disagreeing with a perspective that's presented as a fact: "She liked to lead by group vote, which wasn’t leading at all." Yes... it is? We could go down a rabbit hole of literal definitions — to lead is to direct, to direct is to regulate, to regulate is to direct again — but ultimately our understanding of a word does not adhere to the dictionary alone. It's a knowledge built on experience and I would hope that everyone's experience with the term "leader" includes that person considering multiple perspectives before making a decision. A leader doesn't impose their view on a group without due consideration of their preferences and needs — that's a dictator — a leader guides the group based on feedback and their personal knowledge. If that feedback and knowledge results in a standstill, or if their knowledge outweighs preferences, they are the deciding vote because the people have previously said, "We trust your decisions" through the act of making them leader in the first place. 

Asking for a group vote isn't avoiding leadership, it's an act of leadership. Reese decided that these situations warranted a majority rule. She further decided that whatever they settled on was indeed an appropriate course of action. Leadership skills are required to assess a situation and determine whether it's appropriate to vote on in the first place. If I announce to a group that we're voting on whether we go to the movies or the museum, I've done the work to determine that both of these choices are of roughly equal value and roughly equal availability. I haven't hit on any snags like, "The only movies playing are mindless blockbusters and I want this to be an educational outing" or "The museum is too far away. We'll never make it to dinner on time." Figuring out that a group can vote is its own kind of work. This avenue is particularly useful when the group is of roughly equal standing. With a few exceptions (like Ruby and Jaune) huntsmen classmates are all the same age, underwent the same training, and have had the same combat experiences. This isn't a case of one elite huntsmen lending their knowledge to an otherwise green party, it's a school randomly pointing at a somewhat outgoing individual during orientation and saying, "You. You're leader material, I guess, even though you've done little differently than the person standing beside you." Someone has to lead and Vacuo's switcheroo proves that anyone can be the leader if they're just put in that position. Coco claims a group vote is just "passing the responsibility off to your team" and yes! You want to share the responsibility because you are a team. They are a group of four equals working together with one person to guide them, they are not a boss with three subordinates. Why wouldn't Reese utilize the skills and ideas of those teammates? When making a decision, why wouldn't she see if everyone believes it's a good idea to do Thing A as opposed to Thing B? Unless Reese is outright ignoring her own ideas, beliefs, or gut feelings to cater to the others — which there's no reference of — this is good leadership. She's assisting her team in making decisions as a whole, rather than arbitrarily imposing her view on three others of similar skill and experience.

Yet Coco acts like because Reese doesn't go, "We're doing Thing A! End of discussion!" it's not leadership. Which, frankly, says a lot about how the RWBY-verse sees leadership as a whole.

I realize I'm rambling a great deal, so let me quickly provide a different media example. I'm currently immersed in Star Trek: Voyager and in season two, episode 14 "Alliances," Captain Janeway is faced with a difficult choice: align herself with a violent and so far untrustworthy species, or risk traveling through this quadrant of space without any allies. At first she's entirely against the idea of an alliance, going so far as to say that this isn't a democracy. She's the captain, dammit, she makes the decisions! But her first officer begs her to reconsider. Then the crew express disappointment — even disgust — that she won't consider this alternative. Then her chief of security, being a Vulcan, provides a persuasively logical argument for why an alliance is worth the risk... Long story short, Janeway finds herself in the minority and changes her decision accordingly. She attempts to garner an alliance and the fact that she was right — the species wasn't trustworthy and the alliance fails — is entirely beside the point. She realized that the majority voice matters. As far as we know, Reese is already practicing what Janeway learned.

ANYWAY the point is none of it matters because these characterizations are a mess. Coco also throws out that Reese "dressed like she was a twelve-year-old hanging out at the mall" and supposedly acts like one too. We're not given any examples of what that behavior looks like and, sorry, but I'm not personally inclined to judge someone based on their fashion sense. It would be great if this story actually engaged with some of the flaws the characters demonstrated, rather than just throwing them out to exist in this unacknowledged void.

Not that Coco's fashion-focused personality is really that important. Truly, the best thing about all this is how contradictory Coco's own thoughts are. She also listens to her teammates... except when she doesn't. She know when to go with their ideas and when to dismiss them for her own... except when she gets it totally wrong. As with so much in RWBY, this doesn't feel like the author giving Coco deliberate flaws that the story will grapple with down the line, it just comes across as a nonsense philosophy about leadership we're not meant to examine too closely. Coco gets to make references to the fact that her own, supposedly superior leadership is filled with holes, but heaven forbid she engage with that. 

She ends all this with the thought that no matter what she might decide, she trusted her team to "do what she demanded of them” and is now extending that courtesy to Reese. This I'm inclined to praise Coco for. No matter what she might be thinking, it doesn't appear as if she's tried to undermine Reese (well, not yet. More on that at the chapter’s end), and she doesn’t appear to be refusing to listen to that leadership, even if she doesn't like how it comes about. As we're about to see, Coco has her team's best interests at heart, no matter the challenges they're facing.

Her thoughts turn back to her old team and we get... this.

Velvet was with a team that didn’t recognize her awesome capabilities. Fox was withdrawing, having lost his family for the second time. Yatsuhashi was going mad with worry about Velvet and his teammates, knowing that he couldn’t be there to protect them, and worrying he would accidentally hurt someone on his new team.

This is so unnecessarily dramatic. First, how does Coco even know any of this? Because it's been heavily implied that the old teams are barely in contact with one another. See: Velvet refusing to loop anyone in about the club and Coco stuck in the desert for a week. Second, why aren't they in contact, at least those who aren't on away missions? The entire group is acting as if changing teams means they're no longer allowed to be friends — family, as Coco puts it — when the relationship between Team RWBY and Team JNPR creates the opposite expectation right at the start of the series. Clearly, people from different teams can be close. Yatsu's worry that he might stumble using his semblance with new people is the only conflict that holds up here. Everything else has fairly straightforward solutions. Velvet needs to prove herself to new people. Yatsu needs to text Velvet if he's that worried about her. And Fox "having lost his family for a second time" is a pretty ridiculous exaggeration. You're attending the same school! Your family is still living down the hall if Vacuo has dorms like Beacon! In what world are these students unable to interact largely as they did before? They're acting as if the school has outright barred them from hanging out, rather than doing what will no doubt occur the moment they graduate: force them to work with different people. Just catch up with Fox over dinner! 

Honestly, this chapter is pretty short, I'm just continually bewildered by this story.

To get back to the actual plot, something trips a sensor the group has set up and Coco responds to the situation in what I think is both a smart and empathetic manner. Previous experience has taught her that it's likely just a lizard, so she doesn't want to wake up her team for no reason. Disagreements aside, she cares enough to let them rest — "They’d probably appreciate the extra sleep." However, if it's a "rare case of something she couldn’t handle alone" she'd immediately call for help. Great plan! It's not often in this novel that I feel like I enjoy the characters, but this little moment actually had me liking Coco. Which, yes, I realize is a complicated claim. Characters should test the reader to a certain degree, mirroring all the personalities we see in real life, including biased, mean, or contradictory people. It's often a good thing to write a character that your reader is frustrated with. That can be the point! The problem with Myers' writing is that it isn't the point. Coco, as the former leader of our heroes in this tale, should be someone we enjoy spending time with and her flaws should be the basis for growth, or an acknowledgement that she is an imperfect, but well-rounded person. As it stands, flaws in this novel just sort of... exist? They bop around in the RWBY universe with almost no acknowledgement from the narrative or other characters, leaving the reader with little to nothing to take away from the text. Is Coco correct in her judgement? Is this a bias she needs to work on? Is she putting on a facade and her natural instinct to care for her team is the real Coco hidden underneath? Who knows! She’s just frustrating to read about most of the time and nothing comes of that. 

Regardless, she heads out into the desert, using the night vision glasses Velvet made her. 

Now see, this would have been the perfect thing to introduce before Velvet was fixing relay towers after the expert was injured. Remember how I said the novel didn't do enough to establish Velvet's own expertise? Not that a pair of goggles is really comparable to fixing a communications issue, but it still would have gone some way towards convincing me that Velvet is this super impressive tech gal, capable of handling any and all situations that might come her way.

But no, we get this impressive display of skill after Velvet's knowledge was needed in a pinch. 

The glasses help Coco navigate the terrain, allowing her to both see in the dark and zoom in on things in the distance. This allows her to spot the six jackalopes that tripped the sensor, as well as the woman currently fighting them: Carmine, a villain from After the Fall that I know nothing about. Ah well. Note though what I said at the start, that Coco's dismissal of this assignment is based entirely in its supposed uselessness. Yet now here we have a pack of dangerous grimm and an enemy to content with.

Also, this is where Coco moves from kindly teammate to overconfident fool. She said she'd call for backup if she needed it... and she clearly needs it! From what I can gather, all of Team CFVY lost to Carmine last time they met up. But now she wants to risk fighting Carmine alone? Go get the others!

She doesn't, of course. Carmine doesn't notice Coco at first. She's talking about how she has to get back into the city. "He’s going to kill me if I’m not back to the Mirage in thirty."

As said, this also implies that Coco isn't nearly as far out as she initially suggested. If Carmine can feasibly finish this fight, cross the desert, navigate who knows how much of the city, and meet up with the mysterious "he" all in under half an hour, then Coco is patrolling pretty much right at the walls. AKA, the area that absolutely needs to be grimm free.

Luckily for those of us who are reading the books out of order, Myers gives a quick recap of Carmine's significance. Last book she had kidnapped Gus and "held off the combined might of Team CFVY in the desert” (oh hey, I was right), presumably escaping afterwards. Now here she is again, likely up to some new, nefarious deed. 

Our of curiosity, I googled to see what she looks like and... 

WHAT IS THAT OUTFIT? 

Coco watches as she works to keep on top of the six grimm, debating whether she should help or walk away, but when Carmine is taken unawares, Coco acts without thinking, throwing herself into the fray.

Sometimes decisions were like that—your body already knew what to do while your brain was still processing the situation. Only in this case, Coco’s body wasn’t necessarily the clearest judge of character. Her brain would have said that Carmine didn’t deserve her help.

Now see, this is a scene I can get behind. The entire RWBY-verse is based around a type of superheroism: people with unnatural abilities, fantasy weapons, and extensive training devote themselves to protecting the people from various threats. Yet too often RWBY fails to convince me that these people are actually heroic, taking the standard flaws of a character and unknowingly exacerbating them to the point where I think, "Is this meant to be a commentary on the anti-hero? Or a critical look at these fantasy formulas? Because we've got the elements of that here, but no indication that the authors realize they're writing something other than that standard story." But this? This works for me. Coco, as a huntress, is so conditioned to help others that her body responds instinctively to someone being in danger, regardless of who that someone is. She outright admits that if she'd had the chance to think about it she would have decided against helping Carmine. The fact that she recognizes this and move anyway says a lot of good about her. Well done, Coco!

We see later that Carmine probably didn't need the help, but between the two of them the grimm really don't stand a chance. What's interesting though is how chummy the two are while defending themselves. Coco comments on Carmine's tendency to talk to grimm (like she does) and Carmine freely offers information about her movements, the fact that she lost her other sword, and that her partner, Bertilak, needs to "recharge a little" before getting back in the game. Carmine asks Coco if she'd like to team up with her instead (she does not) and the two have a number of flirty exchanges to top things off:

“I’ve been dreaming of a rematch with you,” Coco said.

“You’ve been dreaming about me? I’m flattered.” Carmine winked.

***

“Hot date with the Crown?” Coco asked.

“Don’t be jealous, darling.”

I bring all this up not as a criticism of the buddy-enemy dynamic (it's a favorite of mine), but simply because of something that happens next. Before we get to that though, I admit that I am on the fence about the flirting. Given that I haven't read After the Fall (assuming this characterization exists there), I know that Coco is a lesbian mostly via RWBY cultural osmosis, rather than through the text. This is one of the few (the only?) times that I've gotten a hint at her sexuality, yet it's associated with predatory behavior. Carmine, her enemy, is the one who turns an angry dream into a flattering one, the hot date with the bad guy into something to be jealous of. I'm honestly struggling to remember what, if anything, Coco has had to say about women in this book — this is what comes of such slow recapping and I acknowledge that this is entirely my fault — but I'm nevertheless discomforted by knowing Coco's canonical status, knowing RWBY's struggles with queer rep, and then reading a scene where the most overt representation thus far is the bad guy twisting Coco's words into something sexual.

I'm no purist. Give me a good enemies-to-lovers fic any day of the week, but that doesn't mean that kind of dynamic is the best to pull from in a franchise already facing heavy criticism for its queer rep.

Especially since the moment the grimm are gone Carmine turns her sai on Coco.

This is the "something that happens next" that I referenced above. It's weird to have them attacking one another after a whole scene of pretty genuine companionship. Coco doesn't help Carmine as a consequence of defending herself, she willingly gets involved. They tease one another. Carmine appears to answer her questions honestly. There's both implied and overt references to how well they work as a team. Then, suddenly, Carmine is outright trying to kill Coco, not just with her sai but by burying her alive. It's not the sort of banter that Ruby and Roman used to engage in, trading fake compliments and, in Roman's case before his death, legitimate feelings while attacking one another. Nor is Coco prepared for an attack the moment the grimm are gone, and she's not surprised by it. It’s just this sudden change that feels rather jarring. 

Though it's far from the first time BTD has failed to convey the emotion of a scene. Here's another example rnow. As said, Carmine is attempting to bury Coco alive by moving the sand with her semblance. That's horrifying enough on its own, but remember that Coco is claustrophobic. Yet none of that panic shines through here. She comes across as indifferent throughout the attack, thinking back to summers when her brother tried to bury her while she sunbathed, amazed that she could ever consider this fun. You know who Coco sounds like in this scene?

At no point during this attack did I get the sense that Coco believes she’s in serious danger, let alone that she's struggling against a long-term phobia. The only time I even remembered that claustrophobia is meant to be a challenge for her is when she throws out the oh-so casual line, "One of her worst nightmares was being buried alive." Oh really? Because it doesn't seem like it! Coco is calm enough to remember that she used to be able to hold her breath for exactly three minutes and forty-two seconds. That doesn't feel like a character fighting against her worst nightmare.

So this scene isn't exactly compelling. Which is too bad because, as said, Coco as some other nice moments in this chapter.

However, during all this we do learn a little more about Carmine. Prior to getting trapped in the sand, Coco comments on how shockingly strong she is. "Carmine should have been at least a little bit worn down from fighting Grimm," but she's not, "She seemed nearly unstoppable now." Coco hits her full in the face, but she doesn't seem fazed. Earlier in the chapter there was that comment about how she previously took on Team CFVY alone and at the end of the battle Coco observes that Carmine "still seemed as fresh as she had at the beginning of the fight. How was she even doing that?" My basic reading comprehension skills tell me that this is setup for something, likely some change enacted by the Crown. Surely the text wouldn't put so much emphasis on Carmine's strength — have Coco questioning it to this extent, framing it as unnatural — unless we were going to get an answer, right?

But this is RWBY, so I'm not inclined to count my chickens before they hatch.

The rest of Coco's team arrives and it's then that she decides to pull the super dangerous stunt to free herself. Yeah, yeah, I get that she's suffocating and needs to do something now, can't wait to be dug out I suppose, but the timing is pretty ridiculous. The cavalry has arrived, yay! Time to blow myself up.

Seriously. She blows herself up. Using her own semblance, Coco focuses on one of her gravity dust bullets and detonates it, causing all the others in her arsenal to detonate too. It gets her out of the hole and "knocked her Aura down to a dangerously low level."

So... let’s see. Coco can literally detonate a bunch of explosives on her person, after suffocating under stand, after fighting Carmine, after fighting grimm, after a week long mission, and her aura doesn't break... but Yang's does from a single Neo slash?

Okay, RWBY.

Reese and Olive try to attack Carmine together, but end up eliminating one another's attacks. I like that a team actually has some realistic difficulties for once. Coco, however, is internally an asshole, calling them "idiots" and saying that they need to learn to coordinate their attacks. Thing is, she apparently hasn't done anything over the last week to help with that. She's been too busy complaining about Reese's clothes.

Carmine runs off as more grimm show up, drawn by Coco's non-existent panic. To her credit she does thank the others for saving her... but then immediately tries to downplay that. “It wasn’t a fair fight,” Coco spat when Reese (correctly) points out that she's the one who was ambushed. She also starts giving orders and when Reese (again, correctly!) goes to point out that she's the leader, Coco talks over her, saying they can't waste any more time out here because she has reason to believe that Shade has been compromised. She needs them only because she's out of bullets and low on aura, but they definitely need her because "let’s face it, I’m the best strategist around for miles."

Coco's a strategist?

And why does she sound like a villain trying to convince the heroes to work with her? She’s already part of the team!

Putting all that aside for the moment, we're back to this prideful characterization. I liked the well-rounded Coco from a few pages ago who balanced caring for her team with the likelihood of needing backup. Now she's flinching from the idea that she'd ever need help (hello, Sun characterization too) and snatching Reese's role the moment she's given the chance. So much for respecting her position. If the book wants me to believe that Reese is unfit to be leader and this is a golden opportunity for Coco to right a wrong... how about we actually show Reese being a bad leader?

Regardless, yay working together? The chapter ends with them presumably taking out the grimm before heading back to Shade, along with an important revelation. Prior to leaving, Carmine asked Coco why Yatsuhashi and Fox weren't rushing to her aid. It's only now that Coco realizes she didn't mention Velvet. Why? Perhaps because Carmine already knows where Velvet is, which obviously doesn't imply anything good.

And that's the end of Chapter Ten! Can you tell I never know how to finish these recaps? Describing cliffhangers doesn't have quite the same punch as, you know, actual cliffhangers. You all just have to suffer through my mediocre endings with me.

But would you look at that! Turns out the third attempt at writing this was the charm! :D

See you for Chapter Eleven! 💜

[hangonimevolving]

The Happiest Place on Earth, and New Year 2020 Adventures

Dear readers - I have a really convoluted update for you all today, but (I think) it has a happy ending!

First of all. HAPPY NEW YEAR 2020! Hope the new year brings us all peace, fulfillment, and most of all.... GOOD HEALTH.

The family and I kicked off the holiday season in a veritable flurry of activity. The kids celebrated their school holiday show with great fanfare...

And then I had a personal high, as I completed my second-ever Jingle Bell Jog 5K race successfully!

This was the first event of my race series and fundraiser for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. so I was extra happy at having ticked this item off my to-do list.

That same day, just hours after I crossed the finish line, Dr. Spouse, the kids and I packed up the car and headed north to the Orlando area, for a 6 day vacation. The week was planned to include a four-day stint visiting the parks at Walt Disney World along with my parents, who would be flying directly from New Orleans to join us.

We had a blast on this trip! After a few rough months, it was so much fun to make new memories with Ajima and Thatha, especially since taking the grandkids to Disney has long been an item on Thatha’s bucket list. We were delighted to help him work on this one!

The trip was *almost* perfect. Almost. There was just one hiccup.... and fortunately/unfortunately, it mainly involved me.

I woke up on the final day of our Disney parks adventures - Thursday, December 26 - ready to tackle Epcot, which is my favorite of the four parks. But the minute my eyes popped open, I just knew something wasn’t 100% right with me. I felt like I’d been hit by a BUS. I had horrible body ache all over, my head was pounding, and my chest felt heavy, as if someone had poured a gallon of wallpaper paste into my lungs. I groaned to myself, knowing what this meant - I was probably coming down with a cold - but I still forced myself up and to get ready, since it was our last day of the trip and there was no way I was missing it!

By the time we loaded into the car and headed out, the leaky faucet nose had started.  I definitely sneezed a LOTTTTTTT through the entire day - huge, rib-cracking sneezes, that had my entire rib cage and back hurting well before lunchtime and through the evening. But I pressed forward, tried not to make a big deal. As I had been throughout the trip, I was even more militant in insisting the family use hand sanitizer and antibacterial hand wipes all day long than I already had been (which was a lot). But yeah, it was a very long and difficult day.

I put myself to bed in isolation that night - I didn’t want anyone else catching my germs!  The good side of my isolation is, I didn’t disturb anyone else’s sleep that night, and I managed to abstain from infecting anyone. One down side is, I suppose it meant that no one in the house saw how sick I actually was, and by the transitive property, perhaps even I didn't register how sick I was. That night, I ran a very high fever, yet was having teeth-chattering chills for hours. I couldn’t breathe through my nose, and coughed nonstop. I got awful, fitful sleep, with weird, violent, vivid dreams all night.

The next day, I started suspecting that maybe I didn’t just have a cold - maybe it was the flu?  We tried to locate an urgent care clinic where I could get a rapid flu test, but it proved hard to find anywhere with a <6 hour wait, and I was absolutely determined not to get anyone else sick (least of all my post-CABG father or my two young kids).  So I insisted Dr. Spouse just call in a Tamiflu prescription for the entire household - it would be therapeutic for me, and prophylactic for all of them. He dutifully obliged, and we were all on Tamiflu by 2:30 pm Friday. We said goodbye to my parents this evening - they flew out of Orlando directly to New Orleans - and Dr. Spouse, the kids and I would drive back to Miami the next day.

That night’s sleep was worse than the previous, and featured the worst fever sweats I’ve ever had in my life, soaking through all my clothes, all the bedsheets, down to the mattress cover. It seriously looked like someone had dumped the Gatorade bucket on me after winning the Super Bowl. And again, I had violent, bloody dreams of war imagery all night....

The next day was every bit as painful as the last, and perhaps more so - my entire head and chest were clogged with sludge, the body ache was debilitating, and worst was that I felt like I couldn’t really think straight or make good decisions.  In a nutshell, we weren’t packed up at all, and I woke up from fitful sleep about 9:30 that day and to my horror realized we had to check out of the rental cottage by 11 - - I was trying to run around and pack, but my body and brain were literally not working properly together.  It was brutal - and we were definitely an hour late vacating the property.  I ended up falling asleep within minutes as we started our drive home, and slept 3.5 hours of the 4 hour drive, which SHOCKED me and Dr. Spouse - I never sleep on road trips!  Should have known this was a bad sign that something was really wrong.

Sunday and Monday, things started looking up. I still had terrible sinus congestion, but the cough and fevers were improving, and my energy level was slowly returning! Hurray! Time to get back to normal..... except, weirdly, some new weird symptoms popped up. I was blowing my nose a LOT, admittedly - but I developed a nosebleed sometime early Monday morning, and it just... didn’t stop. For well over 24 hours. Then I noticed a few weird red spots on my face and neck - I assumed maybe I’d scratched in my sleep when I was sweaty at night? But by Tuesday, there were more red spots in more places. Everywhere. On my back, stomach, chest, arms, legs, feet... my sinus symptoms were better, but these spots were weird.  It hit a head on Tuesday morning when Dr. Spouse and I sat down to breakfast. I definitely had more spots than I’d had an hour before. I poured myself a bowl of cereal and began to eat, but then I noticed my mouth felt funny. I realized, to my horror (sorry, TMI) - I had big spots in my mouth too, and they looked like these blood-filled blisters all over the insides of my cheeks and the back of my throat. They looked like dark purple jellybeans, stuck everywhere on my oral mucosa - and some of them were doubling and tripling in size before my very eyes. One burst, right there at the table, and suddenly a trickle of blood oozed our the corner of my mouth. Dracula Mommy, yikes - Dey was at once amazed and horrified. And all the while, my nose was still bleeding.

Dr. Spouse looked grave and got panicky. He had three patients to see in clinic, but he wanted me to get medical attention ASAP.  I initially felt like maybe this was a bit of an overreaction, I didn’t think it warranted an ER trip, and I was feeling rather sheepish to bother a lot of people, and bewildered at the childcare logistics - especially considering it was New Year’s Eve.  Besides, my sinus congestion and energy level were feeling better - so how sick could I really be?  

Well, turns out I was wrong. It turns out there was actually something seriously wrong with me.

Blood tests revealed I had developed a very serious condition called thrombocytopenia. This is a condition where a person’s blood platelets levels drop dangerously low, making it difficult or impossible for them to clot. It makes any sort of wound or injury or weakness in any vessel or the body a potential site for deadly hemhorrage. In my case, it happened to be very severe. The normal lab ranges for blood platelets are between 150,000-400,000. At my ER admission, my labs came in at 1,000, with a little downward arrow next to them! It was a dire situation - basically, I could have hemhorraged from anywhere, from my head to my toes, from my brain to my entire GI tract.  I could have died.

Very quickly after the issue was diagnosed, I was administered a transfusion of IV steroids, followed by two units of donor platelets.

After the platelets, I had to receive something called IVIG, or IV immunoglobulins. I believe these are to boost my immune system and help it stop accidentally nuking itself in the course of fighting the flu virus, or whatever pathogen started me down this insane road. The IVIG infusion, as it would turn out, would take like HOURS - maybe 8 hours total - and it was determined that I’d have to be admitted to the hospital (to the ICU, no less!) for a whopping FOUR DAYS, to receive further IVIG treatments until my platelet levels came back to an acceptable range. I was FLOORED and overwhelmed at this news, of course - again is really thought perhaps Dr. Spouse was being overly cautious initially. But I soon realized the gravity of the situation and promised to comply with all the healthcare professionals’ advice.

Although I cringed to do it, knowing a) what they’ve gone through recently, and b) the fact that we’d JUST spent the week with them in Orlando and sent them peacefully home, I found myself with no choice but to phone Ajima and Thatha from the ER and explain what was going on. True to form, they mobilized within minutes, and had plane tickets booked in no time. They arrived right around midnight on New Years Eve to relieve our wonderful friend/former Nanny S, who graciously pinch-hit and babysat the kids at home so Dr. Spouse could come be with me. I’d been in the ER from about 1 pm till maybe 5:30 or 6 pm, and eventually been transferred to an intermediary ICU room, where I’d spend the next 4 days.

Do you see my purple spots??  Hard to visualize in these pics, but they’re there.

I spent the next 4 days mostly in bed - I wasn’t permitted to walk around unattended, use the bathroom on my own, shower without supervision, etc. because even though I felt fine and am ordinarily physically able, I was considered a bleed risk if I accidentally stumbled or took a fall.  So in bed I stayed.  And for about 10-12 hours each day, I received IV infusions through both arms of steroids and IVIG.  It was a surreal experience, but also an incredibly fortuitous one, in that I didn’t really feel all that sick!  Dr. Spouse would come visit me for a few hours each afternoon through the nights, and my parents would bring the kids for about an hour each evening.  I had a wonderful crew of nurses who looked after me, talked with me, made sure I was comfortable and well-fed.  And my medical team was also very good, especially my hematologist, who was careful, methodical, and very even-keel about everything, explaining what had likely happened to me, what the next steps were, and what I should look out for in the future. 

I have A LOT more to say about this experience, especially all that has now happened afterwards, and all the follow-up care I must now receive.  It is going to be a journey for awhile longer.  But for now, a few thoughts in closing out this post....

It’s weird. Obviously, I wish NONE of this had happened - but I also felt so incredibly lucky.  Because: 

1). I’m so glad my post-heart surgery dad, senior citizen mom, and young kids didn’t get this virus, and that it was only me.  I’m also glad Dr. Spouse, our primary breadwinner, care provider for hundreds of people, and our beloved daddice of our family didn’t get it.  

2). If this absolutely had to happen to me, I consider myself lucky that in recent years, I’ve put my fitness first, and especially these last few weeks, I’ve been training for a race series, which means I’ve been eating right, training rigorously, attending to my cardiovascular health as well as my lean muscle composition, taking lots of multivitamins, and even pursuing yoga for restorative, rehabilitative, and emotional/mental health.  Basically, I was AS HEALTHY as I could have been going into this, and I think that saved my life.  I didn’t have a fatal vascular weakness that gave way to hemorrhage, because I’ve had the blessing of the opportunity to take good care of myself.

3). I have an ANGEL on my side.  My uncle Marley was definitely looking out for me.  Aside from being a huge source of love and support - it so happens that Marley suffered for many years from a platelet disorder which was constantly being managed.  He was of course the first person who came to mind when I got diagnosed with this issue - - and I swear he was looking out for me. I even have evidence to that effect.  Will share in a followup post.

4). Last but not least - - this one is overwhelming and wonderful.  

I met my husband when we were about 18 years old.  I had no idea at the time what the future held for us - but this person has evolved into many things, including a WONDERFUL, sensitive, intelligent, and proactive physician. He is REALLY, REALLY good at what he does for a living - and I think that’s because he would do it even if he didn't make a living doing it.  He LOVES his particular field of medicine.  And it so happens that he is a stroke neurologist, who sees patients with brain bleeds and emergency events related to bleeding/clotting every single day.  So it was my incredible fortune that the man I’m married to, saw what was happening with me, wasted ZERO time, and insisted I get care. 

My husband saved my life.  He is my hero.

Alright.  I think I’ll end this one here.  In upcoming posts, I’ll be discussing several things, including:

- the aftermath of my great Flu Adventure - the types of follow-up care and remaining question marks about my health (and hopefully I’ll be getting some reassuring data to share here!)

- an update about my Race Series!  Obviously (and heartbreakingly) I’m going to have to rejigger some things here.  I am working on my emotions with this.  But I’ll share it all with you.

In conclusion - -  I want to wish you all a happy new year.  May it be a year of good health and fortune for everyone!  Big hugs and big love  :)

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Dollhouse: Thoughts

by Rami

Monday, 16 February 2009

Almost completely by accident, Rami happened to catch the season premiere of Joss Whedon's latest oeuvre.~

I'll be one of the first to admit that I don't exactly fit into the typical audience focus-group that American TV networks base their decisions around. Having seen (and, to be fair, adored) Firefly but not seen much of any of his other work (most notably Buffy or Dr Horrible), I am not enough of a Whedon fanboy to have seen all the buzz about it. Although since the buzz has been piling up for a good few months if not well over a year, I did notice one or two hints in the blogs I read.

So, with my laptop open in front of me I was engaged in what appears to be the traditional American pastime of not paying huge amounts of attention to the television when I noticed

Eliza Dushku

sprawled across the screen. Needless to say, that got my attention enough to notice that the much-talked-about season premiere of

Dollhouse

was coming up. For those of you who aren't completely up-to-date with Whedon's work, Dollhouse is about a secret facility housing a number of "Dolls", people whose personalities have been wiped out so that they can be imprinted with fresh ones to handle the missions that the Dollhouse hires them out to do – these missions, then, can be pretty much anything from seduction to assassination, and I have no doubt they will be the ostensible focus of each weekly episode. The ongoing story follows one Doll in particular, Dushku's character Echo (one of her fellow Dolls is called Sierra; clearly they have disposable

alphabetical identifiers

to go with the disposable people), who begins to become self-aware.

I won't spoil the actual plot of the pilot or sketch out more of the characters for you, although

Wikipedia is happy to do so

. What I will say is that the premise is handled very well, with lots of out-and-out cool technology (mixing and matching personality traits to construct the perfect composite for a mission; recording memories onto disk for later playback; making someone appear nearsighted by altering her brain's perception of her optical signals) and suitable amounts of on-mission action and adventure. There's also the rather more interesting matter of Echo herself, who seems to be breaking out of the personality wipe (Dushku plays this pretty well, being fairly convincing in each of her mission-specific roles and her reactions to her personal flashbacks), and a couple of hints as to who she was before becoming a Doll; some continuity and quite a few options for sub-plots in the Dollhouse staff (including doctor, geeky tech-guy, mission handler, etc); and for those who are into it, high-level political machinations involving the Dollhouse's CEO and the corporate world in which she moves.

There's a tantalizing possibility, in other words, that there might be something for nearly everyone in there. Online reactions have been mixed, some

liking it

and some

doubtful

. I think it's too early to tell, but seeing as the writing and direction will include

Whedon himself

and

Tim Minear

, both of whom I have seen do amazing work on Firefly, I'm cautiously optimistic.Themes:

TV & Movies

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

,

Whedonverse

~

bookmark this with - facebook - delicious - digg - stumbleupon - reddit

~Comments (

go to latest

)

Nathalie H

at 23:44 on 2009-02-16To be fair, I haven't seen it. But I have seen this summary:

"The most interesting point that Whedon made about his new show, Dollhouse, was the unlimited possibilities associated with characters that quite literally have their mind wiped when their job is done.

These for-hire bombshells show up with a blank slate, perform the task they are hired to do - which can vary from being the perfect date, cracking safes or fulfilling the sexual fantasies of whomever they’ve been hired to please."

And I don't know about you, but that creeps me out quite substantially. Joss Whedon has this very interesting image of himself where he thinks he's immune to gender issues because 'hey look female protagonist', and I have a horrible feeling he's getting into territories related to prostitution and sexual abuse that he simply can't handle without screwing up appallingly.

Who knows, I may have to watch this and have a rant going the other way. ;)

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Gina Dhawa

at 00:09 on 2009-02-17The most often used word I've seen to describe Dollhouse is "skeevy", which, to be honest, sums it up best for me. I most likely will give it a chance to redeem itself - I do like some of the characters enough to give them another episode or two - but in general, it makes me uneasy.

I was unimpressed at the use of child abuse as a plot device - you can see where it's going, but there are ways to use that story sensitively and I don't believe it's done well here. I'm also not too happy with the heavyhandedness of the Dolls = Female Prostitution = Look at Eliza Dushku's body! situation. To create the Dollhouse as an exploration of human trafficking is fine - but to create it only with sexy women controlled by (mostly) men? That pings a little too high as titillation rather than any kind of social commentary.

I am pretty sure the premise can be done right. I'm just not entirely sure - and agree with Nathalie on this point - that Whedon is going to be able to this time. Which I say as a Whedon fan.

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Viorica

at 04:30 on 2009-02-17I watched the premiere, and was slightly disappointed, mostly because I went in with sky-high expectations. While I am a bit skeeved by the premise, I am giving Joss some credit- he's made a career out of subverting expectations, so I think/hope that's what he's planning on here. The one thing I was unimpressed by was the use of child abuse as a plot point. It's cheap, it's gratuitous, and it's demeaning to everyone involved. Still, I'm hanging on to see where it goes.

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Arthur B

at 09:42 on 2009-02-17I'd be interested to see what people think about this by the end of the season, because it strikes me as the sort of thing that is very, very difficult to judge solely on the basis of the first episode, especially since there's so many ways it can go wrong. The much-vaunted feminist allegory might become oppressively heavy-handed (or indeed might just fail and end up being a skeevy old man-fantasy), Echo's emergent personality might prove to be intensely irritating. the big reveals might fizzle horribly...

It strikes me that the free will plotline is going to need to be handled very carefully by Whedon; if he intends to have the show finish once Echo becomes fully free and recaptures her past, then he's going to be pressured to stretch the thing out horribly to fill out more seasons (if

Dollhouse

is successful, that is). If he intends to keep going at that point, he's either going to have to completely rethink the premise of the show or present the ludicrous situation of a self-aware and free-willed Echo who hangs around the Dollhouse and does missions for them anyway.

I mean, it might all turn out fine; Buffy didn't turn sour for five or six seasons, after all. But then again, Buffy also struggled to adapt the premise to the characters' continued development ("oh shit, they grew up, we can't set it in a school any more"), and was often too heavy-handed with the social commentary (

THE GODDAMN MAGIC-IS-CRACK PLOTLINE

), Since

Dollhouse

's success seems to hinge on adapting the premise to Echo's continued awakening, and walking the fine line between not being too heavy-handed with the social commentary on one hand and being flippant about serious issues on the other, I have to say I see trouble brewing.

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Wardog

at 10:37 on 2009-02-17I have to admit I have on-going issues with Whedon's presentation of women / his self-proclaimed feminism.

There's an insanely hysterical

LJ post

about Firefly which kind of dashes to the opposite end of the spectrum.

But there must be some middle ground between declaring him a feminist messiah and a de facto rapist...

Sorry, the reason I have gone off on this massive tangent is because some of the sex / power / titillation aspects of Dollhouse's premise concern me.... but, hey, I haven't seen it so who am I to bitch/

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Arthur B

at 10:49 on 2009-02-17From that LJ post...

I have become increasingly interested in examining Joss Whedon’s work from a feminist perspective since I had a conversation with another lesbian feminist sister at the International Feminist Summit about whether Joss was a feminist.

Are we sure this person is serious? It almost looks like a parody, between the psychotic misandry and "lesbian feminist sister" and the repetition.

Seriously, it scans like "I live to play punk rock and will never do anything else. Punk rock is my life and without it I would rather die. It is the greatest feeling in the world to perform punk rock in a packed club full of punk rock fans." GET A THESAURUS, _ALLECTO_.

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Wardog

at 10:53 on 2009-02-17I'm afraid ... I think it's dead serious.

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Wardog

at 11:17 on 2009-02-17Actually, having posted rampant insanity here - I think I ought to also post to some sensible discussions of Inara. These are old but I remember they articulated some of my concerns nicely (and do not once claim Whedon is a rapist, oddly enough) -

this

is a good one.

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Dan H

at 15:37 on 2009-02-17

To create the Dollhouse as an exploration of human trafficking is fine - but to create it only with sexy women controlled by (mostly) men? That pings a little too high as titillation rather than any kind of social commentary.

This sort of thing is exactly why I'm officially Off Joss Whedon. He just can't shut the fuck up about his feminist credentials while at the same time writing TV series which involve hot young girls posing in short skits.

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Wardog

at 16:28 on 2009-02-17I would like to control Eliza Dushku but I don't think this is especially feminist of me...

*dreams*

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Rami

at 17:23 on 2009-02-17I'm afraid ... I think it's dead serious.

Oh god.

writing TV series which involve hot young girls posing in short skits.

According to the Internets there was meant to be a

hot young boy posing in tight trousers

, too, but he was moved around to fit a stereotype better and is now with the Russian mob...

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Viorica

at 18:03 on 2009-02-17The thing is, I'm not entirely sure how much of the skimpy-skirtedness is Joss's idea, and how much is the network's. I know that TV shows tend to be heavily edited by network execs, and it could be that they were worried about the mass appeal of the series itself, and had Whedon throw in some girls in skimpy clothing to attract the drooling fanboy crowd.

One thing I am concerned about is what Arthur mentioned- the series' lasting potential. They can't drag Echo's awakening out too long without it getting stupid, and without that, there's only so much material they have to work with.

(The LJ post is, to my knowledge, dead serious.)

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Nathalie H

at 19:15 on 2009-02-17@Kyra - I was planning on pointing to some discussions of feminism in Firefly, but that extreme one was the only one I could remember! Which I think does go too far the other way too.

@Dan - exactly.

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Nathalie H

at 19:23 on 2009-02-17An example of just one reason I find him annoying, from that Firefly discussion Kyra linked:

"My only contribution to this discussion is that Whedon appears somewhat defensive about Inara's reception among fans. He says his wife is the one who suggested the character and therefore he doesn't understand why women, especially, seem affronted by her."

OH, SHUT UP.

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Wardog

at 21:46 on 2009-02-17Dan and I used to have (well, still have really) this joke called Joss Whedon: Minority Warrior. We can't draw but that's the only thing that's stopping us making a detailed cartoon of the scenario. Basically it would consist of lots of women crying out for aid: "Help help! We are being oppressed". And then heroic Joss Whedon: Minority Warrior would swoop in with cape flying and liberate them.

Mind you, it's easy to whinge but I did love Firefly so very very much, despite Inara.

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Arthur B

at 23:02 on 2009-02-17@Viorica:

I know that TV shows tend to be heavily edited by network execs, and it could be that they were worried about the mass appeal of the series itself, and had Whedon throw in some girls in skimpy clothing to attract the drooling fanboy crowd.

This is definitely a factor, although it's insanely difficult from the outside to judge how much it is. It's worth bearing in mind that Joss Whedon is one of the few writer/directors working in TV whose name is itself a draw; Dollhouse is, after all, heavily hyped on the basis that it's The New Joss Whedon Show (and I do wonder whether we'd be giving it as much attention if it wasn't Whedon). While it's true that Whedon can't use the force of his name to just steamroller the network execs, he is still applying his name to it; he's not quitting or making this an Alan Smithee project. Even if he didn't make all the decisions about the content, even if he might have private objections to some of the content, he's still standing by it. And in my book that still makes him partially responsible for it.

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Dan H

at 23:16 on 2009-02-17

The thing is, I'm not entirely sure how much of the skimpy-skirtedness is Joss's idea, and how much is the network's.

I think it's easy to point the fingers at networks about these sorts of things, but when you get right down to it, I don't think Joss Whedon ever walked into a studio execs office and said "Okay, I've got this idea for a show, and I think it's really important that the main character actually be kind of plain looking and dress sensibly."

Whedon's actually pretty good at fighting for what he wants (he got a married couple into Firefly). If he really wanted to have a protagonist who wasn't a hot kung fu chick, he could probably make it happen.

The thing that bugs me about Joss Whedon is that he shouts so much about his feminism, all the while being

very slightly sexist

.

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http://roisindubh211.livejournal.com/

at 03:19 on 2009-02-18That livejournal post is SCARY.

I could never figure out what I thought about the whole Inara thing- I thought it was neat that she clearly liked Mal but wasn't willing to give up her career for him (DIDN'T see Serenity, so I don't know what happens there) but the combination of her character and the beautiful actress that played her sort of makes my brain go "guh pretty" and stop working.

Dollhouse...the idea creeps me out, even without having seen it. I just expected it to be along the lines of "real dolls" that move and talk, so I didn't want to, and now I'm kind of glad that I didn't.

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Viorica

at 06:08 on 2009-02-18I

posted

my thoughts on the whole sexism debate on my LJ. The problem with debating it is, it always ends up with people flinging accusations of sexism and extremist feminism respectively, and nothing actually gets discussed.

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Wardog

at 09:32 on 2009-02-18but the combination of her character and the beautiful actress that played her sort of makes my brain go "guh pretty" and stop working.

Yeah, I get that all the time. The other thing, which I suppose, we have to bear in mind is that "whore with a heart of gold" is a Western trope, updated to fit a sci-fi premise. I suppose the problem is that you can't have it both ways. You can't say "well, this is a typical character that occurs in the genre so we're going to use" AND say "well this is a typical that occurs in the genre so we're going to use and, by the way, it's *empowering to women* as well".

I was very interested by your LJ post, Viorica. I'm not sure whether to respond to it here or over at LJ. I feel a little bit bad since we've all jumped into Rami's article and starte weighing in, despite the fact nobody in England has seen the damn thing yet =P From your LJ, then, I think this raises a point:

They're saying that the idea of the Dollhouse makes them uncomfortable because it represents the ideal of a woman being utterly passive and fulfilling any (presumably male) fantasy.

You've said a couple of times that it could be argued that the premise of Dollhouse is supposed to be skeevy ... but skeevy is ultimately still is skeevy, which I suppose is the flaw in that kind of defence. I think we kind of have to wonder who Dollhouse is *for*, really - with Echo's growing awareness she may evolve into a character we can identify with / want to be / admire ... but at the moment she's very much a character we *look at*. Mulvey would have a field day with this one, I reckon. I never saw a gaze so male =P

The other thing is that it does remind me a little of Victorian redemption narratives (stick with me on this one) - I mean it's *okay* if she's totally a passive fantasy figure onto which to project male sexual desire *at the moment* because *she will be liberated later*.

Also

this trailer

is quite illuminating as far as target audience is concerned - I know it's self-consciously pulpy but STILL!

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Shim

at 22:31 on 2009-02-18

For those of you who aren't completely up-to-date with Whedon's work, Dollhouse is about a secret facility housing a number of "Dolls", people whose personalities have been wiped out so that they can be imprinted with fresh ones to handle the missions that the Dollhouse hires them out to do – these missions, then, can be pretty much anything from seduction to assassination, and I have no doubt they will be the ostensible focus of each weekly episode.

Okay, I have no TV (shock!) and haven't seen any of this. Actually, the bit I find most striking/interesting is not the sexism debate (I'd need to have watched it), but the premise itself. Because if I were setting up a (secret?) "guild" that took on all these kinds of missions, it seems to me incredibly unlikely that the "operatives" would be dreamy women in skimpy outfits. Okay, the seduction part I'll allow. But even allowing for some kind of brain transfers, it seems far more likely you'd have a completely different lot of (probably not all attractive young female) people for assassinations, espionage and whatever, because of the physical/mental demands of each job.

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Rami

at 05:55 on 2009-02-19@Shimmin: Don't worry, I think the Ferretbrain style is rather more to curl up with a book than in front of the TV ;-) In any case, I'm not sure it's actually showing in the UK (or rather, on any free channel; it's probably available on Sky) at this point, so it's probably just those of us across the pond who have seen it so far...

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Nathalie H

at 21:57 on 2009-02-19@Kyra: Joss Whedon: Minority Warrior is an excellent name for your Joss Whedon joke! Mine is Joss Whedon Understands, followed by it's sequel Russell T Davies: He's Gay, So He Understands Too.

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Dan H

at 19:18 on 2009-02-23

I posted my thoughts on the whole sexism debate on my LJ. The problem with debating it is, it always ends up with people flinging accusations of sexism and extremist feminism respectively, and nothing actually gets discussed.

I've just read your post, and I think you basically sum up the core arguments very well. It's the women-as-victims thing that bugs me, particularly I think because it's exactly the sort of trap that Man!Feminists can easily fall into. You get so busy saying "look how awful it is that society treats women this way!" that you forget to actually show any women who don't get treated this way, which winds up reinforcing the stereotype that women are just supposed to get treated badly because that's how things work.

Ironically (contrary to what one of the posters on your site suggests) I actually think having Eliza confront her abuser and win makes things worse, not better. "You can't hurt me any more" sounds empowering until you realize that what it really means is "you have been hurting me constantly and, until this moment, there has been nothing I can do about it."

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Viorica

at 21:01 on 2009-02-23I have to disagree on the meaning of "You can't hurt me any more" She's not nescessarily saying that he's been hurting her up to this point, but rather that she's not nearly as vulnerable as she was the last time she encountered him, and he isn't able to hurt her now. Small difference in meaning, big difference in interpretation.

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Dan H

at 22:21 on 2009-02-23I'll bow to the interpretation of somebody who's actually seen the episode, but isn't part of the setup that the person whose memories Eliza is using actually ... y'know ... killed herself?

The thing that I find so shonky about the whole abuse-empowerment deal is that whether she finally defeats her abuser or not, her entire character is still defined by that experience. It's problematic because it winds up being a manifestation of the whole "virtue of oppression" fallacy. You wind up with a situation where the noblest thing a female character can aspire to is to deal courageously with abuse.

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Viorica

at 04:50 on 2009-02-24Oh, I don't dispute the abuse = empowerment message- it's something that always irritates me, especially since it seems to be a way of saying "Hey guys, see this strong, empowered woman? She used to be in the ultimate helpless position! She isn't threatening anymore!" but I do think the specific line is open to interpretation.

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Wardog

at 09:16 on 2009-02-24I do think the specific line is open to interpretation

I agree.

Because if I were setting up a (secret?) "guild" that took on all these kinds of missions, it seems to me incredibly unlikely that the "operatives" would be dreamy women in skimpy outfits.

Actually this is vaguely addressed in the pilot because the person for whom Eliza Dushku is meant to negotiating hostage release for wastes a lot of valuable negotiating / thinking time by not letting her do her job, and basically following her around going "wait, you are far too young and hot to be a shit-hot hostage negotiator".

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Arthur B

at 09:44 on 2009-02-24Surely this makes the objection even more valid, not less? It's clearly a flaw in your mind-controlled duplicate operation if your mind-controlled duplicates don't even slightly look like the real deal, to the point where people are openly questioning exactly how 50 years of experience got into 29 years of Eliza Dushku.

If people aren't buying your cover story when it's imprinted in your very mind, then you're doing espionage wrong.

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Wardog

at 09:57 on 2009-02-24If people aren't buying your cover story when it's imprinted in your very mind, then you're doing espionage wrong

Like this?

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Dan H

at 14:32 on 2009-02-24

it seems to be a way of saying "Hey guys, see this strong, empowered woman? She used to be in the ultimate helpless position! She isn't threatening anymore!"

I'm, afraid it's even worse than that. It's a way of seeing "see this woman who you were

totally getting off

on imagining totally helpless, well she's

also

strong and empowered, which means wanting to have sex with her makes you

a really good guy

[foursprouthappiness-blog]

How Your Daily Routine Can Turn Into Your Biggest Enemy

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/how-your-daily-routine-can-turn-into-your-biggest-enemy/

How Your Daily Routine Can Turn Into Your Biggest Enemy

Ryan Holiday Instagram

Routine and ritual are everything, including, if you’re not careful, a dangerous weakness.

A few weeks ago, I got a letter—yes, an actual letter—from an NCAA player who will probably go pro. His question was a simple one: Like many basketball players he was big on pregame rituals and routines, but he was worried that these patterns made him vulnerable to being disrupted. What if the team plane was late and he had to rush his usual warmup? What if his headphones were dead or he forgot to pack his gameday socks?

Would his competitive edge—the comfort and confidence he took from these practices—suddenly turn into a liability?

This is a perfectly reasonable concern. Because while rituals can be a source of strength to an athlete or a writer, they can also be a form of fragility. Take Russell Westbrook, who is famous for his pregame routine, which begins three hours before a game. It starts with him warming up exactly three hours before tipoff. Then one hour before the game, Westbrook visits the arena chapel. Then he eats the same peanut butter and jelly sandwich (buttered wheat bread, toasted, strawberry jelly, Skippy peanut butter, cut diagonally). At exactly 6 minutes and 17 seconds before the game starts, he begins the team’s final warm up drill. He has a particular pair of shoes for games, for practice, for road games. Since high school, he’s done the same thing after shooting a free throw, walking backwards past the three point line and then walking back to take the next shot. At the practice facility, he has a specific parking space, and he likes to shoot on Practice Court 3. He calls his parents at the same time every day. And on and on.

The point is, while this process is likely very calming and reassuring in an entirely chaotic and emotional game, it also reads like a recipe for how one might throw someone off their game. A teammate vying for Westbrook’s playing time, a competitor who will stop at nothing, or just Murphy’s Law could all wreak havoc on that system and get inside his head. All it takes is “accidentally” parking in the wrong spot, or the right insult right before a free throw to send the whole thing sideways. And what if the trainer is sick and can’t make the sandwich? Or what if the arena chapel is closed due to a leaky ceiling?

Any routine junkie can tell you what happens when your routine gets messed up: Your thoughts race. You get frustrated. You feel what is almost like withdrawals. I can’t do this. This isn’t right. Something bad is going to happen. You doubt yourself. Then all of a sudden you aren’t getting warmed up or falling into the zone as easily as you usually do.

This problem is compounded the more successful you get or the more you specialize in a certain feild, because you get used to and feel entitled to have things your way. People enable this dependence because they want you to be your best, which makes it all the more frustrating and surprising if the script is suddenly deviated from.

I came face to face with this reality with the birth of my son in 2016. A few months before he was born I was profiled for the New York Times, and as part of the article, the reporter had me walk her through my fairly extensive set of morning and daily routines (what time I got up, how I journaled, where I sat, what my workout was, etc). She remarked that it would be interesting to see how this would all hold up with a newborn. Confidently, I told her nothing would change.

Ugh.

But of course she was right—because kids are, if anything—wrecking balls for the carefully built order of our lives.

The first couple months of his life, I struggled. It actually wasn’t the lack of sleep that was the problem. It was the unpredictability of that lack of sleep. Some mornings I was up at 5am. Some at 10am. Sometimes there was a baby I was supposed to quietly take care of while my wife slept, other times we were all up, other times it was just me while they slept. Was he napping at 2pm or not at all? Did I need to get home early for his dinner and bath or was the whole schedule blown apart by something that happened earlier in the day?

All of a sudden quiet time every morning, not checking email, going for a long run or swim in the afternoon, writing from 8-12am every day—this was not possible. At least not possible to do in the same way in the same order each day.

I experienced something similar years before when my career took off. I was used to working at home and then suddenly I was on the road a lot. Lot of flights. Living out of suitcases. Meetings and events that I had to go to. But early on I could compensate for this by spacing the trips out, setting up camp in each city for a few days and approximating some version of my normal routine there. As the trips increased and I got older, this became less tenable (even more so after accumulating a wife and a kid), and my reliance on my capital-R Routine became a weakness. A couple days on the road would completely set me back. It would also make me frustrated—even though I had chosen to say yes to these opportunities.

In both cases, my cherished routines either crumbled or were blown apart. But I still had to do my job (writing) and if anything, the stakes were higher than before. Which meant I’ve spent a lot of time thinking routine ever since.

What I’ve come up with might not seem that profound but the impact has been enormous for me: It’s not about having a routine. It’s about having routines.

I no longer have a writing routine or a morning routine. I have several. I have a routine when I get up early on the farm (We go for a walk, then I write until breakfast, and then resume writing). I have a routine for when I am on the road (run or exercise early, slot writing/work in as the top priority between whatever the scheduled events for the day are). I don’t have one shirt I wear each time I give a talk, I have a set of 3-4 that I choose from. Depending on what city I am in and what time of year, I have different mornings and plans that I’ll do. When I fly, I either read, answer old emails from starred folder, or sleep. I don’t eat before I perform, but if I do, I eat the same thing. If I get interrupted and can’t journal the way I want for a morning or two, so be it—but I’ll make sure I quickly resume my old habit. And on and on.

Depending on circumstances, I have strategic flexibility. I’m not winging it, but I am not such a creature of habit that I am flustered when disrupted (or can I really even be disrupted since I am indifferent to Plan A, B, C, D, E). Think about musical scales—the notes themselves are fixed but they can be played in a limitless amount of combination. This allows the musician to improvise while still maintaining a base they can return to and derive confidence and comfort in. That’s how you want to be with your routine. Not so rigid that you can’t respond to the moment, not so free that you can do everything in the moment.

There is a line from the Super Bowl-winning coach Bill Walsh about how most individuals are like water, they naturally seek out lower ground. By that he meant that without discipline or order, we are not our best selves. Ultimately, this is what routine is about: creating practices and habits and rules that force us to be better.

Without a routine of any kind, Resistance is given too much room to operate. Doubt, chaos, laziness—if you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. Routines are essential in that battle.

In creative or athletic or entrepreneurial fields, the uncertainty and stress of the endeavor makes us crave simplicity and dependability. When Russell Westbrook was asked the reasons behind his many specific, very detailed practices, he replied, “No particular reason. I just do it.” Actually there is a reason. The reason is reassurance. As a player, Westbrook is emotional, chaotic, intense. The game he plays is random, difficult and overwhelming. Doing the same things the same way at the same time, creates comfort and order as well as superior performance.

We can get addicted to that. In fact, it may actually take more discipline to be moderate in your discipline than to be insane about it. There is an interesting Michael Lewis article about the NFL kicker Adam Vinatieri who actually works at making sure he doesn’t wear the same socks twice or having too many rituals because of how easily this can descend into superstition and thus psyching oneself off. But without this work, we end up beating on ourselves for falling short.

It’s better to remember Marcus Aurelius’s line…

“When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstance, revert at once to yourself, and don’t lose the rhythm more than you can help. You’ll have a better group of harmony if you keep ongoing back to it.”

In a way, this is what I’ve worked on most with my routines lately. Can I purposely disrupt them? What happens if I change things up? Am I still me? Am I still able to do what I do well? I want to be sure that the tail is not wagging the dog, that I am in control of the routine and not the other way around. Because the last thing you want to do is become ossified and unable to handle change.

Because life is change. Murphy’s Law is real, and you will drive yourself insane thinking you can simply outwill or white knuckle your way through the inevitable tendency for things to go exactly the way you’d rather they not go.

Discipline is a form of freedom, but left unchecked becomes a form of tyranny. So the key is the ability to rotate from routine to routine, discipline to discipline, according to the needs of the day and the moment.

Otherwise you’re not only going to be miserable…you’re an easy opponent to defeat.

Like to Read? I’ve created a list of 15 books you’ve never heard of that will alter your worldview and help you excel at your career. Get the secret book list here!  

[mjsmum]

Going solo: surviving daddy's return to work

I'm aware the blogs I've posted so far make motherhood seem like the worst/scariest thing in the world. Actually, it's the most amazing and gratifying thing I've ever done, I've just been blindsided by how difficult keeping a tiny human alive can be. And I expected things to get even harder when I had to run the gauntlet of solo parenting from 8:30AM-6:30PM, five days a week.

In the context of my labour recovery and breastfeeding struggles, the end of Jim's paternity leave loomed over me like doomsday in those first couple of weeks. When I was in the constant crying phase I would sob in the shower at the idea of having to sustain Matilda for eight hours a day without a second pair of hands to share the load.

However, unlike just about everything I'd encountered up to that point, adjusting to life on my own during the working week was actually a lot easier than I thought.

A first taste of flying solo

To ease us into the new routine, Jim only worked 3 days in his first week back, and mentally that really helped me cope. Even if it was awful, I told myself, I only had to repeat the process three times and then he would be back to restore our safe little baby bubble.

I was surprised that I wasn’t more emotional on his first day back at work; perhaps I was too tired to think about it that hard, as Matilda isn’t brilliant at sleeping in the wee small hours.

I’m lucky that Jim is a night owl and we’re combination feeding, so we devised a new routine in which he would look after Matilda downstairs while I got 2-3 hours of sleep, then bring her up after her midnight feed, and I would take over until the morning.

Unfortunately, Matilda seems to have decided that 2-6AM is her witching hour, so the graveyard shift quickly proved to be a test of will, but sleep patterns are probably something to discuss in a later post once she’s grown into some form of routine – good or bad. Back to the solo parenting thing. 

How to avoid cabin fever

As I mentioned, I coped better with that first morning than I thought, but very quickly in those first couple of days, I learnt a valuable lesson:

Don’t stay indoors all day, or you WILL get cabin fever.

I am a naturally lazy person, and during my maternity leave pre-baby I wasted entire days on the sofa watching box sets. I would frequently cancel coffee dates purely because I couldn’t be arsed to wash my hair, put on some decent clothes and face the world.

However, something has flipped since Matilda was born, and now the thought of a whole day indoors is just too much to bear. I tried it on Jim’s first day back, and by 4PM I was literally counting down the minutes until he got home. Without any sort of structure, Matilda wanted to be on the boob all day, to the point where I felt like a milking machine and practically thrust her on Jim when he walked through the door, just to give me five minutes’ breather. 

The first big adventure

The thing I was most scared of about going solo wasn’t taking care of her by myself, but having the courage to tackle the big wide world on my lonesome.

I’m not very technically minded, so I had a fear of operating the pram and car seat without assistance; I hadn’t driven the car since before she was born, and fretted that I would have a shunt with her in the back; and I worried that she would have a meltdown in public, and I (a) wouldn’t know how to make it stop, and (b) would get evil glances at my obvious poor parenting.

To get over this fear, I decided on a very low key first outing, and met Jim for lunch. I left a ridiculous amount of time to pack her stuff away, so that I could triple check the contents of her changing bag, to the point where I set off for our decided rendezvous point (Sainsbury’s café) 15 minutes earlier than intended. I should add that this is the only time I’ve been early for anything since she was born!

The day generated some interesting moments including how to carry a cup of coffee when you’ve only got one free hand (a nice man in the queue carried it for me), picking the right spot in a public venue to breastfeed when your baby takes a certain amount of boob waving to latch on, and the joys of the public changing room. However, MJ behaved immaculately, it was such a treat for me to see Jim in the middle of the day, and I was proud of myself for getting out and about.

Making life busy

From thereon I realised that making the working week bearable – even likeable – hinged on filling up my diary with social events to add structure to my days. For my first full week of solo parenting, I arranged 3-4 different coffee dates, and made a point of wandering into town when I was spending time at home, even if it was just to get some fresh air and buy a packet of biscuits.

Having something to look forward to made a massive difference, as it made time pass much quicker, and gave me something to chat to Jim about when he got home in the evening.

Taking a baby out and about proved surprisingly tiring, even if it was just for a slice of cake down the road, and I was very pleased when Friday evening came around. However, there was something quite liberating about living from day-to-day rather than planning ahead, and enjoying the little moments of interaction with my baby along the way.

Top tips for solo parenting

Although we’re only a couple of weeks into the working week solo parenting thing, I’ve already gained some valuable life lessons that I will surely add to going forward:

Set your own routine, and be as flexible as you want. If your baby was awake all night and decides to go back to sleep at 8:30, take a nap at the same time. There’s nothing wrong with going with the flow, so long as it doesn’t interfere with postnatal appointments

Set yourself one challenge per day, whether that’s meeting a friend for coffee or going to post a letter. It’ll give you something to aim for, and a sense of achievement when accomplished

Don’t be afraid to travel to meet people - the car is some sort of magic elixir that sends babies to sleep, and will quickly become your new best friend!

Talk to your baby during the day, or you’ll go insane from the lack of interaction. A couple of days I’ve found myself just chilling silently with the TV on not really chatting to Matilda, and when Jim’s got home I have fired questions at him to make up for the non-existent conversation!

Find family activities to keep you occupied. I’ve already been to a couple of breastfeeding clinics and am in the process of booking baby sensory and swimming classes for a few weeks down the line

Get a baby sling, as it’s the only way you will get anything accomplished at home! Or don’t, if you want a legitimate excuse for the house being a pig sty!

Make sure your partner understands that for every day they come home to a tidy house, sleeping baby and home cooked meal, there will be another day when you’re still in a dressing gown at 6PM with vomit in your hair and mess strewn around the living room. On the latter days they should just take the baby, pour a glass of wine for both of you and sit down for a family cuddle. The tidying up can wait til later; baby snuggles are the only thing that matter after a long hard day living your separate lives.