Vision

Fury

Why do I blog?

This winter I set the goal of doing something creative every day. Because of energy constraints and my desire to do things for my family like help out with the housework and take care of my kids, I've had to modify that goal. But I'm still trying to do something creative a few times a week, because it helps me to keep fighting through my health problems. Setting constructive goals for myself makes my life seem a little less pathetic.

That's all well and good, but it doesn't explain why I don't just create for myself and keep it to myself. Why do I put my creations up on the internet for all to see? I don't think it's egotism or exhibitionism. Those are excellent reasons to start a blog; I just don't think they're my reasons. I think I post my creations on this page because I honestly feel like this page is the only thing I have left to offer the world. There's a kind of desperation at work here; I hope you don't mind.

Thanks for listening.

Call for feedback

All right, readers (all five of you), I have some heavy stuff to throw out here in the near future. It might be a bit of a downer, and I'm sorry about that. But look on the bright side - it's me writing, and I can never be too depressing for too long. It just doesn't seem to be in my nature. So take heart; either we'll get through this together, or you'll go find something else to read. Either way, the world will go on (I hope - I'm suddenly really grateful the fate of the world doesn't hang on my blogging!)

There's a lot I need to say, so there will be a lot of writing involved. What I want to know from you is, should I put it all out there in one fell blog post, or should I try to put my thoughts into little bundles and post them a bit at a time? I can see advantages and disadvantages to each approach. The "one fell post" approach would allow me write about some things I really don't want to write about and move on as quickly as possible, but it would also be a lot to read all at once. The "small bundle" approach might be easier for a reader to process, but it also might be harder for a reader to see the ultimate point - where I'm going with all of this. I might lose them in the process.

What do you think?

I'm a lucky woman!

I have to keep telling myself this, because after a two year leave of absence, I have been talking to my professors about withdrawing from the biochemistry graduate program. This has made today very difficult for me, so let's focus on something positive, shall we?

I have a sexy husband who not only goes to work every day while my invalid ass convalesces, but he also does great cooking shirtless!

Ok, now that I've shared this, I suppose it's only fair I share bikini-clad soup-making pictures of me.

MMORPG roleplaying: Doyoh in training

I'm a big roleplaying geek, as I've mentioned before. So much so that, if possible, I like to turn my video gaming into a roleplaying opportunity. Therefore, I have written a short roleplaying passage for one of my characters in Final Fantasy XIV. Just a little background information: Doyoh belongs to a matriarchal, nocturnal community of cat people.

The axe feels heavy and clumsy in Doyoh Binbotaj's hands. It isn't precise like a spear or fast like a bow. She can't do any fancy footwork while wielding it like she can with her fist weapons. Doyoh swings it at the training dummy again; her arms feel like jelly. Why did she pick up the blasted thing in the first place?

The haze of her fatigue gives way to specks of moonlight shining through branches. In her mind Doyoh is back in the forest with her mother. She rolls onto her back, stuffed with fruit and antelope meat, contentment spreading through her body.

Never one to miss an opportunity for a lesson, Cemi Binbotaj speaks. "This is why our family have never been farmers, Doyoh. There are harvests all around us, all the time, if you just have the skills and tools to collect them. Training is the only seed you will ever need, and you will prosper."

The moonlight from her memory fades and once again becomes the shining metal of her axe. That was why she picked it up; to add one more set of skills to her toolbox. Doyoh takes a deep breath and swings even harder.

8/24/14 haiku

What is this odor
Like tomcat urination
I need a shower

Electronic music and constructing womanhood (and a little physics)

Anyone who gets to know me a little bit will discover that I'm a huge fan of VNV Nation. I drew heavily from my experiences with their music in writing about my fictional band Rupture Effect, when I wrote that their words have a way of describing everything about the world that thrills and disgusts me, as well as everything I hope for it. Their words can grind my heart into the dirt with their bitterness, then lift it - dust still falling from it like rain - with a call to stand up, endure, and help create a world worth living in. When I want to dramatically enhance my life experience - whether it's creating, celebrating, wallowing, contemplating, working, playing, whatever - I often turn to VNV Nation. What they have achieved is the reason anyone should strive to create art - they make life better. To make a long story short, I'm a huge fangirl.

(Quick side note: I posted a link to "The Concert" mostly to let people know or remind them that I'm very slowly writing a work of fiction. If you choose to read it, keep in mind that it's still pretty rough. I think it needs a serious overhaul.)

Anyone who gets to know me a little bit more will know that I also love singing. I enjoy listening to a good song as much as the next person, but I really enjoy it when I can sing along with a favorite. And lucky me, VNV Nation has some great songs for singing along! The down side is that VNV Nation singer Ronan Harris and I have different sets of pipes; namely, thanks to all the testosterone, his are pitched a little lower than mine. I have a deep enough voice that I can sing with him most of the time, but occasionally he hits a low note and loses me.

Physics to the rescue (which is only right, since physics got me into this predicament in the first place)! As it happens, if one wave has a frequency that is a power of two times that of another wave, those two waves have a special relationship. They still have different properties granted by their respective frequencies, but certain parts of their oscillations line up. What this means for sound waves is that if you play two such waves together it doesn't sound like crap, but neither does it have the complexity of two waves that create a pleasing interference pattern. In fact, the two waves sound very similar - so similar that musicians give them the same note name and call the frequency interval between them an octave. So yes, I could have just told you that I resolved this issue of vocal range by taking parts of VNV Nation's music "up an octave," but where would be the fun in that?

This solution was disappointing and unsatisfying. The power that infuses VNV Nation's music was gone. I sounded wimpy, and in a small way I cursed myself for being a woman.

At this point I want to state very clearly that I don't believe the female voice is incapable of being powerful. The opera world is full of powerful female voices! I'm not even saying that in a more modern context the female voice is incapable of being powerful. I'm not nearly as big a fan of Within Temptation as my husband is, but I still have to admire their power. What I'm saying is that most female singers express a different kind of power from what is expressed in the VNV Nation songs, and that's what I completely failed to capture.

As I tend to do when I run into an obstacle, I analyzed and intellectualized. While Ronan Harris's singing voice is very masculine, his poetic voice is not. At no point in listening to VNV Nation music do I feel excluded from the experience by being a woman. I never think to myself, "That was obviously written by a man," or, "You must need to be a man to 'get' this part." The words call out to my humanity, not my gender.

This realization gave me hope. If the power of VNV Nation resonates with me, it is in a sense my power as well. There should be a way I can claim it as such. That is now one of the challenges I have set for myself whenever I sing along to a VNV Nation song. The goal is not to sound exactly like Ronan Harris (because physics says no), but to capture that power with my voice - a woman's voice. And in the process, I am incorporating that power into my version of womanhood, just as it is part of Ronan Harris's version of manhood.

Mathematics and embroidery

Finally! Something that's not a haiku! I enjoy writing them, but I don't want them to be the extent of my creative endeavors. So, what have I been working on besides haikus? An embroidery pattern for my poor skirt. This has been an interesting project because I have both aesthetic and mathematical ideas for the form this pattern takes. Because of the mathematical component, I think I'll ultimately turn to writing a program to create the pattern I want. For right now, however, I'm playing around with it on graph paper to get a better feel for it. Here is the result:

Not much so far, but I'm looking forward to working on it some more. Stay tuned!

8/17/14 haiku

Night flowers half closed
Promise me a mystery
You don't see in day

8/16/14 haiku

Old blood mixed with pain
Not mystical or icky
Only my body

8/16/14 haiku

Remnants of New Year
Glittering, festive helices
Still brighten the room

8/14/14 haiku

Find serenity

Or heat and choler take me

August is for strength

8/13/14 haiku

An open window
Is a balm for my fever
Both body and mind

8/11/14 haiku

Moment of repose
Reaching into the future
One link at a time

8/10 Haiku

My cup is empty
I carry it facing up
So it can be filled

Wardrobe malfunction ... no, not THAT kind!

A few months ago I made this skirt, and I was very happy with it:

I was also happy with the boots I'm wearing with it in this picture; however, the hard caps on the heels of the boots quickly developed a tendency to fall off. I became increasingly less pleased with them and eventually got new boots. Behold!

These boots hold up much better so far, but you may observe that about halfway up the boot, hooks instead of eyelets are used to hold the laces. I didn't think anything of this feature until I tried to wear the boots with my skirt. The hooks immediately began catching the hem as I walked. This was the result:

However, I have found a solution to this problem: embroider along the skirt's hem. I believe the tighter embroidery stitches will be too small for the hooks to catch, unlike the looser stitch I use for hemming. It will also hold the hem tighter to the side of the skirt, preventing the hooks from getting under the hem. Additionally, it will be pretty! Now, to devise a pattern ...

Coming soon: creating an embroidery pattern, how I make amazing soup, angry drawing, Ariana discovers the nanomachines

Update 7/18/14

I've realized that trying to put together a Patreon video has been seriously interfering with my other creative pursuits. So today I decided to just do a written profile, get back to doing what I was doing, and if some time in the future I find the time/energy/inspiration to do a video, great. I'm a lot better at writing than speaking, anyway. In a few days I should be back to doing the quirky, whimsical stuff you know and love.

In the meantime, why not check out my Patreon page?

Update 7/8/14

The good news is that I got video footage yesterday! Yay! The bad news is that I'm exhausted today! Boo! The sad thing is, it wasn't even nice, polished video that made it look like I really knew what I was doing. No, it was crappy video of me sitting on my bed in front of my laptop's webcam, and it still sucked all the energy out of me!

I've realized two things making this video. One is that I'm a female version of Jeff Lewis. The tones and cadences of our speech are very similar. The other is that I need to work on moving my mouth more when I talk. I'm not really sure how to go about improving that, but it's something I'll be thinking about. It's odd; I open my mouth just fine when I sing, but it's like my jaw locks up when I'm just speaking. Any speech therapists, orators, or theater types among my readers who'd like to give me some hints on that?

On a more positive note, my daughter deserves a big thank-you! I realized that I would look and sound more natural if I were talking to a person instead of a camera, so she hung out just above my web cam and let me deliver my pitch to her. She's so helpful!

Now to rest and get my energy back so I can do some (very amateur) editing! There will be naps taken and nuts consumed!

7/1/14 Update

Hello, everyone. It's been a while since I've posted anything. I don't have any chunks of creativity to share at the moment, but I thought it might be nice to write about what I've been doing.

My daughter is on summer vacation, and she seems to have decided that she wants to spend nearly every waking moment with me (she is sitting next to me and drawing as I write). I am honored and touched by this, but the fact remains that it's an extra thing making demands on my energy. Therefore my productivity in other areas has gone way down. I wouldn't have it any other way, but that's the way it is.

I have also been working on putting together a profile for Patreon. For those of you who aren't familiar with Patreon, it's a crowd-funding website. However, instead of donating a lot of money at once for a big project, people donate smaller amounts of money repeatedly for someone to create content on a regular basis. Sounds simple enough, and it seems like a good fit for what I'm trying to do here, but how do I pitch an ongoing project to do whatever the heck will keep me sane and feeling like I have something resembling a life? Not so easy, but I'm going to make the attempt. When I've finished my profile, I'll be sure to let you know.

There's also something I've been holding back from you guys. This page is supposed to be a repository for my creative endeavors, and for the past few years one of my most creative endeavors has been to run a roleplaying game for my husband and a couple of my friends. I haven't mentioned it much because roleplayers (at least the ones with any social awareness whatsoever) learn pretty early on that no one wants to hear about their roleplaying except other roleplayers. But you know what? It's part of who I am; it's one of the creative things that keeps me sane, so I think I'm going to write about it on here from time to time.

I am running a Changeling: The Lost game, one of the games in the World of Darkness universe. For the uninitiated, World of Darkness depicts our real, modern-day world, but adds a gothic, supernatural flavor. Changeling is one of the most complex, interesting games in that universe, and it has also been described as one of the bleakest. Odd choice, I know. "A storytelling game of beautiful madness," which has a reputation for being bleak, and I'm using it as a way to stay sane and cultivate a sense of hope. But there's something about it that really sparks my imagination, so that's what I'm going with. And recently, the publishers of the game have released a rules overhaul that I think will make it much more interesting to play. So much of my usual creative time has been devoted to familiarizing myself with these new rules and figuring out how best to incorporate them into my game.

Now that my family has gotten into a summer rhythm, I'm sure there will be more creative endeavors to come. But that's all I have for now. Time to go for a walk.

My red skirt

Yet again, I apologize if you've seen this before.

This is a skirt I made a while back. If you're interested, I used this pattern.

Work in progress:

Finished product:

Photos of things I think are pretty

Again, I apologize if you've seen these before.

This is what happened when my husband put my circlet on top of the lamp just to get it out of the way:

This is my favorite sewing needle:

This is a day when a makeup job turned out particularly well:

My husband seem so have a knack for placing things very attractively just to get them out of the way:

This is my Mother's Day present to my daughter: a protective kiss that left a shining mark on her forehead, like in The Wizard of Oz

Drawings

I apologize if you've seen these before. I'm trying to get all my work into one place, and this seems like the best way to do it.

The Dancing One:

Spacetime Cat:

Pink, Gooey Dragon:

Cloud Blanket:

Herding Quantum Sheep:

Doubt:

Inspiration

#Saturdayscenes

“How long have you been lying there listening to phonograph records?” Dorian had come home from work in the evening to find Ariana on her couch. That was nothing new; with her constitution destroyed, the couch was where she spent most of her time. However, it was usually her habit to dress and groom herself in the morning. She always said that being able to accomplish at least that much in a day made her feel better about her life. Today was different. Her hair was still pillow-rumpled, and her loose, peach-colored nightgown still draped sensuously over her pale shoulders. He gathered her chilled hands up in his warm ones. It was cool for a day in late spring, but she hadn’t bothered to get a robe or an extra blanket.

She smiled weakly and kissed his hands. “It seemed like the thing to do.” They held onto each other while the strange, forceful music of Rupture Effect filled the room. On its face the song was about natural enemies locked in an eternal struggle, but there were always multiple layers to the meanings of their songs. “I just need to be able to think,” she finally said. “I’ve been trying to think all day, but every time I try to approach this logically, all I can think is that I’m tainted. My blood is poisoned. That thought takes over my mind, and I can’t think about anything else.” She laughed bitterly. “The worst part is, I don’t even know for sure if that black slime is what ruined my health. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc, and all that. So far there’s nothing conclusively pointing to it as the cause. All I know is that it isn’t supposed to be there. That’s as far as I can think.”

Dorian gently covered her in another blanket. “You had the opportunity to meet someone you admire very much, and not under the best of circumstances. He asked you to take on a project that he hinted could be very important, maybe even world-changing. As a result of that project, you discovered something very abnormal about your body. That would be a lot for one person to cope with in only a few weeks, even if that person had the constitution of an ox. Which you don’t.”

She nodded, then glanced at the phonograph. “Well, since I can’t think, I decided I would just feel. Let the music wash over me and bathe in the emotion.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Emotions about predator-prey relationships?”

Another weak smile. “Sometimes.”

He held her face close to his and kissed her temple. “Did it help?”

“I don’t know. It felt nice for a while. I felt strong for a …” Her voice trailed off. Her gray-blue eyes, which had been soft and tired, suddenly looked like they were trying to pierce the space between her and the phonograph. She spoke quietly, but her lips clipped the words like a pair of wire-cutters. “I have it!” Her eyes locked on Dorian. “I will look those little devils in the face and see exactly what they are!”

Dorian looked at the phonograph, puzzled. “How?”

“A phonograph needle drags over grooves in a record. Bumps in the grooves create fluctuations in a proteoid channel running from the needle - ”

“Yes, I know how a phonograph works.” Dorian reminded her.

“We can do the same thing with a sample. We can immobilize the sample on a plate, then draw a needle across it. If the needle is fine enough and our entropic channel is sensitive enough, it should be able to detect variations in the depth of the sample! Tinier variations than we can see with a microscope!”

Dorian nodded tentatively. “I’ll see if I can get the entropics to do what you want, but I don’t know anything about preparing samples. If you want samples immobilized on a plate, you need to figure that part out.”

Ariana nodded. “Fair enough. I should also see if there’s anything I can do to analyze what it’s made of.”

Science, one step at a time

#Saturdayscenes

“Did you know that ‘centrifugal force’ is something of a misnomer?” Ariana queried languidly from her hammock. The stylish, raised heels of her boots jutted into the air, and her chestnut hair spilled luxuriously over a bed of pillows. She mostly stared at the dark, stormy, spring weather outside, but every so often she glanced at a large, barrel-shaped object that vibrated ominously.

Dorian jotted some notes in a notebook. It was the first run of the centrifuge, and he wanted to try to improve its operation in the future. If he could just get it running more smoothly, maybe the sounds it made wouldn’t give him visions of his wife with a stray bolt lodged in her head. The centrifuge was by far the most dangerous piece of equipment in the lab, and he was acutely aware of that fact. He raised a sandy eyebrow at Ariana. “Oh? Did you not recruit me to help you construct a centrifuge? Isn’t the idea that centrifugal force is moving the different particles toward the outside of our wheel at different rates, allowing us to separate them? What are we doing, then?”

“We’re making use of inertia - the tendency of objects not to change their motion. We apply torque to the wheel to get it moving. Then the tendency of the samples is to keep moving in a straight line. That’s just a consequence of an object having mass; there’s no force involved. It’s almost like the opposite of a force - what a force has to work against to get anything done. But the framework of the wheel keeps pulling the samples into a circular path - applying a centripetal force. That’s where forces come into this, and different objects resist the change in their motion to different extents.”

The centrifuge quieted down enough that Dorian felt safe gently pulling a lever and gradually applying the brakes. He smirked at Ariana. “ ‘Entropics’ is a misnomer. ‘Centrifugal force’ is a misnomer. Don’t you scientists get anything right?”

Ariana swung her legs over the hammock, stood up, put on a long, white apron, and stuck her tongue out at Dorian. “Well, we call things what they look like at first. Then we find out what they really are. Or at least we come closer.” She lifted the lid of the now-quiet drum, collected two glass test tubes, and held them up to the entropic lamp in the middle of the room. One of them contained three bands: a dark red band at the bottom, a white band in the middle, and a yellow band at the top. The other contained those three bands plus a small, dark band below them all.

Her lips parted in surprise, and the blood drained out of them. “There’s heavy, black sludge in my blood,” she whispered, “but not in yours.” Their eyes met and widened. She licked her lips and took a deep breath. “Better find out what it is.” She set the test tubes on a rack, attached a thin glass pipette to a rubber suction bulb, then positioned the tip above the abnormal sample. Her breathing was shallow, and her hand shook a little.

Dorian gently rested a hand on her shoulder. “Are you being stubborn? Take a rest if you need to.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t know how stable this fraction is. I want to get a look at it before it has a chance to break down. Just a look, then I’ll rest.” She took another deep breath to steady herself, dipped the pipette tip into the top layer of liquid, and carefully drew it out. As she transferred it to another test tube, she chatted with Dorian. “Using these things always makes me feel like a hummingbird - dipping my little proboscis into a flower full of nectar.” She laughed as she worked, but it was a thin, tense laugh. Eventually each layer had its own test tube; she took the unknown, dark layer to the microscope.

Dorian tried to occupy himself by making adjustments to the centrifuge, but his eyes kept wandering back to Ariana. He tried to detect some clue about what she saw, but her face was as impassive as it was intent. Finally she grimaced, reached into a drawer, pulled out a device that looked like a crossbow, and used it to fire a bean bag at Dorian. It hit him on the shoulder, but he was too busy protecting the more sensitive region between his legs to worry about that. “What was that for?” he demanded.

“I’m disappointed and frustrated.” She held his gaze for a few seconds, then let out a much more genuine laugh. She glanced at the area shielded by Dorian’s hands and grinned. “I see what your priorities are.”

He straightened up and dropped his hands. “I remember last time.”

“Well, I’m not going to accomplish anything else here today. It’s time to put my feet up and have some tea.”

Dorian brought some tea to her couch and delivered it with a kiss; they drank it together. Once Ariana had had a chance to relax, he asked, “What did you see in the microscope?”

She shook her head dismissively. “Nothing. Whatever that black slime is made of, it’s too small to show up as anything more than tiny black specks. Which I didn’t expect at all.”

“Why is that?” he asked. “The world is full of things that are too small to see with a microscope.”

“Yes, but whatever it is, its fraction was at the very bottom of the sample. For something so small to deposit there, it needs to be much more dense than the normal components of blood.” She looked pleadingly at Dorian. “Those things are inside me, and I don’t know what they are.” Her eyes twitched downward, and her fingers fidgeted with the lip of her teacup in agitation. “Somehow, I need to get a look at it!”

The concert

(Sorry to those of you who have seen this elsewhere. I'm mostly just putting this here as a kind of archive.)

Ariana’s first entropic concert was unlike anything she had ever experienced. The sounds they could summon from their devices were nearly other-worldly. There were rhythms that made her heart feel like it might stop beating. Soaring strains that made her breath catch in her throat. And then there were the lights and colors. Black like death. Vivid hues like inescapable choices to be what you are and nothing else. White that seemed to embrace the life of everything in the room - even the cockroaches that were surely lurking somewhere.

While Ariana reveled in the sensory experience, oblivious to any cockroaches, Dorian examined the technical setup. “I think that’s an X-4 they have the keyboard hooked up to there.” Ariana nodded; the statement made as much sense to her as it does to you. Sometimes she was inquisitive enough to ask Dorian about the unfamiliar things he said, but this was not one of those times. “Why does the drummer wear goggles?” he wondered, “They look like they have some entropic components.” She shrugged. “Aren’t you supposed to be the expert? Aren’t you the one who insisted that we come here despite the strain on your constitution? Aren’t you the one who was squealing like a schoolgirl every time we got a glimpse of their caravan?”

Without missing a beat she shot him a mischievous grin. “His name is Jules Brook. And I’m not the one checking out his equipment.”

As delightful as the entropic artistry was, however, what made the concert truly amazing for Ariana was the use of two of the oldest devices known to civilization: the human voice and human language. Kieran Hathaway’s words had a way of describing everything about the world that thrilled and disgusted her, as well as everything she hoped for it. His expressive voice could grind her heart into the dirt with its bitterness, then lift it - dust still falling from it like rain - with a call to stand up, endure, and help create a world worth living in.

The crowd certainly found the world to be worth living in that night. They chanted the refrains to the songs and threw themselves into a strange dance that you could only dance to entropic music. It was rhythmic and mechanical, but at the same time vibrant and passionate. Even Ariana danced, though she could only remain in motion for a few seconds at a time.

“When we play this song, I want you to do one of three things!” Kieran Hathaway announced near the end of the concert. “Sing, dance, or move. But please do something!” Inspired into motion, Ariana danced for all she was worth, and amazingly she lasted a few minutes into the song before it became difficult to lift her arms. Her feet felt like they had been bolted to the floor, and the lights began to feel hypnotic.

As Ariana’s body neared exhaustion, so did her spirit. Suddenly, she hated all of it. She hated the performers for the energy she lacked and the dancers for the strength she lacked. She hated the music for the beauty she felt powerless to create. Finally, the hatred turned to its true object: herself. “If only this world could just absorb me,” she thought, proto-tears in her eyes. “Suck out what little vital force I have left. I’m sure any living thing in this room - even the cockroaches - would make better use of it than I can.” With her mind crashing back to earth, she became aware again of things like the vermin that were surely lurking somewhere. “So take it. Please, someone, take it.” And as if her wish were being granted, she felt herself being swallowed by darkness.

It is important to remember at this point that a performance space is designed to make the performers as visible as possible, but with no interest whatsoever in making the audience visible to the performers. When they can see the audience at all, it often appears as a sea of vague, dehumanized body parts. If you understand this, you can understand how extraordinary it was that Jules Brook reacted to Ariana’s collapse by vaulting off the stage.

Six ways chronic fatigue syndrome seriously messes with my head

Physically, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a debilitating illness. Strength and stamina both suffer, and simple activities become exhausting. However, it is important to remember that a chronic illness also has profound effects on a person's mental and emotional well-being, and that is what I'm going to share with you today.

I'm going to use a very personal tone here because, while I'm sure many people with CFS can identify with what I'm going through, I don't want to assume that my experience is everyone's experience. I can only share what has happened to me and hope it's a step toward greater understanding.

1. CFS gives me "brain fog."

To begin with, some common symptoms of CFS are mental symptoms. When I start to get tired (and I get tired very easily), my concentration is one of the first things to suffer. I hunt for a word mid-sentence. I read the same passage over and over for five minutes, and it doesn't make any more sense the fiftieth time than it did the first time (being sick wouldn't be nearly as bad if I could have some marathon reading sessions!) I stare off into space for a few seconds and try to remember what I was doing. I get overwhelmed easily and sometimes have to excuse myself from very stimulating situations. Sometimes little things like a trip to the grocery store or dinner with my family qualify as "stimulating situations." Basically, my mind just doesn't handle all the crap life throws at it as well as it used to, and on top of that there are further complications (see everything else below).

2. CFS makes me second-guess all my decisions.

Managing CFS is a delicate balancing act. If I exert myself too much, I could exhaust myself and end up flat on my back for the next few days. On the other hand, if I don't keep trying to be as active as I can be I'll keep losing strength, and eventually I could be flat on my back for the rest of my life. That makes any decision to do anything (or not to do anything) a difficult one, and I always end up wondering if I'm doing the right thing. If I have a busy day, I wonder if I'm setting myself up for a crash. If I decide to take it easy, I wonder if I'm babying myself too much. I can't even trust my instincts, because my instincts are telling me to stay in bed all the time. I can't win.

3. CFS exacerbates my neuroses.

To help me take care of everything in my life that needs taking care of, I like to have little algorithms in place. When those algorithms start to break down, I get tense and edgy. Because I can work through it and continue to function, I don't think I have a diagnosable mental illness; however, I realize there are some things about how I deal with life that are not exactly "normal."

CFS exacerbates this in two ways. On one side, I have more to manage: diet, exercise, day-to-day activities, rest, etc. And because I don't completely trust my own ability to make decisions regarding my expenditure of energy (see #2), I find myself turning to these algorithms more and more. On the other side, the amount of energy I have on a given day is highly variable. Because I can't accurately predict what I'm going to be capable of, my algorithms also break down much more often. It becomes something of a vicious circle.

4. CFS makes me feel like I can't commit to anything.

Another consequence of not having a reliable energy reserve is that if I make plans for the future, I'm never sure if they're actually going to happen. It was a bold move on my part to announce on my various social medias that I was going to be posting this today; I could very easily have made a liar out of myself. Even when my husband casually asks if I can do him a favor, I'm very reluctant to positively answer yes. It's not that I don't want to help; I just don't know if I'm going to be able to help.

This is the big reason I don't have a job right now, and I don't consider myself capable of having one. I'm sure there are some jobs out there for which I am capable of completing each task I would be required to complete. The difficulty is that I probably wouldn't be able to complete them when the employer needs them, and that's a real problem.

In our society, it seems like a lot of our identities are wrapped up in commitments - jobs, relationships, social events, trading favors. Not being able to do those things as reliably as other people makes me wonder: as far as the rest of the world is concerned, who am I? Is my identity recognized as strongly as it used to be, or have I "faded" in other people's eyes?

5. CFS makes me want to throttle some basically well-meaning people.

I'm lucky enough to have a lot of understanding, supportive friends and family members who would never say something like this. However, I run into a lot of strangers and casual acquaintances who hear I have CFS and immediately compare it to some time when they were really tired. NO! My illness is nothing like that one time you had a busy day, and you felt "exhausted" afterwards! I know, because I used to have those days when I was healthy, and my current experience is unlike anything that has ever happened to me before.

I suppress my urge to throttle these people because I think their comments come from a well-meaning place. I think they're just trying to find a way to identify with me, or maybe they're trying to be understanding. Since those are noble impulses, I will give you guys a little hint: one of the most compassionate, supportive things my husband has ever done for me was to admit that he will never fully understand what I'm going through. Meditate upon this!

6. CFS makes me reluctant to discuss the emotional and mental toll it takes on me.

I wrote this post because I thought it was important. It's easy to read a list of symptoms for an illness, but it's harder to understand what they do to a person's mind. It was important to write, but it's also been very difficult. This illness has changed the way I look at the world, how I make decisions, and how I relate to people; that's not easy to admit. I also worry about contributing to the perception that this illness is "all in my head." I am definitely suffering from a medical condition, and it's very tempting to just keep the focus on that and away from how demoralizing it can all be. I feel very vulnerable right now, like I've opened myself up to the assumption that if I can just fix my attitude, everything else will be fine (a laughable assumption, because anyone who knows me will realize that attitude maintenance is something I'm working on all the time). So please, the next time you interact with someone with a chronic illness, prove these anxieties to be baseless.

I will try to make my next post less of a downer!

Writing and focusing on the positive

I've been trying to participate in the Google+ hashtag movement #Saturdayscenes, in which writers post a scene (usually from a work in progress or a work they're trying to generate an interest in) and people have the opportunity to read them. I'm very excited about participating in this, but because of my lack of stamina it doesn't look like I'm going to have a scene ready every week. For me it might be every other week. In the interest of maintaining a positive attitude, though, I've decided to share what I did accomplish this week!

• Decided that my protagonist, Ariana, has a hammock in her lab, and the image of her lounging on it is quite striking (I'm so envious!)
• Drafted a very rough explanation of how a centrifuge works, as discussed by Ariana and her husband Dorian
• Attempted to predict where a new fraction containing nanomachines would show up in a centrifuged sample of blood
• Reviewed the limits of the features that can be resolved with light microscopy
• Looked up a history virology on Wikipedia
• Looked up tests for detecting the presence of proteins in a sample
• Decided that Dorian needs to have ∞% more bean bags launched at him

When I put it this way, I feel pretty good about myself and this story!

Cage on wheels

I was just reading this article which outlines what a liberating vehicle the bicycle was (I highly recommend it). That got me thinking about my story. I'm enjoying thinking about all the dark sides of technology in this world I'm creating, and it occurred to me that the fictional technology in my story could allow the invention of the bicycle to be bypassed, along with its liberating influences.

I haven't explicitly written about it here before, but the current state of technology in my story is based on substances that for now I'm going to call proteoids (I'm still trying to decide if that will be the final name for them, or if it will be something else). One of the applications of proteoids is the construction of highly efficient mechanical devices. Reading the bicycle article gave me an image of a vehicle that can translate the slightest movement of a person's body into motion, but instead of the rider masterfully straddling it like a bicycle, it surrounds the rider like a cage.

Oh, I wish I were better at drawing! The pictures in my head are so creepy!

Double-vision

I think I have finally overcome one of the major hurdles to my writing: dealing with two conflicting ways that I look at the world. On the one hand, my world is this profound, poetic, deeply beautiful (or grotesque, depending on the situation) place, and I'll begin writing from that point of view. On the other hand, I have a strong sense of the absurd and ridiculous in the world. That part of me looks at what the poetic part of me has written and laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

I thought for a while that this perspective would doom me as a writer because I wouldn't be able to commit to a style. My sense of the absurd makes fun of me every time I try to plunge wholeheartedly into a romantic tone, but my sense of the poetic doesn't have the heart to put everything under the figurative scalpel. It's like looking at the world through red and blue 3D glasses. Simultaneously, nothing and everything is sacred.

I've recently come to realize that this could be an asset rather than a handicap. I can write something that has heart and soul, but is also grounded. I'm excited to see what happens.

What makes blood special?

It has become a pet peeve of mine whenever someone tries to come up with a science-fictiony explanation for why vampires exist in a story. It almost always ends up sounding really lame to anyone who has the slightest idea what blood is made of and how metabolism works. And yet, I feel the need to provide a science-fictiony explanation for why my protagonist becomes a vampire after being infected with nanodevices.

The difficulty is that blood is a fascinating, complex tissue, but I can't think of a single thing about it that's unique. It's high in iron, but so is muscle and so are some vegetables. It's rich in protein, but so is every living thing! It's full of immune cells, but so are lymph nodes and bone marrow. It contains a lot of heme groups, but so do the cytochromes, which are found in mitochondria, which are found in EVERY SINGLE CELL IN OUR BODIES!

To make things even more complicated, I want it to be necessary to ingest the blood. I don't want my protagonist to gain the same benefits from a blood transfusion. That eliminates hormones and other signaling molecules that float around in the blood. This train of thought makes me think that something produced in the digestion of blood allows her to function (more than function, in fact - I see her being enhanced by the experience). 

I shall have to ponder this further.

Vampires and werewolves as a feminist allegory

Both vampires and werewolves are the result of biological attacks on the population. The first attack produces vampires, who tend to be women. It initiates a debilitating illness that forces them into a position of weakness. Later it is discovered that they have access to considerable power in this state, but only by preying on other people and drinking their blood.

To combat this power the vampires have discovered, a second attack is launched to produce werewolves, who tend to be men. This biological agent increases physical strength, but also increases violent tendencies. It is hoped that the werewolves will subdue the vampires and bring about the state of affairs the architects of these attacks originally intended.

I'm not quite sure how this situation will be resolved (if it even will be). Maybe there will be an all-out battle. Maybe the vampires and werewolves will realized that they're both victims and start cooperating. We'll have to wait and see.

What's wrong with peroxides?

In my last post I mentioned that antioxidants are helpful because they assist in dealing with peroxides and other Reactive Oxygen Species (no, science nerds are not immune to the Capitalize-Everything-for-Dramatic-Effect Syndrome). In fact, every organism I'm aware of has some mechanism in place for dealing with peroxides. That raises the question of why peroxides need to be dealt with so badly, and that's what I'm going to answer today.

Let's begin by explaining what a peroxide is: a molecule in which two oxygen atoms are single-bonded to each other. This is a fairly weak bond, prone to breaking. Additionally, oxygen has one of the strongest affinity for electrons in the known universe, so when oxygen bonds with other atoms it takes on a slight negative charge. In a peroxide, these oxygen atoms are arranged so their partially-negative-charged selves are right next to each other. The resulting repulsion makes the bond even more prone to breaking.

Now, to explain what happens when the bond actually breaks, there's something you need to understand about electrons: they "like" to be in pairs. The most stable electron configurations have even numbers of electrons, so often when a bond breaks, either one atom takes both the electrons and creates two charged species, or both atoms find something else to bond with. Either option keeps the electrons neatly paired up. When the bond between oxygen atoms in a peroxide breaks, neither oxygen atom wants to let go of the electrons; their electron affinity is too strong. What often happens instead is each oxygen leaves the bond with one electron, creating two very unstable molecules called radicals.

Between oxygen's strong affinity for electrons and having an unpaired electron hanging around, these molecules will react with just about anything - including all your biological molecules whose functions depend on their molecular structure being exactly the way it is. To make matters worse, most of these biological molecules have a nice, stable, paired-electron configuration. Reacting with a radical can turn them into a radical, which then reacts with another biological molecule and produces a different radical ... and the only way to break this cycle once and for all is to react with another radical and pair their odd electrons.

So there you have it; peroxides are not only very unstable, but they can initiate a chain reaction that will seriously fuck up your shit if they're not dealt with (e.g. by antioxidants) as soon as possible!

7/17/14 addendum: It has been pointed out to me that reactive oxygen species (ROS) may play a role in the body's signaling mechanisms, and that large doses of antioxidants may actually inhibit those mechanisms. However, that doesn't change many aspects of my message. Even when ROS are used for signaling, the body still needs to have mechanisms in place to dispose of them in a timely manner, so antioxidants still have an important role to play in our bodies. Also, since people in the industrialized world tend not to eat enough vegetables and eat too many high-calorie foods, it's probably not unreasonable to suggest that we include antioxidants in our diet.

An introduction to antioxidants

One of my pet peeves when it comes to nutrition in our culture is that people just throw around words, and we're just supposed to accept that those things are "good" or "bad" without spending a whole lot of time thinking about what they do. So as I was reading about the antioxidant properties of some very interesting molecules, I thought I would take a moment to introduce the antioxidant beyond telling you that something is an antioxidant and assuming you'll just accept that that's "good."

Everything our bodies do requires energy, and all that energy is the result of chemical reactions. The chemical reactions are extremely complex, but basically it boils down to the movement of electrons and other electrically charged objects. Usually the final destination for these electrons is safe, stable water, but the process isn't always that neat and tidy. The more energy the body needs, the more reactions the body is handling and the more side reactions occur. Because oxygen has one of the highest affinities for electrons in the universe, these side reactions often produce unstable oxygen-containing molecules like peroxides and superoxides. Unstable molecules can also be produced by things like outside surges of energy (like ultraviolet light) or processing toxins.

What antioxidants do for you is provide alternative destinations for those stray electrons. They react with unstable molecules in ways that can be more safely controlled. They are an important part of how our cells handle metabolic stress.

Vampires and werewolves

As I thought about this story idea that's been incubating, it occurred to me that my protagonist might be turning into a vampire. Ok, fine, I've been rolling with the weird things that pop out of my brain for over thirty years now. I can work with this. Then I realized that werewolves might be showing up as well, and I was a little disappointed. C'mon, brain, you're more original than that!

That got me thinking, though: what is it about vampires and werewolves that so many creators put them together in stories? I think it's because they contrast each other so nicely. Vampires are monstrous because they aren't alive enough - cold, only able to experience the life force by stealing it from others. Werewolves are monstrous because in a way they're too alive - hot-blooded, primal, and visceral.

Cliche or no, I might just take this and play with it ...

The face of entropic technology

I'm not usually a very visually-oriented person. For example, in my dreams I can usually remember events and the identities of the people involved, but I only rarely remember what everything looks like. I even identify people I don't know by what they do, i.e. The Wizard, The Person Who's Trying to Kill Me, The Person Who Herds the Sheep, you get the idea. My husband did the layout for this blog, because I didn't want to mess around with what it looked like. Right now is an exception, though, because as I think about this fictional field of entropic technology I would like to create, I envision it having a very distinct appearance.

To begin with, the stickler for scientific accuracy in my head will not let me write this post without stating that all existing technology makes use of entropy, because anything that would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't happen, including the things humans want to make happen with technology. This hypothetical field I am trying to create is based on a certain focus of awareness. For example, an engineer in the field of electronics has a very firm grasp of the applications of electromagnetism. It occupies a central place in their awareness, and other fields of science are more peripheral. In fact, I once took a physics course in which an electrical engineering student kept asking why an electrical engineering student needed to study certain topics (I could rant A LOT about engineering students who don't want to learn physics ... maybe some other time). For an entropic engineer, thermodynamics would occupy that central position in their awareness.

Now that that's out of the way, back to what it looks like. It's a field of technology, so its appearance will need to reflect a human being's desire to direct a course of events. That's one of the cool things about electronics - all those cables and wires and linear components, you can almost see the channeling of human will right in front of you. I definitely want entropic technology to have components like that.

On the other hand, it's a field of technology based on entropy. It's the channeling of human will by hedging probabilities in their favor. It's going to be a little messy-looking. So, what do you get when human will interfaces with entropy? You get a pair of earbuds after you've left them in your pocket for a while. In fact, one of these days I would love to model the thermodynamics of earbuds in a person's pocket. Maybe I should add that to my repertoire of creative projects. That is the aesthetic I would like to build on.

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the face of entropic technology: knotted-up earbuds!

Music that makes me feel creative

I slacked off yesterday and didn't do anything particularly creative; I played way too many computer games instead. However, while I was overindulging in computer games I did listen to a lot of music that often makes me feel very creative. Since that's the closest thing I did to achieving my daily goal, I think I'll share what music has that effect on me. There is just something about these particular songs that make me feel a little restless, like something extraordinary is lurking behind all the ordinary things in my life. It's an excellent feeling

So far in my steampunk/mystery/science fiction story

• Female protagonist with chronic fatigue syndrome and an interest in science (yes, she might end up having many things in common with me)
• A field of technology called "entropics"
• A pair of musicians with weird insights into the future

Ooh! The real-life musicians who inspired this part are electronic musicians. Maybe the characters in my story should be entropic musicians - people who have figured out how to use entropic technology to make music!

I think it's time to shit or get off the can; time to start writing!

Idea ball!

Two different story ideas I've been playing around with have suddenly collided. It all started when my husband made the comment that the only reason no one flirts with me lately is that I rarely leave the house. Then my dad chimed in and commented (jokingly - my dad is one of the least misogynistic people I know) that you just have to keep women barefoot, in the house, and give them Epstein-Barr virus (the original source of all this unpleasantness). That got me thinking about a mystery/science fiction story in which chronic fatigue syndrome is the result of an anti-feminist plot to keep women from pursuing anything outside the home. It makes sense, since women seem to be more susceptible. And since patriarchy isn't just about oppressing women, but about oppressing anyone who doesn't fit a very narrow definition of "man," it doesn't hurt my plot in the slightest that males are affected as well.

Then this New Year I got slightly inebriated and started thinking about how a steampunk world might approach technology, and how it might be different from what we see here and now. That was fun. Still needs some refining, but it was fun. I consider any day I get to talk or write about entropy to be a good day.

Then today I had an appointment with my doctor. He commented that not very long ago everyone would have told me there was nothing wrong with me. I added that if I were rich, I could have gotten a vacation to the seaside to "rebuild my constitution," and that started a quick, interesting conversation about how Excelsior Springs used to be a health resort. Thinking about illness in a more historical context made those two story ideas smash together in my head. Time to make this into a steampunk/mystery/science fiction story in which chronic fatigue syndrome (or whatever delicate, euphemistic name I decide to give it) is an anti-feminist plot!

And I'll be able to work on it for half an hour at a time ... maybe even a whole hour if I'm having a really good day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC75aU47GRk