Monday, March 30, 2009
The government being outrageous again...
I've just been reading up on the new Welfare Reform Bill. Apparently the Bill gives advisors the power to require some benefit claimants to engage in activities, including activity related to the stablisation of a person's circumstance, or lose their benefit.
So if I lose my job (which will happen sooner or later) I can be forced to take meds or start psychotherapy, not even by a doctor, but by some spotty oik at the Job Centre. Wonderful.
This government amazes me.
It's all irrelevant anyway because employers won't take on people with severe mental illness no matter what sticks and carrots you apply to the job seeking person. All it does is harrass people for no effect.
Oh, and we all get work related interviews. I can see how that goes- if you're depressed you just don't turn up and if you're high you persuade the interviewer that you're absolutely fine and could be working tomorrow...
Sigh.
Never mind. Back at work on Thurs, hopefully.
So if I lose my job (which will happen sooner or later) I can be forced to take meds or start psychotherapy, not even by a doctor, but by some spotty oik at the Job Centre. Wonderful.
This government amazes me.
It's all irrelevant anyway because employers won't take on people with severe mental illness no matter what sticks and carrots you apply to the job seeking person. All it does is harrass people for no effect.
Oh, and we all get work related interviews. I can see how that goes- if you're depressed you just don't turn up and if you're high you persuade the interviewer that you're absolutely fine and could be working tomorrow...
Sigh.
Never mind. Back at work on Thurs, hopefully.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
What have I been doing?
Stuff.
Being ill. Being quite a lot ill, in fact. Rather more dramatically than I have been for years and with mood changes every few days for the last month or so. The medical professions response has been to put me on ever increasing quantities of anti-psychotics, which I have managed somehow to carry on being high on, although I think now I have a suitable dose for a small elephant and it is slowing me down at last. Looks like I shall have to stay on some permanently since I just get high far too often to function well at the moment. Whether this will be work-compatible we shall have to see.
Haven't been working, obviously. I did try to do some work from home last week but all outright determination produed was the sort of internal conflict which gets settled in an Emo teenager sort of way with bloodshed. So not doing that again; septicemia would just about finish me off at the moment. And it stressed Beloved out excessively, which is to be avoided. So work will have to wait, or retire me.
On the not being ill front, things have happened. My new fishtank is now up and very pretty, and full of fish and expensive artificial plants. Having the fish in the living room is wonderul; I can just watch them not dying, which is remarkably peaceful, The tank chemistry is very slowly sliding towards where I want it to be, though the fish are swimming round in something as acidic as tomato juice at the moment.
Kittens have just come back from the vets and now hopefully won't spray... They are still adorable and friendly, and Wy loves them a lot, strangely.
I've been writing some slash, having discovered the enthusiastic audience for way over the NC-17 rating fics. I did buy a book of gay erotica just to check that I was doing it right, and apparently I am, so that was reassuring :-)
My beta reader and I have reached Chapter 9 of Invictus and we are arguing about the necessity for literary artifice. He wants some, I don't. Fortunately it's my book so I win. I am playing around with rewriting it in the first person, since all that would require would be grammatical changes- I've written it so tightly one person POV that it is to all intents and purposes first person anyway. I have decided that it is a remarkable novel- no matter how many people I send it to no-on ever reports actually reading any of it. I'm sure there is a name for this phenomenon (apart from "unreadable") but I don't know what it might be.
I went to visit Stafford Castle today to tidy up on some background stuff- a beautiful spring morning and very helpful staff. The wooden keep in 1207 was apparently rather larger than I had expected.
Bulgaria! Knew there was some vaguely exciting news! Son and I are going on a trip, Sept or maybe Oct half term, the current plan is to fly to Sofia, take the train to Velika Turnovo, visit the medieval palace that also features heavily in the novel, then catch the Trans Balkan Express (sleeper service) down to Athens and potter round there for a few days, then fly home. It is very exciting and so far I have learned 6 letters of the Bulgarian alphabet (Athens should be full of English speakers but I'm not sure that random Bulgarian town is going to be quite as easy...) I haven't been to Eastern Europe and I love the idea.
I find it rather depressing when people talk about their foreign holidays and they end up talking to people who have been exactly the same place about which cafes they had coffee in. If I'm going somewhere I want it to be somewhere that other people haven't been. I'm pretty sure that Veliko Turnovo is going to fit that description perfectly (Bulgaria probably fits that description, or at least outside the ski resorts)
This will involve me having to ring Bulgaria to sort out train tickets at some point, so hopefully someone in their international rail department speaks English.. I don't think I know anyone who speaks Bulgarian.
What else? Restocked my food cupboards with a resolution to stop eating ready meals. Currently have enough food for about 90 meals. Made pizza dough in the breadmaker- wondered why i bother buying pizzas. Made choc chip ginger biscuits. Think I may end up putting all the weight I lost back on.
Robin Hood series 3 still fails to arrive but as some consolation I am going to an online CAPSLOCK RH party tonight- a load of slash-fan women all simultaneously watch Ep 1 S1 and scream in CAPS about it to each other. The twenty first century's when it all happens.... how did we live without all this stuff before?
I shall probably watch the Watchmen even though it's 20 years since I read the comic and I have no real recollection of it.
Being Human was great and is now finished. But another season is promised.
That will do.
Being ill. Being quite a lot ill, in fact. Rather more dramatically than I have been for years and with mood changes every few days for the last month or so. The medical professions response has been to put me on ever increasing quantities of anti-psychotics, which I have managed somehow to carry on being high on, although I think now I have a suitable dose for a small elephant and it is slowing me down at last. Looks like I shall have to stay on some permanently since I just get high far too often to function well at the moment. Whether this will be work-compatible we shall have to see.
Haven't been working, obviously. I did try to do some work from home last week but all outright determination produed was the sort of internal conflict which gets settled in an Emo teenager sort of way with bloodshed. So not doing that again; septicemia would just about finish me off at the moment. And it stressed Beloved out excessively, which is to be avoided. So work will have to wait, or retire me.
On the not being ill front, things have happened. My new fishtank is now up and very pretty, and full of fish and expensive artificial plants. Having the fish in the living room is wonderul; I can just watch them not dying, which is remarkably peaceful, The tank chemistry is very slowly sliding towards where I want it to be, though the fish are swimming round in something as acidic as tomato juice at the moment.
Kittens have just come back from the vets and now hopefully won't spray... They are still adorable and friendly, and Wy loves them a lot, strangely.
I've been writing some slash, having discovered the enthusiastic audience for way over the NC-17 rating fics. I did buy a book of gay erotica just to check that I was doing it right, and apparently I am, so that was reassuring :-)
My beta reader and I have reached Chapter 9 of Invictus and we are arguing about the necessity for literary artifice. He wants some, I don't. Fortunately it's my book so I win. I am playing around with rewriting it in the first person, since all that would require would be grammatical changes- I've written it so tightly one person POV that it is to all intents and purposes first person anyway. I have decided that it is a remarkable novel- no matter how many people I send it to no-on ever reports actually reading any of it. I'm sure there is a name for this phenomenon (apart from "unreadable") but I don't know what it might be.
I went to visit Stafford Castle today to tidy up on some background stuff- a beautiful spring morning and very helpful staff. The wooden keep in 1207 was apparently rather larger than I had expected.
Bulgaria! Knew there was some vaguely exciting news! Son and I are going on a trip, Sept or maybe Oct half term, the current plan is to fly to Sofia, take the train to Velika Turnovo, visit the medieval palace that also features heavily in the novel, then catch the Trans Balkan Express (sleeper service) down to Athens and potter round there for a few days, then fly home. It is very exciting and so far I have learned 6 letters of the Bulgarian alphabet (Athens should be full of English speakers but I'm not sure that random Bulgarian town is going to be quite as easy...) I haven't been to Eastern Europe and I love the idea.
I find it rather depressing when people talk about their foreign holidays and they end up talking to people who have been exactly the same place about which cafes they had coffee in. If I'm going somewhere I want it to be somewhere that other people haven't been. I'm pretty sure that Veliko Turnovo is going to fit that description perfectly (Bulgaria probably fits that description, or at least outside the ski resorts)
This will involve me having to ring Bulgaria to sort out train tickets at some point, so hopefully someone in their international rail department speaks English.. I don't think I know anyone who speaks Bulgarian.
What else? Restocked my food cupboards with a resolution to stop eating ready meals. Currently have enough food for about 90 meals. Made pizza dough in the breadmaker- wondered why i bother buying pizzas. Made choc chip ginger biscuits. Think I may end up putting all the weight I lost back on.
Robin Hood series 3 still fails to arrive but as some consolation I am going to an online CAPSLOCK RH party tonight- a load of slash-fan women all simultaneously watch Ep 1 S1 and scream in CAPS about it to each other. The twenty first century's when it all happens.... how did we live without all this stuff before?
I shall probably watch the Watchmen even though it's 20 years since I read the comic and I have no real recollection of it.
Being Human was great and is now finished. But another season is promised.
That will do.
