amphigorym_2011

And Away We Go, Into the wild Woods

Wed, 20 Aug 2014 23:38:04 GMT

Well, actually, no. More like the wilds of California (specifically the Mojave Desert). What started out as a plan for my sons and I to go visit my sister has (somehow) turned into me going to visit my sister for a couple of months, and my sons (including the younger son's boyfriend and one of their second cousins) going to Disneyland for three days. Since I'm long past the point where Disneyland sounds even remotely enjoyable, I opted out. So we'll be flying out Friday, then they'll drive me to where my sister lives, pick up their cousin, and take off for three fun-filled days at 'The Greatest Place on Earth.' A motto my youngest firmly believes and has infected his older brother (and the boyfriend) with. They only have a week's vacation coming, so they'll spend the last four days at my sister's house, then fly back to Iowa. I'm hanging around till sometime around the beginning of October (probably after my birthday, which is on the 5th), because my sister will turn 74 in September, and I'll turn 56 in October, and I've always wanted to celebrate my birthday someplace besides Iowa. As Bucket Lists go, it's not terribly impressive, but it's all I've got. The younger twin (who reminds me terribly of myself when I was young) has already worked himself into a froth over the planning. The fact that he won't talk to my sister on the phone (I have no idea why, he just...won't), so I've been having to act as the Native Telegraph and pass messages back and forth. One wonders how he's going to manage to deal with his Aunt and Uncle once he's actually in their home, but that's his problem, not mine. I'm sure we'll have a lovely time, but I much prefer just making plans and then doing it to these long, protracted waits, during which anything that can go wrong will (especially since the younger son is forever on the verge of spazzing out). So, off we go into the wild blue yonder. If I had my way (which I don't) I'd probably stay out there longer (maybe till christmas), but I have to be back in time for the sons birthday at the end of October (they'll be turning 34 this year. And when did THAT happen? Because I still have clear memory of giving birth to them back in 1980?

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One Down, Two to Go

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 03:41:16 GMT

This week is a week of Doctors visits. I've already seen my family Doctor, to get blood drawn and see if the Niacin has lowered my cholesterol any. Thursday, I'm going to see an orthopedic surgeon about the lump on my left arm that is either pressing on a nerve, or my left arm is getting ready to fall off. Given that it's hurt for going on four months, I'm going with the lump probably needing to be removed. It HAS gotten bigger, but I still fail to understand how a relatively small lump on the inside of my elbow can make my entire right arm feel like it's on fire. Of course, we have to take into account all the hardware I've got in there from the open compound fracture I inflicted on myself when I was 19. That's already been removed once, which resulted in one of my then infant sons managing to re-break it, requiring that the plate and screws and rod had to be put back in. That was 30+ years ago, and the doctor who did it then (and who'd done the original surgery when I was 19), told me that I had the bones of a five-year-old and there was no way that stuff could be removed again. And Friday I go to see my psychiatrist. Because in the midst of all t his crap, we sures hell don't want to run out of our anti-depressant and anxiolytic, now do we? I'll be 56 in October, and it seems the closer I get to 60, the more I seem to be falling apart. Unlike my mother, however, I'm going to fight it tooth and nail till it either gives up or does me in. I'm too young to go quietly into the night (and there's nothing good about it anyway). II lost my mother, my sister and my dad while I was still in my early 30s. I lost Chris last year (though to be fair, it was pretty much a given he wasn't going to live a long and fruitful life). It's me, Dave, and Nan now, and of the three of us Nan, who's 74, seems the most likely to outlive us all. But as the baby, I've always been afraid I'll be the last one standing. I owe it to my sons (who are 33) to at least hang around till they hit middle age, right?

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In Which I Question Societies Belief that I'm a Responsible Adult

Fri, 14 Mar 2014 18:07:41 GMT

So I've finally decided what I'm going to do with the money my late brother left me. I'm going to find a clinic that does laser hair removal, and I'm going to have every hair on my body (with the exception of my head and the lady parts) permanently removed. Why, you ask? Because a 55-year-old woman should be capable of shaving her legs without ending up looking like she's just crawled 12 mileS through a gravel pit in nothing but her underwear. My problem with shaving my legs is lifelong. I hit puberty when I was 11 and went overnight from being a cute, flat-chested little girl who climbed trees to wearing a 34C bra and growing body hair. This was traumatic in a way I still haven't gotten over, as most of my friends were still flat chested and certainly didn't have to worry about having periods. I spent all of fifth and sixth grade changing into my gym clothes in the bathroom stall for fear someone would notice I was wearing a pad. My mother, as with so many other things, didn't handle this well. She was, in fact, in the hospital when my period started. Thankfully, my older sister had the necessary supplies and I at least knew what was happening (they'd showed us 'The Film' already. But I don't recall ever talking to my mom about the subject, because you simply didn't talk to my mom about that sort of stuff. I can't even blame it on the era she grew up in, because I later talked to women from that era that weren't the slightest bit prudish. You would have thought my mother came from the mid-1800s and wasn't actually born in 1912. So things didn't get off to a good start. I always hated my period. I had hellacious cramps from the very beginning and generally missed at least two days of school every month because I felt so bad. With the period, of course, came the growth of body hair. Once again, my sister cane to my rescue, but this was in the days before women's razors existed. I had to use one of my dad's razors and soap. And from the very beginning, I was incapable of shaving my legs without ending up looking like a victim of some sort of tragic accident. I forget exactly when it was that I quit shaving under my arms, but I do know it was because if shaving my legs ended up looking like a train wreck, shaving under my arms frequently left me with puddles of blood in the sink. I don't know if I'm just naturally clumsy (well, actually, I do know, but I prefer not to talk about it), but some time in my 30s, I just quit shaving under my arms. If nothing else, I lost less blood every month. Don't ask me why I thought this morning when I took my shower would be a good time to shave my legs. Possibly because it's warming up a bit here, and I had visions of wearing shorts. Possibly because I realized last night, while in the bathroom woolgathering, that I had enough hair on my legs I need never have to worry about them getting cold. So I did it, and now I've got two bloody washrags I'm going to have to explain to my son (who does my laundry ever two weeks), and I'm going to have to scrub the bathroom and my bedroom floors (and the bathtub) lest visitors think I murdered someone and am hiding their body in the closet. Which is just silly-I've got two closets and neither of them has enough space to fit a roll of paper towels in, never mind a dead body...

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T Minus 48 Hours and Counting...

Wed, 04 Dec 2013 05:12:39 GMT

Really, there ought to be a better way. Here we are well into the 21st Century, having been promised automatic kitchens and cars that drive themselves when we were young, but getting from one side of the country to the other still involves almost as much work and time as crossing the praire in a covered wagon did. Sure, you had to worry about bandits, but at least you could shoot your own food. All I'm asking for is a transporter like on Star Trek. You step onto the platform, they put in the coordinates, and two seconds later your on Alpha Centari! Or in Cleveland, if that's where you were planning on going. You're probably wondering what brought t his on. It all stems from the idea that going to California to visit my oldest sister for Christmas would be a good idea. I mean, it SEEMED like a good idea back in July, when she and her husband came back to be there when we put the stones on my brother and sisters graves. I haven't been out to California in years. I haven't seen my nieces in years. I haven't seen my great-niece and great-nephew since they were pre-teens, and they're both in their 20s now. So yeah, it's been a while. And it all seemed like such a good idea when Nan and I started talking about it. Some things I forgot to take into consideration: 1. California is essential on the other side of the country from Iowa. 2. The last time I made this trip, I was at least 10-years younger, if not more 3. My health problems have increased expotentially as I've aged. 5. I hate traveling. You'd think I would've remembered the last one first, right? Sadly, time has a way of dulling your memories. So here I sit, bag mostly packed, waiting for Thursday morning, when my oldest is going to drive me to Des Moines to catch the plain. I can't decide if I'm happy or nauseous. Let me be candid-I'm not an easy person to live with. I tend to be set in my ways, and view anything that disrupts my routine as the work of the Devil, or possibly a conspiracy against me by the Illuminati. This includes things as mundane as Doctor visits. It's not that I'm antisocial (or maybe I am, and I just cover it up well), but I find dealing with other people difficult. I don't go around telling total strangers about my problems (which are many and varied), and I don't really understand why I'm supposed to be polite to them when they regale me with their ailments and infirmaties. Yeah, we all get old, and it sucks and you really do have my sympathy, but I'm in chronic pain most of the time and don't find it necessary to go around telling everyone I encounter how bad I hurt or my financial state or what my opinions are on the government and how it's being run. Where I grew up, that was the sort of thing you talked about with close friends and possibly your pastor and/or spouse. You didn't just announce it to everyone on the street. Though to fair, I spent the first 12 years of my life in a town so small that everyone already KNEW what everyone else's health problems and political views were, so regaling strangers with them was about the only chance you got to talk to someone who didn't know what you were going to say before you opened your mouth. But I digress... It's the getting there that kills me. I'll be fine once I arrive, and I know I'll have a good time and get to see a lot of people I haven't seen. It's the frustration of planning that does me in. I wonder if The Doctor is available for a quick trip in the TARDIS?

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Genetics vs Nature vs Nurture (and no one wins)

Tue, 26 Nov 2013 06:36:32 GMT

I probably haven't mentioned it before, since it's not the sort of thing you go around telling random strangers, but I suffer from chronic pain. I have Psoriatic Arthritis-a nasty little degenerative joint disease that attacks your immune system and generally wreaks havoc on your body. I was diagnosed with it when I was in my early 40s, and was disabled to the point I couldn't work any longer by the time I was 45. It's a bitch of a disease thata lot of people don't even know exists, and in it's own way, it's as devestating as rheumatoid arthritis. It's already invaded all the joints in my fingers and toes, my back, and is currently working on oth my shoulders. The possibility exists I may end up in a wheelchair by the time I'm 60; something I'm fighting tooth and nail every inch of the way, to be honest. Winter has come to Iowa, which means that it's being even more of a bastard than usual. I finally ended up in the ER earlier this evening, having gone three days with virtually no sleep because my back is killing me. Here's what gets me, though. Both the nurse and the Doctor who saw me seemed totally amazed that l'd driven myself to the ER.The supposition being, I guess, that if I was really in that much pain, sure I'd be incapacitated by it and have to either call an ambulance or have one of my sons take me out there. This annoys me. It doesn't surprise me, but it does annoy me, because the supposition seems to be that if you're really in pain, you've either taken to your bed or you languish on the couch occasionally groaning so that everyone knows how miserable you are. I have this idea it also has something to do with me being a woman in my 50s. Especially when they find out I live alone. You'd think I'd just told them I was planning on stripping naked out in the waiting room. But doesn't it hurt? Of course it hurts, you idiot! It hurts like hell, and it hurts constantly! So what am I supposed to do-collapse into a small pitiful heap and lie there occasionally moaning quietly so that everyone will know I'm suffering? My sons (who are, BTW, two of the biggest wusses when it comes to pain I've ever encountered) seem unable to grasp the concept that the world does not just stop moving because you hurt. And if you live alone and you hurt, there's no one around to fetch you water or bring you pain pills when it's time for your next dose. You're on your own. But I do wonder, sometimes, how much of it is personality, and how much of it is just me refusing to turn into my mother-who spent my entire life dying, and no one was ever more surprised than me that she actually held on till I was 30. No, truthfully, she was 'sick' so much, and in the hospital so often, that I developed a major case of school phobia when I was in first grade because it wasn't unusual to get up in the morning and discover that my father had taken her to the hospital during the night, leaving my oldest sister to take care of us kids. No one would ever tell me what was wrong (under the assumption, I think, that since I was only four or five, I wouldn't notice), but they didn't let children see their parents when they were in the hospital back then, and I honestly spent YEARS beliving that one morning I was goign to wake up, mom would be gone, and she'd never come back, and no one would explain WHY. I realize they were trying to shield me, but as the youngest child, the terror that mom was just going to disappear one day and leave me to be raised by my Dad (who I loved, but who was next to useless where children were concerned, because he didn't like to see them unhappy), or, worse, my sister Tina, who was already on her way to being a full-blown psychotic. Years later, in one of my rare talks with my maternal grandmother, I found out my mother had been like this all her life. The stress of being the oldest of seven kids and having a father who was a religious loony? We'll never know, because she refused to talk about it. My grandmother, who was made of sterner stuff, lived to be 102, and would've probably made it further if she hadn't had a stroke and become unable to take care of herself. It wasn't the stroke that killed her-it was the loss of her independence. My family tends to go to extremes. The only one who doesn't is my oldest sister, who apparently got out while the getting was good. The rest of us, unfortunately, were stuck in a small midwestern town. My brothers escaped via college. I, I'm sorry to say, escaped by getting married, only to realize I hadn't moved nearly far enough away My sister Tina died, but not till after my mom was gone. She had problems as well. Actually, someone considering a career in psychology or psychiatry could probably do a really good case study on my family. You wouldn't have wanted to find group of people with more mental health problems than us. The only one who somehow was unaffected was my dad, and I think that was mostly because he wasn't paying attention to what was going on roughly 80-90% of the time.

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Time is Going Too Fast

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 05:50:30 GMT

How can it be November 1st? Three days ago I was wallowing in unwanted feels due to the first anniversary of my brother Chris' unexpected death a year ago. Now it's the day after Halloween. Six hours ago I went downstairs to get my mail, to be confronted by a full-scale Halloween party going on amongst the old folks,many of whom were wearing costumes. I snitched a couple of Peanut butter cups and went upstairs to remember my mother and her love of all things Halloween-related. For years she wore the same costume-a gorilla mask, a ratty fur coat, and a pair of galoshes (the old fashioned-king with the buckles on them that clinked when you walked). She handed out candy dressed that way right up until the year she died. She'd also regale my father, a minister of some sobriety, to take her out so she could go 'trick or treating' at various parishioners houses. She accomplished this feat by 'vamping' him. Which meant that he'd be laying in bed reading and she'd come in, crawl into bed next to him, then get right in his face, purse her lips and make kissing noises whilst fluttering her eyelashes. This never failed to reduce him to a state of laughing incoherency. So he'd give in and drive her around to various people's houses (she never learned how to drive, and viewed automobiles as dangerous creatures). There, he'd park at least a block away from where she was going, leaving her to walk down to the person's house, open the door and walk in (we lived in a small town where no one would have dreamed of locking their doors, as the crime rate was zero), wander into whatever room they were giving out candy from (usually the kitchen), pick up a handful of whatever was on offer, drop it in her bucket, and walk out. She never said a word, not that she had to. She'd been doing it for so long everyone in the church had come to expect in. One year, when she was too sick to go out, we received numerous calls the next day wanting to know why Sister Spilman hadn't dropped by. When she wasn't exhorting candy from the faithful, she was terrifying little children by handing out candy dressed in her gorilla outfit. Lord alone knows how many generations of toddlers out trick or treating for the first time were forever haunted by the visage of a large woman in a gorilla mask wearing galoshes.. I miss her. I miss the church Christmas parties that were held at people's houses where everyone, from the great-grandparents to the youngest babies came dressed in costumes. I miss the ghost walks in people's basements and barns. I miss the wiener roasts and hayrack rides on gravel backroads. I miss that part of my life, and can only stand and stare in confusion at the current churches holding 'treats in a trunk' things because they've decided that dressing up in costumes and trick r treating is somehow Satanic. Yes, I'm aware the early church stole Halloween from the Wiccans, in the same way we stole the Winter Solstice and turned it into Christ's birthday (even my father, devout thought he was, knew there was no way Jesus as actually born on December 25th). It's getting colder ow. Winter's coming,and with it snow, and icy roads, and all the things I've always hated about Iowa in the winter time. This time of year never fails to make me feel older, though. Well, older than the 55 years I actually am. Sometimes, I wish I could just skip the whole thing like wild animals. Eat till I'm nice and fat, build a nest, go to sleep in November, and not have to wake up again till spring. I never thought I'd be envying chipmunks, but I do.

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GLASSES! SIGHT! DID I MENTION GLASSES?!

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 01:34:17 GMT

Finally got my glasses today. I put them on, and I swear, it's like 'The Hallelujah Chorus' from The Messiah started playing in the background. Nearly two months of being mostly blind I(or at least having very limited vision), and I can see! I can read books again without having to wear those stupid reading glasses! What's so weird is that they're so light and thin. I got my first pair of glasses when I was eight, and over the years, they've just gotten progressively thicker and heavier as I became blinder and blinder. Lord knows how long I actually had those cataracts before they were diagnosed, but it had been seven years since I'd had my last eye exam, and my glasses were heavy wire-framed things with 3" thick lenses. I can tell it's going to take some getting used to not even realize I'm wearing them. I was ALWAYS aware with my old glasses. And my typing's all crisp and clear and I can read the computer screen and what is this, I don't even.... So yeah. This is a good thing. Possibly the best thing that's happened in a while. Hopefully, it won't take me too long to get used to wearing them again. Let us offer up praise to science, medicine and modern technology. Fifty years ago, I would have probably been well on my way to being legally blind by now.

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Second Eye Vanquished, But Not Without a Fight

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 03:51:02 GMT

Had my second cataract removed today. Left eye this time, and it was very different from the right eye, where they couldn't get it to hold still and had to put me under. This one, whatever the hell they gave me to induce the twighlight sleep ended up making me dizzy and nauseous for the first ten minutes after I came out. kudos to me eldest son for not being mortified when mom puked all over the pavement outside the entry way. He's apparently a veteran of driving people home after Karioke night ad having them puke. he said the way I described feeling sounded a lot like you feel when you're drunk. I'm going to take his word on it, as I've never drank anything stronger than Pepsi in my life. They didn't have to patch the left eye like they did the right, so that's a plus. The only problem now is that while I can see distance just fine and have no trouble using my computer without glare (assuming the writing's not to small, I can't wear my glasses at all. It's like someone soaped the lenses and I can't see anything. For someone who's been wearing glglasses constantly since she was eight and has NEVER been able to see without them, this is weird. I've got to go see my eye doctor on the 7th, but I really don't know how long it's going to be before I can get new glasses. I'll be able to quit using the drops on my right eye next week, which will be nice, because right now, I'm using the antibiotic drops on my left eye and the Prednisone drops in both eyes, and I keep getting the bottles mixed, despite the fact they look nothing alike. My left eye is still swollen and itchy, but I imagine that will be better tomorrow. So I have survived (albeit, bitching all the way), Between the eyes and the shoulder, I really think I'm entitled to a couple of months of nothing NEW BAD happening, as my late sister Tina would say.

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In Which I Bitch About Things

Tue, 20 Aug 2013 07:24:24 GMT

Finally saw the eye doctor, and apparently, the right eye looks good. With vision correction, I was actually read the bottom line on the eye chart-something I don't recall EVER being able to do before. Sadly, removing the lens on the right simply resulted in me developing double vision to the point it made me nauseous. So I've got the right lens in again, and everything is still glarey. None of this is helped by the fact that the weather, after being delightfully cool since the beginning of the month has al of a sudden turned hot again. So my allergies are acting up and my eyes water constantly. I've never taken anything it-I'm on enough medication already without having to worry about the possible interactions of sinus medication with everything else I'm on. My second surgery i s going to be on the 29th. Hopefully, once we get the other eye corrected, maybe i won't have so much trouble with the glare. Whoever thought painting the walls of an entire building matte white and installing florescent lighting was a good idea deserves to be flogged. Addendum: I asked the eye doctor if I should be driving, and he said his professional opinion was no. When I admitted that I have, in fact, gone out driving several times since the surgery, he just laughed and said that was between me and the police. I haven't gone more than a few blocks from the apartment building, and I think as long as I don't drive after dark, I'm safe. The housing has buses that go to the local grocery stores once a week, but I somehow can't bring myself to ride them. Maybe because I'm so much younger than the rest of the residents in the building. I'm only 54 (soon to be 55), and I just can't think of myself as being old. Plus, I spent enough time hauling my sons around before they learned how to drive. They can bloody well occasionally take me some place once a week or so if they're not working. At times, my brain tells me i sound frighteningly like my mother, but she never learned how to drive and was dependent on my dad her whole life. Eagerly awaiting the day when both eyes are healed up and I have my new (and hopefully much thinner) glasses.

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In the Kingdome of theBlind, the One-Eyed Woman Still Keeps Running into Doorframes

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 06:07:47 GMT

Had my first cataract surgery Thursday. They generally do them with you awake (though nicely sedated), but for some reason, my right eye refused to quit moving around, so they had to put me under. Not that deeply, as I was mostly awake and coherent when they wheeled me into recovery in a wheel chair. Wasn't supposed to have a patch over my eye, but I ended up with one anyway (possibly because my eye wouldn't quit moving around (my sister said maybe I was trying to keep an eye on them while they did the surgery). Took it off today and discovered that my vision is now screwed. The only way I can get online is by wearing my glasses while keeping my right eye closed. Apparently, the surgery corrected my vision on the right enough that I discovered this morning I could read the time on the clock on my computer desk from my recliner (which is maybe five feet away) without my glasses on at all. But when I try to open my right eye while online, my vision overlaps and everything is waaaay too bright. While my eye's still slightly swollen and bruised, I can actually read things from cross the room without my glasses. I can't remember the last time I could do that. So Monday, my son Morgan is going to take me down to the eye doctor and I'm going to have them remove the lens on the right side. Because apparently, my eye no longer needs the magnification to see, and it's screwing up my vision. Since I won't be getting my left eye done till the end of the month, I don't really think I can go an entire month with my right eye closed. I imagine I'm still going to need glasses once both eyes are done and healed, but the notion that I'm no longer going to need the 4" thick monstrosities I've been wearing for the last seven years is somewhat amazing. My glasses haven't been anywhere near a 'normal' thickness since I was in grade school. So don't diss modern medicine, kids. In the good old days, I would've probably been mostly blind by the time I was 50. Now they can put inlens implants that will likely outlast me.

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Free at Last! Free at Last!

Sun, 28 Jul 2013 05:11:11 GMT

Saw the orthopod yesterday, and I'm now out of my sling. This makes me more happy than it probably should, but truth be told, three months of having to depend on my sons to take me everywhere if i needed something was nerve wracking. Especially when you're as blood independent and single minded as I am. They're good children and I love them dearly, but they're adults, and so am I. And Fifty-four is a little young to have to be depending on other people to take you places. So now i can drive again. Better yet, I can finally sleep in my own bed, instead of the recliner (I never could figure out a way to balance the arm in the sling on my body while lying down). Consequently, I'd start out each night in bed, and invariably end up in the recliner with at least two pillows and a blanket so I could get comfortable). The fact I'm used to sleeping on my right side and it was my right arm that was broken probably didn't help matters any. But now I'm free, and working on getting my range of motion back. So I can look forward to roughly two weeks of driving myself where I want when I want to go there before I have to have my first cataract surgery done, and we're back to square one. On the plus side, I should have both my eyes done and have my new glasses by the time I have to go renew my driver's license in October. Because there's no way I'd ever pass the test now.

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SURGERY! OH JOY!

Sun, 21 Jul 2013 05:07:58 GMT

Finally got around to seeing the eye specialist this week, and after much putting of drops in my eyes,and blowing air in my eyes,and generally abusing my eyes in a most unseemly way, the upshot is that I'm going to have my first cataract surgery done on August 9th. If all goes well, the other will be done three weeks later, which means there's a good possibility my vision will be corrected well enough that I won't fail the eye test when I have to renew my license in October. On the one hand, I'm not overjoyed at the idea of having my eyes operated on. On the other hand, the prospect of no longer needing glasses that are 4" thick to see fills me with a certain amount of amazed awe. I got my first pair of glasses at age seven (and I probably needed them before then). They were at least an inch thick, and they've just gotten progressively thicker as I've grown older. The Doctor told me that in addition to having cataracts, my eyes are 'very short.' Which means they match the rest of me, but which also apparently explains why my eyesight has gotten progressively worse over the years. While I'll still have to wear glasses after the surgery, the doctor say's they'll be thinner and less heavy. I wish I could afford corrective implants like my brother Chris had. I remember his absolute joy over the fact that, for the first time in his life, he had glasses that were thin enough to be fashionable and not make him look like a four-eyed geek. Or at least four-eyed-he remained a geek till the very end. I'm currently working on the fact that the recovery period between surgeries is going to be the hardest part of the whole thing. I'm REALLY REALLY HOPING that wen I go to see the Orthopod on the 27th, he'll take the sling off. Though I'm not sure if I can be doing rehab after having cataract surgery. Actually, all I really want to do is be able to drive my own car out to the office to get my license renewed on October 5th and pass the eye test. Whether this is the impossible dream remains uncertain, but I really hope it happens.

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Damn Feels...

Tue, 16 Jul 2013 01:36:09 GMT

I am not, on the whole, given to nostalgia. not because I don't have good memories, but because when you've lost both your parents, two of your siblings, and the only ones left are you, you're brother, and your older sister,nostalgia can be fatal. Or near fatal-my brother's been dead for ten months now, and my sister STILL hasn't stopped crying. Probably a side-effect of being the Nanny her entire life. So I really don't appreciate it when I go downstairs to pick up my mail, and someone's playing the piano in the common room. And all of a sudden, I'm a small child again, lying in bed, listening to my mom play the piano out in the living room because she can't sleep. My mother had no formal music training. As near as I can discern, she taught herself to play the piano entirely on her own. She couldn't read music, but she had only to hear a song played once, and she could play it. We always had a piano (according to my sister, we'd had one before she was born. Mostly, she played hymns (she did this even before my dad became a minister). Occasionally, she'd throw in a popular song from her era (she had a secret love of Big Band and groups like the Mills Brothers). She also had a beautiful voice, but she seldom sang while playing. She tried to pass it on, but I'm afraid her daughters just weren't as talented as she was. My sister Tina did okay, but I really wasn't interested, likely because I was 10 and would've rather been outside playing that stuck in Mrs. McKay's apartment. It probably didn't help that Mrs. McKay's father had owned what was originally the Opera House in the small town where I spent the first 11 years of my life, and Mrs. McKay had a great love for Gilbert and Sullivan. My dad played guitar, and THAT was the instrument i was really interested in. They let me start taking lessons when I was 12, but I got bored because the teacher was trying to teach me how to play songs from the 60s. So I basically taught myself. Did you know that all Eagles songs can be played using only three chords? I know i was a bit of a disappointment to my mom. All my brothers were involved in choir in school and could sing like birds. My sister,Tina, had a voice that could bring tears to the eyes of the most hardened cynic. How in the hell was I supposed to match that? I wonder, sometimes, if this is common to all tail-end children in large families? By the time you get old enough to do something interesting, your parents are so worn out from having spent 20+ years of going to concerts and school programs that battle fatigue has set in. I wish now I'd made more of an effort to learn how to play the piano. But then, hindsight is always 20/20. And nostalgia tends to be depress if you hold onto it for too long.

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Oh Look-Something NEW Bad!

Fri, 05 Jul 2013 03:18:23 GMT

So I went to the eye doctor Tuesday because I've noticed I was having trouble focusing on my computer screen and what the hell, I hadn't had an eye exam in seven years. Things are much more high-tech, now. lots of gadgets and machines and everything's computerized and high tech. None of which really does me any good, since according to the Doctor, i have the beginning of cataracts in both eyes and am going to have to have surgery done and lens implants (or, as he said, "It doesn't matter how strong we make your glasses, it's not going to help your vision"). I'm not sure how to feel about this. For one, I'm only 54, which strikes me as a bit young to be developing cataracts. My late brother Chris had to have surgery before he died, but he was 60, and my 72 year old sister is just recovering from having both her eyes done. But she's 72 (and still working). On the other hand, given that I got my first pair of glasses at age seven, and my lenses have simply gotten progressively thicker the older I got, I suppose I should have realized it was inevitable. On the plus side, according to the eye doctor, once I get the surgery done, I likely won't need the 3" thick lenses anymore. On the minus side, they want to do the surgery as soon as possible, which means I'll still be wearing a sling while my eyes are being done,and they'll probably not get around to doing the second one until I'm in physical therapy. They do the eyes two weeks apart, and it's generally a month after the second one is done before things get back to normal. I'm worrying I won't have my vision corrected and my new glasses by the time October comes and I go to renew my driver's license. On the other hand, it may be October before I'm able to use my arm well enough to drive my car. My mother used to say that god never gave you more to deal with that you could handle. She also said that it never rains but it pours. I don't really believe in god, but I have noticed that the second seems to happen a whole lot. I may just go with my late sister Tina's motto-That which does not kill us makes us cranky...

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FREE AT LAST!

Sat, 29 Jun 2013 03:29:52 GMT

Saw the orthopod this afternoon, and I'm now out of the medical torture device and into a sling. Of course the sling is also complicated and dorky, but at least it's not restricting my breathing and I can now dress and undress myself without help. So that's a plus. Next up-probably physical therapy. I may actually be able to drive myself around again by the time fall comes.

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Mixed Messages (and Rulings) from the Supreme Court

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 02:24:56 GMT

So on the one hand, I (and my sons, and a lot of my other friends) are over the moon about the SC striking down Doma. Mind you, my son still refuses to marry his partner because the guys in debt up to his nostrils and he doesn't want to be liable for it (which makes sense to me). But Iowa's had legal gay marriage for several years now, so it wasn't really a big deal for us. now, couples who have been living together for 40 and 50 years (which is longer than most straight marriages I know of last anymore), waiting for the day to come when they could be legally wed can get married and enjoy the same benefits as a straight couple. Or, as a more cynical friend of mine said: Now they can be just as miserable as straight married people. on the other hand-striking down the Voting Rights Act because 'racism no longer exists in America." HELLO, sUPREME COURT! Are you people living on the same planet I am? Or was it my imagination that Paula Deen just lost her cooking show and all her endorsements for using the 'n' word and waxing poetic about wanting an Antebellum South wedding with 'darkies in white suits and bow ties'? To say nothing of the fact that less that six hours after the VRA was struck down, Texas started making plans to redraw the district maps and make it virtually impossible for black people to vote by limiting poll hours and cutting back on allowing people to vote via mail-in ballot. But Racism no longer exists in America. Right. And if you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I'll let go cheap. It's perfectly legal, trust me. Would I lie to you?

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NOT DEAD. MIGHT BE MORE COMFOTABLE I WERE.

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 05:00:31 GMT

FORGIVE THE MISSPELLINGS AND CAPSLOCK. I’M WRITING THIS WITH MY LEFT HAND, AS IN A FIT OF EXSTREEM STUPIDITY, I MANAGED TO SLIP ON THE FLOOR OF A PUBLIC PLACE LAST THURSDAY AND BROKE MY RIGHT SHOULDER. A CLEAN BRAKE THAT WILL, THE ER DOCTOR ASSURED ME, HEAL 0N IT’S OWN JUST FINE. THAT’S EASY ENOUGH FOR HIM TO SAY, GIVEN THAT HE’S NOT THE ONE CURRRENTLY STRAPED INTO A STRANGE VLECRO AND SPANDEX DEVICE THAT LOOKS LIKE S REJECT FROM A LOW-BUDGET BDSM MOVIE. WHICH IS ALSO, I SUSPECT AT LEAST TWWO SIZES TOO SMALL. I SHALL BE FORCED TO WEAR THIS DEVICE UNTIL I GO BACK TO SEE THE ORTHOPOD NEXT FRIDAY. I CANNOT SLEEP LYING DOWN. I CAN SLEEP SITTING UP, WHICH ONLY MAKES THE PAIN IN MY BACK WORSE. I'M STILL RECOVERING FROM THE UTI I DEVELOPED AFTER THEY GAVE ME HYDOCODONE. I TOLS THEM I WAS ALLERGIC TO IT, BUT OF COURSE, I'M JUST A SILLY WOMAN! WHAT DO I KNOW ABOUT MY OWN BODY!?

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Concerning My Late Mother and The Police (not necessarily at the same time)

Fri, 24 May 2013 02:48:32 GMT

Ever since her death in 1988, I'd been assuming that my mother was enjoying herself in the afterlife. However, having recently gone on a buying spree on Ebay (related to my sister coming bck in June to bury my brother's cremains), I now have reason to suspect that Martha has, in fact, been hiring her spirit out to Ebay sellers to wrap packages. Because in the last three days, I've gotten no less than eight to ten boxes/envelopes, the majority of which practically required a chainsaw to get into. This has all the earmarks of my mother, who believed that if you didn't break a sweat trying to get your Christmas/Birthday presents open, she obviously hadn't wrapped them tightly enough. We won't even talk about what her Christmas boxes to my sister looked like, except to say that I suspect the Department of Homeland Security couldn't have gotten into them without anything less than high explosives.

In other news, I came home from the store yesterday evening to discover a police car parked in front of the apartment complex. This caused much consternation amongst the old ladies down in the lobby, who weren't sure why it was there or who the police were visiting. Strangely, for me, it felt like Old Home Week, since after we moved from the small town where I spent the first 11 years of my life to the nearby larger town I still reside in, I never lived in a neighborhood that the police didn't visit on a regular basis. Be it the kid up the street who stole anything that wasn't tied down, then hid it in our garage (or one of the nieghbors garages, after my dad finally bought a padlock for ours), the blended family up the street who had 14 kids between them and used to spent most weekend nights getting into drunken fights out on the curb, the lady across the street, who lived with her paranoid schizophrenic son, who periodically quit taking his medication, and started helucinatiing things in the trees that were coming to get him, or (the coupe de gras, as it were), the woman up the street who lived with her mentally/emotionally handicapped son who. She was rushed to the hospital one day and died, and even though she had two other children, the son Somehow got overlooked in the shuffle, until the night three weeks after his mother's death when he broke out the front windows of the house and started taking pot shots at the neighbors cars with an arsenal of guns he'd bought out of ads in the back of magazines. Only later, after the police took him away, did we find out he'd been living in the house with no electricity or water and about five dozen feral cats since hi mom died. The woman they sent from the ASPCA to catch the cats did provide us with a summer's worth of entertainment, as she chased them repeatedly around and around the house with a net (they'd quickly learned how to steal the bait out of the traps without setting them off). Eventually, someone broke all the windows out of the house and put a board up to the back window and they gradually wandered off, though my sister ended up adopting two of them. At least the last neighborhood I lived in (before moving here), the worst we had to put up with was the guy next door getting drunk and standing out in his yard at 3 a.m. swearing at the President, passing cars,and anyone else who was unlucky enough to wander by.

And my sons wonder why it is that very little actually phases me anymore...

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Concerning My Late Mother and The Police (not necessarily at the same time)

Fri, 24 May 2013 02:43:24 GMT

Ever since her death in 1988, I'd been assuming that my mother was enjoying herself in the afterlife. However, having recently gone on a buying spree on Ebay (related to my sister coming bck in June to bury my brother's cremains), I now have reason to suspect that Martha has, in fact, been hiring her spirit out to Ebay sellers to wrap packages. Because in the last three days, I've gotten no less than eight to ten boxes/envelopes, the majority of which practically required a chainsaw to get into.

This has all the earmarks of my mother, who believed that if you didn't break a sweat trying to get your Christmas/Birthday presents open, she obviously hadn't wrapped them tightly enough. We won't even talk about what her Christmas boxes to my sister looked like, except to say that I suspect the Department of Homeland Security couldn't have gotten into them without anything less than high explosives.

In other news, I came home from the store yesterday evening to discover a police car parked in front of the apartment complex. This caused much consternation amongst the old ladies down in the lobby, who weren't sure why it was there or who the police were visiting. Strangely, for me, it felt like Old Home Week, since after we moved from the small town where I spent the first 11 years of my life to the nearby larger town I still reside in, I never lived in a neighborhood that the police didn't visit on a regular basis. Be it the kid up the street who stole anything that wasn't tied down, then hid it in our garage (or one of the nieghbors garages, after my dad finally bought a padlock for ours), the blended family up the street who had 14 kids between them and used to spent most weekend nights getting into hellacious drunken fights out on the curb, the lady across the street, who lived with her paranoid schizophrenic son, who periodically quit taking his medication, and started hallucinatiing things in the trees that were coming to get him, or (the coupe de gras, as it were), the woman up the street who lived with her mentally/emotionally handicapped son who. She was rushed to the hospital one day and died, and even though she had two other children, the son Somehow got overlooked in the shuffle, until the night three weeks after his mother's death when he broke out the front windows of the house and started taking pot shots at the neighbors cars with an arsenal of guns he'd bought out of ads in the back of magazines. Only later, after the police took him away, did we find out he'd been living in the house with no electricity or water and about five dozen feral cats since hi mom died.

The woman they sent from the ASPCA to catch the cats did provide us with a summer's worth of entertainment, as she chased them repeatedly around and around the house with a net (they'd quickly learned how to steal the bait out of the traps without setting them off). Eventually, someone broke all the windows out of the house and put a board up to the back window and they gradually wandered off, though my sister ended up adopting two of them.

At least the last neighborhood I lived in (before moving here), the worst we had to put up with was the guy next door getting drunk and standing out in his yard at 3 a.m. swearing at the President, passing cars,and anyone else who was unlucky enough to wander by.

And my sons wonder why it is that very little actually phases me anymore...

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In Which I Expound on Doctor Who at length for no real reason

Wed, 22 May 2013 02:47:51 GMT

Finally got to see 'The Name of The Doctor' yesterday, and having read a ton of reviews and META and stuff, I think I've finally realized why I seem to view most of the episodes this season so diametrically opposite to the reveiws.

I'm fifty-four.

No, honestly. I'm 54, and I've been watching Doctor Who since I was 12. I started with the Third and watched straight through till the classic series ended, caught the movie, and picked up the show again when it was relaunched in 2005. During that lag, I was rewatching the First and Second Doctor episodes (what existed of the latter) as they gradually became available on VHS and DVD. I was also reading books and comics, and own far more BFA productions than is either good or proper.

I have no idea what the age of the median Who-watching fan is, though I suspect it's likely in the early 20s. I've made a lot of friends with people who got into the Classic Shows after the series went off the air. I haven't made that many friends in the new fandom because while I liked Nine and love 11, and was very fond of Donna, and cried when Amy and Rory died, and though Martha kicked ass, I was never able to warm up to 10 and Rose. These things happen. While I started watching Classic Who with the Third Doctor, I have to admit that I liked Two, Five, Six and Seven much more.

So I think it's the age gap that makes my observations of the show so much different from those around me. I was there for most of Classic Who, and I'm going to let you in on a secret. It was good, but not every episode was a shining beacon of light. Some episodes were very very good, some were just good, most were tolerable, and a few (very few) were out and out stinkers.

I'm sorry, but hindsight is 20/20.

Also, Moffatt is not the antichrist. RTD may have been the False Prophet, but let me assure you that for sheer, soul-ruining horror, they've got a loooooong way to go to match John Nathan Turner, who managed to kill the show stone dead back in the mid-late 80s. Trust me on this, I was there.

So I've probably got 20 years on the average fan. I grew up in era where serials were very common in TV shows. Four or five part serials in Classic Who are nothing to someone who grew up with three TV channels, and a lot of shows ended in cliffhangers. That was how TV worked. I think we just had longer attention spans back then, since we didn't have 800 channels to choose from. Instant gratification didn't happen.

I'd be the first to admit that the new show's had problems, and that this season has been weak (a lot of which, I honestly think, could have been solved by splitting some of the stories into two-parters. Everything's seemed rushed.
Yet somehow, this hasn't diminished my enjoyment of the show. I still watch it every week (and watch DVDs of Classic episodes and 11's epiodes during hiatus.

Because what it boils down to is this. Yes, the show has problems. it needs more female writers, and Moffatt is a controlling prat 9though as I said before, he's nowhere NEAR as bad as RTD was, by my lights.

But you know what? In the end, it's just TV. It's not high art. It's not rocket science. It's not the Theater or the Ballet or a rock concert.

It's a television show. A show that has somehow managed to last going on 50 years. Do you honestly think if it were truly as horrific as you make it sound, it would still be on the air? Not everyone else who watches it is a moron, I can assure you. Some of us just learned long ago to sit back, relax, and disengage our minds. Because it's just a TV show, and some day, it WILL end. It's already ended once, and the fandom survived despite that via fanfic and fan vids and BFA and books. If it ends again, it may not get a second chance.

So can we please stop metaing it to death? It's just a TV show. I know you have a lot invested in it-those of us who watched Classic Who had a lot invested in it as well. And if you think there wasn't weeping and wailng and gnashing of teeth when it went off the air, you probably weren't born yet. But no amount of shouting on our part would make the BBC revive it till they got good and ready to.

So every time you watch an episode and think about how rubbish it is, imagine TV with no Doctor Who at all. Is that what you really want? Do you honestly think the shows so badly broken and beyond repair it needs to quit airing?

Because if you do, then I wonder why you continue to torture yourself watching a show you don't seem to like very much.

But what do I know? I hung on till the very last episode of the Classic Series.

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BFA Provides A Ray Of Hope (Bless Them)

Wed, 08 May 2013 02:22:41 GMT

Well, since we can't count on the BBC to give us an actual 50th Anniversary Episode, Big Finish Audio will have to step in. Mind you, its only the Classic Era Doctors and Companions, but that's better than what the BBC currently has on offer.

"The Light at the End' is now available for pre-order. It will involve all the surviving Classic Era Doctors (including Eight!), as well as appearances by pretty much every living Classic Era companion who's capable of making it into the studio. No real details on the story per-se, but I have yet to listen to a BFA that I didn't like.

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Not So Eagerly Awaiting the Doctor Who Eighth Anniversary Special

Sat, 04 May 2013 02:35:16 GMT

Forgive me, but an acquaintance of mine on Tumblr started referring to it as the EIGHTH DOCTOR WHO ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL several weeks ago, and it's stuck. Because that's what it's going to be, you know. Not a celebration of 50 years, but a celebration of the years 2005 to 2013, since the show was revived. We now know that none of the Classic Era Doctors or companions have been invited back. Moffatt is forever rabbiting on about 'Looking towards the future and not dwelling on the past' Though whether that's his take on it, or the PTB telling him what to say we'll probably never know. He's the showrunner thought, so anything he says will be attributed to him.

But even as an Eighth Anniversary Special, it's kind've a lame one. What do we get? Twelve and Clara, who I do like, I'll admit, and Ten and Rose, who I never liked, and I doubt my feelings towards them have softened any since they left the show. Not even any other companions from the new era. The Ponds I can understand, being stuck in an unavailable timeline. But there were other companions. What about Captain Jack, or Martha, or Donna, or Mickey and Jake? Hell, what about Sally Sparrow and her boyfriend? I'm not even sure the pleasure of seeing Jemma Redgrave reprise her role as Kate Stewart is enough to induce me to watch a TV show starring people I didn't really like the first time through, and probably won't like any more now than I did then.

The sad thing is there's really no excuse for it. yes, the living Classic Era Doctors aren't the young men they used to be. But that didn't stop the 25th Anniversary Special. Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton were getting on in years, and William Hartnell was dead. But Pertwee and Troughton were more than capable of still playing the Doctors, and Richard Hurdnell did such a good job as One, we fans were more than willing to let it pass.

Most of the Classic Era companions, on the other hand, are still young enough they could appear, albeit a bit older. And This is Doctor Who. There are plenty of ways to explain away the Doctors looking older. Right off my head-alternate timeline versions where they didn't regenerate. As for the companions, they're human (well, most of them were). We EXPECT them to have aged. No one cried foul about Sarah Jane and Jo appearing in 'School Reunion,' and no longer being the young women they'd once been. I've seen Louise Jamison and Mark Strickson and Janet Fielding, and they look pretty damn good for their ages. Haven't you ever wondered what happened to Leela during the Time War? Why couldn't she and Narvin and Romana and several others have survived and be trying to rebuild society? What happened to Turlough once he got back to Trion? What happened to Tegan after she left the Doctor because 'it wasn't fun any more?' Hell, a friend of mine went to Gallifrey Con in LA and got her picture taken with Frazer Hines, and he's STILL a damn good-looking guy. Are they forgetting that he and Patrick appeared alongside the Sixth Doctor and Peri in the mid 1980s? I'm not sure how old troughton was them, but he could still pull off playing The Doctor.

What it boils down to, I suppose, is that the current BBC just doesn't care. They want to pretend that Doctor Who sprang full-blown from RTD's typwriter back in 2005. It's revisionist history-well, the old series was too slow and had bad special effects and was too drawn out, and blah, blah, blah...nothing that exited before WE revived the show has any value.

Conveniently ignoring the fact that if the BBC hadn't had the courage to air that first episode in 1963, there would have existed no Doctor Who to be revived.

Maybe it wouldn't bother me so much if they didn't keep throwing out passing references to Classic Who. Because I know a LOT of New Who fans who've never seen a Classic Era episode, and I wonder how many of them believe that Moffatt invented The Doctor's granddaughter Susan, and aren't, in fact, aware that she traveled with The First Doctor? Who are these references for? Are they just throwing the occasional bone to Classic Fans who watch both shows? Because a lot of time, that's what it feels like. They're perfectly willing to take the Classic Era enemies and monsters and revive them and upgrade them and use them-but they aren't willing to acknowledge where they came from. This is, at best, specious, and at worst, highway robbery. Yes, I KNOW the characters belong to the BBC, but to just recycle them without any background takes away the mythology of them.

So, barring some amazing last minute announcement in which we find that the four surviving Classic Doctors and some companions ARE going to appear, i probably won't watch the Eighty Anniversary Episode. Much as I like Matt Smith and Jenna Louse Coleman, I just don't think I can force myself to sit through however many hours its going to be of Ten and Rose and their one twu wub. And having seen some episodes of Broadchurch, I'm sorry to say that Tennant still maintains his penchant for swallowing the scenery and spitting it out whole. And while he's supposed to be playing a character in broadchurch who isn't really very nice, I don't see much difference between his detective and The 10th Doctor. They're both sanctimonious, high-handed, and firmly convinced they're the only person who's right. I just hope Matt Smith can hold his own against him.

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Problems Peculiar to Those Who Write Fanfic/Original Fiction

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:37:18 GMT

So you find yourself lying in bed unable to get to sleep because you've started thinking about a story you wrote and abandoned at one point, and for the life of you, you can't remember one of the character's full name. Bonus points for the fact that you have, in your time writing, created two separate characters in different universes with the same FIRST name, and you can't remember one of them's LAST NAME, and you're just about ready to get up and go dig the story about, because you're not going to be able to go to sleep till you remember what his full name was.

PS. It was Baker. Devon Baker. Not be confused with Devon Kestler, who was in an entirely different story.

This is either a sign I'm getting old, or my brain is so cluttered with crap I've created I over the course of my writing career (which started when I was 12) that I can no longer keep it straight. Though to be fair, at least I can remember which universe they were in, so I haven't lost it completely

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You'd Think I'd Know Better By Now

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 01:29:55 GMT

It's not like I'm any stanger to bad fanfic. I spent years on GAFF before it finally degenerated completely. I'm only to aware of the dangers of Mary Sues, fans tendency towards slashing two men who have approximately one scene together and declaring it 'twu wuv', or people who somehow believe they can rewrite a classic book better than the original author (I still haven't recovered from the debacle that was the LOTR Trilogy, in which far too many people seemed to assume that because Theodin preferred Boromir over Farimir, it must mean that he physically and sexually abused him his whole life). We won't even get into the Frodo/Sam pairing.

So why, oh why, did I go looking for fanfic for The Hobbit? And why am I not surprised that the fantwits are slashing Bilbo with every availble Dwarfin sight (and Gandalf? As well as replacing him with feisty, female self-insert Hobbits whom both Thorin and Elrond immediately fall in love with?

You have to understand that I read both The Hobbit and the LOTR Trilogy when I was in my early teens. Sex wasn't really a big thing for me, and for some reason (maybe the way I was raised?) I understood that the friendship Tolkien wrote between Bilbo and Sam and Pippin and Merry was the sort of friendship he'd seen men in the trenches during WW1 develop. Nothing sexual about it (especially since all the characters were presented as being either heterosexual or having no interest in sex).

I suppose this sounds weird coming from someone who writes exclusively slash. But my slash is confined entirely to subtext, and unless I can SEE actual subtext between two characters for myself, I can't slash them. That's why I slash the Fifth Doctor and Turlough, and Two and Jamie (otherwise known as the "What is personal space?" pairing.) I can slash any of The Doctors with any of The Masters because come on, people! It wasn't even subtext in the Classic Series!

Maybe it just makes me uneasy because I was too young to really pay any attention to sex when i read the books. I wasn't that impressed by the whole ARagorn/Arwen thing either, though I did like Eowyn and Faramir. But that was based at least partially on the fact that I wanted to BE Eowyn and get to fulfill a prophecy that some stupid old dudes had forgotten about.

So I guess I'll have to comfort myself with the First Chapter of the movie till the next one comes out. And I definitely need to stay away from fanfiction.net

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I'd Like to Say I'm Surprised, but I'm Really Not

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 01:48:06 GMT

As I suspected, the fact that none of The Classic Doctors or companions are going to be coming back for the 50th Anniversary doesn't surprise me. Disappoints me a great deal, yes, since it just proves that while the current PTB are willing to make references and in-jokes about Classic episodes in New Who (I wonder how many fans who've only see New Who actually get them?), I knew, as soon as I heard about the 50th Anniversary Special, that the chance of ANY of the Classic Era Doctors of companions showing up was slim to none. New Who has always wanted to pretend that The Doctor and the whole concept of Time Lords and regeneration sprang full-blown from RTD's typewriter. Except for the occasional in-joke or nod, the current regime prefers to pretend that they somehow managed to miraculously reach the shows 50th Anniversary without acknowledging that if the BBC hadn't had the confidence to release the First Doctors adventures back in 1963, there would have been no 'Doctor Who' to be revived in 2005.

And having read the summary (or what they've printed so far) my hopes that maybe we were going to get 10.2 and the AU Rose, instead of the original 10 and Rose Tyler (his one twu wub) back have also fallen by the wayside. I think I could have tolerated 10.2 and AU Rose. But I never liked the Tenth Doctor or Rose; I found David Tennant annoying and prone to not just shredding the scenery, but swallowing it whole. And I disliked having Ten and Rose continually shoved down my throat. I much preferred Classic Who, where there was no Doctor/Companion shipping, which left you free to ship whoever you wanted. I'll freely admit the only part of 10 run I watched were when he was with Martha and Donna. Martha was a great companion, but, of course, was required to suffer from unrequited love towards The Doctor. I honestly didn't blame her for leaving. I adored Donna, who was more than a match for Ten, who didn't put up with his bullshit, and who, therefore, had to be punished by having her memories of traveling with him taken away. Because God forbid that a woman be independent and not immediately fall in love with The Doctor.

Have I ever mentioned that I don't think RTD really likes women that much? He seems to view them as either helpless damsels in distress who can only be saved by the Love of The Doctor or, in the case of Donna, uppity bitches that need to learn their place. In all the years of Doctor Who, only two other companions lost their memories of The Doctor-Jamie and Zoe. And that was the Time Lord's doing, along with forceably regenerating Two into Three and stranding him on Earth. And at least Jamie and Zoe retained their memories of their first adventure with Two. Donna didn't even get that.

Amusingly enough, I have a friend in the UK named Thom, we were discussing the 50th anniversary on Facebook, as well s RTD's obsession with Ten/Rose, and he pointed out something I'd never realized before. RoseTyler/Doctor=RTD. That's right, kids; RTD had the hots for Tennant and Rose was his self-insert. Which doesn't make it any more palatable, but it IS amusing, in a bleak sort of way.

And look, I know the remaining Doctors aren't young athletic men any more. But Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton weren't that young when they did the 25th Anniversary, and no one seemed to care. Hell, the First Doctor was dead, and they had to bring in someone who looked like him, but we fans bought it anyway. Because the show as about ALL The Doctors. Not just the ones who conveniently managed to be good-looking and still young.

In short, having a 50th Anniversary Doctor Who episodes with only two Doctors and two companions (both of which are from the New Series), is kind've like celebrating the Fourth of July, but leaving out that annoying part about where we defeated the British. It really isn't much of a celebration at all. It's just another special episode of the new series. And while I do love Matt Smith and am kind've fond of Clara, I'm not sure that's reason enough to spend two hours of my life (or however long it is) watching a Doctor and a Companion I wasn't particularly fond of reprise roles I didn't like in the first place.

I can understand Nine not wanting to come back, given the way they treated him.But what about Captain Jack? Or Martha? Or Donna? Or, hell, even Wilf? To pretend that New Who was nothing but the Ten and Rose show is to ignore a lot of people who could fairly claim a place in it.

But then, what do i know? To quote RTD after the outcry when he killed off most of the cast of Torchwood, including Ianto, I'm nothing but 'a hysterical woman who doesn't understand how TV shows work.' I wonder if Moffatt feels the same way about female fans of the show?

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