I Do Worry About the Government

Yesterday I wrote that I was not too concerned about life because I’ve survived a lot. That is a lie — I am very concerned with what the US government is currently doing. I don’t care if Elon Musk is trying to save us money — he has no right to have his fingers in the government agencies to begin with. The end does not justify the means. Trump’s executive orders make him an autocrat and the US a dictatorship.

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I don’t know where our government is. I don’t know why Congress hasn’t stepped in and prevented Musk’s plundering of information. If there is no way to prevent this, there are fatal flaws in our government based on trust of a president. What’s stopping a president from ruling by executive order? Nothing, apparently. Trust has eroded, and chaos isn’t far away.

I realize I have to live in-between these moments, within the chaos, and find joy outside the news. I try my best.

About a Friend

I am worried about a friend. I am not going to go into their story because they wouldn’t want me to and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are reading this.

Let it suffice to say that I am worried about my friend.

And I’m handling it all wrong because I’m giving them advice, and I doubt that’s what they want or need from me. I don’t know how to give them what they truly need, which is undiluted empathy. I tend to judge, and I try to fix, and I get upset sometimes because they’re not taking advice.

I am not their therapist, and I can’t be a therapist and a friend.

All I can give is empathy. And I am worried.

A Trip to the Doctor

The sore that doesn’t heal

I will visit my doctor today, who squeezed me in to her schedule to look at a sore on my lip that doesn’t heal. It’s on my lip, and I do worry a bit. Not so much about whether it’s cancer, but whether they’ll have to do a biopsy that may make my lip lopsided or something.

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It looks like nothing to worry about

It’s like a scab that forms on my lip, shrinks, comes off (without my assistance) and there’s an open wound underneath, like a picked scab, and maybe I’ve been doing the facial scrub too vigorously.

It looks suspicious

The scab is very thin and brown, and to a casual observer, it looks like a mole. So if this is a mole whose top conceals, say, an open sore, it could very well be suspicious. I would say “it’s just a scab” but it’s been doing this for over a month and shows no signs of shrinking. I’m doubtful that it’s anything to worry about.

Smart enough to drive myself crazy

This is why I get worried when I get something like this happen. On one hand I think I’m making too much of a little thing and annoying my doctor. On the other hand, I have to go to the doctor because WHAT IF. So there’s worry that it’s bad and worry that I’m going to cause my doc to do an eyeroll, even though she’s taken three suspicious moles off me previously and would the large one off on the side of my face if it weren’t on the side of my face.

Takeaway

You should always get suspicious sores, moles, bumps checked regardless of whether you think you’re making too much of it. My sister’s father-in-law died of melanoma that had been undetected for years and had metastasized. Something we all should avoid.

Editing as a form of Revisiting

I have been participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this April, pledging 60 hours to editing a book (which turns out to be all five) by the end of the month. I can only edit as much as my writing knowledge and my fallibility let me, and my husband and co-pilot looks at them afterward (more slowly than I do). I MAY HAVE TO PAY SOMEONE TO EDIT.

The fun part, though, is that I get to revisit some of my favorite people — the thoroughly modern psychologist Lilith (yes, that Lilith) and her consort, the fey Adam (yes, that Adam); Lilith’s father Luke, a 6000-year-old supporter of humanity and suspected Serpent in the Garden; Adam and Lilith’s daughter Angel, the iconoclastic creator of immortal cats; the practical botanist Jeanne and her younger and mystical lover Josh and their relationship with Gaia; Amarel, who was born on the point between human and Archetype, old and young, and male and female.

If you’ve read the previous paragraph, you will catch some of the issues that may prevent me from getting published — subverting the Garden of Eden to find a different message; a young transgender individual (who will fall in love); an exploration of No One True Religion; an older plump woman in a relationship with a much younger man.

Other issues stay hidden: a battle plan without bloodshed; corporate plots to bury opposition; liberals that act in opposition to their morals; no vampires, werewolves, or over-the-top sex scenes.

I worry that this isn’t “marketable”, because it’s not urban fantasy, romance, or sword and sorcery. It’s not what the Sad/Rabid/Dead Puppies want to see. I write about the Peaceable Kingdom and our failures in getting there. If you know of someone who will publish this (not self-publishing yet) let me know.