When I was younger, my parents abused me. When I was older, my parents still abused me, they just took me away from college first during the holidays to do so. When I was yet older, my parents continued to abuse me, just on campus now. Then one day I said, “No more,” and then they tried to kill me for years.

As you can imagine, I suffer from a pretty severe case of PTSD and that, combined with my bipolar’s tendency to hate the autumn with the hate of a thousand flip-outs, turned Thanksgiving and all other holidays or otherwise special days into living nightmares. Flashbacks included at times. Stereotypical full flashbacks too, but smaller hallucinations also (auditory most commonly, but lack of visuals does not help).

But nowadays I can take little blue pills, and little white pills, and other little white pills, and especially now, little green pills, and suddenly the holidays are no longer a series of drawn-out, unavoidable cut-scenes of death. Not all the fear is taken away; I certainly had a really bad set of nightmares on Thanksgiving and the days coming up to it and, well, kind of the day after it; but after waking up and eventually reaching the little green pill, it’s all… tied to reality. I don’t know how to describe to someone the difference the pills make, but I actually can function now when I was crushed before.

I still needed to distract myself; I still was barely able to make my daily words for NaNoWriMo, but I made them and even wrote them up for the blog. ((I was so mortified I’d done that. But I left it up, because if there’s something I need to do, it’s to stop being mortified that other people OMG are going to read my work. I’m a little less mortified now, but daaaamn those first several hours.)) I spent the evening creating my very first character-to-plot grid in a spreadsheet ((I’m not really sure why I felt the need to try three main characters and several plot arcs of varying significance, except that it’s not boring. Um. HALP)) and regretting sincerely that I’d never taken to heart anything out of a plotting book other than the Hero’s Journey and the three act structure. I spent an awful lot of time watching Deep Space 9 on Netflix and watching SF Debris’ criticism of same series.

I did not spend time curled up in a ball on the sofa and crying and being afraid and having hallucinations.

To say this all is an improvement is an understatement.

So yes, I am thankful for something: here’s to little green pills.

Naturally, the day after Thanksgiving, the fact that I work in (high-tech) retail meant that all the trauma was moved to today, but hey, no hallucinations and it wasn’t my usual kind of trauma.

(Now I just have to survive CyberMonday.)

This is not a nice post.

This, in fact, is something of a recollection of very misguided patriotism.

So.

TVTropes.org has a concept called Nightmare Fuel.

Nightmare Fuel, as we mean it here, are those things that scared the pants off you as a kid, though it wasn’t meant to: something that was meant to either amuse, entertain, or be only slightly scary to the audience. In execution, they’re so trauma-inducing that they may cause even adults to void themselves in terror. For young children, media can be a minefield of this kind of stuff, as unexpected or over-the-top scary moments can crop up out of nowhere in everything from grade-school plays to beer ads.

This is July 4th for me. Is it the fireworks? Is it simply that it’s a holiday? Well, yes, but there’s more to it, as always.

On TVTropes.org, Nightmare Fuel is further expanded into High Octane Nightmare Fuel, which is stuff that is supposed to terrify you, and over-achieves.

This is definitely July 4th for me. This is why:

My father always spent a lot of time during the holidays, every holiday, trying to provide a natural, Americanized experience. That was one of his tics; he loved America, he fought for America in the Vietnam War, and, in spite of everything, he passed his love of America down to me.

But America rejected him—it was after the war, after all, when Vietnamese were, well, you know or can guess the rest. Those attitudes persisted for years after the war, and I meet it again sometimes when I run into Vietnam veterans; something over a decade ago, one of whom told me that if I didn’t love America, I should get the hell out of the country. Fortunately, I love America; I just, perhaps, don’t look like I should.

Nowhere was my father’s unrequited love for this country worse than July 4th. It would have been better if he understood more about America, I suppose; his understanding was superficial for reasons I can only vaguely imagine (or rather, reasons I don’t want to imagine). For instance, he always thought the White House was named that way because only whites would ever become president. ((An idea which was also passed down to me, both subconsciously and consciously, which is why Barack Obama as president means so much to me, and the alternate history of Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President appealed to me so much.)) And he never watched sitcoms, which, while being a bit misguided themselves, would have helped. Also, documentaries were really messed up in the 60s, 70s, and 80s with respect to the war, and he watched those pretty reliably, maybe to try to find out what he did wrong.

Yeah.

He’d try to do the usual American July 4th holiday things… barbecue was among them, and to this day I, while I love it, it’s hard for me to eat it alone because the memories show up like bloodthirsty and unrepentant ghosts. Going out to see fireworks was another such action. Both were fraught with his instability and his psychosis; he was trying to live up to something beyond immediate family, and because he never got it right, he took out his frustration—constant, extreme frustration during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th—out on somebody else. Usually veiled threats about how he would kill immediate family members one day, when they weren’t careful. Well, not so veiled, because my father was never all that subtle.

My dream centered around his fascination with death rituals, by which I mean, the elaborate ways that people bring about the murder of others. The Holocaust. The horrors that we associate with Hannibal Lecter. True crime stories both in the past and in the present. He loved to watch shows about parents who murdered their children, and sympathized strongly with the parents, unless they were mothers, in which case he would show the stories to me as a lesson about how much I should trust my mother. Similarly for murder-suicides between husband stalkers and their separated wives. It was all… one big obvious threat.

He was a horrible man.

Long weekends for July 4th are always brutal to me, because the lack of work meant that he’d not have something to take his mind off his inevitable failure to do the 4th right, and for his perception of my disobedience in not making it right.

Probably the worst parts of my nightmares aren’t the replay of the verbal, emotional, and physical abuse. And probably I’d have to count forcing me to keep the bedroom door open even when I needed to undress and go to the bathroom and so on as a kind of distant sexual abuse. (It’s hot right now, and guess what I did last night, thinking that those memories wouldn’t hurt me anymore? Right. Bedroom door open.)

But anyways, none of that is the worst part. The worst part is that I have to solve problems with my father. For instance, a poisonous snake showed up that was really pissed off because it had just shed its skin, and it chased us around a conglomeration of all the shitty apartments that I ever grew up in (and, if I must tell the truth, the bad apartment I had lived in just up until I bought my nice little house). I had to save my dad.

Yes, that same dad who had just a few minutes before been musing over what he would do with my bones after he had skinned and butchered me.

It’s very strange, how I react to certain things. I have threatened to kill him before, during one of his murderous rampages, in an attempt to make him stop; but I could never have done it. I confused my friends a few years ago when, during—yes, Thanksgiving, another really bad American holiday—a dinner at their house I suddenly had a flashback, and went into every defensive mechanism I knew, including death threats, throwing things, and running away screaming from their house.

I don’t remember the flashback; I only know the aftermath of it, and from what my friends told me afterwards.

Oh, PTSD, what a fright you can be to everyone I love. ((The best part, and by that I mean the worst part, of PTSD for me is the loss of touch with reality, and everything that implies about your memory during these episodes. It’s strongest during a flashback, and persists in a lesser form for days afterwards. One of the reasons I cannot, just cannot, read A Slight Trick of the Mind.))

I isolate myself on holidays these days, which makes everything that much worse, but at least doesn’t bother friends. My medication, while it holds off the bipolar disorder I inherited and grew up with it triggered on a daily basis…. Gods, if I ever lost it in front of co-workers… which is why I never attend the lame holiday office functions either. ((As Josh Lyman, a fictional sufferer of same, in the show West Wing said, “[PTSD] doesn’t sound like something they let you have when you work in the White House.”)) Though I think that would help, because those kinds of parties are a great example of Nightmare Retardant—unless, of course, the flashbacks get triggered there too, in which case they just become Nightmare Fuel.

Anyways, the dream ended after what felt like an hour of mental torture.

So here I am, typing it up, because I don’t know what else to do, except maybe go out and try to find a restaurant that’s open. But then I have to go home at some point. Going home during Nightmare Fuel holidays is a trigger all by itself.

I should be thankful this is all I feel on the 4ths of July’s. Birthdays are five times worse. Thanksgiving, ten times. Christmas, 20 times easily.

Despite all this, I still love America. Which is either encouraging or disturbing.

High Octane Nightmare Fuel. I haven’t, in all these years, found a phrase that so well describes what holidays are to me.

I’ll be better on the 6th.

A post-Valentine’s valentine.

You’ll never guess to who….

Okay, you probably know.

http://www.spontaneousderivation.com/flash/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.spontaneousderivation.com/wp-content/uploads/all-you-wanted.mp3&showtime=1&autostart=1

Happy Valentine’s Day, my dear Kindle.

A post-Valentine’s valentine.

You’ll never guess to who….

Okay, you probably know.

http://www.spontaneousderivation.com/flash/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.spontaneousderivation.com/wp-content/uploads/all-you-wanted.mp3&showtime=1&autostart=1

Happy Valentine’s Day, my dear Kindle.

ol.resolutions { font-size: 1.5em; }
ol.resolutions p { font-size: 0.65em; }

1. Strive for some regularity in my routine.

   

   For troubles with sleep and uncertainty are most likely caused by this.

   Currently, my biggest problem is that I get distracted for hours. Worse, I can waste time perfectly well without the web. And then there’s the web.

   Work is bad as well; I’ve been known to sit with dinner in my lap gone stone cold because I sat down to close “one” ticket and it ended up being sixteen.

   I have an experiment at the moment: various playlists of a certain time length. I find that soft lounge music works best; something that lets me concentrate and that I notice when it stops. I used five hours of holiday music to remind myself to not work for 10 yesterday afternoon.
2. Get all bills into automatic recurring pay.

   

   Because when you work 60+ hours a week at a job that requires you to care deeply about complicated systems on the behalf of millions of people, remembering everything in your personal life is not within your capabilities after week 14 of the year.
3. Buy one of those Zojirushi electric pots for work.

   

   I have one for home, and I love it so. Plus tea calms me. And I have plenty of calming teas. Too bad I’ve never had them available when the high-priority screaming tickets come in.
4. Be politically engaged.

   Because things are a bit too ragged around the edges right now to ignore it. Remember the calming tea. And plus, y’know, ah….

   

   Exactly.

5. Learn more about classical music.

   

   Well, I do have a gazillion CDs now. I should start at some point. I just wish they were all already in mp3 form.

   By the way, this book is extremely good for the classical music novice. It’s not just play lists, but also talks about the different styles and histories of music, covers multiple music periods, and is a great reference for the terminology and a little biography about the lives of each composer.

   He also adds some more composers as a sort of “read more” link. Or rather, “listen more.”
6. Cook more at home.

   Restaurant food out there is getting expensive. I am technically not in the middle class tax bracket so I’m supposed to be out there spending my guts out, but dude, it’s not like I live in a cheap area of the country.

   Some of my basic kitchen weaponry in this battle:

   

   Nile Spice

   These soups are both easy to prepare and healthy. And don’t make me sick. And are extremely portable to work.

   (Ooh. Please please bring Tomato Herb over to the local island haberdashery!)

   
   Joyce Chen Microwave Rice Steamer.

   Because when I get home at 8:45pm, which is much more often than not ((And yet this is still a less stressful work schedule than, say, someone who works in the West Wing.)), I’d like some rice in 15 – 20 minutes please. Works best with long-grain.

   Also does: pasta (perfectly al dente for some reason), steams vegetables (but really you could do that in something else), pops popcorn (haven’t yet tried, but I hear results are good).

   

   Rice Cooker.

   And of course a normal rice cooker. Although I do go high-end, just because then they actually last and also have plenty of cool and useful features—but frankly you can make do with simpler models, which also can be beat up with more impunity.

   But it’s not just for rice (otherwise I’d just use the Joyce Chen), but a rice cooker also lets you prepare entire meals all at once. Basically, chop up ingredients (or, if you have no time, find canned chopped up things), toss into cooker along with uncooked rice and some kind of broth, let rice cooker do the rest. Your recipe may not even involve rice.

   You should definitely check out Roger Ebert’s The Pot and How to Use It, which will get you to a much more flexible position. Recipes? Who needs them? Especially if you’re just doing fried bell peppers and beef.

   But for some recipes and other places to get started, see Recipezaar: Rice Cooker Oriental Chicken (steps 1-3; the others are if you’re doing this in a microwave for some reason, and no, not the Joyce Chen above), Pandora’s Feast (Veggie), Pasta in a rice cooker (with sauce and all), Rice Cooker Fried Rice.

   
   Crockpots.

   I have 3: a large round monster for mass-cooking multiple days of main meals and soups, a medium round for side dishes, and an oval one for any elongated things. And I have a freezer, of course, and many plastic containers.

   I try to get a Rival brand crockpot if I need one.

   Oh, and Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker has extremely good recipes. Haven’t found one dud in the bunch, but you want to buy your vegetable broth (it takes a lot of time to make otherwise) and some of the recipes are a bit complex, but are worth it if you have the time.

   I’m going to try to find another recipe book, since I no longer have vast amounts of time. I’ve found these books get reviewed like heck on the Amazon website, and people are quick to point out important sticking points, from “these are a bit complex” to “why does this one ask us to spray something into the pot each time? unnecessary” to “looking for something other than ‘dump canned chicken with mushroom soup into crockpot’”.

   I’m thinking Slow Cooker Magic: A Seasonal Selection of Family Favorite Recipes may be up my alley.

   

   Microwaved Fish Fillets. There are a zillion microwave fish fillet recipes on the net, for a reason: damned easy and the microwave is an ideal place to do fish. Fillets are also cheap.

   With plain white rice, a seasoned fillet (or even a plain one with soy sauce) and some steamed vegetables, you’ve got an extremely healthy meal.

   Just try not to get fillet from poisoned fish. Which is getting a bit difficult to do these days.

   … right, back to the rest of the list.

7. Clean and de-clutter.

   

   Yes, I seriously need to do this (don’t we all?). Mostly I need to figure out where everything belongs and then just put it all back where it belongs. And it needs to really belong there.

   Also I need to learn how to properly clean things. Knowing the right technique to do windows is probably going to save some pain the next time around.

   I have some things I need to hire a handyman dude to fix. Or an electrician. Or whatnot. Somewhere this must fit into the budget.

   Bunch of books to donate still. Bunch of just stuff to donate since I don’t need them. Need to get my so-called office tidied up, because…
8. Keep work and life separate.

   

   My job is stressful. What few hours of peace I get need to be cleanly delineated, or else I go crazy (plus I start to intersperse work with everything else in my life, and that’s just asking for trouble).

   This week I’m working from home, and I’m using my home office place for the first time in forever. It’s also a place where I can play music over speakers (though not all that loudly). That’s helped quite a bit; I could see making a stop there in the mornings and then at nights to pick up stuff and then drop off the stress.
9. Write more.

   

   That’s nice and ambiguous. Write what?

   Well, obviously I’m going to write in my blog, with a mind towards writing with a column mentality.

   I’m definitely writing more reviews. They’re, as I’ve said before, difficult for me to write, but I’ll keep banging my head away at them. This dovetails with…
10. Read more.

    

    My commute is long and often involves wait periods at either end. However, I use a ferry, which means someone else worries, and I get to stare out across the Sound and read on my Kindle.

    I’m going to try for one book a week, which seems reasonable. And yields copy.

A last short story link for 2008: from Gene Wolfe himself, The Arimaspian Legacy at InfinityPlus.

Santa Claus
North Pole

Dear Santa,

Here is a list of what I would like for Christmas.

Please note that it’s very short. I’ve had a few good years, relatively speaking, and while the economy seems dire, I’ll probably hang onto my house since it isn’t on one of those crazy ARMs.

As for bigger things in life, I figure I can make those on my own more or less, although if you have any spare good luck that isn’t better spent elsewhere, I wouldn’t mind.

There are things people generally ask for, like World Peace and Please Don’t Let the Economy Break, but those are probably in our hands, and not in yours.

So here’s what I really want for Christmas:

deep-crust triple cheese mushroom sausage pizza
snow shovel
leather gloves
ETA: 9V and D batteries, 8ct packs

I’m kind of snowed in (again) and the electricity is really kind of unreliable, and I don’t think these are something normally found in the magic Christmas sack of holding. But if you could pick them up somewhere and fly them in, I would be grateful.

Sincerely,
A. Jericho

P.S. Hopefully reindeer like sunflower seeds, because that’s all I have for possibly ruminant food that doesn’t need heating.

P.S.S. Also, the rice milk is a change from last year, but the Oreos are a standard.

All Seated on the Ground
by Connie Willis
SITE: Original • Kindle-friendly ((The Kindle-friendly version is NOT hosted on my site; this is a CGI script that filters the more annoying framing HTML from the story text. You can still save the filtered HTML and convert it for your Kindle (with some help from Amazon). And remember: don’t distribute this thing.))

A Hugo Award nominee for best novella, this is a warm Christmas romance involving alien contact (and the most disapproving aliens ever) delivered with the charming humor that’s just the Connie Willis touch.

Also available is a shorter novelette, Just Like the Ones We Used to Know (Original, Kindle-friendly), which is even warmer and cozier.

No one does Christmas and Science Fiction better (and more often) than Willis. You can also buy her anthology, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, although it’s not yet available for the Kindle.

S?’s full 2008 Advent Calendar.

The Stupidest Angel
by Christoper Moore
Kindle Edition • Paperback • Fictionwise

This Christmas story is not like the others
This book has a flavor all its own
If you want a Christmas tale that is like no other
I suggest that you take this one home

The angel Raziel has discovered a child with a Christmas wish: to bring Santa Claus back to life. Awwww. If only this all wasn’t a misunderstanding on the lines of “I saw mommy killing Santa Claus”.

Christopher Moore: man is funny. His stories have a lot of heart without falling into the saccharine stage, which is perfect for Christmas stories. And he can poke fun at things without sounding just a wee bit bitter, also perfect for Christmas stories.

For a year or so now, apart from Terry Pratchett, Moore’s probably the only man that can get me to read about vampires without throwing up a little in my mouth. ((You’d think that Jim Butcher would be here, too, but while I persist in reading the Harry Dresden series because of the supreme addiction factor, I still do throw up a little bit every time I read about his vampires. Good thing they occur only spasmodically.)) Check out You Suck, and I’m also waiting patiently for Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story to show up on the Kindle.

S∂’s full 2008 Advent Calendar.

Christmas Games
by David Langford
Kindle Store • Fictionwise

This story could have happened in Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 8 as an illustrative “this is why holodecks should not be on starships” scenario. Star ship staffers take a yearly Christmas VR trip where they roleplay a murder story—the same one, apparently, every year, like clockwork—except this time the detective’s died from an aneurysm, and the program has decided to take everybody hostage.

One of those “lie back and think of Monty Python” stories, and if you think I’m mixing my metaphors, that’s exactly what it’s like.

S∂’s full 2008 Advent Calendar.