I had $11,000.00 of medicine (IVIg) in my refrigerator last night. Now, after a 5-hour infusion, it is in my son. This happens every 10 weeks.

I have insurance, of course. And at this point in the year, no matter how high, we've met the deductible. So it is "free" for some definition of the word.

If we were ever to lose our insurance, we could probably keep treating him for a couple or few years before we'd lose our house and all of our savings. We'd be homeless, and he'd be in a wheelchair.

Fic Detective!!! Yes, I recognize you (although I've never checked your IP, is that even a thing?)... mostly because your syntax and very polite tone are quite distinctive.

Funny you should say this, because I was just musing about my Favorites the other day, and how what strikes me one way today can hit so differently tomorrow. The gist of it is: what works (or doesn't) for you in this very moment is subject to change. And what works (or doesn't) for you will affect some other reader very differently.

ALL STORIES ARE VALID. Whether or not they chime with you. Be proud to love what you love, and stay quiet on the ones others love but you don't. We are all so different! AO3 is a vast banquet, and we're not all going to head straight for the same dish.

Here are my thoughts on fanfiction, that I posted here a couple of years ago.

So, I think about fanfiction a lot.

And here’s the thing about the stories you love.

Sometimes they’re a literary work of art, and the author is skilled and deft and has a voice like Austen or Hemingway or name-your-giant-in-the-field.

Sometimes their plot is enormously convoluted and clever and you’re surprised with every turn.

Sometimes they’re so much better than canon you can’t imagine how this author isn’t in charge of the series/movies/books.

But here’s the thing:

Sometimes they’re written by an obvious novice, but the premise or trope is so addictive to you that you’re drawn in.

Sometimes they’re in barely passable English (to which I can only think, welp, I can only write in one language, and this person can write in at least two, so who am I to judge?), but the story they tell is *chef's kiss*.

With fanfiction, you (the reader) can focus on the story itself, and the rest of it is kind of meaningless, or at the least, it’s icing on the cake. You can choose to read the entire work, or you can hit the back button and find a different one.

But this is for authors out there who worry that they’re not good enough by whatever metric:  if you have a story to tell, that story is going to resonate with someone else, and that someone else is going to be so very grateful that you went to the trouble of writing it.

You've encouraged me to start writing-to-publish again and sign up for the mixtape as well as pinch-hit for rbb and to start plotting more an idea I've had for this fandom in literal ages. Just wanted to say, keep doing what you're doing, I really appreciate you and your amazing work and I'm looking forward to seeing your works for RBB and their respective fics! The best of luck! <3

Heh, the last post like that I made resulted in a little flurry of harassment, which was so beautifully ironic I nearly choked myself laughing.

I am SO HAPPY that I've been a motivating force to get you into writing again! Good luck with the outside-world publishing! And have FUN with the Mixtape Exchange (sign-ups are open until March 5) and the Reverse Big Bang (now closed, but all the works should be published starting on May 9th).

I love these fandom events, and MDZS is teeming with them, just. In spite of the way some very few people will dump up on creators who don't meet their spec, the vast majority of this fandom is bubbling with creativity and empathy and support.

Her face went white, her lips vanished and giant dark purple circles appeared under her eyes and her eyes rolled back in her head and she was stiff and I tried to find a pulse, and there wasn't one, and I put my cheek in front of her mouth and there was no air flow and her chest wasn't moving, and.

Just as we were calling 911 she kind of jerked and woke up. And we finally got through to my sister who said pickle juice and bananas (her potassium has plummeted before, but no one knows why). So she sipped on pickle juice for half an hour, and got some more color, and now she's laughing with her cousins, so we're not bringing her to the hospital, but.

I kept waiting for life to slow down. But life has not slowed down, and October rapidly passed me by and, um, so did November. So.

Over my hiatus I turned 50! Now I am A Crone. It's very relaxing and I'm enjoying it. There's something quite freeing about being invisible to society. No pressure!

My house fell apart, so over the hiatus I had the roof and gutters replaced, and someone is coming to deal with all the rotting wood on the deck, and the freakish specialty roof (goddammit) on the old pre-fab sunroom is also rotted and in queue [omg, we're going to be so in debt after all this!].

The water main in front of the house sprung a leak, so now half of my driveway is dug up and filled in with mud and gravel. (The water company swears they'll send someone out to re-pave it, but it's been a few weeks at this point.) This means my garage is empty, so I've been down there, scrubbing and painting and organizing (as one should do every ten years or so).

My garden has matured to the point where it's thoroughly out of control, so that's a giant looming job.

My youngest got Mono right after starting school in a county that refuses to have a mask mandate, so I thought it might be Covid - he was sick for weeks - and yanked him out and put him back in virtual. Which doesn't run on the same system as face-to-face, which means he's stuck with virtual until May. He's not thrilled about that, and frankly, neither am I.

I just discovered that the headaches I've been having for the past 30 years are officially migraines and there is a monthly shot that might help them. So I'm really excited about that. Also, I'm doing Physical Therapy for both the migraines and my back. It's the most I've talked with actual, live humans in the past year and a half.

It's been a busy few months, y'all. But satisfyingly filled with accomplished tasks. I, um, didn't realize there were so many things in Real Life I needed to take a pause and address.

I didn't get much reading done, but I do have a queue of more recs, and I'll start them up today.

I missed you all! I am sure that the fandom was calm and productive while I was gone. Heh, heh.

I'm really, VERY tempted to just tell him to take a year off of school and like, get a job somewhere they wear masks. (He's 16, so he could.)

Meanwhile, this is the shit parents are pulling in my county right now, whilst the Board refuses to even put COVID on their meeting agendas. Anyway, I saw this dumbass tweet and had to laugh at the woman's picture, because isn't that exactly who you'd expect to be running around saying her kids are too beautiful for masks and anyway, she's done her own research and figured out that COVID is a hoax.

God forbid they try to mask the kids!

Tis goldfinch season outside my window, once again. Can you see him?

Oh, well, I'm a nice mix of everybody. I sometimes talk too much and am an oblivious, distractible dork, so there's wei wuxian. I'm also rigidly shy and self-conscious and the wrong thing comes out when I do open my mouth, so there's lan wangji. I'm an inveterate gossip, so here's nie huaisang. I'm insecure and sometimes lash out in order to protect myself - and also I love purple and frogs - so that's my piece of jiang cheng.

As to who my favorite character is, well, that totally depends on which one an author is able to suck me in about. I'm always surprised to have my attention drawn off of wangxian, but it happens regularly, if the story's good enough.