200 Milligrams of Sanity

So I had a really shitty weekend. It involved lots of crying.
That wasn’t any one’s fault; it was just various flavors of people’s crazies interacting with mine in ways that amplified all my weakest points.  Yet come Sunday, I was drained and weak, prone to hushed stammering, barely able to get out of bed.
Monday, I was having a full-fledged breakdown.  I holed up in the basement for two hours, just staring at things, muttering the same phrases over and over again.
This morning, I realized I hadn’t taken my Vitamin D supplements.
It wasn’t a conscious effort; I’d dropped the pill down the sink on Saturday, Sunday I woke late and forgot, and Monday I’d been so rattled I couldn’t do anything.
But there’s a really good chance that the lack of a few hundred milligrams of a chemical was what sent me spiralling into craziness.
That’s kind of terrifying to think of; that all my mental health rests on a microscopic puddle of chemicals.  A splash so small I might not notice it next to the sink is so important that I completely crash without it.
And yet it shouldn’t be terrifying.  All we are is chemicals.  I’m aware if I don’t get enough food, I’ll die.  I know if I have too much food, I don’t feel like having sex.  I know if I get too little oxygen or too much, my brain will malfunction.
Yet looking at this tiny amber capsule, realizing that all of my resilient contentedness emanates from this droplet of fluid…
It’s weird.  I don’t like to think of myself as an elaborate chemistry experiment, something so fine-tuned that a dosage that could rest comfortably on my pinky fingernail is all that stands between Ferrett The Functioning Writer and Ferrett That Asshole In The Darkened Basement.
Yet there’s a good chance it is.  And I don’t know why, as humans, we are so horrified by this idea – all the time I see crazy-ass motherfuckers like me looking at their pills and going, “I feel fine, I don’t need this!” and tossing it away and then crawling back when they realize for the seventieth time in their life that holy shit, I do need this, God, life sucks without it.
It shouldn’t be terrifying, staring into that little gel-capsule and muttering, “Sanity rests inside.”  But it is.  And it’s more horrifying that my logical brain tries to tell me this is no big deal and yet this wet biological mass of nerves recoils as reflexively as fingers from a fire, resisting this idea all the way down to the mitochondria.
It’s a rational idea that seems irrational, and my God, I am a tangled nest of crossed wires.
My God. All of us are.

A Thing I Maybe Should Be Horrified That I'm Doing

About every seven years, I become a new person. Who is usually horrified by much of by what the old person did.
Which is to say that much of what I am known for today – the jazzy hats, the vibrant fingernails, the Hawaiian shirts, the kink-blogging – simply did not exist seven years ago. Fourteen years ago, I doubt I’d even heard the word “polyamorous.” Twenty-one years ago, I was thrashing in the mosh pits and cursing the suburbs.
I keep finding new hobbies, and new wisdoms to live by, and so I keep evolving into different people.
And when I look back upon the drama that I fomented when I was nineteen, I shake my head and wonder what the hell that Ferrett was thinking. I evolved from him, yes, but spend many of my days cringing underneath a thin fog of apologies, because holy God, look at all the dumb shit I did to people.
But it’s rare that I evolve into someone who a past Ferrett would be horrified by. In general, I become a more stable and honest creature who past-Ferretts might not understand, but would admire on some level. Which makes sense: I’m what they were aspiring to be.
Yet if I prick my ears and listen to the past, I can occasionally hear old-me lecturing current-me. It is a disconcerting feeling, listening to punk-ass twenty-two-year-old me talking about how I’ve “sold out” by living in these lame-ass suburbs.
But lately, I’ve been hearing old-Ferrett talking about what a scummy, passive-aggressive bastard I am.
Because past-Ferrett believed, and believed firmly, that everything should be talked out. Every need he had should be unboxed, lovingly, like a man opening a new iPhone, and presented to his partner. And that partner, in turn, should be educated as how to use this new need, why it’s important, given a seminar on How This Fits Into The Greater Ferrett psyche.
(Similar gifts of needs are expected in return, of course. Past-Ferrett wasn’t selfish. Just… obstinate.)
And so, no matter how trivial the relationship past-Ferrett was nurturing, whether it was a silly crush or a committed partnership, Ferrett would pull a full halt and say, “OKAY, HERE IS WHAT I NEED.”
Whether that was “I NEED YOU TO BE EMOTIONALLY HONEST WITH ME AT ALL TIMES OR I WILL SELF-DESTRUCT.”
Or it was “I NEED YOU TO BE PHYSICALLY AFFECTIONATE WITH ME OR I WILL WONDER WHAT I DID WRONG.”
Or it was “I NEED YOU TO SCHEDULE VISITS FAR IN ADVANCE OR I WILL THINK YOU DO NOT WANT TO SEE ME.”
And every time – every time – someone violated one of those necessities of my life, we would pull the car over to the side of the metaphorical road, rehash why these things were necessary to my well-being, and then explain.
Because if they hadn’t done these things, then they clearly didn’t understand. And my job? Was to make them understand. Once they got how vital these bits were to me, they’d either agree to the Terms and Conditions, as it were, or they’d go “This isn’t what I can provide” and leave.
So my relationships – all my relationships, even the trivial crush-flirtations – were punctuated by these freightloads of Meaning.
These days? Not so much. At least not with my lighter relationships.
It’s not that I don’t say, “Oh, by the way, if I send you something sexy and you don’t reply, I’ll feel embarrassed all day.” I mention it, a few times.
But if I express a need to someone and they don’t fulfill it, I start thinking, “Well, either they’re not listening, or their core competencies just aren’t compatible with mine,” and I quietly start pulling up stakes.
Enough missed needs, and I’ll still be friendly – I mean, I like them – but then I quietly slot them into the “Flirt, but do not engage” box, where I’ll smooch ’em on the cheeks and express joy at their arrival, but do so stiffly, at an arm’s length, because I told them “Wow, for me, scheduling visits is critical,” and they shrugged and never brought it up again, and so they clearly want something that I do not.
It’s interesting, because it has the net effect of entangling me in a lot more flirtations. I spend less time with each individual person because, well, I don’t have to slam the gavel and go, “FOUL! This act wounded me. Let us go to the evidence lockers and haul out the offending sentence, and dissect it before your eyes…”
I just shrug and say, “Well, they don’t get me.” And I move on.
And old-Ferrett is horrified: all of them, actually. To a man, they all believe that what I’m doing is the worst kind of passive-aggression, I’m not giving these people a chance, and in fact I’m quietly rooting for these folks to fail by not instructing them properly in the Ways of the Ferrett.
Yet there’s another part of me that says, quietly, “You instructed them for thirty years, Ferrett. You pressured them into doing things they were simply not intuitively capable of doing. And your whipping them with guilt until they did the things you wanted turned out not to be terribly effective, in the long run. Why is it so bad to just let people be themselves, and find folks who naturally provide you what you need with minimal prodding?”
Old-Ferrett has lots of thoughts on the matter. He’s trying to tell me I’m wrong.
Then again, that’s mostly what he did back then, so… heck with that guy.
And yet I’m not sure I’m right here, either. Maybe I’m not giving people enough of a chance. Then again, the prize is, well, dating me, and “being without me” is a pretty lame-ass punishment, as most of the world gets by just fine without it.
And I know that many people will do what they always do in essays like this, the thing they think is helpful: They’ll say, “Have you tried ${TALKING_THIS_WAY} to tell these people what you wanted?” And yes, yes, I have, I’ve tried telling them every which way I knew how, and I’ve mastered a lot of communications, telling me Yet Another Redundant Way to educate people in my needs is useless.
What I want to know, what old-Ferrett wants to know, is whether it’s better to find someone vaguely compatible and to educate them, or to find someone tightly compatible who needs little direction.
I know that after decades of bad dating, I found Gini, and I educated her severely (as she educated me), and we managed to make each other extremely happy.
What I don’t know is whether that was a fluke, and maybe it’s just better on the whole to look for people who you don’t have to work that hard upon.
Or maybe whether everyone really is someone you have to work that hard upon when the rubber hits the road.
Old-Ferrett thinks they are. New-Ferrett is still glistening with embryonic fluids, and he is not certain of anything.

In Honor Of Sir Christopher Lee: My New Lord of the Rings-Inspired Nails

I kind of thought about getting dinosaur nails this time around, but the problem is that a) I’m not a huge fan of Jurassic Park, and b) I have yet to see Jurassic World so I don’t know if I like it, and c) if it turns out I don’t like Jurassic World then I would have to stiff-grin smile at Jurassic fans for the next month as they attempted to share their love with me.
(Seriously, if you have the right nails, people will yank you aside to squee at you. Which is great when it’s something you love, but try not to advertise fandoms you’re not into upon your body or you’ll drown in awkward conversations.)
But then I remembered that Sir Christopher Lee had died:

If Christopher Lee were written as the hero of a novel, everyone would accuse the author of Mary Sueing.

— Ferrett Steinmetz (@ferretthimself) June 11, 2015

And I remembered he was a huge Lord of the Rings fan, back when being a Lord of the Rings fan was about as nerdy as one could get – and he made Lord of the Rings magnificent. (He wanted to be Gandalf. He would have been a too-terrifying Gandalf. He was, however, a perfect Saruman.)
And I wanted to honor him.
And as usual, my mad manicurist Ashley has struck again – this time with a simple design that is striking and bold:


Yes, that is the White Tree of Gondor, along with the One Ring on my thumbnails. (I told her that someone I knew would doubtlessly be an Elvish linguist, and critique her faked Elvish script; the running gag then became that my thumbnails said “This guy is an asshole” in Elvish.)
As usual, you can see Ashley’s past designs on me here, and she does work right here in Cleveland for extremely reasonable prices. She likes money. Go give her some if you’re local!

How Much Of The Sad Puppy Divide Is Just An Approach To Novelty?

Just a weird thought I had, watching accusations of people “pandering” because they put black/gay/handicapped characters in their novels:
When I wrote Flex, I covered about two-thirds of the Pandering Accusation Bingo Card: my lead character is handicapped (he lost his right foot in a magical battle), and he’s got a biracial daughter who represents as black.  The novel I’m writing right now, Savor Station, features as its lead a black gay son of cultish religious parents.
The thing is, I’m not pandering to anyone: if anything, I was pretty sure that having a black girl on the cover of the book (which was important to me) would suppress sales.
But those characters were exciting to me.
I’d seen a hundred white dude leads before in fiction. When I read a book and go, “Oh, hey, it’s another hard-boiled ex-cop,” I put it aside, because I get little pleasure from repetition. My favorite books are the ones that show me something wildly new that I haven’t seen before.
So when I was creating Paul Tsabo, the idea of a protagonist who was a) handicapped and b) complete crap in a fight appealed to me.  I hadn’t seen a dude like this before – especially when I realized his magical power was bureaucracy.  So I went, “Wow, I gotta see what happens to this guy!” and followed him down the rabbit hole.
Likewise, when I wrote Kenna, the lead of Savor Station, I went, “I have written five (unpublished) novels with a plucky white straight boy adolescent.  I’m tired of that crap.  How can I switch it up?”
So to me, both my reading habits and my writing habits pull me towards “WHAT THE HELL?!?” moments; my favorite stories are the ones where I have no idea how it’s going to end. I want unique things, and so I’m not pandering to anyone, I’m writing what I think is exciting because I haven’t seen it before.
And when Brad Torgersen’s repeated and exasperated claims that “Back in the day, when you bought a book with an astronaut on the cover, you knew what you were getting,” my response is, “Yeah, which is why I sought out books by Ray Bradbury and H.P. Lovecraft and Frank Herbert, who had weird-ass covers. I spent my childhood groaning whenever I saw those covers, because I did know what I was getting.”
Yet he seems to think this repetition is a good thing.
And I think a lot of the Sad Puppy divide comes down to those who value comfort reading – they want mostly what they’ve read before, with a few twists to keep it fresh – and those of us who only get off on things we haven’t seen before.
There’s nothing wrong with either side, of course – I don’t disdain those who want to read their Laurel K. Hamilton and Harry Potter books a hundred times over, even as I don’t understand it.  Reading is reading. Love what you like.
But I think at some point, people like Brad and company have metastatized their tastes to go “Everyone really wants to hear the same basic stories, deep down” – and from that perspective, of course we’re only adding these weird-ass characters because we’re pandering.  Why would you want to write a gay character when what you’ve read before are straight characters, and the only thing that really scratches your itch is stuff similar to what you’ve read before?
There’s nothing wrong with either side, actually.  Some of the best stories are, in fact, old tales retold, and judging from the popularity of a lot of military sci-fi (which I find repetitive) and romance novels (many of which tell the same basic plot) and even horror books, people like repetition.  There’s a very large segment of folks out there who are comforted by knowing what’s about to happen, and being proved right.
But I think one of the reasons the Sad Puppies routinely think we’re throwing people in “just to be PC” is because to their minds, you wouldn’t mess with tried-and-true story structures without having an ulterior motive. The whole point of a story is, to them, on some unconscious level, that you’re reproducing something great you’ve seen before, with the subtlest of changes, and a “wild” change like WHOAH INDIAN TRANS CHARACTER is something you’d only do to purposely fuck with people.
But no. To me, I hear “Indian trans character” and I go, “Wow, that’s new! I wonder how that would work!”  And I’m excited to read that, and to write that, if I have a home for that person.
I’m not pandering, man.  I’m just turned on by different ideas than you are. And that’s okay.

Where I'll Be This Year (Or, Come Meet A Weasel!)

You know what I love? Making new friends at conventions. This is why I go to them.
So if you wanna meet me, generally, go to a convention I’m at. I’ll hug you. I’ll buy you a drink. I’ll talk too much about Rock Band 4.  And I’ll sign my book, oh God, I will be so happy if you want me to sign my book.
Anyway, here’s the cons I’ll be at in 2015.  These are all awesome cons, and I would highly recommend going to them if you are interested in what these cons do.
WorldCon, in Spokane, Washington!  (August 20th-23rd)
This is the biggest sci-fi convention in the world, and it is hellaciously fun. I’ll be mostly barconning it with Gini, but I’m told Angry Robot will have a booth, and as such I’ll be sitting at their table, signing.  And when I’m not, I’ll occasionally be Twittering my location and inviting y’all to join me.
SINergy, in Lansing, Michigan! (August 28th-30th)
This is a kink con where I’ll be presenting on fireplay.  I’ve never done this particular convention before, but two of my favorite online kink writers are there – Graydancer and Alice Skary – so I anticipate it’ll be a good time.
COPE, in Columbus, Ohio! (September 11-13th)
Yet another kink con I’ll be attending.  I won’t be doing any presenting here, just hanging out with my sweetie and yakking a lot.
The Geeky Kink Event in Piscataway, New Jersey! (November 6th-8th)
Huh. A third kink con. This gives the impression that the only events I attend are kinky ones, whereas the truth is that all my lit-cons (ConFusion, Penguicon) fall at the beginning of the year, whereas the kinky stuff is at the end.
If you’ve never been to a kink con before, this is the one I’d advise you to start at – because the focus is not on the kink, but the geeky stuff.  There’s a lot of sexy things happening here, but realistically this is one of the more wholesome cons because it’s a celebration of Doctor Who, and My Little Pony, and cosplay, and friendship.
With some kink thrown in.  In a strong consent culture.  It’s hella-fun, but tickets go fast, so you need to reserve now.
And Maybe Chicago And Denver.
In addition, I may be doing some extra signings for when the sequel to my book Flex (called The Flux, which features Ferguson-style showdowns and the most unlikely ‘mancer you’ve ever seen) hits in October, depending on whether I can arrange the time off and the appropriate bookstore to host me.
(Remember, I get paid no money to go do a book signing. In most cases, I lose money. So I’m thrilled that you want me to sign at your town, and I’d love to, but I have limited vacation time and travel expenditures to run at. Want me to come to your town? Convince a local convention to invite me and pay my way, because holy God, you do not wanna know how much I’ve spent on gas and plane fares this year.)

So How Stable WERE Calvin And Hobbes' Parents, Anyway?

Right now, before reading the rest of this essay, I want you to formulate an opinion:
Calvin’s parents (of Calvin and Hobbes) were:
a) A loving relationship;
b) A troubled, but ultimately stable, relationship;
c) On the brink of divorce.
Okay.  Got an opinion?  Remember it.  I want you to tell me at the end of this post.
Thing is, it’s hard to tell in Calvin and Hobbes, because Watterson purposely hid the details of what the parents did. You’ll never hear them called by name: they are only “mom” and “dad.” We only know what Calvin’s Dad does for a living if we’re paying very close attention (for the record, he’s a patent attorney).  What you see in Calvin’s parents’ relationship most likely reflects your reality.
But I have a theory:
I think if you came from a dysfunctional family, where bickering and dissension only takes place as part of a hostile environment, you see Calvin’s parents as on the brink of divorce, because in the strip they frequently have conflict over Calvin (who is, to be honest, a kid who any good set of parents would have some conflict about).
And in a dysfunctional family, where everything’s so soaked in anger that the slightest tinder could set everything irreparably on fire, open conflict is the sign of danger. You spend so much time trying to avoid setting anyone off, being nice, eating your emotions, redirecting conversations, that when two people actually do uncork something that vexes them, that means they’re about to fucking kill each other.
So when you see Calvin’s parents angry at each other about Calvin, you think God, they’re close to losing it. This family’s going South.
Whereas if you came from a non-dysfunctional family, conflict is just part of normal, everyday working out problems. You come to someone with an issue, you yell, you figure out how to deal with it, it goes away.  Sometimes you yell and it’s over like a summer storm, this three-sentence “WELL FINE!” that leaves you both laughing, and you don’t think that telling someone you’re angry is a big thing because, well, it isn’t.
For these people, Calvin’s parents are a strong relationship because they do occasionally express conflict over Calvin.
Because frankly, the answer to “Are Calvin’s parents happy?” is “We don’t know.”  It’s a purposely myopic view, from Calvin’s rather self-centered perspective, and that’s the charm of the strip.  But the glimpses we get?
They tell us far more about you than about Calvin’s family, most likely.
Now. Please. Tell me how stable you thought Calvin’s parents were, and why, and debate in the comments, because I find this fascinating.