Blogetary (Weblog + Commentary = Blogetary)

For any interested. Got a call from Planned Parenthood regarding my TSH levels – that’s Thyroid Stimulating Hormone for the uninitiated. Normal range is .05 to 5.0.

Back in March 2007 when I took a test I found online, the figure was 57.23 (this means my thyroid was pumping out too much and my body wasn’t absorbing any) and I was advised to see my doctor immediately. Course, I don’t have a doctor to see since my employers no longer covered my health care. I knew I was flailing then and it was getting difficult to function at a normal level, but I hoped the raw thyroid gland I was taking would help rectify that. Well, it didn’t, which we know now.

The phone call today told me my levels are at 150, three times what they were in March. I’m not surprised as it’s getting more difficult to function lately, my skin is dryer, my hair is thinner and my brain doesn’t always feel as sharp as normal. I have an appointment at a Free Clinic in January.

A little vindication goes a long way, I tells ya. Yes. I am in fact, truly sick. No. It’s not all in my head and I am NOT being lazy or self-entitled. I was talking this over with an online friend of mine who has a similar problem and she said it’s just frustrating. To the rest of the world, we look healthy, so people just assume we’re overweight, lazy, and unmotivated, or have entitlement issues as some might say about me. But we’re sick. We need medical attention and medical care. And it needs to be affordable medical care or we can’t access it. And if we can’t access the medical care, we can’t function enough to work well. How are we then supposed to get the second job needed to make the extra money needed to pay for health care on our own if we can barely get out of bed in the morning. What if freelancing is the second job and I can’t find anything doing that? Get a third job? When I can, again, barely function physically at a normal level?

This is why we need universal healthcare, IMHO. I mean, what about people with other issues, like chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia? What about people with PTSD? A lot of conservative, corporate employers out there just shrug these things off, but if your workforce isn’t healthy, then how can they be productive. Don’t these employers want a healthy workforce? Well then, it’s gotta be paid for. Either pay a living wage to the employees so they can afford to pay for their own healthcare, or pay for the healthcare. It’s that simple. Otherwise, the employers are going to lose money because as the health of the employee deteriorates, the productivity of that employee deteriorates and the company loses money.
It’s just that simple.

I’m scaring myself. I wrote a short story, that turned into a novella or longish short story. And am now almost finished with an outline I have for turning that novella into a novel length piece that is actually a series of novellas focusing on the different, but related, characters. Kind of fun, but in outlining the stories, I can see the work required. It helps to know that I will be doing each story one at a time and not all at once, but still- it’s a bit daunting. It means being committed to this bit of world while I do other things and committing to getting these things done.

Yikes.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled revenue enhancing day.

*sigh*

I am trying to keep Aristotle in mind and to just keep trying. Excellence is a habit, not an act. But it’s hard to keep at it when it just always seems to be no, all the time now, no matter what I do with each story, or how I rewrite it or present it or where I send it. It’s like I’ve been blackballed by someone to never be published ever, though that’s a pretty narcissistic thought since no one’s even heard of me. Plus, I do have some poetry coming out so that’s just self-pity feeding my doldrums. Every once in a while I go back to toying with Lulu, but that would cost money I don’t have and not necessarily work in my favor.

Well, I have a revenue enhancing project to work on and a puzzle to solve. (In order to decorate the tree, I need to light the tree. In order to light the tree I need to redistribute the power cords and surge protectors. In order to do that I need to clean off the desk and may as well decide what to toss and what to keep and what to donate or give to other people, and put my tax paperwork aside. And in order to do that, I need to stop every once in a while and check my email and take a sip of coffee as well as crawl around on my hands and knees and figure out the CD drive so that I can maybe make CDs for people for Christmas….).

Oh well. Back to work.

When Vicki Pettersson first announced MONTHS ago that she would be having a holiday story in this anthology (which also includes stories by Kim Harrison, Lynsay Sands, and Marjorie M. Liu) I was so excited. Anyone who knows me knows how much I not only like holiday themed stories, but also how much I enjoy reading Vicki Pettersson’s stories. As soon as it came on Amazon for pre-order, I had an order made up. Now, having finished all four stories, I have to say I do NOT feel disappointed in my purchase.

So, here’s the breakdown.

Read Vicki’s story, “The Harvest,” first, even if it is the last story in the book. Trust me on this. I don’t say this just because I am a fan. I also say this because the novellas included in this anthology are set during four different parts of the holiday season: “The Harvest,” by Vicki Pettersson, is set during Thanksgiving (end of November), so logically should be first; “Two Ghosts for Sister Rachel,” by Kim Harrison, is set during Winter Solstice (about the 21st of December); “Run, Run, Rudolph,” by Lynsay Sands, is set for Christmas proper; and “Six,” by Marjorie M. Liu, is set during the Chinese New Year’s Festival, also known as the Spring Festival (varies from year to year, but usually in January or February). In my opinion, they should be read in the order of the seasonal celebrations, no matter what order HarperCollins has put them in.

But what do I actually think of these seasonal offerings, you ask? Well, here’s my review:

THE HARVEST, by Vicki Pettersson -

“The Harvest” is set in the same Las Vegas Superhero world as “The Scent of Shadows” and “The Taste of Night,” with the difference that it takes place approximately 8 years before the first book. The main character in this case is Zoe Archer, the mother of Joann, the protagonist of Pettersson’s series. In this tale, the reader is let in on some of the backstory of Joann’s life, as well as the reason why Zoe disappeared from her daughter’s life.

I enjoyed this story. Zoe Archer is every bit as independent, secretive, and resourceful as her daughter proves to be, and maybe has a little bit more of an edge than Jo does, despite what Jo has been through herself. Zoe was actually raised in the sanctuary with the other Zodiac initiates so when she is breaking the rules, she KNOWS she is breaking the rules. Zoe is like one of those double agents that goes deep undercover and then has to give up her life just to make sure everything she has worked for and loves will not be compromised. How does she do this? Lets just say her body is a weapon in more ways than one.

Pettersson weaves a very elegant Thanksgiving solution to the problem Zoe is trying to solve and I really enjoyed the resolution to this story. One of things I had a hard time with was Warren, the troop leader, as Zoe’s love interest. But I think I was supposed to have a hard time with it, because while I sympathized with Zoe, I still didn’t like Warren. One weakness in this tale was that the other Zodiac characters, both Light and Shadow, were a tad thin, but given that Pettersson was limited to a novella as opposed to the long rich tales she is used to composing, that’s not a surprise. The story itself still leaves me with a quiet little smile at the poetic justice Zoe found, days after I read it. It was a good read, especially for fans of the Zodiac Series.

TWO GHOSTS FOR SISTER RACHEL by Kim Harrison

Similar to Vicki Pettersson, Kim Harrison goes back in time to show her fans some of the backstory of her character Rachel from her Rachel Morgan series. Taking place in 1999 in an alternate world where the underworld of Witchcraft has been exposed and taken for granted since 1966, this particular take explores just how Rachel Morgan got started hunting the bad guys. Although I have never read any of the Kim Harrison stories, I have heard a lot about her and this was a good introduction.

Rachel Morgan, on a bargain with her brother, bets that she can bring her father’s ghost back from the dead in order to get her father’s blessing to join Inderland Security. Her brother thinks she’s too weak to live up to the demands of a profession in the IS and hopes that she’ll give it up to go to school with him in Portland. What her brother doesn’t count on is Rachel being so successful in bringing a spirit back that it is solid enough to require clothes in the middle of a very public solstice celebration. NO ONE suspects the connection that a spirit that had been dead for about 150 years will have with those living in Cincinnati in 1999.

I have to say, I really enjoyed this story and the connection that Rachel has with the spirit. It is very poignant and sweet, and is a good underscore to a very kickass supernatural adventure tale. I also really enjoyed Rachel’s mom. I may not be fiscally solvent right now, but I’m going to haunt the library for other Kim Harrison books on the strength of this origin tale.

There were some things that annoyed me. I kind of felt like I never quite “got” the world Rachel Morgan lived in. I didn’t quite buy it. But, like Pettersson’s tale, it was probably because Harrison is used to writing novel length material and so was limited in presenting her world in novella form. Otherwise, next time I’m at the library, I’m seeing what I can do to find me some Kim Harrison!

RUN, RUN, RUDOLPH by Lynsay Sands

In my opinion, this was the weakest of the four stories, though many people will probably like it the best. In this story, Lynsay Sands presents the tale of how Jill, a shop owner and sister to a scientist, is transformed into a shapeshifter, stalked and almost kidnapped by a crazed colleague of her brother’s, and gets together with the guy of her dreams. Sounds like an unbelievable whirlwind to you? Yes. That’s exactly what it is.

Logically, the story works. Sands has made sure to dot her i’s and cross her t’s so that the plot works in the small details. I know because I kept saying, “Wait! Wait! Can she really do that?” And then going back and re-reading sections to make sure it all worked. While the story does work and is a nice story, it annoyed me. I never really knew what Jill looked like in her original form or quite grasped what kind of person she was, so I didn’t really care about her even though I was supposed to.

In addition, the “breaking out into sex” in almost every scene annoyed me as much as some people get annoyed with Jane Powell breaking out into song in almost every frame of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Seriously. Enough with the gratuitous sex, already! That being said, the sex scenes were pretty hot and like I said, a lot of people will probably like this story the best because of that.

I did, however, think it was a nice holiday touch that the love interest’s name was “Nick” and that he drove a red SUV. I thought that bit was clever and was surprised that Sands didn’t make better use of exploiting those details in her story.

SIX by Marjorie M. Liu

Before I read this tale by Marjorie M. Liu, I had decided that I liked Pettersson’s tale best, then Harrison’s and then Sands. After reading “Six,” however, I have to say it almost beats out Petterson’s tale, just edging over Harrison’s. Seriously. I felt like I was reading a Jackie Chan/Michelle Yeoh movie and I had a GREAT time reading it. Like Sands, it was non-stop action. Unlike Sands, when sex showed up, there was a reason for it. And having been to China and being a fan of China for a number of years, I really appreciated the reality of the Chinese world that Liu has depicted in “Six.”

Six is a product of the state. Made a ward of the government at the age of five and taught to be the perfect investigator and assassin, Six is the ultimate female fighting machine. The women on her squad can infiltrate places men can’t because they’re women and can hide in plain sight as masseuses or vendors or any number of female roles that are otherwise discarded. During an assignment where Six and her unit are trying to get information on a terrorist cell, Six meets Joseph, a necromancer, and fights with her first vampire. Her life changes forever.

I had a hard time finding a weakness to this tale other than that it was way too short. It was fast-paced, touching, sexy, and VERY Chinese. I wanted more. This is a fantastic origin tale for a new superheroine and her partner and I really wanted to read more about Six’s life, including the backstory of where she came from originally, which Liu just didn’t have the space to go into. I investigated Liu’s website hoping to find more on Six. I did find this cool trailer. I hope she chooses to explore more of Six’s life and let us know about it because I loved what I read.

On the whole, I enjoyed my holiday weekend read, Holidays Are Hell, and I do recommend it. A sexy, mass market edition that can fit in your handbag, it will be a good respite to pick up and read whether waiting in line at the register, or while waiting for others in your party to finish their own holiday visiting and shopping. In short, it is a nice holiday from the rest of the holiday hell that you may be surrounded by this season.

Well, up there with cool writerly news, my friend Mike has a new story, “Spooklights,” that is up on Clone Podcast.
I’m holding onto that bit of good news because 2 more poems of mine were rejected. That’s life I suppose. I’m currently working on something else that is entirely different so I guess I should go back to that.  I’ve put some old black and white Christmas movies on the dvd player to put me in the mood. Time to go back to it.

Until it doesn’t work anymore. These days it’s barely consequential, as long as you have access to health care and are properly diagnosed and can get treatment. It’s a small butterfly shaped gland around your throat that helps the rest of your body function normally, known as your thyroid gland.

(Image and following information taken from this article http://www.medicinenet.com/hypothyroidism/article.htm and personal experience).

I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism in my 20s. The doctor said it was no big deal, but that it did account for my weight gain and loss of energy and apathy and depression. All it took was a simple blood test and then figuring out what dose of medication I would need of L-thyroxine or Synthroid to help my thyroid work correctly and get my body’s thyroid chemicals at the correct level.  As long as I got tested yearly, a simple blood test along with the other yearly tests normally covered by insurance, the doctor could continue writing the prescription, adjusting the medication according to what my body needed.

There were a few times when I was without medical insurance. Brief periods between when one job ended and another began with the 90 day waiting period for benefits. I may need to get retested, but I typically only went without my medication for a small period of time and was soon on it again. Sometimes I would pick up supplements at the health food store or drugstore that would supposedly help in between times. They were things like Irish Moss, Kelp, Raw Thyroid Gland or supplements with all three in them. I tried to make sure all the salt in the house was iodized and that I had plenty of fish (yes, there is a reason my body craves salt and it’s a real reason – it needs the iodine).  These periods of depending on outside sources for thyroid support were never very long, however, and typically I was back on regular medication within three months.

There was one time when I had a doctor that did not pay very close attention to my thyroid condition and just kept renewing my prescription without testing.  I knew something was wrong. I was depressed, lethargic and gaining weight. She thought I should explore anti-depressants and gastro-bypass surgery. I thought I was peri-menopausal. She finally re-tested my thyroid and adjusted my medication up. My emotions quit playing yoyo on me and I gained energy and lost weight and was a much happier individual. And it was a very small adjustment in my medication. But I went through months of hell before she thought to give me that test and adjust my medication.

I changed doctors after that, but when they give you that list of providers, they don’t tell you anything about them, whether they’ll really pay attention or not.  Whether they listen or not is not a question on the insurance form, right? Well, it didn’t matter too much because shortly after, my (former) employer called me into his office and said that due to budget cuts my medical and dental benefits were being taken away. I tried to get in to see my doctor one last time before the month was up, but couldn’t. Shortly after, my prescription ran out and my doctor wouldn’t renew it unless I came in for an exam and a blood test, which I couldn’t pay for without my insurance. I just couldn’t afford to.

I kept trying to look into paying for insurance on my own. Through my employer it had been $60/month, or about $15 taken out of each weekly paycheck. On my own, as an overweight female over 40 with previously diagnosed conditions, the monthly charge started at $200/month and went up from there.  I simply did not have that kind of money. I was not going to get a raise from my (former) employer (he’d already laid off other people as well as taking away my benefits) to make up the difference. My rent was going to go up again, while my paycheck was not.  I did what I typically do, railed at God and the Universe and everyone around me and then settled down to figure out what I could do. So, I decided to go back to trying out the supplements again and see what I could do through the public health system.
That didn’t really work over the long haul. The supplements only helped to a certain degree. Planned Parenthood could help me with my reproductive health needs but not anything else. Though I did not make enough money to pay for my own health care benefits, I made too much money for the public health system to help me. (Note: I find it ironic that my employers, who do not believe in socialized medicine or public welfare, basically forced me onto the public welfare system – sound like Wal Mart to anyone else?)

My body continued to deteriorate. I lost energy. My hair got brittle and thin. I gained weight. I had a difficult time getting restful sleep. One of the things that happens when your body doesn’t get enough T3 and T4 in your system is that the thyroid gland goes into overdrive trying to reproduce more. But for some reason, what it’s producing is not getting into your body. So it tries even harder, growing and swelling to try to keep the body working. To keep me alive. The thyroid gland is around the trachea, so as it swells, it makes it harder to breath and to get oxygen, harder to sleep at night when your tongue and throat typically relax.  According to Medicinenet.com, when this condition is allowed to deteriorate:

As the disease becomes more severe, there may be puffiness around the eyes, a slowing of the heart rate, a drop in body temperature, and heart failure. In its most profound form, severe hypothyroidism may lead to a life-threatening coma (myxedema coma). In a severely hypothyroid individual, a myxedema coma tends to be triggered by severe illness, surgery, stress, or traumatic injury. This condition requires hospitalization and immediate treatment with thyroid hormones given by injection.

Properly diagnosed, hypothyroidism can be easily and completely treated with thyroid hormone replacement. On the other hand, untreated hypothyroidism can lead to an enlarged heart (cardiomyopathy), worsening heart failure, and an accumulation of fluid around the lungs (pleural effusion) (http://www.medicinenet.com/hypothyroidism/page3.htm#toc5at).

I kept telling my (former) employer I needed benefits. I told him I was doing my best to take care of it on my own but that my deteriorating health was making it more and more difficult to make it to work on time and to function well. I tried to start eating better, but many times the cheaper foods in the grocery store are the ones with more additives and are less healthy. But I tried. I didn’t have the energy to walk around the block after dinner. Friends would tell me to buck up and “go for a walk, it’s good for you” and I would just stare in disbelief. I just didn’t have it and they didn’t get it.

I also didn’t have sick days, but I was calling in sick more often because some days I just needed to sleep for 12-16 hours.  So, I was making even less money. My employer would nod and smile. It didn’t cost him money and sometimes I would do some of my job from home, without pay, “just to help out.” One day I went in and seriously told him it was difficult to take a job seriously when I didn’t have health care through that job, hadn’t had a raise in years, and only had a week off per year (after eight years of employment). He avoided me for the rest of the week.

Keep in mind this former employer and his partner still had their own health care benefits, gym memberships, still worked on remodeling their homes, getting new cars, going on vacations and all that other stuff.

Two weeks later I lost it out right and told my (former) employer that I was tired of watching this happen when I didn’t have benefits. I was tired of seeing he and his business partner pocket cash payments (when people payed in cash, they split it between them and pocketed the money rather than record it and deposit in the bank) when the business and the employees were obviously suffering financially. So, because of this, because I was stupid enough to tell the little emperor that he, in fact, had no clothes, because I was honest, I was told I was being insubordinate and surly and was asked to leave. He told me my health was a personal problem I was bringing to work and it wasn’t his problem.

Now, go back up to that paragraph about what can happen with an untreated thyroid problem. Basically, I could die if this condition is left untreated and he was telling me he could care less. This is someone I have spent Christmas and Thanksgiving with. I had gone to his wedding. Held his daughters as babies and been to their birthday parties. I had known he and his wife for as long as I’ve lived in California – 14 years or so – and I had worked for him for eight of those years. I was letting him know how serious it was. I had been without my medication for a year and a half when he let me go. He didn’t care. It wasn’t his problem.

Well, he may not know it, but because I am now unemployed and my health has deteriorated so much, the public health system can now help me. The public health system that he rails against, the socialized medicine that he would rather not exist, the Planned Parenthoods and Free Clinics and other systems in place to help out people who can’t otherwise get health care, that he can’t stand to have his taxes go towards, well that’s what is paying for my health care now.(Anyone else flashing back on Scrooge’s words to the men seeking donations for the poor: “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”).

Wednesday, when I was at Planned Parenthood, my thyroid is functioning at such a low level, my throat so swollen and lethargy so noticeable, its effect on my reproductive system so obvious, they can officially step in and help me now and can refer me to a provider. They can take the blood test and help me get the prescription. That is a blessing and I thank God and Universe for Planned Parenthood. For all I have to wait an hour or more every time I go, I always have good care when I go there. They take good care of me.

I am not out of the woods yet. I still don’t have my medication yet. An evening with friends tires me out like a Victorian lady with the consumption. I go for a walk and need to nap for an hour. And, I still need to wait for the results and then figure out how the referral works and get through that.  It’s scary and frustrating when you can feel your body not function the way it should and know what you need and not be able to get it.

It’s a small thing really, the thyroid gland, hardly worth noticing, until it quits working.

There is a part of me that bitterly wants to strike out at my former employer for this hardship and heartache he has caused me. I want to report him to every agency I can think of. I want him to go through what I have gone through. I want him to watch his life deteriorate as I have had to watch mine deteriorate because of decisions he made. The healthier part of me that still functions recognizes that this wouldn’t work. My best option is to continue doing what I’ve been doing and that is to walk away, step by step, and not look back. I learned this the hard way with my neighbor and former friend, Mike, next door. The more I rail at the person who “done me wrong” the less good it does me. Cuz those people don’t recognize that they’ve done wrong. They refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. The best I can do is take care of myself and get away from being around toxic energy sucks such as these people have become and move on with my life. It’s a slow process. When you’ve spent years of friendship and trust on someone it’s not easy to disengage. In the case of my former employer, I still do some freelance work through his company sometimes and I need that income. The sooner I find other income to replace that the better off I am, but in the meantime, I have to at least keep up a pretense of civility.

So, it’s a small thing, really, until it’s no longer a small thing. Then it’s huge.

Spend it with someone you love! And that means yourself included!

I am watching Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with my cat and in my jammies.

Looking forward to dinner with friends. Though truthfully, it would be nice to have a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving complete with popcorn, jellybeans, toast and pretzels. I think that would rock!

Under the heading of Cool Writerly News….

A friend of mine has a short story coming out in the most recent issue of On Spec.

Another friend of mine is working her way, word by word towards the completion of her NaNo goal!

Yet another friend of mine is good at reminding me of the simple joys in life.

Another friend is juggling family, school, and NaNo with Lucille Ball-like aplomb and I admire her for it.

I am still out there seeking writerly work. I can’t seem to settle down on my most recent of projects, so I’m sending out feelers for revenue enhancing work. I checked out a book on how to write proposals for grants. I’m going to research classes on that.

I think I am restless because I want to know there is a real paycheck coming in. And while there is money coming in now, it’s not going to be enough to cover everything and it’s making me nervous. But what is coming in is as much or a little more than what I would be making at a minimum wage job and I get to write and look for the right job in the mean time.

I called my sister for a booster shot of encouragement today because I keep hearing from people “why don’t you work at Borders for Christmas or Starbucks or …”. I am not twenty years old anymore. I am NOT anybody’s secretary, receptionist, bookshelver, administrative assistant, or barista. And at this point if I was, I’d scream at someone and blow it in a week, because I don’t have that kind of patience anymore. I am a professional writer, copy editor, and proofreader. I am 43 years old and I’ve been at it for almost a decade at least. That’s my profession. That’s what I want to do and it’s what I’ve wanted to do all my life. Maybe I can’t write fiction for a living (yet), but I can write research content, book and movie reviews, technical documents, grants, resumes, cover letters and other copy for a living, as well as edit and proof for other people for a living. And it is up to me to take this chance I’ve been given and honor it and not piss it away on just one more deadend retail job. So there.

So, today, I made myself do all those hard things I’ve been putting off (calling credit card companies to make arrangements, sending out “cold call” resumes to places that aren’t necessarily looking for freelance writers or proofreaders yet, but might look at my resume anyway, speaking with government agencies about this, that and the other – you know – the hard stuff). Also made my cranberry relish for the upcoming Thanksgiving Day feast.

Tomorrow I have errands to run and appointments to go to, and then maybe I’ll feel settled and ready to tackle this last writing project. Looking over my most recent goals and objectives list, I realize that just in this last week I have met at least one of my writing goals as well as other goals in my life.

After Thanksgiving, Christmas will be coming down out of the cupboards and then you get to hear about that adventure.

So, that is my cool writerly news of the week.

(Oh, and I’m crossposting this in several different places as well.)

About a week and a half ago when I was wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life, a friend called and invited me to go see Elizabeth: The Golden Age with he and a couple other friends. Since I’d seen Elizabeth: The Virgin Queen back when it came out, and had grown up basically hero worshipping Elizabeth I (as far as I was concerned, she was right up there with Marie Curie, Joan of Arc, Elizabeth Blackwell, Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell, as well as Ruth, Deborah, and Esther – yes, I am a feminist from WAY back), I was so there. Besides, they were paying, and with my new way of life, that was perfect.

For people not familiar with the historic record, Elizabeth was one of the children of Henry VIII. Her mother was King Henry’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, who was beheaded supposedly for incest, treason, and adultery, but has since been lauded as a great worker for Church Reform and was considered a Protestant martyr by John Foxe. King Henry’s reign, as is typical with most administrations, was full of a struggle for power. He separated England from the Catholic Church so he could divorce his first wife when she didn’t give him the power or the son he desired. Subsequent wives of Henry fell rapidly after that. The result of his dissolution from the Catholic Church was to make the Monarch of England head of the Church of England, or the Anglican Church. The result of his six marriages was to have a handful of children left when he died, ending up in yet more struggles for power.

In Elizabeth: Virgin Queen (EVQ), Shekhar Kapur, Michael Hirst, and Cate Blanchett presented Elizabeth as a bright and lively young woman who was wise enough to seek solace in prayer (at least on the surface – in reality when a woman was at prayer it was one of the only times when she was allowed to sit alone and think without interference) when imprisoned by her half-sister Queen Mary during Mary’s bloody Catholic reign. Elizabeth had grown up watching people she thought of as family either dying or being executed. Family was NOT safe and the people she would naturally be drawn to love were constantly being torn from her. Some movies and books have presented Elizabeth as Henry’s favorite to succeed him to the throne, even though she was female. It would have been a tumultuous upbringing.

In any case, EVQ depicts the first part of Elizabeth’s reign, showing how she learned the hard way the decisions a monarch must make to rule her people well and remain in power. She learned that falling in love, getting married, having children, may not be able to be a part of the equation, no matter what she wanted. There were too many men who seemed trustworthy but were not that were willing to take advantage of her should she show weakness around them. By the end of the movie she realizes that in order to be the ruler she needs to be, her best course of action is to marry her nation. As official head of the Church of England, this is a logical step. Just as the Pope heads the Catholic Church and the Pope and Virgin Mary hear the prayers of the Catholics, she heads the Anglican Church and has become the Virgin Queen, and is there to serve her people.

When Elizabeth: The Golden Age (EGA) opens, Elizabeth has become known for being a just ruler to her people. Papists (Catholics) are not sought out and executed as Protestants had been during Mary’s reign (more of a “don’t ask don’t tell” thing), they do have to be careful though or be accused of treason against the crown. The people of England have grown accustomed to their Virgin Queen, though her adviser believes it would be safer if she were to marry and have an heir and her hand in marriage (as well as her royal favor) is constantly being sought by other European rulers.

Kapur, Hirst, and Blanchett do well in continuing the story begun in EVQ. Elizabeth is shown either attending to matters at court, in prayer, or laughing with her Ladies in Waiting, specifically her favorite, Bess, or Elizabeth Throckmorton (later Raleigh). They are constantly seen in well lit areas and in the best lighting. Bess, as Elizabeth’s mouthpiece, is typically shown in gowns of a similar shade and cut of Elizabeth Tudor’s.

Mary Stuart, cousin to Elizabeth and known as “Queen of Scots,” has been imprisoned in Scotland with her own Ladies of the Privy Chamber. Hirst and Kapur do a good job of showing her as the foil to Elizabeth. Her coloring is darker, though her hair is also a shade red. Yet, the home she lives in is darker. The clothes she and her ladies wear are darker and more somber. There is no laughter in the privy court of the Queen of Scots. While the Queen of Scots has been married many times and had affairs, she, as a fellow Catholic, is supported by the Catholic ruler of Spain. Elizabeth, however, is known as the Virgin Queen and (outwardly anyway) lives a chaste life, yet in some circles of those who would have her deposed she is called a whore and a bastard, daughter of the devil.

Kapur and Hirst have set up this tension between Catholic and Protestant and show how it even tears up the nation within immediate families, as with any civil religious war. Bess turns her back on her cousin, Walsingham imprisons his brother, Elizabeth I was imprisoned by her sister and has imprisoned her own cousin.

Elizabeth also struggles with her desires for adventure versus the need to protect her country against the Spanish Armada and once again must relearn that while she may desire a mate and children, her mate and her children will always be the people and nation of England. This is where England begins to come into its own as an island sea power, as well as entering a new era of peace full of scientific and artistic accomplishments.

Much as medieval church builders and architects did before literacy became more prevalent (and during the Elizabethan era is when literacy began to become more common), the movie depends on visual symbolism to tell its story. The colors are rich, the music is beautiful, and because 2 hours is not enough time to cover all the important aspects of Elizabeth I’s reign, much depends on nuance and on showing scenes which may not have been documented, but were probably true in spirit.

One of my favorite scenes is when Elizabeth must sentence Mary Stuart to death because of her treason. I believe it’s documented that she did not want to do this. She believed her family had already experienced too much bloodshed. To behead a queen was to behead herself, her mother, and other women she had known and loved. But as a ruler of a nation it was something she had to do to keep order and retain her power.

Did Elizabeth virtually throw Bess and Walter Raleigh together so she could live vicariously through them, only to exile and imprison them later because of feelings of jealousy and betrayal? The records show the exile and imprisonment, but only those people involved truly know what went on between them. And while the movie shows Elizabeth coming to terms with Bess and Walter’s marriage, history records a continued estrangement and Walter’s eventual execution in 1618 (a time period after the close of the movie).

Elizabeth may have, indeed, dressed in armor as a Valkyrie or Joan of Arc, riding before her troupes to rouse them as the marched to war with the Spanish. Was that scene hauntingly familiar because Kapur seemed to borrow it from Lord of the Rings? Or is it familiar because it IS the original and Tolkien and/or Jackson borrowed it from history to put into The Lord of the Rings. Whatever the case may be, it was a good scene.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age, may or may not be completely historically accurate. There was a mini-series put out by PBS (Elizabeth R) in 1971 with Glenda Jackson as well as one from 2005 where Helen Mirren plays Elizabeth I. Each in its own way may be more accurate than this movie. But it is a common truism that writers lie in order to tell the truth. Sometimes a writer has to change or alter a historical fact in order to present a tale that is emotionally closer to the truth. I believe in many ways, despite some of the short comings, Elizabeth: The Golden Age came closer to portraying the truth of this woman, this ruler, than many other portrayals have.

At the end of the movie one of the women in the audience pumped the air with her fists yelling “Way to go, sister!” I was crying too hard to give that woman a yell in solidarity, but my heart was with her.

Why, you ask? Well, because my poems will be appearing in the Summer 2008 issue of Electric Velocipede. And where will that most likely be debuted? Why, the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver Colorado in August 2008!

So I guess I better start saving my pennies!