“It doesn’t sound like something they let you have when you work in the White House….”
“As long as I’ve got a job, you’ve got a job.”
— Josh Lyman and Leo McGarry, his boss, in The West Wing
In part 1, I talked about how Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is actually experienced in real life, and the general ways in which fiction often gets it wrong.
In part 2, I covered in detail two specific examples of PTSD portrayals in Babylon 5 and The Lord of the Rings.
Part 3 is going to cover two more portrayals in detail, both more realistic, sometimes even more positive, than induced Set Piece PTSD or the “destroyed forever” implications when PTSD is used as a bitter(sweet) closure to a story.
[And we start off with zombies.]
Tags:
batteries,
drm,
dukko,
emergency advice,
flashlights,
food,
half-a-tank is empty,
ilinkpod,
ipod,
island life,
james d. macdonald,
music,
nuts,
protein,
snowpocalypse,
uncle jim,
west wing,
winter,
zombies
When it hits the island, it really whacks it sideways with a 2×4 and then stomps up and down until the island is out of power for multiple days. Last time it was out, I was out for seven.
So: checklist of things I need to do:
-
Upload all my valuable files and stuff I was working on to my encrypted JungleDisk share, which sits on Amazon’s super-redundant S3 storage.
This includes all the books I’m working on, every cool script, and thanking the gods I’m not running my own webserver anymore.
I’ve also saved my Amazon MP3 music up there. It currently costs me 12 cents a month.
iPod owner’s note: Your iPod can too be an accessible 2-way storage of music. See iLinkPod to show you the way to drag the muzak out of there, and Dukko to rename the craziness.
DONE.
-
Notify my boss that I may get knocked out by winter winds and be unable to carry out my oncall duties.
Yeah, that one really cuts me to the bone. Yeah. Uh-huh. To the quick.
DONE.
-
LAUNDRY.
DONE.
-
Find my Black n’ Red notebook of awesome and pens of awesome.
DONE.
-
Write down LOTS of contact numbers, starting with that of my internet provider and the chain of command at work.
At work, we have a little thing that will create a small PDF, credit-card-sized, of numbers for your teammates and your chain of command.
DONE.
-
SHOWER! Actually, this can be done even after the lights go out. Hot water storage FTW.
DONE.
-
Those POND pre-soap cloths that you soak. Those are nice. Couldn’t find them. Wah.
-
Protein in food form. Nuts in wholesale form, for instance.
DONE.
-
Jim MacDonald’s scary medical posts. in ebook form.
Surprisingly complicated. May or may not do; I have Where There is No Doctor in solid book form. And also Merck Manual of Medical Information 2nd Home Edition.
Substituted.
-
Fill up on gas.
I don’t have to! Because I follow Uncle Jim’s emergency advice: half-a-tank means empty. My tank is pretty much full right now.
DONE.
-
Shut off wireless on my Kindle after downloading various things and buying a couple titles from the Kindle store (in particular, nonfiction like The Great Movies by Roger Ebert.
Kindle will last for a week or more without it (wireless is such a power suck).
DONE.
-
Watch the last bits of Season 7 West Wing while eating a last Digiorno microwave pizza for one (those are really good, by the way). Then pop the West Wing DVD out of the computer.
DONE.
-
Seriously charge my MacBook for as long as possible, after shutting off the wireless on it too.
-
Flashlights! And many batteries in multiple sizes: 9v, C, ton of AA, many AAA. One of my flashlights can take D, C, or AAA; another one is an LED with lots of life in it that can be used to scare off looters and crush the skulls of zombies; and two keychain ones that still have life.
DONE.
-
Booklight. Mighty Brite. Takes AAA. Check.
DONE.
-
Medical refills. Did them a couple days ago, plus I have a million of Daily Essential Enzymes because I can’t digest a lot of food without them. Well. Not well anyways.
DONE.
-
Bottled water, canned food or rehydratable soups, snacks, and those rehydrating powder packs. I have Emergen-C, strawberry.
DONE.
-
Portable butane stove and its little butane cans. Check. Little pots and pans and especially the teakettle, check.
DONE.
-
Automated posts for tonight and the next couple of days. Yay Wordpress.
DONE.
I may be some time.
