Horror TV recs 👻 & adventures in American bureaucracy [Like You Know Whatever]

I’m a valkyrie?

Hi friends!

How are you doing? I’m okay. I’ve had a rough week due entirely to being unemployed and dealing with American bureaucracy. I’ll write more about my adventures with the unemployment office later on (spoiler alert: they were not helpful), but please allow me to pontificate on the utter trash that is the American healthcare system, in which your access to health insurance is based on your employment. I am “lucky,” in that I am married to someone who has insurance that in theory, I should have been able to be easily added to, but for some goddamn reason, it has taken over a month to get me on his insurance. There were system errors on his company’s side that prevented me from being added to his benefits for weeks. The irony, of course, is that he literally works in the insurance industry (although not in health insurance, thank god–not a ghoul!). Then, even after I was added to his benefits, apparently, it takes 10 business days for Kaiser Permanente to put you in their system from the time that they receive your information… ELECTRONICALLY. I can’t fathom why that takes so long. Do you even know how email works?! It’s instant! WTF!

I already had to taper off one of my prescriptions because I went so long without being insured that I ran out of it. This is the smallest pill I take, 5 mg of Abilify. Want to guess how much 30 of them cost without insurance? Oh, just a cool TWO THOUSAND AMERICAN DOLLARS. Yeah, no. And fittingly enough, a side effect of withdrawal is irritability. Well, who wouldn’t be irritated after they couldn’t afford their meds?

As it is, I ponied up $440 out of my own pockets for my Wellbutrin, a decision my husband wasn’t crazy about, but I was scared of having a seizure if I went off it cold turkey, and fighting with Kaiser to cover it felt impossible in that moment. Just for reference, $440 is more than what I make in a week on unemployment, post-tax. Yeah. Kaiser might reimburse me, but they also might not. I admit that I probably should have explored other solutions first before paying full price. It’s my personal damage that makes me feel like I have to handle things all on my own, when in reality, I am not on my own. My husband has really been my teammate in this healthcare debacle, and I should have called him so we could work on this problem together as a team. My bad.

I’ve since started the process with Kaiser of getting an in-network psychiatrist who can prescribe my prescriptions to an in-network pharmacy (because apparently Kaiser does not work with normal pharmacies like Rite Aid or CVS–that would be too convenient!). Before they would refer me to one, I had to have two separate phone calls with people who asked me in about 40 different ways if I was having suicidal or homicidal thoughts. Of course, I wanted to joke, “Well, not until I had to deal with Kaiser,” but I thought that would probably not be wise. It’s frustrating because, at this point, I’ve been on the same meds for years, I’m stable, I literally JUST need a refill, but I have to go through all this bullshit to get it as if I’m brand new. Siiiigh. I can’t imagine how hard this all would be to deal with if I were genuinely in a bad mental place.

This has just been a weird time for me in general. A few weeks ago, I was walking to meet up with some friends at the vegan hot chicken place in my neighborhood, and I passed by an older woman with a walker and a maybe 30s/40s man who seemed, well, mentally unwell. “Valkyrie, valkyrie!” was the only thing he kept saying as he looked at me. The older woman laughed warmly and said, “Yes, she is a valkyrie!”

Of course, I had no idea what the fuck they were talking about, so I just smiled politely and went on my way to get my vegan chicken tendies and gossip. But a few days later, I remembered this moment and Googled about it. It turns out that a valkyrie is a female figure from Norse mythology, and her job is to guide the souls of dead warriors to Valhalla. Pretty badass! I was wearing a long sleeveless dress and had my hair tied back in my typical “it’s too fucking hot” bun, and I guess that is sort of similar to how valkyrie are often represented in art? But my maxi dress was also hot pink… so maybe the afterlife is actually Barbieland? I would be cool with that. I also had on sunglasses, silver hoop earrings, and chunky platform sandals which made me taller than my typical 5’8”. I don’t know how any of that fits into Norse mythology, but that’s cool. The Vikings seemed pretty hot, although now that I think about it, they probably smelled terrible.

Not that kind of Viking.

Let’s get into some things:

- Cooking. I made beef and black bean chili last Friday night loosely based on this recipe, and it really hit the spot! I can’t wait until it gets a little bit cooler out and I can start cooking up all the soups and stews and baked and roasted things. Tweaks to that recipe: I omitted the carrot and Italian seasoning (‘cause what even?), went lighter on the spices and added a chopped red bell pepper, one jalapeno, and two small chipotle peppers from a can, and used smoked paprika instead of regular paprika. It was still a very mild chili but had a lot of flavor. I served it with the zucchini cornbread from Smitten Kitchen Keepers (page 23), which was super tasty. I did not make the tomato butter that Deb pairs with the cornbread in the book even though it sounded amazing, because I just did not have the energy that day after battling with the American healthcare system.

And then, this week, I made these baked chicken and pancetta meatballs. They were good, but not outstanding, and I wanted outstanding for a meal with so many steps. I will probably not make them again. I skipped the oil and tomato paste glaze and instead ate them with some barbecue sauce, as was recommended in the comments. I also served them with roasted broccoli, mashed Yukon Gold potatoes, and a chopped salad with balsamic dressing from a bag. We love a good bagged salad in our house. I guess I’m still on the hunt for the perfect chicken meatball recipe, if anyone has a good one.

- The Midnight Club (Netflix). Spooky season is here-ish, and I have been totally sucked into two horror series by writer/director Mike Flanagan (of The Haunting of Hill House). Consider me a Fanagan! (Sorry.) The first show I watched was The Midnight Club, which is based on the writings of Christopher Pike. It’s about a group of teenagers at a hospice home who all have terminal diagnoses who meet at midnight every night to tell each other stories. I totally missed this show when it came out in 2022, but I decided to give it a shot because Netflix said that the first episode broke the Guinness world record for the number of jump scares in a single episode of television, and I thought that sounded fun. I had no idea that I was in for a show that would spend so much time ruminating on death, but I actually really enjoyed it! I’m bummed that it didn’t get a second season, although Flanagan did write a Tumblr post after it was canceled explaining what would have happened, which I appreciate (spoilers spoilers spoilers, obviously).

A still from Midnight Mass.

- Midnight Mass (Netflix). I think this series is the best work Mike Flanagan’s ever done. What I think sets him apart from other horror filmmakers and showrunners is his writing and in particular the CHARACTERS, oh my god, the characters! In this show, he made me fall in love with a character who had done just about one of the worst things you can do. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Midnight Mass is about a small, struggling island community that gets a new priest at the Catholic church who reinvigorates the town… but at what cost? It came out in 2021, and I think I stayed away from it initially because I was afraid it would be too church-y and boring. To be honest, I did find the first episode a little slow, but holy shit, does it pick the fuck up after that! I was raised Catholic (now agnostic), and I think that anyone who’s been engaged with Catholicism at all has to admit, there’s a lot of things about the religion that are downright creepy! This show smartly plays on a lot of them*. It does NOT touch on the sexual abuse issue at all, in case you are sensitive to that. Another content advisory: the first scene involves a drunk driving accident.

To me, what makes Midnight Mass so good is that it has a strong story and is very focused on the execution of that story alone. Flanagan sometimes tends to be a bit “everything-and-the-kitchen-sink”-y. Like, in The Haunting of Hill House, dude just wouldn’t stop introducing new ghosts! Here a ghost, there a ghost, everywhere a ghost ghost. Apparently, Midnight Mass was a story he’d been working on for many years before it got made, so it makes sense that it’s so tight. The performances are also wonderful–Zach Gilford, Hamish Linklater, and Samantha Sloyan should have won all the awards! And the writing! I couldn’t sleep after watching the ending of episode six. Probably some of the best TV I’ve ever seen. Certainly some of the best horror. I feel like I can’t say more about it without spoiling it, but yeah, check it out if you’re looking for a good spooky! I’m definitely looking forward to Mike Flanagan’s new show, The Fall of the House of Usher, coming to Netflix on October 12th. It’s a modern take on Edgar Allen Poe’s stories, and I can’t wait.

* I didn’t find the show to be disrespectful of Catholicism in general, more critical of people who use religion in ways it shouldn’t be used. But I’m not a practicing Catholic, so take that with a grain of salt.

- I guess I was one of the “lucky” people on unemployment randomly selected to receive additional “resources.” I don’t mean to be rude, but the government-supported employment services are fucking trash. I got a letter in the mail about a mandatory virtual meeting I had to have, with no information about where or how to join it, just that I could get kicked off of unemployment if I didn’t go. I tried to email someone about it and got no response. Instead, the day before the meeting, the person I was supposed to meet with called me and left a voicemail saying, “We have a meeting tomorrow but I’m guessing you’re not planning on attending.” Um, wtf? I called her back and told her I WAS planning on attending, but did not know how, and she finally fucking emailed me a Zoom link. It really felt like a set-up: require a meeting and then give me no way to join it. Bravo!

The first 20 minutes of the meeting were wasted on her sorting out other Zoom meetings with three of her coworkers. Why were they all in the same Zoom meeting as us? Unclear. Then, one-on-one, we went over my resume in the CalJOBS system, something else that was mandatory. She had to select a job type from a system dropdown menu that of course didn’t have any options that fit me. “Content Programming Specialist” really mystified her. “Is that like an Editor?” she asked me. Nope. Not at all. “Sure!” I said, to keep it moving. I watched her put down “Camera Operator” for another one of my roles. Not even close, but okay.

Okay but what exactly does Huckle do?

This is the biggest problem, to me. I feel like, unless you have a Richard Scarry job, you know, firefighter, postal worker, nurse, teacher, worm in a fucking apple car, they have no idea what to do with you. And I get it on some level–my parents don’t understand what I do at all.** But come ON. You’re supposed to be the goddamn employment services office of Los Angeles. You should have SOME kind of understanding of jobs in the entertainment industry, no? Otherwise, what are we even doing here? THIS IS THE BIGGEST INDUSTRY IN YOUR CITY. (Not to mention, I listed all my job duties right on my resume, dude.)

She also told me that I should be willing to take up to a 20% pay cut in order to accept a new position. I’ve been underpaid for years as it is, but I don’t think she understood that. Again, I get it. I looked up what people in the California EDD make (Employment Development Department), and it’s not much. They are probably all overworked and underpaid. I can sympathize. But it really felt to me that their main objective is trying to get people to get off of unemployment benefits as soon as they can in any way possible, not helping people find the right job for them. I don’t love being on the dole, either, but I pay my taxes. I’ve contributed plenty over the years. It’s not like I’m getting rich off of $450 a week, pre-tax.

At the end of the meeting, she told me they wanted to offer me additional resources, namely, an in-person workshop next Friday morning. I was pretty annoyed by this time and dropped the niceness mask. “Do I have to?” I asked. “Well, yes,” she said. Siiiigh. I know I’m unemployed, but even so, if this is anything like the meeting we just had, this is going to be the biggest fucking waste of my time. 

Then, she sent me a list of websites that were supposed to be helpful job-hunting resources. Have you guys heard of this site, LinkedIn.com? I mean, how is that not an example of them doing the absolute bare minimum? The best part is that she also listed a whole bunch of casting websites for actors. Lady, did you not notice that there’s a fucking strike going on?! Also, what a suggestion! Can’t find a job? Definitely try to become an actor, because THAT’S a stable career!

I’m not trying to be a dick. I just honestly think that they’re not there to help us, but to police us.

**It’s pretty easy to explain what I do. You know how you can stream video content on different apps? Like YouTube and Prime Video and such? Someone has to put it up there. That’s me. Of course there are a lot of different components to that process that I’ve been involved with (file ingestion, metadata, curation), but that’s pretty much it.

- I have done a lot of complaining in this newsletter, and in my opinion, rightfully so (I didn’t even tell you about the frustrating situation with my student loans, or the termite infestation in my apartment). But let’s end on a more positive note, shall we? Sometimes when I am feeling down and trying to go to sleep, I make lists in my head: five things I’m grateful for, five things I’m looking forward to, five things I love about my cat, or five things I love about my husband. Let’s end with five good things that happened in the past week:

1. My dark comedy screenplay Hey Hun was a Second Rounder in the Austin Film Festival screenplay competition, meaning in the top 20%! This is the fourth accolade this script has gotten this year!

2. Just this week I was able to bump up the distance I normally walk on my stupid health walks to be twice as long as when I started!

3. On Tuesday night I went out with friends and had some really tasty margaritas on a lovely rooftop deck that made me miss Mexico and want to plan another trip there!

4. I received a wedding invite to my friends’ cool winter wedding in Brooklyn!

5. I bought tickets for a drag show in Tokyo for our December trip!! I can’t wait to see what Japanese drag is like!

And there you have it.

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Until next time—screw bureaucracy.

Love,
Liz
XOXO