Library Thing and the Unsuggester

I could very easily get addicted to this, and this is just plain fun and amusing.

And how's this for cool?

beloved Louise

As I've mentioned to some, my darling kitty died suddenly Thursday morning. She'd been fighting intestinal lymphoma for nearly a year, and recently, she had lost several pounds. Her vomiting had subsided, and I had fooled myself into thinking that her condition was getting a little better. Still, I had a dread that she might go while I was on this two-week holiday. This is one of those times when I hate my intuition being right. I had wanted to be with her at the end, and I had even told her that I would be, and all she had to do was tell me when she was ready.



I'm feeling both guilty and hurt that I wasn't there with her and didn't get to say goodbye like I wanted to, which makes me feel even more selfish. My mom says sometimes animals don't want their owners to see them die, and so they wait for their owners to be away, or they take themselves off somewhere to be found later. This year, I've tried to pay more attention to others' point of view, and I guess that even includes a cat's side of things.



The vet called me at 12:30 am Australia time to tell me that Louise had stopped eating, and he asked permission to do some blood work. He also offered to give her an acupuncture treatment. I said yes to both and hoped for the best. He called an hour later, and I could tell by the shakiness in his voice that something was wrong. He said her blood work was horrible, her white blood cell count was all off, and they tried to give her an IV catheter when she suddenly went into cardiac arrest. One doesn't seem to be related to the other. They tried CPR but couldn't revive her. He kept saying, "I'm so sorry for you" and "Everyone here is really upset." I couldn't think of much to say at all except, "what do I do now?"



I'm grateful for everything the vets and the techs at Columbia Animal Hospital did for Louise this one last time and over the course of her life. They got us through a heart murmur and a thyroid condition, not to mention stubborn ear infections and coughs and teeth cleanings. I'm also grateful that they would think to call me directly, and very long distance, to tell me she was gone. I'm picking up her ashes and her blanket and food bowls when I get back to the States. I'm dreading that too - they're going to see me blubber like an idiot.



I'm also grateful to Cat Rescue of Maryland from whom I adopted Louise, and especially Lil Decker, who was Louise's foster mom. I will definitely be adopting from them again, though not right away.



I will remember these things about Louise:

• she would wake me up at 7 in the morning, almost on the dot, by tickling my face with her whiskers, and if that didn't work, pawing at my blankets
• she had her own tumbler of water on the bedside table to keep her from drinking out of my water glass
• she liked to peek into the lower kitchen cupboards to see if everything was still there, though she rarely went inside all the way
• she didn't care for being picked up and held, but she did like to snooze on my lap, especially when I was at the computer; she'd often stretch out a paw to hit the space bar, and hold it down
• she always greeted me at the door when I came home from wherever
• she liked to talk to the birds in the tree outside my window
• she made friends with my dog, and together they'd guard the bathroom door while I was taking a shower
• she'd yell at me whenever she had to go into the carrier, as she preferred being at home to anywhere else
• she very determinedly caught a mouse once and was quite proud of herself for the effort, going so far as to bring her catch to me once she had nabbed it
• she had several favorite hangout spots in the house - the most recent being the bathroom sink
• she liked to share my tuna salad and roast chicken
• she charmed non-cat people into liking her
• she had the prettiest green eyes and the most curious black spots
• much as I love my dog, she made me a cat person

I loved her very much, and I'm grateful she let me be her mom for awhile.

Goodbye, Louise. I'll see you at Rainbow Bridge someday.

how to entertain yourself while writing out holiday cards

Here are my recommendations for what to listen to and/or watch, or not, while making sure you don't seal a blank card in an envelope -

Blue Man Group: Inside the Tube - while a highly entertaining and fascinating documentary, it's rather distracting, because you want to pay more attention to the documentary than what you're writing in the cards, so much so that when you look at what you wrote in the cards, you're not sure what the hell you were thinking

The Snow Queen - an artsy version of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale, with great music. I'm familiar enough with the story that I can have it on as background noise and not be too distracted.

Loreena McKennitt - To Drive the Cold Winter Away - highly appropriate for the season, and there's only one song on it that I don't care for. I can do pretty much anything with her music in the background. She has a new album out too.

Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack - my sister and I grew up hearing this every year, and we never got sick of it. Again, if you're familiar enough with it, it easily attaches itself to your subconscious and you can get on with whatever. Which of course leads to...

Charlie Brown Christmas special - I can pretty much recite this one word for word, so no distractions there. And since we're talking cartoons of the season, there's always...

How the Grinch Stole Christmas - I do believe I read this before I saw the cartoon version, though it's far funnier to hear Boris Karloff read it. Again, by-heart recitation renders this distraction-free, though not nostalgia-free.

Andrea Bocelli - Sacred Arias - honestly, I prefer to hear him sing classical rather than pop. This is also a good one for the season. There are four versions of Ave Maria on this CD. My favorite is the Schubert version. Not too distracting, but interesting enough so you notice that it's there.

Rasputina - Thanks for the Ether - my favorite gothic-playing, corset-wearing lady cellists. You have to know when to turn it up and when to turn it down, otherwise, you'll never get anything done.

A Christmas Carol - if you've never heard Patrick Stewart's one-man reading of this story, it's pretty amazing, right up there with Jim Dale's version, and it occurs to me that this was how Dickens performed the story to audiences originally. This is my favorite movie version, and I've read the story so many times, I can just follow along subconsciously.

Desk Set - one of my favorite Tracy/Hepburn movies - extremely dated (the computer takes up half the room and makes a lot of noise and has a lot of flashing lights, and the story deals with that long-debated question: will computers make people obsolete), but the dialogue more than makes up for that. It's something you can hear out of the side of your ear that makes for a good giggle while doing other things. I must admit to stopping to watch the interview on the roof scene, the dinner in Hepburn's apartment scene, and the Hepburn and Blondell drunk at the Christmas party scene. This movie makes me want to be a reference librarian. Is that weird?

To the Manor Born - one of my favorite Britcoms; funny banter that you also can hear out of the corner of your ear and giggle at while doing other things, and they even have a Christmas episode.

Good Neighbors - where Penelope Keith honed her comedy skills, which is funny considering that her character "hasn't got a sense of humor." Also good banter, and makes you wish you had neighbors like the Goods and the Ledbetters. I've watched this so many times that it's just comforting background noise, and the pets seem to like it too. They also have a Christmas episode.

So there you have it. No need to be bored while writing out holiday cards. Enjoy.

the lost art of letter writing and group therapy

Letters to Monet from his fellow Impressionists are now up for auction. I've always been fascinated by creative groups - the Impressionists, the Bloomsbury group, the Algonquin Round Table. It's amazing what happens when a group of like-minded creatives gather together and talk and drink and exchange ideas. Personally, I would have loved to have been around these groups just to listen in.

Fancy fonts on a computer really are nothing compared to a handwritten letter. My grandmother told me that she still has the letters that she and my grandfather exchanged when they were dating and he was overseas while in the Army. That would have been in the late 1940s, maybe early 1950s. I hope I get to read them one day.

even scarier

I would never have thought to watch Mary Poppins during Halloween, but after seeing this, I may have to start. And I think I need to read the books again - I remember them as being darker than the film.

And just for kicks and giggles, or not, there's a new scholarly book out on Mary Poppins, with an introduction by Neil Gaiman. I imagine I'll add that to my reading list as well, if only to read the introduction.

scary mary?

either we're all reading too much into this, or I'm suddenly bewildered as to why I never thought to write a paper on Mary Poppins in my women's studies classes in college.

On the December 5th entry, scroll down to "..." then start reading

absurdly simple

diagnosis: female in her early 30s presents with burnout, fatigue, stress, irritability, headache, insomnia, bleary eyes, and possible a touch of SAD, not to mention lack of interest in making herself look presentable lately

prescription: borrow friend's five-week-old baby girl and hold for five minutes - all suddenly becomes right with the world as baby cuddles up on chest; studies prove it

back in NY (again)

My last business trip of the year, and a shorter one too, thank goodness. I very nearly had to go out to California next week for another trip, but fortunately, that one got cancelled.

A bunch of us were up until about 1:30 on Friday night working on slides, and Anne was slowly getting sicker and sicker with her cold. Teresa and I got her to take some Airborne and some oscillococcinum, which Anne thinks of as homepathic Nerds.

This meeting was all about the purple pill, and the workshop I covered got cards and GEs talking to each other, which apparently is a rare thing. A word of advice, which you may especially want to pass on to your elderly loved ones: if you're put on aspirin therapy, or you're heavily taking NSAIDs, you risk stomach upset, or worse, a GI bleed. So do yourself a favor and get on a PPI as well, and you can save yourself a lot of trouble and stomachache.

We stayed at a hotel near the UN, which was an interesting experience. First, there were the sniffer dogs outside the hotel, checking everyone's luggage. Then there was the military guard strolling around the lobby, fully armed. Lastly, there was a demonstration going on across the street from the hotel, though I never could figure out what they were demonstrating about.

My room on the 31st floor was neat, as hotel rooms go. It had that spare, uncluttered, Scandinavian/IKEA look to it, and lots of pillows. I had a decent view for a change as well - most of it was NYC skyline, with a teasing look at the East River and the tip of Roosevelt Island (I could see the ruins of the smallpox hospital from my window). Anne and I were alarmed by the fact that one could actually open the windows in the rooms. Being that high up and having the ability to open the windows doesn't strike me as a good combination. This hotel also makes unusually good sweet potato fries.

Only one more trip this year, and that's my Australia holiday in two weeks. Yay!

I DID IT I DID IT I DID IT

50,019 words, with 2.5 hours to spare!

I was a little nervous, because you have to upload your draft to their web site, which has a word-count validator, and they recommend that you write several hundred words beyond 50K, just in case, and I simply didn't have any words left to write or energy to write them, so I only managed 19 words past 50K, and thankfully, that was enough (their word count validator shows me at 50,013 - I've no idea why MS Word says I have six more words than that, but I don't bloody care).

Absolutely everything that could get in my way (and on my nerves) did - travel, work overload, cold-that-turned-into-upper-respiratory-infection, and a ton of other things. I guess sometimes, you've just gotta write, no matter what. Thank you to the fairies, who magically helped me to find the time. I couldn't have done it otherwise. And thanks for keeping me company, Grandpa.

Like I said before, it's a horrible story. More like lots of stories patched together that the main characters dance around. Still, a draft is a draft.

Ok, sleep now bye bye

wow, that deadline is looming large

The good news: Due to the long holiday, I've had more writing time, so my NaNo word count has gone way up (40,902).

The bad news: I've got exactly four days and four and a half hours to get to 50K, and I'm seriously running out of steam (and story).

The analysis: The goal is still do-able - 9098 words in four days, that's a little over 2000 words a day, and 2000 words a day is about what I can manage on a regular writing schedule.

This month has been anything but regular, though. I've had one setback after another - traveling, sickness, work, and a host of other complications, some of which I've partially dealt with. I thought it would be easier this year, since I had done NaNo last year, so I knew what I was in for. Or thought I did. It's just the quirkiness of my life that I can never predict, and I've found it hard to focus on anything for any length of time.

As for the story, it's bad. Really, really, really, really, really bad. But my first drafts usually are, and according to NaNo rules, that's perfectly fine, but last year's story wasn't this bad. Nowhere near it. This one is just...it's so jumbled, and it almost reads like several mini stories linked together, and I keep changing my mind about character's names, so they have different names in different sections. I think my internal editor never quite went on holiday while I was working on this one, and that's why I've struggled so much this time around. Last year, once it realized there was no stopping me from attempting this insane endeavor, it just threw up its hands and stomped off and left me to it. This year, I think it stuck around just to see if I really meant to do it again, and it's been laughing at my efforts all month.

I hope it doesn't get harder the more times I attempt NaNoWriMo. I don't want to hate writing. Really, I don't.

The biggest mistake I made this year was not having more of a story outline like I had last year. Last year's story was much more fully formed in my head before I wrote it. This year's was far less so, and I lacked confidence to fully wing it. I came up with an outline two weeks into it this time, and really had to fight the urge to go back and rewrite whole sections that I had typed out pre-outline. Oh well, next October will be set aside for outlining, so that I've got some sort of story path to follow in November.

I'm now going to make brownies (Bob found dark chocolate chips for me) and get in another hour of bad writing.

river and woods and Bob and Jeff's house

My co-worker, Bob, really has no business being a manager of scientific affairs when he's such a good cook and could well open his own restaurant. He started us off with roasted vegetable soup, and graciously remembered to leave the cheese out of mine. I lost count of the number of casseroles brought to table, but they did include one with corn and wild rice, one with broccoli, and one with sweet potatoes, which was my favorite. The turkey breast was maple-roasted, and the drippings made for tasty and sweet gravy. Yours truly scrubbed and chopped potatoes, which Bob somehow found time to mash. A neighbor made greens, another brought a pumpkin cheesecake, and Jeff made a cheese ball, though it looked more like a cheese mound. And it was all washed down with a warm apple cider spiked with bourbon.

And did I mention dessert? Bob had made an apple pie with a lattice top as well as a pecan pie, though he was far more into the filling than the pecans, and he was making noises while eating it that are best left to the bedroom.

Conversation revolved around the banter between the couple with the lovely southern drawls, pharma drama, and a husband getting his green card. I couldn't really contribute to any of these conversations, but they were fun to listen to. Bob and Jeff had gone all out with decorating - glittery Christmas trees and snowmen abounded, which was in hilarious contrast to Bob and Jeff walking around in shorts and T-shirts, ceiling fans on at full blast, and windows thrown wide open. The rest of us politely shivered in our sweaters and jeans and downed as much warm cider as we could handle.

I will now have to work out twice as long for the rest of the week to work off all the food I ate, and of course, I was sent home with leftovers.

Word count is increasing slowly but surely. I think I will just barely make the 50k finish line on November 30.

in case you miss it on the radio

before there was Adam Sandler's Thanksgiving song, there was this other song...

it's one of those things you've just gotta listen to at 6 in the morning on Thanksgiving Day (you can listen to the whole concert, or just part 2, which is "the song")

and there's a great interview with Arlo Guthrie that aired on NPR last year

and if that isn't enough for you, there's always the movie version

for girls only

"have a happy period"

Yes, that is what the wax paper thing said on the Always pad I was preparing to make use of.

Also written in French on the wax paper thing - "bonne et heureuse semaine," which I think roughly translates to "good and happy week."

I find this hilariously funny.

solvitur ambulando again

So even though I have a cold, and even though I was tired, I went for a walk around the lake anyway. No one seemed to need me in the office, so I didn't feel guilty for slipping out for half an hour. It wasn't as warm in the late afternoon as it had been earlier, but I had dressed in layers today, and I was armed with a pocketful of tissues, so I was comfortable enough.

The water was really raging over the waterfall due to the recent rain. I saw a couple of townhouses for sale, and I wish I could afford one because living in a townhouse on a lake sounds pretty divine to me. There were lots of dogs out today, including two pit bulls straining at the end of their leashes, wanting desperately to say hi to each other, and a few other small yappy dogs. The ducks and geese and swans had all congregated in one area on the water, with a heron observing them from a distance. No male deer with his ladies, like Jane and I saw yesterday. Despite my cold, I could still detect the smell of winter in the air - it has a distinct aroma, a combination of fireplaces, warmth being held in the body, ice in the wind, old scarves and mittens brought out of closets, or new ones bought, the sleep of some things, and the death of others. I never bought into the whole spring starts on this date and fall starts on that date. Mother Earth doesn't work that way - leaves were starting to change color and fall off trees in August.

Most everyone I passed nodded or smiled or said hi, including the old man who is always bundled up in coat and gloves and hat with ear flaps and shuffles along the path picking up trash and stray branches. Toward the end of my walk, the sunlight was full in my face, which I'm sure was good for my brain. In the blazing glare, I could just barely make out a young man coming toward me on what looked like crutches. As I got closer to him, I saw that in fact, he had two white metal canes that he would steady on the path and then swing his body forward. It was a slow process, requiring all of his focus, and it looked tiring, but he wasn't out of breath. He didn't seem to have any use of his legs, which he kept close together and which were slightly twisted at an odd angle. He was by himself, coming from the parking lot. I can't imagine how he had gotten to the lake, and I wondered if he intended to go around the entire lake, which is a good two and a half miles in circumference. He looked up and smiled at me easily, and I smiled back easily, and he went back to steadying the canes and swinging forward, and I suddenly had a whole section of plot figured out for my novel. So thank you, whoever you were (and are).

NaNoWriMo word count: 24399

where goes my energy?

This afternoon, I was lying on the treatment table in my acupuncturist's office with two needles in my right hand, sniffling and coughing and getting ever more scared at how tired I am lately. I wake up tired since I rarely sleep deeply anymore, oweing to panic attacks and the cat throwing up in the middle of the night, sometimes several times, and all the other stuff running through my head. I've tried the sleeping pills, which my body seems to fight (what an odd feeling - tired but fighting to remain awake), and all the other usual things recommended for insomnia. They work temporarily, and then I am back to waking up several times a night.

My brain is very active when I'm trying to get to sleep. All the things that have been shoved aside during the day for one reason or another come forward then, as that seems to be the only time they'll get attention.

Running through the list in my head, these things have a lot to do with what others need or want from me. I have given so much of my energy to others this year, both personally and professionally, and in many cases have gotten little back, and yet it is demanded that I give even more, and sadly, I don't think I have anything left and nowhere to go to get more energy reserves. Are you supposed to give of yourself to the point (and well past it) where you no longer exist as a person of worth to anyone and are simply seen as a vessel to be taken from with no thought as to your well being or the damage such treatment may cause? Are you to be used in such a way and then when you are empty or others no longer want or like what you give, they simply drop you and move on? Is that really how it works? Is it a female Polacek thing, Emily?

In a professional setting, I don't take it all that personally because of the professional distance. The client wants another vendor after we've bent over backwards for them? Fine. Next project, please. Co-workers are bitching in a meeting about the same things they always bitch about? Fine. I'll be in my office with the door shut. Come see me when you're ready to be rational and productive. It's harder to cope with it when it's personal.

I have learned, particularly recently, that people's perceptions of giving differ greatly (this is an offshoot of my efforts to try and consider other people's perspectives and not just my own - and I freely admit that I am only okay and not great at this - and stupidly hoping that mine might be considered in return). What I think are gestures of offering, others often dismiss without thought and barely a thank you, which stings, and in addition, they are offended if I fail to do things they consider important acts of giving, which must sting for them. I guess I am so wrapped up and busy with the things I'm giving, I've no time to give all the other things people want. Huge lesson: I can't do it all. I fail miserably at it, and yet it is expected of me nonetheless, and therefore, I'm failing more and more. I'm just not sure why it is expected of me. Do I have some sign on me that says "take all you want and then let her know how disappointed you are in what you get because you want other stuff too and don't forget to be unsatisfied with that as well"? Ironically, those same things others harp on me to do, they fail to do in return - ie, the things they want me to do for them, they won't do for me, though they make vague promises that they will. It's the whole words-and-actions thing not matching up. Double standards and lip service - I hate them both.

The problem seems to be a not-quite-good-enough syndrome that has followed me around since about third grade. Strangely, it was never me thinking I wasn't good enough, it was others constantly and freely pointing it out to me in various ways. And it's still going on, and I somehow learned to think it was arrogant if I so much as dared stand up for myself and contradict them. What is scary is that the more people I meet and encounter in life, the ever-smaller my circle of true supporters and friends and allies who do think I'm good enough (abso-tively lovely people, all of you) seems to be, and that makes me more and more wary and reluctant to open my arms and my heart and my life to anyone. How much bruising is a girl supposed to take anyway?

But how's this for a revelation: I don't think it's that I'm not good enough in general. I think it's that I'm not good enough for certain people (an ever-expanding list, apparently). A co-worker of mine has a theory: the reasons people cite for deciding that someone is good enough or not can run the gamut from the bloody obvious to the bizarrely picky, and there's not a damn thing you as the one being decided upon can do about it. It is entirely based on the decider's background, experiences, character, personality, likes, dislikes, and what they ate on Tuesday. I am learning to be okay with this, as I can't waste precious energy worrying over it.

Yes, I truly wish I had an endless reserve of offering so that I could give without thinking about it, and if someone was disappointed in what I gave, I could give even more and not think about that either. Sadly, I am not blessed with that ability. My reserve is filled by the gratitude and giving of others, and my reserve is empty not because others are not grateful and giving enough, but because there are too few who do so. And of those who do, I dare not demand more because they have been grateful and giving far beyond what I deserve. I know my gratitude and giving to them are in good hands and hearts. That is why they are so abso-tively lovely.

home again

I think I've set a record - I listened to about 130 presentations over four days. That's definitely immersion in oncology. How much of it will I retain, though? Probably only highlights and tidbits, such as how to incorporate agents into post-remission therapy, which could lengthen remission and survival. I heard about vaccine therapy for non-Hodgkins lymphoma, one of the more deadly cancers. We normally think of vaccines as a means to prevent contraction of disease, yet in oncology, it's now being used to slow, stop, and/or reverse disease. Pretty cool. Indolent follicular lymphoma is the second most common NHL, and is usually advanced at presentation. Patients are often asymptomatic, and it's non-curable with traditional chemo. The key messages here were to try to get patients into trials so this lymphoma can be studied in more detail, to understand how to observe asymptomatic patients, and to use local radiation for stage 1.

Combo therapy was a big topic. There were a lot of comparisons of therapy plus chemo, therapy instead of chemo, therapy before or after chemo; with chemo tends to win out in terms of progression of cancer, remission, relapse, and survival rates after treatment.

I was particularly intrigued by the HPV vaccine presentation. Have you seen the commerials that use the scare tactic "cancer from a virus?" Here's the thing, while 80% of women will be infected with HPV, only about 7% will develop cervical cancer from it, but they don't tell you that in the commercials, which make it out to be the next epidemic. Apparently, there is talk of routine vaccination in girls as young as 9 years old (one question was even asked about the possibility of mandatory vaccination). The vaccine is more effective in females who have not had exposure to any sexual activity and in younger women (high school age) vs older (college-age). I've come across several articles (the most well-written one by Christiane Northrup) arguing against mass vaccination, primarily due to the low rate of HPV progressing to cervical cancer and lack of data on the long-term effect of vaccine, especially in girls still developing hormonally (ie, does it have the potential to affect menstruation, pregnancy, menopause, etc). I think the better thing to do would be to figure out which 7% will develop the cancer and focus on treating them. Just a thought.

Toxicity and side effects are obvious concerns. Many of these treatments are essentially controlled poisoning. Yes, they fight the cancer, but they do a hell of a lot of other damage in the process. And the problem with toxicity is that you may have to stop treatment, reduce dose, or change treatment, either temporarily or permanently, which risks progression of disease. Again, methinks there should be more focus on making these treatments less toxic, so that the immune system can be helped by them, rather than hindered. It's never a good idea to mess with the body's ability to take care of itself, yet that seems to be what Western medicine is primarily about.

Bob and I did manage to get some time out in the city. We went to Max Brenner's for a dark chocolate fondue lunch - I've never seen chocolate so incredibly smooth like this was. The whole place is all about chocolate - margaritas, martinis, crepes, and all kinds of concoctions and goodies. The company logo is a clever one-continuous-line drawing of Max's head.

We also had dinner at Asia de Cuba - that's right, cuban and asian food fusion. The waiters wear those Chairman Mao jackets, and though the tables and floor and walls (covered floor to ceiling with white curtains) are all white, it's very dim in there. The food was great - Bob and I just got a bunch of appetizers, one of which was skewered chicken with what tasted like cinnamon bun glaze.

Poor Bob. He ended up spending most of his time in his hotel room working out emergencies for our next meeting in NY in a couple of weeks. Funny that, the company paid for him to go to NY to catch up on the latest and greatest in oncology, and instead was paying for him to do work that he would have done back in the office. And the Marriott Marquis is not a cheap place to stay. Oh well, it's their dime.

I got back home late last night and slept until about noon today, woke up with a sinus headache from all this rain and the lovely NY air, too probably.

I've completely fallen off with my daily word quota, so I need to get back on track with that. Same thing happened last year due to another business trip, but I still managed to get to 50K, so I'm not worried. Yet.

a description

I am sitting in my faintly cigarette-smoke-smelling room on the 36th floor of the Marriott Marquis on Broadway. Futurama is on Cartoon Network. Looking out and up from my window, I can see fog/smog drifting lazily around the skyscrapers, the sky has gone murky milky brown, and super-bright glittery lights from the theaters on Broadway are strangely hypnotic. Communication has been turned on its head this week, and the housekeeping people think that giving me a bar of chocolate is supposed to make up for the smoke smell in my room (ironically, this is supposed to be a non-smoking hotel; I tried to get a different room, but it's booked solid for the conference). I'd get something munchy and comforting from the mini-bar, if there was one. Fortunately, I bought protein bars and water at the train station. People who know about my bad travel karma will not be surprised at the above-named irritants.

My co-worker and I have already decided on the revolving hotel restaurant and a thai place as two of our dinner options this week. Other suggestions?

Now to bed. I'm facing four days of non-stop oncology presentations, eight hours a day, a new presentation every 10 minutes. Anyone have questions about cancer, I'm your girl.

ghost writing part 2

Sometimes it sucks being so in tune with the Universe. Sometimes I try to ignore it, instead of paying attention to it. I attribute it to acupuncture and my Iroquois ancestors - a dangerous combination. When meridians are clear, and chi is humming merrily along, it is super easy for the Spirits to dial into the right frequency.

So in part 1, I wrote about the weird feeling I was getting around this year's November writing frenzy that was reminiscent of last year's Need to Write and the whole story (no pun intended...well, maybe) that caused it all, and how I didn't like it and couldn't understand it because I wasn't in the same situation as last year. However, almost as soon as I wrote that, I WAS in the same situation. The ghosts from last year were simply reappearing to let me know it was about to happen again.

Oddly, last year's ex sent me messages that essentially bookended my most recent... whatever-it-was (I'm not sure now what it was; can I even call it a "relationship?"). He sent me an e-mail just as I was getting into this most recent...thing (maybe I was a fling?), and he sent another one the very day I figured out I was being shut out. And no, I'm not getting back together with last year's ex, in case anyone was worried.

And then my grandfather showed up. My grandfather (who's been dead for 26 years) is usually the ringleader. At least, he's the one I sense most strongly. He's always looking out for us grandkids - he even got little Joe to sleep in his own room and not be afraid of the dark. He sat next to me when I had my first panic attacks, and I could have sworn he was sitting next to me a few nights ago while I was writing. He always sits on my left.

I had attributed all my worries and weird feelings to my usual habit of being too much in my head, coping with this time of year's lack of sunlight. I should really learn to trust my own guidance and warning systems more. They are almost always spot on. My apologies, Ancestors. I should have listened. It would have lessened the sting.

Irony of the story: fall is supposed to be my dominant and best season, according to my acupuncturist; but so far, this one really really sucks. Only the colors have been good.

NaNo word count: 9822 (nearly a fifth done!)

after you've created

If you do anything creative, whether it's big or small, and no matter how much or how little of it you've created, I strongly encourage you to read this, as it's all about what will become of your creative pieces once you're no longer around. You don't want just anybody getting your stuff, do you?

silent treatment

Being blown off by someone is an interesting phenomenon. It makes you wonder what you did wrong, and if you're a horrible person. And you start analyzing yourself and every conversation you had, and every look, and interaction, and gesture, and what did you miss, and why did you miss it, and were your doubts legitimate or just you being silly, and how could you be so stupid, and is it some karmic punishment for something you did at some other time? It's ironic too, because you'll never know since they won't talk to you, and yet prior to the wall of silence, you had gotten your hopes up because you thought you had finally gotten it right and had made a good choice, which makes it all the more depressing and disappointing to think you may have been wrong after all, so how can you trust your own judgement in the future? And it wounds you, especially when you feel like you made an effort and did things for them and did better this time around than last time and tried not to repeat the same mistakes as last time, and yet it made no difference in the end, and you wonder why you bother trying if people will just treat you that way, and you just want to crawl into a hole and hope everyone forgets about you because you feel like some horrific repulsive flaw or other must be written on your face that all can see. And finally, you wonder how you'll get through it, and if you ever will. And you wish the headache would go away so you could sleep.

however...

...I'm comforted by one thing - Neil Gaiman wrote an editorial for the NY Times Halloween edition, and whenever I read his writing, it makes me want to write. There's Neil when I need him.

P.S. You may have to sign in to read it.

ghost writing

I've been trying really hard not to remember the catalyst for last year's November writing frenzy, but it won't go away, and the feelings I had last year at this time seem to be descending on me again, as though they were imprinted on my psyche and were programmed to reappear. This bothers me, and I'm worried it will derail this year's noveling efforts.

Last year, around this time, I had broken up with a boyfriend, and I was aimlessly (or desperately) looking for something to keep my mind off of it, though in a way that wouldn't do me any harm. I had sunk to doing everything I swore I'd never do in such a situation - overeating, or not eating at all, sleeping way more than was necessary, or not sleeping at all, feeling sorry for myself, or blaming myself entirely for the break-up, hating every couple I saw, or envying them, crying at precisely the wrong moments. Normally, I'm not given to crying in front of people. I think only my sister and my parents have ever really seen me break down.

On Halloween night last year, I was sitting in the lobby of a client's office in Delaware, waiting for my co-workers. Somehow, my name had been left off of the visitors' list, so the security people wouldn't let me in, and I was left to sit in the lobby while my colleagues went in to talk to the client. I might have otherwise been a bit irritated about a wasted trip, but my energy had been depleted from the effects of the unceremonious abrupt halt of my personal relationship that I had none left for any other emotion. In effect, I was numb. No feeling whatever.

So I sat in the lobby, and took out my daybook and started writing. At first, it was just to keep the security people from talking to me, because I was in no mood to talk to strangers. As I kept writing, I remembered coming across a little blurb on some Internet page or other about NaNoWriMo, and I also remembered the storyline I had thought up during an acupuncture treatment, and the two met up and turned to face me and together said, "Well? What are you waiting for?" So I wrote out the plotline and characters and settings and other random things that I thought I could use in the story.

Then an odd thing happened while I was writing. It was as though I were thawing out and was no longer numb. I felt bruised and sore, all the tension from the break-up that I had shoved aside was going to be acknowledged all in one go. I felt as though I had been beaten and left for dead. And I felt anger too, because I had let myself sink into a severe depression, which I then didn't let pass through me, and which I had done a marvelous job of hiding from everyone.

I decided, in about a second, that I would attempt this NaNoWriMo thing. I would write 1667 words, or more if I could manage it, a day for 30 days, and have a substantial draft at the end of it. Never mind that it seemed bizarre and impossible. I'd do it anyway. Normally, I am so in my head that I overthink things. It's a very bad habit that I have, and it wastes a lot of time. (Funny, in his goodbye note, he told me not to think so much so that I'd feel more.) For once, I thought very little, and just acted on a quick decision. I just did it. I didn't procrastinate, which is another bad habit I have. I just sat down every night for a month and wrote.

Oddly, the ex didn't appear anywhere in the writing. Nor did the relationship, and yet, I felt like I was untangling myself from the final threads of it, and letting go of it, and acknowledging, though not regretting, my mistakes in it. I can now say that I made mistakes in that relationship and not flinch over it. I can't fix them. I can't change them. I can't erase them. I can, however, admit to them and do my best not to repeat them in the future. That's all I can do, really. That, and write.

And yet...

And yet, as I get ready to write insane amounts of Story again this November (starting tomorrow, actually), I'm surprised at how similar I feel to last year. How is that possible? I'm not breaking up with anyone. I'm not overeating, or sleeping too much, or feeling sorry for myself, or hating the sight of couples. Why do I feel the same? I can only figure it's the ghosts of last year's noveling come back to visit. Will they interfere with this year's writing? Is it that I need to feel really horrible to write lots of words? I hope that's not it. That sounds like something Dorothy Parker or Sylvia Plath would have done. Though I love their words, I don't want to BE like them.

I haven't even begun, and I'm already beginning to feel little prickly doubts creeping into my head and telling me I won't be able to make it to 50K this year, damn them. I hope to heaven they're wrong.

guys as life markers

In the space of a few days, three male public figures that I encountered growing up have surfaced, which has brought back a lot of "when-I-was-younger" memories.

The first was Wil Wheaton, he of Wesley Crusher and Stand by Me fame, who wrote an amazing piece about his first encounter with Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics series (and if you haven't read them, I highly recommend you do so - it's well worth it). It wasn't just about what he thought of the stories and art and lettering (he's enthralled with the lettering), but it was also about the hell of growing up as a child star. I had no idea that the public hated Wesley Crusher. I always liked the character because he was roughly the same age I was when I watched The Next Generation, so I recognized the teenage perspective. Plus, he was cute, in a geeky way. Maybe it was just guys that hated Wesley Crusher.

Then Michael J. Fox did an interview with George Stephanopoulos on This Week. The interview (the menu on the right has the video) was about the ad Fox did that's running in Missouri right now. The effects of Parkinson's disease are stunningly evident in this ad. I kept crossing my arms to hold myself while I watched it. You almost want to hug him to help hold him still. Rush Limbaugh saw the ad, and had the nerve to say on his radio show that he thought it was an act, and that Fox was giving people "false hope" that a cure for Parkinson's was possible. Fox's response to Limbaugh was remarkable - he said he knew he might be criticized for the ad, and that was fine with him. He wasn't going to fight that. People like Limbaugh seem to further the idea that people like Fox should go home, shut the door, close the curtains, and suffer their disease in private, so that no one has to be inconvenienced by seeing it - in effect, turn your back on something that makes you uncomfortable. And as for "false hope," Fox said there's either hope or no hope, and if hope is some sort of character flaw, so be it. His support of stem cell research derives from the idea that if the frozen embryos are going to be thrown away because no one wants them, why not put them to use to research cures for disease rather than treat them as waste? Ironically, Limbaugh declined to appear on This Week to talk about his comments or debate Fox. Interesting.

I remember Family Ties, and the Back to the Future movies, The Secret of My Success, Bright Lights Big City, Teen Wolf, Spin City - all of which span my childhood, teen years, and college days.

And then there's George Stephanopoulos. Dear old George. Clinton's elections were due, in part, to the college-age vote in the mid-90s. College students were largely ignored as a campaign target before Clinton and Rock the Vote. I admit to having little interest in politics until Bill and Hillary and George came along. I first encountered George on the 1994 cover of Time magazine, standing next to the President, who was sitting at his desk, head in hand. The article was about Clinton's advisors screwing up the White House response to Whitewater. I also remember The War Room, and reading George's memoirs. He made politics accessible and interesting with his behind-the-scenes look at it all. And of course, there were the references to him in Friends and the Simpsons, and characters modeled on him in Primary Colors and The American President (Michael J. Fox's character, incidentally).

His interview with Michael J. Fox was great. Fox's Parkinson's tremors didn't seem to bother George, and George even provided some narration about the interview - they had to stop for a minute because Fox was getting warm from the tremors, and needed another dose of meds, and George directly asked Fox about the meds and their effects, both good and bad. One of my favorite interviews that George did was with Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Breyer, who were both on the Supreme Court at the time. He's covered 9/11, Pope John Paul's funeral, and the war in Iraq, and doesn't put his foot in his mouth too often. Still accessible, still asking good questions, still calm when the interviewees get riled, and I still like calling him George. Besides, that's easier to type that Stephanopoulos.

at it again

I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year. Sixteen hundred words (or so) a day for 30 days, resulting in a 50,000 word rough draft of a novel by November 30.

Consequently, you may not hear much from me for the next month or so. I will try and check in at least once a week and give an updated word count.

This year's obstacles include a business trip to NY to learn all about cancer and possibly having to go to Chicago immediately after that for AHA, though I'm pleading with the Universe to get me out of the latter one if at all possible.

I made it to just over 50,000 words last November, so hopefully I can do it again.

Wish me luck!

hibernating

Animals have the right idea when it comes to winter weather - sleep through it. No seasonal affective disorder for them, just a nice, extremely long nap, which also results in a lot of weight loss.

And yet we humans just don't get it, and we end up with seasonal affective disorder and colds and flu and shoveling out from snowstorms and accidents on icy roads and plane delays due to bad weather, all of which might be avoided if we just kept a low profile all winter.

Personally, my hibernation instinct has already kicked in. Piles of blankets have been washed, and bedtime seems to be earlier and earlier every week. Most weekday evenings, if I've nothing else planned, I come home from work and shed the work clothes in a trail from front door to bedroom in exchange for pajamas and climb into bed with the pets, a pile of books, a pot of tea and a snack, and possibly a DVD or three, and I don't get out of bed until the alarm goes off the next morning.

Actually, I don't get out of bed until long after the alarm goes off, and subsequently, I get into work later and later. Taking the winter off would alleviate that as well, right?

My watercolor teacher does the migration thing and goes to Florida for the winter to teach all the retired folks how to paint, and then she comes back up here for spring and summer. She's got the right idea.

just because...

I just think the art by Laini Taylor is fun.

if you like...

...the Griffin and Sabine books (and others) by Nick Bantock, then you might like this as well:

Journal: The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason

Her "daughter" even has a myspace page

Then again, you might not like it. I haven't decided yet if I like it; after a first read, I found it rather disturbing, and yet it's fiction, so I also find it brilliant, in a twisted way.

magnets: friend or foe?

Right. Another acupuncture story for you:

My right hand has been bothering me for awhile now. No, it's not carpal tunnel - there's no numbness that extends to all but the pinky finger, which is the classic sign (I looked it up). The pain only occurs when I put pressure on my hand - when I pick up something that is heavy, or if I'm in a yoga pose, and my hand has to be on the floor, bearing some weight. The pain is above my wrist and on the top of my hand, meaning it doesn't radiate all the way through my hand. I've switched to using the computer mouse with my left hand (which actually wasn't as hard to get used to as I thought it would be, but that may be because I'm left-handed), and the pain has diminished a bit. Overall, I've no idea what caused my hand to start hurting. It just did, all of a sudden.

So my acupuncturist, Karen, has been grappling with it, trying to get it to behave. She says the odd thing about it is that the pain is not radiating from the meridian of the hand, but is slightly to the right. Two weeks ago, she tried something different. She put little magnet pellets on the pressure points on my hand. The pellets are held in place by a little circular band-aid thingy. She said to leave them on until they fell off or until my hand "felt funny," whichever came first. There was a noticeable decrease in pain with this magnet therapy, so when I went to see her today, I asked if I could have a repeat, which she agreed to do.

While she was plotting the points on my hand, I asked her what she thought of magnet therapy, especially the magnet bracelets that are so popular. She gave me a look, so I knew I was in for a treat of an explanation. She said she was of two minds about it. When magnets are placed on specific acupressure points, they seem to have remarkable effects, and she often uses them in that way, especially if there's a point on which a person might rather not have a needle, or if she wants to extend the pressure on the point for a good long time, like on my hand.

In general, though, she doesn't think vague magnet therapy, like wearing the bracelets or putting magnets on an overall area not related to a specific point, is such a good idea. This is because it interferes with the body's natural electro-magnetic field and tends to block it and keep it from moving. (And if you don't believe there is such a thing as an electro-magnetic field in and around the body, then I suggest you do a bit of research on electrocardiograms, which measure the electrical impulses that make the heart move - depolarization and repolarization and all that good stuff).

The whole point (ha!) of acupuncture is to keep chi happily moving about the body. If the chi gets stuck somewhere, you've got illness and/or pain. It can be temporarily stuck, like in the case of a cold or headache, or it can be permanently stuck, like in the case of a chronic illness or cancer or the like. Stuck, stagnating chi is bad chi. Very bad. And chi is all wrapped up with energy and blood and the immune system and the body's electro-magnetic field, among other things, so you mess with any of those, and you're messing with chi, and that's never a good idea. That's why acupuncture is the high art that it is. It's not meant to interfere with the body at all. Rather, it's meant to be a helpful sidekick and pal that keeps the conversation going.

So moral of the session: magnets on specific points = good; magnets in or near vague areas = bad. And so ends the lesson.

toast messages

I'm sure there's a purpose for this - I just can't figure out what it is. Birthdays? Parties, maybe?

death in a snazzy vest

this is the cutest series; I found it on Netflix. There are only a handful of episodes, and it easily could have been done all wrong and in poor taste, but it wasn't, thankfully.

for the birds

Right. After a terrific backrub/massage courtesy of an angel, and an unusually good night's sleep (many who know of my battle with light sleeping and insomnia will realize how novel a deep sleep is for me), I found myself up at 6:45 this morning. I can't even get myself up that early during the week, due to said sleep problems, so to be up that early on a Saturday, and by choice, is unheard of.

I was sitting at the window next to my desk, gulping the first tea of the day, and watching the early morning sun slide across the rooftops of the townhouses opposite my building, and I noticed quite a few birds up and about, and they all seemed rather busy. I must here profess my ignorance as to bird types, so my descriptions will be based on what they look like. A black and white one was pecking at tree sap, a tiny yellow and gray one was flitting around the trunk of the tree with a piece of leaf in its beak as though looking for a hiding place, and a blue and white one was observing the goings on, and this is all in the same tree, mind you. Then a big mottled brown and white one with a red-orange head, and some sort of nut (or possibly a berry) in its beak, lands on the corner of the wall just outside my window and proceeds to make its way up to where the wall joins the roof overhang. It then pokes the nut (or berry) into a little crevice in the roof overhang, and once it decides the nut (or berry) is secure, it flies off. About ten minutes later, it returns with another nut (or berry), repeats the wall-climbing/treasure-stashing routine, and flies off again. In the space of an hour, the bird came back three times.

As I'm watching all the activity outside my window, I get the sudden urge to do something productive, which is often the effect early, chilly autumn mornings have on me (or it could be the tea, I suppose). There is shopping to be done, laundry to be washed, soup to be made, Persuasion to be read, Firefly episodes to be watched (courtesy of the same angel), journal entries to be written, an owl needlework project to be finished for a blue-eyebrowed darling great aunt who has a thing for owls, space heaters to be dug out of the closet and situated in rooms, and a half-finished watercolor painting to be considered for improvements or quietly turned over to begin again. Only two days to do it all.

But more tea and window-watching first. I want to see if the nut (berry) bird comes back.

pain is the fifth vital sign

Some background: I'm working on an account for a morphine formulation that is given epidurally and provides up to something like 24- to 48-hour pain relief depending on dose, which is better than morphine given IV (only 4 hours or so of pain relief per dose). This new drug formulation has been studied in patients who have had hip, back, and caesarian surgeries. The only drawback to it, so far as I can tell, is that, as with any kind of morphine use, overdosing can cause severely decreased respiration, which ironically was exactly the situation my grandmother was in before she died recently. So of course, it's recommended to give the lowest dose possible while still providing pain relief.

As I'm researching the drug and the studies and the whole concept of pain management, I've come across several interesting things, and I'm only thinking about them because I'm weird that way. Vital signs (pulse, blood pressure, core temperature, and respiration) are easily and objectively measured. Pain, however, can't be measured objectively. It's usually assessed as "on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being excruciating, rate your pain." People have varied tolerances for pain, so their rating is usually based on previous experience (ie, compared to the most physically painful thing they've ever felt - broken bone, heart attack, giving birth, a severe burn, endometriosis, appendicitis, having teeth pulled, etc.), and the rating changes as people experience physical pain throughout their lives.

Mind you, one can observe a person's response to pain based on vital signs, but to measure pain itself, you really need the patient to describe it to you. And of course, there's the problem of interpretation. The caregiver may be inclined to interpret the pain rating based on their own experience with pain, and they may have to dig a little and ask more questions to clarify the patient's rating. Quite the conundrum.

There is a strong movement now to include pain assessment as part of a standard check of vitals, and though the objectivity mentioned above presents a challenge, I think it will become an important part of health care. Here's why: precisely because of its subjectivity, pain assessment forces caregivers to think of patients as other than objects to be poked, prodded, assessed, and mended on an assembly line. Pain is a human perception that requires dialogue between patient and caregiver for comprehension, evaluation, and treatment, which changes the dynamic of care to one of easing suffering (and by the way, possibly improving vital signs - and no, that's not coincidence), not just fixing what is broken and forgetting that patients, amazingly, are people too. "Whol"istic medicine, here we come!

this is what I saw today...

...during a 45-minute walk around a lake:

- a strong flowing waterfall, due to all the recent rain. Geese were lined up at the top of it, having an afternoon snooze; a blue heron was at the bottom of it, possibly looking for a snack in the water. Amazing that the heron could remain so still and upright with all that water coming at it, given its spindly legs
- two little girls feeding a crowd of ducks and geese, while their moms were talking and paying no attention at all. The girls would squeal and laugh whenever the ducks or geese would quack or eat whatever the girls had just thrown at them. One of the girls was dressed in a too-cute pink ballet costume and had blond hair messily pulled up into a ponytail.
- turtles poking their heads out of the water, and quickly pulling them back in again
- a hedgehog munching on grass on one side of the walking path
- a lone swan out on the water some distance away
- a large black and yellow butterfly on the grass near a trash can
- a HUGE bee on the ground. It sounded very angry, maybe it was lost
- dogs everywhere, walking their owners
- hibiscus, wide open and showing off
- a blanket of roses and leaves clinging to the side of a high fence

Awesome.

Keith Olbermann speaks

I read this wide-eyed with admiration for the thought and feeling that is written in it.

That is what I like about writing. That is what I like about blogging. People who think blogging is stupid just don't get the point. People are writing. They are writing out their ideas, and their days' highlights and lowlights, and their feelings, and their questions. Maybe some of it sounds ordinary and uninteresting and small, but it is important to whoever wrote it, and it helped them to process any number of things from confusion to musing to a whole range of emotions to just noting that the day was there and the writer had a place in it. Writing is always a good idea. No one will ever convince me otherwise.

on this day

I've attempted not to watch or listen to much news today, but it hasn't worked. I've been trying to cope with the fact that it's been five years since the world stopped and the country burned. This is one of those memories that doesn't seem to get fuzzy with time. I remember too much too clearly from that day.

I was at work, and someone walked past my office and said "Did you hear? A plane hit the World Trade Center in New York." I briefly thought that it was a private plane or something and that it was an accident. Then a few minutes later, someone else walked past my office and said, "Did you hear? A second plane hit the other tower." And then I knew it wasn't an accident.

I started to go a bit numb, and then a third person walked past my office and said, "Did you hear? A plane has hit the Pentagon." People started leaving to pick up their kids from school because the school systems had decided to shut down. Then I started to panic, as my mind went through the following conversation - "Pentagon, government building, close to here, Dad works at NSA, also a government building, close to here, where is Dad?" So I called him at work, and he wasn't there, so on the off-chance, I called him at home, and he picked up. He was sick with a cold or something and hadn't gone to work that day. Sigh of relief, and then pang of guilt. I know where all of my family are - not so for people in NY and DC. Not so for Laura, who walked past me in tears because she had just heard that the fourth plane had gone down in Pennsylvania, and her brother lived in Pennsylvania, and she couldn't get him on the phone.

Someone brought a TV into the lunchroom, and people drifted in to watch. I went in there for water once, because my mouth had gone dry, and that's when the towers fell and people leaned closer to the TV and stood up and put their hands out as if they could keep the buildings from falling, and I watched the TV and my co-workers, and the water overflowed from my cup. Others had radios in their offices, and little groups would gather to listen and hear the same reports over and over again hoping for and dreading new information. The office had gone uncomfortably quiet, and it unnerved me, so I kept working. Panic has taught me that rather than just sit there and shake and let your mind have nightmares, go do something. I got some nasty looks and comments that day - "how can you just sit there and work?!" Because I have to. Because I need to. Because I had flown to Minnesota and back just two weeks earlier, and all this could have happened on that day instead of this one.

Driving home was creepy. It was 5:15 pm, and yet there was no traffic. I didn't see one car on the road during my drive home. I had the radio on for company, and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" came on. I've always liked the song, I think it's beautiful and poetic, and on any other day, it would have put me in a contemplative and meditative mood, but on that particular day, on that creepy drive home, it just made me cry, and I had to pull over to the side of the road for a few minutes until I could see clearly enough to drive again.

That night, I gave in to watching the news all evening and well into the night. One particular image I remember - the firefighters wincing as they saw people jump from the towers to their deaths. It reminded me of reading about the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire. A bunch of seamstresses were locked into a firetrap of a room at the factory. A fire broke out, and the women couldn't get out because no one came to unlock the door. Several of the women chose to jump, supposedly because they wanted to have some measure of control over their deaths, they couldn't handle the idea of doing nothing. What a choice to make - to knowingly decide the manner of your death and willingly walk toward it. Other, more philosophical, reading tells me that when you are about to die, a part of the brain that is normally dormant suddenly becomes active, and you see and feel things that lead you through the transition, and the one thing you do not feel is fear. Rather, you feel an overwhelming urge to go toward whatever it is that you see - a glimpse of heaven, perhaps. Or a place seen vaguely in your dreams and longed for. Or long-dead loved ones reaching out to you.

I received a number of calls that night - Mom, grandmother, aunts and uncles, college friends. They just wanted or needed to know that I was there and okay, and I guess I needed to know too, as I felt strangely distant and out-of-sync with the day.

Yesterday, I was happily roaming around Renn Fest, meeting the "king," sitting in the hot sun to watch jousting and some bawdy (but hilarious) magic/swordfighting/comedy routines and the end of a rendition of A Midsummer Night's Dream, poking my head into shops and buying a watercolor print of a fairy. And today? Reality returned, and it rained and was chilly, and I went to work and spent all day on one project, and despite my best efforts, I got sucked into the news and commentary about the day's rememberances and ceremonies being politically motivated and the world being more unsafe than it was five years ago, and the bombings that happened in Spain and in London and in other places, and the changing reasons for the war, and Heather called and asked me to lunch tomorrow, and I've forgotten to buy dog treats, but I did remember to give Louise her meds, and five years nudges me and whispers a reminder not to forget any of it, not the mundane, nor the terrible, because it all matters. All of it.

job update

Many people have asked me how my job search is going (thanks for asking), so I thought I'd give an update:

I've applied for four jobs: Science Writer at JHU APL, Medical Writer at ICON, Medical Writer at NIH in the complementary alternative medicine division, and writer for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

ICON is the only one that's called me back. I had a good conversation with their HR person. She thought my resume looked good, though she did say that the one snag was that I had no experience writing clinical protocols. She said she'd send my resume on to the Medical Director anyway. Haven't heard from them since.

Haven't heard from any of the others yet. Fingers crossed though. Hopefully, someone somewhere wants me to write for them.

it's funny what happens when you mean what you say

So in not even an aggressive job search, I've come across two good prospects. One is a science writer for Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (and before you ask, yes, I actually do know a bit about physics), and the other is a medical writer for ICON. The former could help me get a master's degree from Hopkins, and the latter could get me to Europe as they have offices all over the world. I'm beginning to sound awfully shrewd, aren't I?

I applied for both yesterday, and weirdly, they both use the same job application software, and more weirdly, ICON called me today! Nothing may come of either, and yet that doesn't bother me because at least I've taken an action to change my increasingly intolerable work circumstances, and that always makes me feel better.

Plus, I've met someone who happens to be a cellist, and I've been picking his brain about the best way to learn, and what to play, and any other cello question I can think of.

I'm not inclined to think that any of this is a coincidence, yet it's truly alarming (though not unappreciated) when the Universe responds so quickly to one's requests.

why it's easy to hate my job - a timeline

Sunday, August 13, after ad board:
Client says they need a flash report, with top-line bullet points of major issues and suggestions, parallel with the flow of the meeting, by Friday, August 18th. No problem, say we, since it is normal procedure to send a flash report within a week of a meeting. However, writer hears little voice in her head that says organizing a report based on flow of meeting, rather than by topics, means there is bound to be redundancy in several sections, as topics were brought up more than once, but then writer remembers that thinking logically is not always the best thing to do in work situations.

Monday, August 14 and Tuesday, August 15:
Writer works on draft of flash report.

Wednesday, August 16:
Client suddenly decides that they need the flash report, 5 to 7 pages, by Thursday morning, instead of Friday COB. Writer sighs and cautions that a draft could be sent by Thursday am, but it will not be the polished report client would have gotten by Friday COB, due to the loss of two days to work on it. Client is surprisingly agreeable to this.

Draft sent to consultant and VP for review, and both respond that client will want detail and context and the draft should be re-ordered by topic rather than by presentation to present more of a story (!). New information is that report is not just for client, but also for everybody and their brother who may even have a passing interest, and who did not attend the meeting, which calls into question why client would agree to a rough draft if it is to be seen by whole world.

Writer reorganizes draft by topic and adds detail while still trying to keep within 7 pages, though wondering why a so-called flash report should have so much detail and context. Writer thinks flash report is beginning to sound suspiciously like an executive summary.

Thursday, August 17, 2006
Writer and MSA revise flash report yet again and send to client.

Someone decides that the executive summary can be sent to client within a week (!!), which elicits audible gasp from writer, who is not sure how she'll pull that one off considering that her magic wand is in the shop for repair.

Monday, August 21
Client is "disappointed" with flash report, and puts consultant in charge of revising it. Five pm call with consultant results in writer pulling an all-nighter to revise just part of the flash report-on-steroids.

Tuesday, August 22
Revised part sent to consultant who likes it, so things seem to be looking up.

Writer pulls another all-nighter to revise more of Frankenstein flash report.

Wednesday, August 23
Writer, MSA, VPs, and AM spend all day in conference room amid doughnuts and coffee and bottles of water revising mutant flash report, which is a good idea because writer has started to forget words like "table" and "car" and "alibi" due to sleep deprivation.

Writer pulls only a late night rather than an all-nighter to finish up blasted report.

Thursday, August 24
Report makes the rounds of reviewers, and writer suddenly remembers she has other projects to work on.

Friday, August 25
Mega flash report sent to consultant, who still thinks it "needs work" and decides to rewrite it.

Saturday, August 26
Writer reviews consultant's comments through tears and begins searching for another job because writer realizes this client sounds very like a previous client who caused remarkably similar problems, and writer has pretty much had it with the lot of them.

The morals of the story are don't keep changing the rules of the game while players are in the middle of playing said game, and clients must learn that they can have a fast product or a thorough and polished product, but it is beyond the capacity of this writer to provide both at the same time, and under duress.

on assignment in Chicago

the high points:

- most of the slides were done before the meeting (I realize that sounds like it should be bloody obvious, but you'd be surprised)
- the client has calmed down now that he sees that we really do have our act together, and this is not the first time we've done an ad board
- the first day of the meeting went well, and ended on time, and features a chairperson who is enthusiastic about the topic and knows how to keep things moving and reign people in, rarer qualities than one might think
- the entire hotel is suites - it's nice to get a suite instead of a room every once in awhile, though my luck with getting bad views from my room windows is still unchanged
- the hotel is right on Michigan Avenue, though whether I'll have time to go shopping before I have to leave to catch my plane remains to be seen
- the suites have odd things as part of their mini bar, like Moleskine mini notebooks (though that's rather clever considering that if you're in a hotel for a meeting, and you've forgotten a notebook, which I do more frequently than I care to admit, it's handy to be able to grab a notebook from the mini bar, weird as that sounds)
- I was able to upgrade my plane seats to economy plus, and the extra $30 is worth it for the leg room and elbow room

the low points:

- traveling the day after the "no liquids in carry-ons" rule went into effect (although it took an hour to check bags and get through security, it could have been worse if I had left on Thursday, when my co-workers were in line for 2+ hours)
- giving up yet another weekend for work
- having to board my pets yet again
- not having a screen to shield Stephen and me from the arrogance flung around at the meeting (why is it that when docs get together, it always ends up as a pissing contest? We spent all day yesterday listening to docs brag about how much more data they knew than the other docs and how many more studies they were participating in than the other docs, and badmouthing PCPs, and I had to take notes on all this!)

I'm seriously reconsidering my future career with this company. I'd be stupid if I didn't.

candidates...

...for the "what-will-they-think-of-next-and-why-did-they-in-the-first-place" prize:

tummy-friendly coffee

loo entertainment

virtual booksigning

death of a ghost

It's been an exhausting week. My maternal grandmother died last Friday night due to cancer. My mom flew in from Sydney last Sunday, and then she and I flew up to Ohio on Tuesday for the funeral - on puddle jumpers no less. We came back the same day, and Mom flew back to Sydney on Thursday. It all caught up with me Thursday afternoon, and I ended up working from home on Friday. I was literally in bed with a laptop.

It was a three-hour drive from the airport to the funeral home, though there were some nice stretches of Ohio countryside to see, and my cousin and her husband provided much-needed comic relief. We looked at their wedding photos and asked after their kids, and careers, and kept the rest of the family apprised, via mobile phone, of our travel progress.

Graysville, Ohio is about as small-town America as you can get, but I kind of liked it. Everything looked old and felt old and smelled old - buildings, roads, traffic lights, cars.

Everything went as well as we could have hoped for. We saw a ton of family that we hadn't seen in a long time, and some that we'd never met, like my uncle's kids, one of whom needed her hair re-done, so Mom did a French braid for her, while I listened to her talk about the science projects she had done in school this year (she's going into fifth grade next year).

Mom held up well, and my grandmother's sisters were glad to see her. It was like seeing shadows of my grandmother whenever one of them walked through the door. Aunt Betty had navy blue eyebrows to match her blue outfit, and Aunt Jeannie was decked out in a rusty orange shiny shirt, brown pants, funky sandals, and a Katharine Hepburn head bobble.

For 71, my grandmother looked remarkably well. Hardly any wrinkles and very smooth skin (I remember that she drank a lot of water). She was in a beautiful white crocheted shawl. I think she made it herself. Mom was on her knees crying in front of the casket for a good ten minutes - cathartic release, I'd say. I stood over her and the casket, passed tissues to Mom, and let myself feel guilty about not feeling anything. I hadn't seen my grandmother in more than 20 years due to a stunningly stupid family argument that I had no part of (I was about 10 when it happened), but which I was affected by. The argument was mostly my grandfather's doing, and my grandmother had little say in its results, or in much of anything from what I've heard, because my grandfather was always the one in charge.

The funeral director and his son were very kind and quiet spoken, which are probably typical characteristics of funeral people.

My grandfather gave me a locket that my grandmother wanted me to have, with a gruff "here, this is for you." After 20-some years, that's all he seemed to want to say to me. I had hoped for more - a "glad you're here," or "how are you?" or "I've missed you." I wouldn't have known what to say in return, so it's probably just as well. Mom noticed that he was wearing the same suit that he had worn at my parents' wedding 32 years ago. It was the only one he'd ever had tailor-made, and he was always proud of it.

The flight back home was very bumpy and uncomfortable, all the moreso in such a small plane. Mom and I slumped in our seats, held hands, and tried to come up with conversation topics to take our minds off the turbulence. I will say that seeing the lightening flash right in the clouds was pretty scarily spectacular.

Once back at BWI, we had a hell of a time trying to get to the carpark. We could see it from the windows but couldn't figure out how to get to it. We ended up trudging from one end of the airport to the other, stopping to rest and laugh at how ridiculously stressful and silly the whole day was.

We made it home by around midnight. I fell asleep on the couch in my suit, and Mom ended up sleeping until about 2 pm the next day. I ordered some takeout Chinese food for lunch, and got her up and eating. She was alarmed that she'd slept for so long.

I had no energy or heart to do much of anything this weekend. I stayed in bed, and only exerted myself to use the bathroom, change the DVD, and lift a book and look into it for awhile. I'm only at the computer so that I can say that I did sit upright at some point in the past two days.

I've got to hand it to my mom - to fly all the way from Australia to say goodbye to a woman who hadn't shown her much kindness or attention for 20 years and to face a father who had done far worse is really saying something: it was her mother, no matter what, and Mom didn't want to ever regret not making the effort. I'm pretty lucky to have a mom like that.

channeling the energy of the Universe into London

I sometimes listen to BBC radio on the Internet. This week, Radio 4 is running a series of programs on all the events that happened at this time last year:

- the G8 Summit
- Live 8
- London is chosen as the city site for the 2012 Olympics on July 6
- the July 7 tube and bus bombings
- the 60th celebration of the end of WWII on July 9

All of these things happened in the space of a few days. One woman put it quite well - "...imagine how much energy from the Universe was channeled into those events." Extraordinary, isn't it?

wedding

Hot. As. Hades. Even in a knee-length, sleeveless sundress and sandals and no stockings, I was dripping.

Ironically, my parents' wedding in 1974 was equally as bad, weather-wise. San Angelo, Texas. Middle of June. 110 degrees. Though my mom was in a paper-thin wedding dress, she still passed out once. How my dad made it through in his army uniform, I don't know.

It wasn't as bad as I expected. They decided against the electric palm tree, thank heaven. None of the guys' Hawaiian shirts were horrible. We didn't have to wear leis. I actually saw my father dance for the first time in my life. Us kids were introduced as the "blended family." Val did the introductions, and because it was Tim's birthday as well, Val gave him a singing telegram (one of her jobs from college). So combining my stepmother's kids and my stepfather's kids, I now have seven stepsiblings.

And we get to do it all over again when Em and Jamie get married next April.

fun with family

Today was a good day. I can't remember the last time I had one this fun.

Em and Jamie took aunts, uncles, and kid cousins to Baltimore for the day, but my grandmother didn't want to go out there, and my California aunt wasn't too keen on it either, so the three of us went to Ellicott City Main Street for the afternoon. I do much better in these small group settings and don't get nearly so drained.

We had a great lunch at Cacao Lane. Val had a wonderful ginger and lemon chicken soup (which I've got to find some way to reproduce) and the brie, which she said was awesome.

We checked out the herb shop, the tea shop, the print shop, a couple of the antique shops, the jewelry/fudge shop, and the fairy shop. It was fun to watch Val spend money on elf shoes, jewelry, a shawl, and a druid robe while my grandmother (her mother) scolded her to "put the jewelry back, you've got enough of your own jewelry to start your own shop."

My grandmother pointed out things in the antique shops that she either had at some point or still has, and remarked to Val that "when I die, you kids will have a gold mine." Val, of course, gave her one of those "mom-don't-say-things-like-that" looks.

We went back to Dad and Sharon's for a big family barbeque dinner, and then a bunch of the women decided that they needed hair help, so Em opened up the salon, and she and Mary Jo washed, cut, and colored for us while we sat around drinking wine, chattering, and flipping through magazines.

I hope Sharon learns to appreciate the family she's marrying into. The best thing about my family is how welcoming they are to newcomers, and even to ex's. My mom and my stepfather showed up for my 30th birthday party last year, and they weren't shunned by anyone. Quite the opposite. She may not legally be part of the family anymore, but she's still my mom, and that's reason enough to welcome her as far as my family is concerned. Isn't that cool?

evening funny

KISS band members open coffee house - just the headline alone was enough to make me choke on my tea.

why it's good to live on the fifth floor

The East Coast has (hopefully temporarily) become Seattle and London all in one. It's been raining every day since the end of last week, and we're not talking about a light downpour. We're talking about periods of rain coming down so hard and thick that you can't see through it ("it threw itself down...," as Neil Gaiman would say). The waterfall at the lake across the street looks almost violent, especially compared to the mere trickle that it was early last week. The irony is that we have a water ban in the county due to low water levels. I wonder if that will be lifted once these storms pass through.

And it worries me that the National Archives has flooded. As "America's recordkeepers," shouldn't they have plans in place to prevent that from happening?

The lobby of my condo building has flooded several times in the last few days. This is not unusual. What is unusual is that the condo association is actually doing something about it other than just leaving the front door and the back door open and spraying Febreze everywhere (Lysol would be better, probably). This time, they're actually using those special vacuum thingys to get all the water and dampness out.

And for those of you asking how the frantic condo cleaning went, it's still going on. You wouldn't think a one-bedroom condo would require all that much time and effort, but you would be mistaken. I attribute this lengthy process to the accumulated tasks that were put off over the last few months due to work and travel and exhaustion from work and travel. Nothing like family coming to stay with you to get things in order once and for all.

things to do...

clean house from top to bottom before grandmother comes for a visit for dad's wedding
finish watercolor painting (do I even remember the lesson from the workshop?)
listen to new Keane CD
listen to new Chris Botti CD
listen to Lorraine a Malena CD (won by Heather)
watch season 1 of Lost (borrowed from Heather)
watch season 4 of Good Neighbors
get living room TV fixed
get dishwasher fixed
vacuum inside of car (where does all that dust come from?)
finish all the half-read books lying about
try out cucumber raita recipe
teach SK to knit (her idea - yes, really)
go see Shakespeare play in EC (Lear or Shrew or both?)
finish draft of novel
edit and revise draft of other novel
get on treadmill for an hour to make up for dismal lack of exercise this week
check in on Miami crew
laundry
find key to storage room
buy plane tickets for Australia trip
re-make forgotten cup of tea that has now gone cold sitting on kitchen counter

amusing reading

You know it's going to be an odd day when this many eye-catching stories appear all at once:

Party in Hell

Daggy Manilow

Navel gazing

Duck X-ray

this is what a martini sounds like

I highly recommend this band - Pink Martini. They've got a Breakfast at Tiffany's-lounge lizard-film noir-Havana bar sound. It's a twelve-piece band complete with piano, brass, string section, drums, xylophones, and harp, among others things. If you are at all depressed or tired, this music will cheer you up and make you want to take salsa lessons.

P.S. If someone can tell me what kind of camera the bandleader is using, I'd be most grateful. It looks like an old bellows-type camera, but it takes polaroids.

it's a funny thing

At first I thought that having two story ideas at the same time was a great thing, because that's never happened to me before. Then I realized that trying to divide your writing time between two stories means that you'll only get half as much done on each one (bloody obvious, right?). So while I did get 50, 000 words written in May, in actual fact it was 25,000 words per story, which means I'll spend June adding 25,000 words to each one so that I'll have a decent-length (though still crappy) rough draft of each one. I have, however, decided to take my company up on it's yearly offer of summer hours, so that leaves Friday afternoons free for writing.

I have a number of business trips coming up this summer - the first one next weekend to San Francisco. It's also soccer World Cup time, and I hope I'll be able to keep up with it given all the distractions I'm facing. Ukraine and the Czech Republic have qualified for the first time, and there's the usual bunch - The Netherlands, Portugal, France, Italy, and England; also I think Serbia, Montenegro, Switzerland, Spain, and Croatia, and that's as many as I remember of the 32 teams that qualified.

I've also finally joined the i-pod nation. I can justify this because there's no point lugging around a CD player on business trips when I already have to lug around a laptop. And besides, I plan to stuff it with audiobooks thanks to audible.com

I've seen it...

The DaVinci Code, that is. And I think the critics are overreacting. They wanted to hate this film. That was apparent when the public first heard that Ron Howard was directing and Tom Hanks was starring. This movie was never meant to be given a fair shake, especially because everyone was so sick of the book by then anyway.

It's not an Oscar-winning film, and it's not fast-paced (in my opinion, fast-paced films are overrated anyway), and there's a lot of exposition (which is necessary to understand the story fully), and Tom Hanks does have an odd hairstyle, but for all that, it was decent viewing.

As for the Catholic church being so grumpy about it, perhaps that is because it plants seeds of an idea in people's heads, which I guess the church might see as a bad thing. The possibility that even a drop of it might be true is probably quite scary to anyone that hinges their faith on what they were taught in Sunday school. True or not, the whole idea that Christ may have been simply an extraordinary man with a cause and had a wife is intriguing. We will never know the pure truth because none of us were there to see all this history as it actually happened. History is written by the winners and spun to suit their purposes, so really, historical fact is quite an oxymoron.

If nothing else, finally, finally there is a film that debunks the myth that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Ian McKellan was right - poor girl.

experiments in feng shui

I moved my desk near the window, and though it all ended in tears because desks are always heavier than you think they are when you're trying to move them, it's worked out fine, and there's a definite change in energy in my humble abode. Not to mention that Louise now has a new perch on the ledge of the previously unaccessible window.

The spring cleaning and furniture re-arranging and daily walking seem to be doing wonders for my writing (I'm sure the new multivitamin my acupuncturist gave me is partly responsible as well). A second story idea has surfaced, and I'm essentially working on two stories at the same time - 4000 words or so a day (2K per story), in addition to (or should I say, despite) my day job. That's never happened before. Ever. I was never lucky enough to be that kind of writer. So until someone realizes the mistake and takes it all away from me, I'll make the most of it and be grateful.

odd Sunday

I watched The Picture of Dorian Gray this afternoon. George Sanders is really good at the snobbish sarcasm. It's classified as a horror film, but really, it's a horror film with aristocratic manners. I've been grubby all weekend due to spring cleaning, furniture rearranging, and bookcase building, so the vanity-will-get-you-in-trouble message went right past me. Sooner or later, I'll get around to reading Oscar Wilde's original book, to see which I like better.

Then, I came across this in the newspaper. Somehow, I wouldn't have thought fairies would like Michigan, but what do I know?

solvitur ambulando

My co-worker and I have started walking around the nearby lake on a daily basis. It will be getting hot soon, so we've switched our afternoon walks to morning walks. We keep a good pace (finally, there's someone who walks as fast as I do!), and our record so far is 2 miles in 38 minutes. Having the lake so close to the office and not making frequent use of it is stupid, I think, especially since this morning, we not only saw two herons flying across the water, but we also came up close to one (as in, within 5 feet or so of it) while we were walking.

I am determined to stay out of double-digit clothing sizes. I am determined to look decent in a sundress for my father's wedding in July and in a formal dress for my sister's wedding next April. I am determined to not be ashamed to be seen in a bathing suit this summer or during my trip to Australia in December (it will be summer there in December). I am determined to get more decent sleep on a regular basis instead of waking up several times a night and feeling fatigued during the day. I am determined to control my temper and my mouth at work. I am determined to stop turning to food when I am stressed or depressed. Walking seems to be helping with all of these things. St. Augustine had the right idea.

And then I read this morning that Neil Gaiman's Stardust goes into film production today and that Rupert Everett will be in it, and I've remembered that I have Monday off, and my bookcase did arrive finally, so it all puts me in a good mood.