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Below are the 25 most recent friends journal entries:

January 5th, 2010
09:34 pm willyumtx [Link]	Central Market - produce. I think that Central Market does get better produce than the regular HEB. Got some of the large grapefruit tonight and they are huge and nicely colored. The ones at HEB were much smaller and oddly yellowish. And some were soft. Meh. Tags: food, groceries (Leave a comment)
06:15 pm willyumtx [Link]	New work schedule. It's been just two days on my new work schedule. Seven to half past three. So very early. I'm not tired when I wake up. And work goes by relatively fast. But after work, I feel so drained and just want to crash. I wonder if it's due to a lack of food. I've not eaten much these two days since I have to rush home and cook and gobble and rush back. That might be it. Or, it might be that I'm set for working later. I seem to get the same amount of sleep when I work late, but it's not tiring. I would wake up and eat lunch and run errands and go to work and still stay up after work on the computer. Now it's turned topsy turvy. You'd think I would be energized after work is over. I'm done and can run errands and so stuff for myself. But I just want to rest and crash. I wonder if napping would be good or not. I did that Monday and it seemed harder to fall asleep that night than the night before. Well, we shall see. It's quiet when I get to work. And slow. So that's excellent. No neighbors. And it's a different section. So it's all new and feels fresh to me. I really like that. Tags: sleep, work (Leave a comment)
06:09 pm willyumtx [Link]	Traffic. Traffic. Grrrrr. It's not the distance, but the timing. Judo class on Tuesdays and Thursday nights is early - just after five. But with the bad traffic, it takes longer than the Mon, Wed, Fri classes. Too many people. Too crowded. I hate it. Headed to class tonight and got a late start. So by 5 pm I was only at Parmer. Tired and cranky and just not feeling like it. So went to HEB instead. I think I'll go to class on Mon, Wed, and Fri. And probably Saturday as well. It's just not worth fighting traffic on Tue and Thu. Unless I were to leave early and get there way early. But there is nothing up there for me. I guess I could eat there early and then head to class. I hate driving in crowds. Tags: judo, traffic (Leave a comment)
05:01 am jaylake [Link]	[photos] Your Tuesday moment of zen Your Tuesday moment of zen. Me as Santa Claus, circa 1988. Photographer unknown. Tags: funny, personal, photos, zen (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
04:59 am jaylake [Link]	[links] Link salad is on a timeless flight Best Fantasy Story of 2009 Poll and Contest — Fantasy magazine with a poll. I note immodestly that I have a story in this poll, "People of Leaf and Branch". What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2010? — (Scott Edelman via scarlettina.) calendula_witch with some more photos of my scars (and tattoo) — Slightly NSFW. Smile! You've got cancer — Barbara Ehernreich on cancer and the tyranny of positive thinking. (Thanks to danjite.) Per my brother, see also this related piece in The Economist. Looking Into the Past — A cool site restaging photos. (Thanks to willyumtx.) The Future of Human Spaceflight — Are astronauts close to extinction?. The Year of the Assassin — A leftie semirant which I found pretty interesting. Lots of comments on the American attitude toward war, including this gem: if we are no nation of warriors, from the point of view of the rest of the world we are certainly the planet’s foremost war-makers. American Evangelicals and the Ugandan anti-gay hate law — You really are responsible for the consequences of your beliefs, people. ?otD: Are you a rocketman? 1/5/2009 Body movement: 30 minute ride on stationary bike Hours slept: 5.5 This morning's weigh-in: 229.2 (!) Currently reading: (between books) Tags: calendula, cancer, culture, health, healthcare, links, personal, photos, politics, polls, publishing, science, stories, tech (8 comments \| Leave a comment)
January 4th, 2010
05:30 pm jaylake [Link]	[cancer] The magical power of health insurance to sap the soul and drain the mind Every single time I see my oncologist, my insurance carrier informs me by mail a few weeks later that she is out-of-network and pushes the entire claim to my (substantial) out-of-network deductible. Every single time, I call my insurance carrier and wrangle with them, until they admit she is in fact in-network, and reprocess the claim. These calls take up to an hour a pop. Every call is as if no such call had ever taken place before in the history of time. Completely ab initio, always. I have had the clinic call the provider line. The carrier's provider line people have repeatedly assured the clinic that my oncologist is in-network. There is a data mismatch between the provider database and the claims database, because my oncologist is never in the claims database. Today's call was especially frustrating, because the front line rep I spoke to told me that none of the 2009 claims for my oncologist had been paid, they were all being held to be reprocessed as out-of-network. (This is a difference to me between $40 per visit and almost $300 per visit.) I knew this couldn't be true, because I'd have a stack of nastygrams from my clinic's billing department if all those visits had gone unpaid. When I asked for a supervisor, my call got dumped. I finally fought my way back through the automated menus and two layers of reps for another supervisor, who told me the same thing the front line rep had told me. I dogged him, politely despite my frustration, until he finally decided the previous claims had been paid by being reprocessed to the clinic's provider group code instead of my oncologist's (allegedly non-existed) provider code. He also told me they wouldn't do that any more, that I needed to get the clinic to bill under the provider group without including a provider name. All of this joy took over ninety minutes to work through. The clinic, of course, has told me in the past that the carrier's provider line assures them my oncologist is in-network and none of this is necessary. I'm also very dubious of the carrier being willing to process a claim without any provider being named, since that seems like Fraud Risk 101 to me. What it boils down to is a problem no one can fix, that I own, unless I want to start paying out-of-network costs. I will see this oncologist every two weeks for the next six months as part of my chemotherapy regimen, which means I will spend thirty to ninety minutes on the phone every two weeks for the next six months convincing my insurance carrier of the same damned thing every time, unless someone can fix this. And god help me if I were a head injury victim, or mentally ill, or deep in chemohead, say, and unable to be articulate, firm and persistent, and deftly employ the command of managementspeak and customer service lingo that my twenty-five years in marketing and sales have given me. Because basically, I'd be screwed if I weren't so overqualified at dealing with indifferent and stupid bureaucracies. Meanwhile, they steal my time, sap my energy and morale and generally make my life difficult, solving the same damned problem every time. So, all you conservatives who oppose healthcare reform because our current system is "the best there is" can suck on it. Kiss my cancer-ridden ass. My healthcare delivery is fine, even magnificent, but the magical free market private sector health insurance is a retarded behemoth that is sucking my time and energy which I could be using to almost any other purpose so much more effectively. A decent single-payer system, combined with the current competitive public-private provider network, would deliver exactly the same quality healthcare at a substantially reduced cost and a fraction of the hassle. Every one of you "death panel" nuts and "don't let the Democrats win this one" political thinkers ought to spend a few months in my shoes. Then tell me how great the current system is. And I'm one of the lucky ones, in our current system. Tags: cancer, health, healthcare, personal, politics (22 comments \| Leave a comment)
05:31 am jaylake [Link]	[photos] Your Monday moment of zen Your Monday moment of zen. More Montana wildlife. © 2006, 2010 Joseph E. Lake, Jr. This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Tags: montana, photos, zen (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
05:30 am jaylake [Link]	[links] Link salad goes back to the Day Jobbe daveraines with an interesting take on my new short novel, Death of a Starship Andrew Wheeler reviews Finch — A most excellent book I've been meaning to review glowingly. Longacre Square: 1904 — Shorpy with a photo Times Square, way back when. Evaporation Ponds, Salar de Atacama, Chile — Another cool photo from NASA's Earth Observatory. Juan Cole contrasts Bush response to shoe bomber with Obama response to underwear bomber — More to the point, contrasts press and commentariat coverage of same. Your Liberal Media, enabling conservative lunacy for years past and to come. ?otD: Work or play? 1/4/2009 Body movement: 30 minute ride on stationary bike Hours slept: 5.5 This morning's weigh-in: 225.5 Currently reading: Bangkok Tattoo/em> by John Burdett Tags: books, links, personal, photos, politics, reviews, science, starship (2 comments \| Leave a comment)
January 3rd, 2010
07:52 pm jaylake [Link]	[art] Some work from the weekend One more post about the weekend. calendula_witch's aunt, Susan Dutton, is an artist who lives and works in Italy. She'd arranged the cottage we spend the New Year's weekend in, ( and she also did some artery. ) Tags: art, calendula, california, photos (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
09:14 pm zainybrain [Link]	First Night Austin I got stood up for First Night Austin, but went by myself anyway. It's actually the 5th year* of this event; a funky, local-themed celebration downtown on New Year's evening. I'd resisted going until now because it happens around and on (!!) my office building. Just cannot get excited about driving downtown to that area on my days off... but I did this year. Oddly, I think I missed some of the cooler stuff of FN. I know from posts on friends' blogs in years past that it was a kind of local, family version of Burning Man. People would dress up, make fantastic games or vehicles, and make it a wild street party. Didn't see much of that this year. But! The norther came in at 5pm and by 8pm I was shivering and wind-blown and the parade was over. I left early, and didn't even watch them burn the thing they built inside a column to burn. (Last year, it was a clock tower of balsa wood. This year that column was empty when I checked it out...) So it was pretty tame in what I saw. Mostly because it was early, and partly because it was sponsored by HEB. There were three stages at City Hall, which is next door to my office building, and a stage or area right on 1st Street Bridge, and then the big stage they always set up for any event on Auditorium Shores. So lots of live music and dancers. HEB had a couple of tents where you could make your own Mad Hat, like Alice's Mad Hatter. But the hats were just HEB grocery bags with stuff drawn and pasted on, so more goofy and promotional than zany. However, I did score a bagpipe band! The Capitol City Highlanders were marching down the bridge, and stopped and played. Bagpipe bands were something goulo and I shared a love of... These guys did fine, despite the crazy wind. Stood in front of my very building on Cesar Chavez St for the Grand Procession. It was a funky parade mostly composed of local neighborhoods performing, art cars, jugglers, hoopers, and the pipe band again. Since we didn't have enforcers on the street, idiot people massed in the center area, causing problems and making it hard for us to see. Really, must've seen a half-dozen people on unicycles and strange vehicles shriek to a stop at the way the road width was halved. I was determined to see the Viking ship, which was not so authentic or arty, but did deserve a round of applause for hooking up the oars so that rowing turned the wheels and propeled the thing. My brother is a Viking nut, and he would've appreciated the 12-16 guys working the boat. ( A few photos behind the cut... ) Current Mood: optimistic Tags: austin life, eccentrics, family (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
07:17 pm jaylake [Link]	[photos] Driving CA-1 along the coast of Sonoma County calendula_witch and I spent New Year's weekend with her aunt at a cottage out on the coast, right on the Sonoma-Mendocino county line. It rained buckets pretty much the whole time we were there, clearing up just in time for us to leave yesterday morning. ( So we left in the Witchmobile... ) Tags: calendula, california, family, personal, photos (4 comments \| Leave a comment)
09:01 pm willyumtx [Link]	Winstar - January 2010 - the numbers Just the numbers so I don't delay. ( Read more... ) Tags: poker, winstar (Leave a comment)
06:37 pm jaylake [Link]	[travel] TSA, now with even less customer service skills SFO on a Sunday night, at least in Terminal 3 at the United concourse, is a wee bit understaffed for the passenger load. Everything was moving very slowly, stupidly slowly. The four people in front of me all set off the metal detector with the usual array of coins, belts, cell phones and "huh?"s. When I finally got to the metal detector, I walked through clean, and was promptly waved into the holding pen while "male assist" was called. I then stood there for five minutes. At least half a dozen women were screened. Several men behind me set off the metal detector, were patted down by the guy who had diverted me and sent on their way. I, who had not set off the metal detector, stood and waited until I finally did something I never do — I backtalked the TSA screener. I went back out of the pen and asked him why he'd diverted me when I hadn't set off the detector. He said, "Random check." I said, "Then could you please randomly screen me?" He turned away and ignored me. I went back into my pen. About two minutes later a supervisor came by. The screener told him I'd been in there over five minutes. The supervisor told another screener, who had been standing near me the entire time, to check me. I was, of course, clean, and sent on my way. As I am chronically early to airports, and my flight is delayed anyway, no harm done, but I sure hated watching my stuff through a plexiglass wall while dozens of people filed by, looking it over, and it all stood ignored by the TSA screeners. I know the front line TSA guys don't make policy, but they ought to have service standards. This wasn't a security issue, it was a staffing issue (presumably) compounded by a communications error. But what kind of fricking security is it to detain someone with no warnings, and pat-and-wave-on the next raft of guys who set off the detectors? Tags: california, personal, travel (14 comments \| Leave a comment)
07:48 am jaylake [Link]	[cancer] Sometimes you hit the wall, sometimes the wall hits you I've had a lovely holiday season. Right through Christmas I was at Nuevo Rancho Lake with the_child and my family, most of whom live in the immediate area. Boxing Day the_child and I flew to San Francisco, where we did all kinds of cool stuff with calendula_witch and markferrari. The kiddo flew home last Wednesday, after which calendula_witch and I headed for Sea Ranch to spend time with her aunt, the European-American artist Susan Dutton. A glorious drive back yesterday (watch for a photoblog post later), and then to a lovely party hosted by dinogrl and dave_gallaher. I go home today, see a couple of friends tomorrow, then shelly_rae comes to Nuevo Rancho Lake on Tuesday. calendula_witch comes on Thursday. I've been surrounded by family, love, friendship and holiday spirits galore. All of that was lovely and fun, and except for a few melancholy moments, and one outburst of hysterical crying in the shower, I've managed not to be dwelling in cancerland for nearly two weeks. On the way home from the party last night in the Witchmobile, that changed. I hit the wall. We were talking about this-and-that, as one does after a party, and the conversation drifted into how the near future will work. Sometimes when I'm stressing about cancer I get crazy in the head and start buying trouble in other parts of our life. "But what if this happens?" "You're going to do that, and it will make me upset." That sort of crap. The relationship calendula_witch and I share is very solid, but it's also very considered. We re-examine it constantly. (Sometimes we joke about having staff meetings, but that really isn't a bad description of the process.) The demands of our lifestyle require such continuous monitoring, but we're also both beneficiaries of long-term therapy, and such shared introspection is a jointly acquired lifetime habit. All in all, this is a very good thing, but my crazy cancerbrain sometimes runs away with it. Displacement, stress, whatever. I'm hitting the chemo chair in five days, and last night the pleasantly insulating holiday spirit finally burned away like fog beneath the sun's bright-bladed rays. By the time we got back to the Witchnest, I was feeling burned out and depressed. As calendula_witch pointed out last night, I have a history of severe depression. Her suggestion was that perhaps I have a horror of suffering, of returning to those pain channels carved so long ago on my psyche. That my denials and my anger and my refusals are me dancing at the edge of that dark valley. I don't know if she's precisely right or not, but I do know the suggestion made me angry, which is strongly indicative that she's hit on something important. Last night I capped two weeks of goodness and quiet calm on the cancer front with an hour or two of anguish and idiocy. calendula_witch was loving and thoughtful and careful, and she got me turned around enough to go to sleep peacefully. I hate it when this disease turns me into a fool, and it very much did last night. I am profoundly humbled and fortunate to be loved as well as I am, by her, by shelly_rae and markferrari and kenscholes, by my family and friends. Thank you all. Tags: calendula, california, cancer, child, family, health, personal (12 comments \| Leave a comment)
07:26 am jaylake [Link]	[links] Link salad wants to be called Deacon Blues Mary Robinette Kowal is most kind to Green [ Powell's \| Amazon \| Kindle \| Barnes & Noble \| Borders ] — An old post which I'd missed the first time around, it popped up in her year in review. My Interzone story, "Dreams of the White City", is now a podcast — Artists, thank the automobile — Art guru James Gurney with an interesting connection between the automotive industry and the visual arts. A Little Decadence — Bad Astronomy pisses on the "when does the decade end" fire. Exoplanetary thoughts for 2010 — Centauri Dreams on one of my favorite topics. The Casimir Effect — APOD with a microphotograph illustrating the Casimir Effect (which is explained in the caption). ?otD: Do you want a name when you lose? 1/3/2009 Body movement: n/a (60 minute urban walk forthcoming) Hours slept: 6.5 This morning's weigh-in: 224.5 Currently reading: Bangkok Tattoo by John Burdett Tags: art, audio, books, cool, culture, green, links, personal, podcasts, reviews, science, stories (Leave a comment)
06:56 am jaylake [Link]	[photos] Your Sunday moment of zen Your Sunday moment of zen. CA-1, Sonoma County. © 2009 Joseph E. Lake, Jr. This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Tags: california, photos, zen (1 comment \| Leave a comment)
January 2nd, 2010
02:37 pm zainybrain [Link]	2009 Reviewed - the Aughts Jeered Such a hard year! But I made a point of being grateful for any successes or progress, part of what I'm promising to do more of in the new year. Like in 2009, I: Did yoga at least 4 times per month. Signed up for a gym, and went 4-10 times per month. Right through August, when I had the extended trip to Hawaii and came back tired and busy. Despite not slimming down from use of said gym, bummer, I did get healthier. The couple of times I went in December, after only doing yoga, my heart rate stayed strong and low. Wrote a whole chapter of my supernatural mystery novel, plus a reasonable (if overly general) synopsis. Did it to enter in the HWC. Made it to Hawaii for the HWC, despite vacation-time shortages and unexpected major household expenses. Normally, I'd freak out over $$$ and cancel things. Resisted that urge! Finished my first true comedy script and entered it in 5 screenplay contests. My first new script in 3 years! Reduced my soft drink and caffeine consumption from multiple drinks per day to 2 Dr Peppers and 3 mocha lattes a week. Drank a lot more water! (Because I didn't have the mugs of other stuff sitting on my desk at work). Bought (local whenever possible) veggies and fruit and ate at least 3 servings on most days. Paid off my car loan 2 years early (despite the trip and household expenses). That put me in the situation of having no debt no more, except for my mortgage. Increased the amount of money I send to my family in South Austin each month. Shopped thoroughly and found just the right new (leather!) sofa and loveseat, good quality at a good price. And by giving my old set to my brother, turns out I've helped mitigate his low-back problems from his old, spring-shot furniture. Made most of the monthly and biweekly meetings of my several writers group: SlugTribe, Austin Screenwriters Group, Austin Cats, Austin Writergrrls. Coordinated and project managed a very ambitious and successful weekend workshop with screenwriter guru Michael Hauge. Read and judged scripts for the Austin Film Festival. That's 70+ scripts + 30 "no" scripts. Even though crazy busy. A thing to be proud of, even if it didn't help to network me with the new contest coordinator Alex, who blackballed me from ever judging again. (Oh, and somehow only managed to pass on to semifinals a fraction of scripts by women writers. Really, he and his coterie sent a shamefully small % of female-authored screenplays to the Hollywood judges. But the Hollywood judges? They pretty much awarded 50:50 on the winners of the categories between guys & girls. heh) ( Why the last decade was so heinous... ) Current Mood: drained Tags: austin life, family, health, movie biz (Leave a comment)
December 31st, 2009
09:21 am jaylake [Link]	[personal] Happy New Year, and perhaps good bye for a while What calendula_witch said about yesterday. Fun but exhausting. Day Jobbe is wrapping early for the holiday, and we're off to the Mendocino coast soon. May not be back online til Sunday, then back to Portland that evening. A safe and happy New Year's holiday to all, and a healthy and prosperous 2010. Tags: calendula, california, personal, travel, work (6 comments \| Leave a comment)
05:45 am jaylake [Link]	[personal] Obligatory year in review post for 2009 ( My year in review, under cut for f-list mercy ) Tags: baby killers, books, cancer, endurance, green, grief, health, kalimpura, madness, mainspring, personal, pinion, publishing, rockefeller, sky, starship, stories, sunspin, writing (5 comments \| Leave a comment)
04:59 am jaylake [Link]	[photos] Your Thursday moment of zen Your Thursday moment of zen. San Francisco before dawn. © 2009 Joseph E. Lake, Jr. This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Tags: california, photos, zen (1 comment \| Leave a comment)
04:56 am jaylake [Link]	[links] Link salad asks what are you doing New Year's Eve? Rich Horton summarizes Subterranean Online for 2009 — Says nice things about my Mainspring steampunk astronaut novella, "". Table of Contents announced for Year's Best Science Fiction 27, ed. Gardner Dozois — I am quite pleased to note that my short story from Lone Star Stories, "On the Human Plan", appears therein, that piece's second YB nod. I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President by Josh Lieb — An interesting review by Andrew Wheeler. Flatiron Rising: 1902 — For all you Tor Books fen out there... North Sentinel Island, Andaman Sea — A striking photo from NASA's Earth Observatory site. In Russia, Apophis impacts YOU! — Bad Astronomy on dangerous imprecisions in the Russian space program's leadership. Bush press secretary Dana Perino: "We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term." — Um, yeah. This one's a few weeks old, but I somehow missed it at the time. And people wonder why I think conservatives are nuts. That isn't exactly up there with forgetting to buy eggs. (Remember how Your Liberal Media tore Al Gore to shreds over a misrepresented statement about his role in funding the early development of the Internet? Your Liberal Media was all over this one, weren't they?) ?otD: 2009 or 2010? 12/31/2009 Body movement: n/a (60 minute urban walk forthcoming) Hours slept: 6.0 This morning's weigh-in: 225.0 Currently reading: Living With Ghosts by Kari Sperring Tags: books, cool, links, personal, photos, politics, publishing, reviews, science, stories (4 comments \| Leave a comment)
02:52 am willyumtx [Link]	Work - last day as a supervisor. Well, it's over now. No more staffing. No more bossing people. No more monitoring or disciplinary issues. whew I was very pleasantly surprised today when J----- dropped off a plant. I was very very touched. It's a cute box with three little plants. It will have to be repotted, but it's cute and a great gift. I love plants. And then the entire unit showed up at my pod. They got me a card with a gift card for Central Market. I was extremely touched. Man, that was totally out of the blue and another great gift. I haven't read the card yet. I told D----- and others about it. She said it shows that they care so I must have done a good job as a supervisor. Interestingly, I felt guilty for getting something when I felt I could have done a better job of coaching and all. Well, I've moved into the new pod. I just have to wrap up stuff and move my chair. And make sure everything is transferred over. I've learned a lot, but very glad to step down. Tags: gift, work (1 comment \| Leave a comment)
December 30th, 2009
01:27 pm willyumtx [Link]	Feeling tired, but pretty content. I think that when I "binge" on poker (such as my six hours last night) it serves to release stress. Like an alcohol bender, but less physically draining. And I feel pretty good later, having burned off the energy. It would be nice to find a cheaper way of accomplishing that. Having more than one table offers the ability to "reset" my play. Like when I played blackjack at PH and would stop after getting up a dollar or so. Tags: poker (Leave a comment)
01:23 pm willyumtx [Link]	Restaurant - Shanghai Went for dim sum for lunch at Shanghai again today. Got a little carried away and had five dishes. Woooooo.... The shrimp dumplings were fresh, hot, and delicious! The meatballs were really tender (smaller than before though). The other items were good, but average. I drank a lot of water. Felt really full afterwards. Tags: dim sum, restaurant (Leave a comment)
08:09 am jaylake [Link]	[personal] This and that, and an old year fading Walked up Twin Peaks this morning here in San Francisco. For various reasons, this will almost certainly be the last time I make that walk from the Witchnest. We're out to the coast for a few days tomorrow, then I'm home to Nuevo Rancho Lake and chemotherapy, while calendula_witch's lease is up soon and she will likely be moving on from this particular address long before I'm free to travel again. It was very good of my lungs to check in and represent on this walk — two or three days ago, I wouldn't have bet they could handle it. Only a little off pace, too, and I made it all the way up without stopping for breath. Saw one skunk, smelled another, stopped to take some night shots with the big camera. We'll see what I got. calendula_witch, markferrari and I are taking the_child to the Natural History Museum at the California Academy of Science this morning. That's close enough to the Witchnest to be a nice walk, but in the interests of managing my energy, we're going to be profligate and drive. I'll be making lunch for the four of us after, then taking the_child to the airport for her flight home to Portland and her mom. Tomorrow we're heading for the coast to spend time with calendula_witch's brilliant aunt, the European-American artist Susan Dutton, possibly dropping off the grid completely until Saturday evening, as both Internet and cell access are uncertain where we're going. If I drop off the Internet for a couple of days, don't worry that I've been eaten by a grue. (Unless, of course, I have been eaten by a grue, but presumably calendula_witch would spread the word in that case.) Otherwise I hope to get a year-in-review post up this evening or tomorrow morning. Likewise, blzblack, cathshaffer, and daveraines have been discussing Faith with me in comments over here in such a way that I want to reframe some of my basic stance on this. I owe the three of them a much richer and more thoughtful response than time has permitted me these past couple of days, so watch for a post there as well. As for the 900 pound gorilla in my world right now, chemotherapy, well... I'm just living my life right now. A week from Friday, I go down the rabbithole until July. I'm scared spitless, determined to be strong, and I know I will win. For the most part, I've been keeping the worries, depressions and fears at bay, as well as the Fear. (Which has, frankly, been much less of a monster for me since I've gotten down to the nuts-and-bolt details...) It's out there, it's real, but I'm enjoying my child, my love and my vacation in California before I jump into that pool of toxic waste. What's on your mind for the new year? What are you doing to ring out the old? Tags: calendula, california, cancer, child, culture, health, personal, religion, writing (7 comments \| Leave a comment)

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