Random Acts of Observation

It’s been a while. I’ve been depressed, and sick - the first time in years that I’ve gotten a flu shot, also the first time in years I’ve gotten the flu - and not reading much and generally feeling unmotivated in the extreme. But I figure I should get back into the habit, so here is my book report for the oast few weeks.

Since the announcement of the Hugo finalists on March 31, I’ve been working on reading the ones I haven’t already read, which include novels from three Campbell finalists and, of course, the dreaded best series category.

Since my last book post, I have completed:

Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Falcons of Narabedla
Tanya Huff, The Future Falls
N. K. Jemisin, The Killing Moon
N. K. Jemisin, The Shadowed Sun
Sarah Kuhn, Heroine Complex
Mur Lafferty, Six Wakes
Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows
Peter Tremayne, Shroud of the Archbishop
Peter Tremayne, Suffer the Children
Cassandra Khaw, Food of the Gods
Sarah Gailey, River of Teeth
Seanan McGuire, Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
Alexandra Pierce and Mimi Mondal (eds.), Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler

(As always, my thoughts on the books I read, feeble as they may be, can be found on my book journal at bibliogramma.dreamwidth.org)

Currently reading:

Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140
Martin Delany, Blake, or the Huts of Africa Part One
Olaf Stapledon, Darkness and the Light
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (ed.), How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
Ann and Jeff Vandermeer (eds.), Sisters of the Revolution
Samuel R. Delany, Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts and the Politics of the Paraliterary


What’s next:

More Hugo reading, of course. I have two more finalists from the best novel category for both 2018 and 1943, plus most of the graphic novel finalists, plus three YA finalists, plus novels from two Campbell finalists, plus two related works finalists, plus examples from four best series finalists. Assuming that I can find free copies of all of these, either in the voters packet or elsewhere.

And there’s a bunch of other stuff I want to read, new releases and books that have been sitting on my TBR list forever. So many, many books.

I have been spending far too much time on Facebook and perhaps not enough here, although I know there’s some overlap between folks who subscribe to my personal journal here and folks who are FB contacts, so I’m reluctant to bore people who end up seeing much the same stuff in both places.

FB is a place where I post a lot of links to articles, but I also have gotten into the habit of posting interesting excerpts from books I’m currently reading. And it’s where I tend to post about what’s happening in my life, which these days is mostly about all the annoying medical shit I’m dealing with.

My kidneys are still in serious trouble. My urologist isn’t crazy about having to do invasive surgery on me because of multiple risk factors, so he’s trying to reduce the size of the kidney stones that are filling up mu kidneys and blocking my ureters with drug therapy. If we can get them small enough, he can go in through my bladder and zap them with lasers, rather than cutting mire holes in my back and opening up the kidneys.

On January 9th I go to the gynecological oncolgy department of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre to begin the process of seeing whether the mass on my ovary is cancer. Non-malignancy vibes are welcome.

In the meantime, I’m still in too much pain and have too much hardware hanging off me to resume ohysiotherapy, so I am still not able to walk. It’s been well over a year now since I broke my foot, and I have been hit with one medical setback after another, sapping my strength and my ability to function.

I am not a big fan of my life right now.

At least I still have books to read. And (most if the time) enough of a brain to read them.

... But not in a good way.

So. I'm very conscious of the fact that the political climate in the US is going to hell in a handbasket made of highly flammable materials and that many people are already suffering, or afraid that they will be next. And that the world we live in is taking a decided turn to the nasty, with fascists and racists and all sorts of other truly scary types crawling out of the woodwork, empowered by the fact that something just as nasty as they are can be elected president of the United States. I post stuff about that on Facebook a fair bit, so if you're interested about my various concerns and responses to to world out there, you are most welcome, if you happen to do FB yourself, to connect with me there. I can be found under the name Morgan Dhu.

But here I'm sort of more into talking about myself, I guess. I might get back into political rants someday, but right now, I have no energy for that.

About a month ago, I was admitted to the hospital in kidney failure. Turns out I have kidney stones the size of small mountains partially blocking both kidneys, and they had gotten very sick as a result. The kidneys, in fact, are so badly off that doing anything right now to remove them - it has to be an operation, you see, not ultrasound, because the stones are too big to break up that way - because an operation might put too much stress on my kidneys, and in my condition that could kill me. (Also, the specialist who does the operation is booked months ahead anyway, because so few people need it these days that there;s only one guy in town who's really good at doing it.)I also have gallstones, in fact, I had a very unpleasant attack while in hospital, and it seems that my gall bladder will have to come out - but they can't operate on it either because my kidneys are so screwed up that doing it might kill me. There also seems to be a small mass on one of my kidneys that they can't examine closely because all the techniques available might hurt my kidneys and, well, kill me. And there's another mass that looks like an ovarian cyst, but they can't do the investigation necessary to be sure because (you guessed it) the investigation techniques available might hurt my kidneys and kill me.

So... After three weeks in the hospital, during which tubes were inserted into my gallbladder and kidneys to drain off the bile and urine, which supposedly will give my organs a chance to rest and hopefully heal up a bit, I am at home, peeing through tubes in my back and waiting to see if my kidneys are going to get sufficiently better that all these issues can be dealt with without killing me.

There is some good news. When I went into the hospital, the definitive blood test for identifying kidney damage, creatinine level, was 370 (in the units Canadian labs use, which are not the same inits American labs use) - the normal range is under 100 - and that was apparently a very scary number. My last blood test (last week) showed that creatinine was down to 170, which is not great, but is at least a largish step in the right direction.

I am almost completely without energy - I'm even finding reading hard. I watch movies and play mindless games and hope that somewhere inside my kidneys are healing.

I've mostly been reporting on the state of my health on Facebook, but seeing that I haven't posted here for a while, I figured I ought to try to bring the saga of my deteriorating state of health up to date.

So... Back in late May I was diagnosed with primary hypercalcemia, which means that something had gone haywire with my parathyroid glands and they were producing too much of a hormone that leaches calcium out of the bones at a rate that is not only very bad for your bones, but cannot be properly excreted. As calcium builds up in the blood, you get increasingly sick, and can end up having seizures and nasty life-threatening shit like that.

They did various kinds of imaging on my throat and while the pictures were a bit inconclusive, they figured it was provably due to one or more adenomas, non-malignant growths on the parathyroid. So they put me on the list for a surgery slot to have the adenomas excused from my parathyroids, and monitored my blood calcium closely.

While waiting for surgery, I fell and broke my foot. Back to the hospital. My foot was placed in this rigid boot that has a heel and unbalanced me to the point that even after I was ok'd for weight-bearing exercise, I couldn't balance on my uneven feet well enough to stand.

After about three weeks in the hospital, during which I developed a nasty UTI that would ultimately stay with me for the next four months, still unable to stand, I was transferred to a rehab hospital where I would receive regular physiotherapy. which would be of very little use because I'm still wearing this big-ass boot that destroys my balance. In the meantime, i get shuttled back to the hospital a few times, to have my calcium levels lowered (intravenous drugs plus massive IV fluids to make me pee out the calcium) and to have my foot monitored.

Once the boot finally comes off in late September, I start to make real progress with the physio - I'm shaky, but walking. Then.... Remember that UTI? They've been giving me courses of various antibiotics to try to kill the bugs in my bladder, and it's been coming back every time. They try a new drug, to which I have a seriously bad reaction. For about a week, I'm so weak I can hardly move, plus nausea and a bunch of nasty stuff. Can't manage the physio - haven't enough strength to stand.

It's now mid-October. They decide to send me home from the rehab hospital because I'm no longer benefitting from treatment. Once I get home, and get over the drug reaction, we find a private physiotherapist and start working on walking again. i just start to get my strength back and I'm walking a bit, when I get the call that I have a surgery date. November 17. Back to the hospital. UTI is back, too.

The surgery ends up being much more complicated than expected, because once they have my throat slit and they can see the parathyroids, they discover there are no adenomas. While adenoma is by far the most common cause of primary hypercalcemia, if it's not adenomas, it's probably hyperplasia of the parathyroids, for which the surgical solution is to remove 3.5 of the four parathyroid glands, a sonewhat longer and more difficult operation.

I come out of surgery with unbearable pain in my abdomen and groin, for which they plug me full of fentanyl, which does nothing. Eventually, they try something in the same family as ibuprofen, but stronger, which works some. Recovery is slow and problematic. The fentanyl gives me very bad constipation for three days, the abdominal and groin pain lessens but does not go away, I'm weak as a kitten and.... My calcium levels are not falling as they should. They do the IV drip to lower my levels again and after a few days, they send me home to recuperate, ordering continued monitoring of my calcium.

Meanwhile, I'm developing painful bedsores on my butt - a new thing, even though I have been pretty much confined to bed fir years. And the UTI is still bothering me. And I'm having fevers and chills snd on-going abdominal pains and all sorts of stuff, and I just can't seem to get any strength back. My doctor prescribes a long course of yet another antibiotic, which seems to finally mostly clear the UTI. All the other symptoms continue, and despite doing all the right things, my bedsore do not heal.

Regular blood tests show my blood calcium is still rising - and now there's a new twist. I'm suddenly seriously anemic, my hemoglobin is way lower than it should be, which is probably the reason for my extreme weakness and the impairment in normal healing.

Which brings us to now. The last blood test showed a very small drop in calcium levrls, I'm on iron supplements which should bring up my hemoglobin over the course of 4-6 weeks and hopefully help me regain my strength snd heal the sores, and my doctor is working on getting me a consult for the hemoglobin issue.

Oh yes, during all of this I've lost about 20 kilos, which when added to the 50-odd kilos I've lost over the past few years has resulted in a lot of loose skin that tends to crease and fold in an extremely painful way. Add to that the pain from the bedsores and I'm having extreme trouble sleeping. I'm lucky if I get four or five hours of sleep in 24. So I'm now exhausted and almost braindead. I'm in great pain all the time, from half a dozen different things that are going wrong. I'm depressed and just plain tired of trying to keep going, to the point of wondering how I might go about persuading someone that I really am a good candidate for assisted suicide, which is now legal, though under very limited circumstances, in Canada.

As the title says, life is hell.

Recently I've been going through a rather deep and dark existential depression that results from my response to being pretty much completely lacking in mobility. As this plaint that I posted on Facebook a few days back during an acute attack indicates, I feel pretty damned useless in all things.

******
Losing my identities
I used to be a lot of things.
I used to be a person who sang, who danced, who played guitar, who drew and painted stuff. I used to be someone who acted in plays, who stage-managed and even did some directing.
I used to be a person who marched in protest and in celebration, who spoke at public meetings and presented briefs. I used to be a person who was active in political movements. I used to be a person who could do things to help make the world a little bit better.
I used to be a person who could work, whether it was with my hands or with my mind. Who could be productive, support myself and the people I loved.
I used to be a person who could be of use to my friends and loved ones, who could actually be a friend to them, a person to turn to, to rely on. I used to have something to give.
I used to make a difference in the world.
There are so many things I used to be, and am not not now, and likely will never be again.
Take all my identities away from me, and what is left? Nothing.
******

Well, in an attempt to try to change at least one of these "I used to be"s, I have been playing with a program that is supposed to be a way to make pixel art rather than hand-shaped art. Here are a few of my investigative forays into the world of electronic art.

In the past year or two, I've become accustomed to posting on Facebook rather than here. It's easier - or at least, I perceive it as easier. On Facebook, all I need do is post a few lines, or a link to an article or picture I want to share. But there's something about a blog that seems to demand a greater degree of involvement with the text, and I often lack the energy for that. Maintaining my book journal seems to take everything I have.

And then there's the fact that really, not much happens to me except that things get more painful and more difficult to achieve. On Facebook, I mostly post articles dealing with current affairs - issues I feel strongly about. But I'm usually too tired to write extensively and coherently about those issues.

So perhaps I'll just blather on about my odd thoughts, as I'm doing now, and perhaps that will justify my keeping this journal active.

So, the last time I posted, I told y'all about how much my life sucked.

It still sucks. Only much more so.

My general state of health continued to deteriorate during the summer and fall, and between all the things that are wrong with me, like the joint pain and the increasingly intolerable edema and other stuff (which I will address in another post, because it's too complicated to put here), it was kind of getting obvious to both me and my employers that I really just was no longer able to perform my work in a satisfactory fashion. Not so much a quality dip, as not being able to spend enough time sitting up at a computer to actually do my work on time.

So we started taking about the company's Long-term disability plan (LTD) and how because my health conditions are not exactly the normal kind of stuff it's not certain I would qualify but my employers assured me they would to be as supportive as they could be once I reached the point where I simply could not longer work at all.

So that day has finally come. Friday was my last day of work. Now I'm on medical leave for four months until I've waited out the qualifying period for LTD, and then I get to apply and wait and see if they will pay me benefits. But of course, benefits don't come anywhere near covering household expenses. I can also apply for Canada Pension Plan Disability benefits (CPP-D) - which, again, I may not qualify for because my medical situation is so weird - but not before six months have passed.

Even if I do manage to qualify for both, I will still be almost $1,000 a month short of what's needed to pay all the bills (mortgage, taxes, utilities, insurance, food) each month. But... I can't give up the house, because no rental situation is going to give me an environment that is free of toxic stuff and thus safe for me to live in. Any apartment we rent would share walls with other people and their perfumes and stuff would seep in and leave me in a situation that I'm not sure I could tolerate for the full length of time it would take for all that crap to kill me. I mean, we bought this house in the first place because I was getting so very sick from breathing other people's laundry exhaust, soap, perfume, air-fresheners, and so on.

So that sucks. Assuming all goes well and I do qualify for the LTD and the CPP-D, where do I get another grand a month? We have no debt except for the mortgage, so I can't reduce expenses by consolidating debt. We may be able to switch to a variable mortgage, which might lower the interest a bit. Not only am I pretty much not able to work, but the few things I could do - if I tried to do any of them, I would immediately become ineligible for both the LTD and the CPP-D. My partner is my full-time caregiver, he can't work either because he can't leave me alone.

So I really don't know at all how we're going to survive this. There are no relatives who would be realistically able to help (I have no relatives, period, and my partner's relatives are few and in difficult circumstances themselves, for the most part).

So... We're basically fucked. There's enough in savings and inheritance to carry us through the qualifying period (when I am not getting any money from anywhere), and what's left over will carry us through several more years (four or five, depending on various possibilities) IF I qualify for both LTD and CPP-D, and maybe one year if I don't. After that... things look bleak. Really, really bleak.

If anyone has some bright and original ideas, they would be welcome. Just...

Budgeting is not a solution. All we spend money on now, aside from the aforesaid mortgage, taxes, utilities and insurance, is food (which, because one of us has major food sensitivities and neither of us can tolerate chemicals, dyes, preservatives, etc, in our food, pretty much has to be what it is), household necessities (toilet paper, washing soda...) and books. Clothes when the old ones wear out. Replacing things that are broken or dead (we just bought a new TV because the old one is losing its ability to show images that are decipherable in any way whatsoever). We never go out, not even to see a movie. So please don't talk about cutting out non-essentials. We are by nature non-consumers. We don't buy shit we can do without anyway.

But anything else? I would love to hear any creative ideas or sources of funding that might apply to someone living in Toronto, Canada. Because any thought you have might just save my life.

And She Was
(The Talking Heads)

And she was lying in the grass
And she could hear the highway breathing
And she could see a nearby factory
She's making sure she is not dreaming
See the lights of a neighbor's house
Now shes starting to rise
Take a minute to concentrate
And she opens up her eyes

The world was moving and she was right there with it (and she was)
The world was moving she was floating above it (and she was) and she was

And she was drifting through the backyard
And she was taking off her dress
And she was moving very slowly
Rising up above the earth
Moving into the universe and she's
Drifting this way and that
Not touching ground at all and she's
Up above the yard

The world was moving and she was right there with it (and she was)
The world was moving she was floating above it (and she was) and she was

She was glad about it... no doubt about it
She isn't sure where she's gone
No time to think about what to tell them
No time to think about what she's done
And she was

And she was looking at herself
And things were looking like a movie
She had a pleasant elevation
Shes moving out in all directions

The world was moving and she was right there with it (and she was)
The world was moving she was floating above it (and she was) and she was

Joining the world of missing persons (and she was)
Missing enough to feel alright (and she was)


Written by David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison

Seeing as it was the weekend before Hallowe’en, and we had a bunch of coupons for free or half-price movies from our local purveyor of movie rentals that are due to expire end of the month, we had ourselves a horror flick bash.

First thing you have to realise is that I’m a sucker for women who kick ass, especially when they’re kicking zombie ass, vampire ass, or other assorted nasty creepy ghoulie and ghostie ass. Even if they’re doing so in completely inappropriate clothing or high heels. As long as the obligatory sidekick goat-boys* don’t take up too much screen time, I can deal with chainmail/leather/spandex bikinis and non-sensible shoes.

So that mostly explains my choices of Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, in which Mila Jovovich kicks mutant zombie ass and soulless corporate mercenary butt all over the place, assisted by assorted goat-boys and, in the second movie, the equally kick-ass Sienna Guillory. I also enjoyed the implicit criticism of global capitalism.

Rise: Blood Hunter casts Lucy Liu as a reporter whose investigations of strange doings in the Goth scene lead to her gruesome transformation to a vampire and her quest to hunt down and kill the family of vampires responsible for her death. Liu kicks vampire ass superlatively. For the record, Michael Chicklis, who co-stars as an alcoholic cop searching for the same gang of blood-suckers for reasons of his own, may be Liu’s sidekick, but he is more than a goat-boy. This film got mixed reviews, but I enjoyed it a lot. I admit to a particular weakness for watching vampires try to be ethical about blood-sucking while they kick butt. I also admit to a weakness for Lucy Liu.

28 Weeks Later picks up some months after 28 days Later left off. England is almost completely depopulated, and the zombies, er, Rage Virus victims have all died of hunger. The rebuilding of London has commenced, with the assistance of the U.S. Army. Refugees from the continent are being repatriated. The countryside is being scoured for the few survivors. But unbeknownst to the reconstruction teams, the virus is still lurking…

( 'Ware serious spoilers, including how the movie ends )

The last flick of the weekend was 1408. A stylish ghost story about belief and self-delusion, with a bravura performance by John Cusack as a debunker of ghost stories who is writing a book about haunted hotel rooms, and insists on staying the night in Room 1408 at The Dolphin Hotel, where more than 50 people have died over the years from a variety of causes, and it is implied that even more have gone mad. The movie was visually very creepy, emotionally powerful in parts, but faded toward the end. The conclusion, I thought, wasn’t quite “big” enough to justify the intensity and complexity of what had gone before. My favourite part was actually the build-up, in which hotel manager Samuel L. Jackson tries to persuade Cusack’s character not to stay in the room by recounting all of the horrors that have happened there, part of which is a wonderful set-up for Jackson, well-known for playing action heroes with a bit of a twist, to explain why he avoids Room 1408 unless it’s that time of the month. I admit to a weakness for Samuel L. Jackson.

And that, Gentle Reader, was how I spent my weekend.



* I call ‘em goat-boys because they almost always seem to be sporting about a day and a half’s worth of unshaven facial hair, which gives them the appearance of being young goats. Also add puns on goatees, goat’s head soup, devil-may-care attitudes, and goatish behaviour as you wish.

Ah, Christmas. The day that my partner and I replenish each other’s libraries for the coming year, and we get some other stuff from here and there, too. And now, while he starts making Christmas dinner (bird and fancy dressing and mince-meat pie, oh yum!) I'm going to be shamelessly materialistic about all the lovely books I am the proud new custodian of.

Warning: a post full of shameless materialism follows.

There was much squeeing and whooping as we opened our presents this afternoon. The full tale of books my true love gave to me is as follows (although I am told that there are some books which will be arriving later, when SJ brings them up from the States – buying used books online in the US from Canada works better if you have them sent to a US address):

New books by authors I’ve read before
Bloodchild, Octavia Butler
Stealing Magic, Tanya Huff
The Fall of the Kings, Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman
Thomas the Rhymer, Ellen Kushner
The Outstretched Shadow, Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
To Light a Candle, Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
The Kingdom of the Grail, Judith Tarr
Reluctant Voyagers, Elisabeth Vonarburg
The King’s Name, Jo Walton
The Prize in the Game, Jo Walton
Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton

Books by new authors
Kushiel’s Dart, Jacqueline Carey
Touched by Venom, Janine Cross
Black Sun Rising, C.S. Friedman
Bold as Love, Gweneth Jones
The Aware, Glenda Larke
Warchild, Karin Lowachee
Guardian of the Balance, Irene Radford
In Legend Born, Laura Resnick
Califia’s Daughters, Leigh Richards
City of Pearl, Karen Traviss

Books I’ve read before and wanted to own and read again
Alanna: The First Adventure, Tamora Pierce
In the Hand of the Goddess, Tamora Pierce
The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, Tamora Pierce
Lioness Rampant, Tamora Pierce
Sunrunner's Fire, Melanie Rawn
Stronghold, Melanie Rawn
The Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart
The Hollow Hills, Mary Stewart
The Midwich Cuckoos, John Wyndham

Anthologies
Women of War, (ed. Tanya Huff and Alexander Potter)

Non-fiction
The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihad and Modernity, Tariq Ali
1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus, Charles C. Mann

I did receive some wonderful non-book items as well:
glaurung also got me some CDs I’ve been after having: The Division Bell and Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd (I once owned these but lost custody during an amicable divorce); Birds of a Feather by Rough Trade; Mermaid Avenue, which is a disc of Woody Guthrie songs performed by Billy Bragg; and Storyville by Robbie Robertson.
glaurung’s sister* sent me the third season of Forever Knight on DVD, which completes my collection and delights me to no end. I’m sure most of you can guess what I’m going to be watching for the next several days.
My good friend Cathy gave me Loreena McKennitt’s new CD, An Ancient Muse, which is just wonderful to listen to.

It’s true that I mostly received fantasy and science fiction books this year, but I also plan to read most of the books I gave to glaurung, which include such anticipated volumes as:

Bait and Switch, Barbara Ehrenreich
Virginity or Death, Katha Pollitt
Reel Bad Arabs Jack G. Shaheen
Demand my Writing: Joanna Russ, Feminism, Science Fiction, Jean Cortiel
The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Dispossessed", ed. Davis and Stillman
Drag King Dreams, Leslie Feinberg
Muhammad, Karen Armstrong
Boy in the Middle, Patrick Califia
James Tiptree Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, Julie Phillips
Mommy’s Little Girl: On Sex, Motherhood, Porn and Cherry Pie, Susie Bright

Yes, the days are finally getting longer again, which means more hours of daylight in which to read – which is admittedly irrelevant in this age of electric lighting, but still… there is much dancing and delight in this household, for the books are unwrapped and piled on coffee tables and the special “to be read” shelves and all is right with our little corner of the world.

Tomorrow I’ll be back to my misanthropic self, no doubt, but tonight, there are new books.


*I hate the term “in-law.” Sometimes I use terminology based on idioms I first encountered in Zenna Henderson’s books about the people: sister in love, sister of the heart, etc. Sometimes I just describe the relationship. When necessary, I use the standard terminology. But I really don’t like it much.

I am almost at the end of a month-long marathon in terms of work. I have been putting in truly insane hours - in four weeks, I have racked up 50 hours of overtime. I am both mentally and physically exhausted. Fortunately, I have two weeks vacation coming in mid-August, so if I can just stay functional until then, I can recouperate while sitting on the couch watching the Olympics.

The good things about this insane month are:
I have been writing qualitative analysis (my experience is primarily in quantitative analysis) under the guidance of one of the top qualitative reseachers in the country, and am learning a hell of a lot.

If we ever have a slow time at work, I now have 100 accumulated hours of lieu time. Unfortunately, we are only supposed to take lieu time when things are slow, and somehow it seems things are never slow. I'm thinking I'm going to take some lieu days over the next couple of weeks whether it's slow or not.