[photos] Your Wednesday moment of zen
Your Wednesday moment of zen.
My Aunt Mary as Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter. © 2010, M. Lake, all rights reserved. Reproduced with permission.
Posted: 5:55 am Wed February 24 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad plays at the hard case
Thousands of authors opt out of Google book settlement — The banal evil of Google, again.
Launch Pad 2010 Information: Application Window Opening Soon, Guest Instructor Announced — I did this two years ago. It was an awesome experience. Go check it out.
Enceladus is erupting! — Bad Astronomy with an interesting article and some hellacious photography from Cassini.
Convair XB-36H — From the Department of Really Bad Ideas.
Non Sequitur nails the Tea Party — And it’s not even a political comic…
The Birchers Are Real — and They’re Spectacular — More objective evidence that the conservative movement is insane. The John Birch Society is back in the mainstream.
Virginia lawmaker: Children with disabilities are God’s punishment to women who previously had abortions — Even more objective evidence that the conservative movement is insane. That this rhetoric is embraced, approved and gets votes is disgusting and profoundly inhumane. Sociopathic, even. I’d say “stay classy, GOP,” but I don’t have the heart to twit you guys on this piece of vile tripe. (Thanks to
?otD: Who was the comic-paper idol who let you bend the rules?
2/24/2010
Writing time yesterday: 3 hours, 40 minutes
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 (slept poorly)
This morning’s weigh-in: 228.2
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10
Currently reading: [between books]
Posted: 5:54 am Wed February 24 2010 | Comments(1) |
[writing] Such a day
Well. Best writing day since I wrapped “The Specific Gravity of Grief” before my surgery in November. Two hours this morning on “Her Fingers Like Whips, Her Eyes Like Razors” at 3,500 words in finished first draft in one pass. An hour and forty minutes just now revising Endurance (sequel to Green). Man, do I feel like a real writer.
Endurance will be going out to first readers in about ten days, btw. So I am on the stick like a stick-being-on thing.
And cancer? Kiss my ass.
Posted: 5:23 pm Tue February 23 2010 | Comments(1) |
[writing] A story, this morning
Right brain woke me up at 3 am (after seven hours’ sleep, so this was okay) and demanded to write a story. The idea was an offshoot of a conversation between
The part I’m happiest about is this is only the second time I’ve tried to write from scratch since the surgery in November. Gotten a lot of productive revision and rewriting done, but that’s a different process for me. I have no idea if this piece is any good, I’ll let my first readers tell me that.
But damn me, I wrote something. And I feel good about it. Fuck cancer.
Posted: 5:52 am Tue February 23 2010 | Comments(5) |
[cancer] More on the weird billing, and costs of healthcare
Dad came over yesterday evening and read through the insurance paperwork. He pointed out that what the insurance company allows is by contract with the provider, and if they disallow 91% of the cost of my chemo, that’s between the insurance company and the provider.
I still don’t get that, as one of my chemo drugs is under patent and costs $10,000 per dose. Where did the $10,000 go? Let alone the other $4,500 the insurance disallowed? As Dad points out, what counts is the bill I get from the hospital, not the benefits statement I get from the carrier. Which I haven’t seen that bill yet.
I understand about how contracted services work. One of the reasons for a crying need for healthcare reform is specifically because everything in American healthcare is drastically overpriced, then negotiated back down only by parties with the power to do such negotiation. In other words, if I walked in off the street and paid for chemo 100% out of pocket, I would be paying this $16,100 bill. Apparently my insurance company can pay the same bill off for $1,500.
Kind of rough on the uninsured, the underinsured and the self-funded, who don’t have the negotiating power to have 90% of their bills waived away like my carrier apparently does. Our premiums and copays go up ahead of inflation every year, and have all my life. Apparently the problem of American recreational abuse of the medical system is so great that we must be forced to pay more to ensure good choices. That was certainly the conservative rhetoric around HSAs a few years ago.
But how the hell do we know what we’re paying when there’s a 90% differential between the list price and the insider price? What constitutes informed choice on my part?
I still don’t think this is over. I’m used to seeing downward adjustments on insurance payouts, and the $2,000 I’ll be paying over the next few months for my out-of-pocket and deductibles are just part of my penalty for being ill, despite all the premiums I’ve paid over the years. This is the “best in the world” system, after all, and I have to pay to play. But where the hell did $14,500 go? And who’s paying for it?
The healthcare system’s financial transparency is even worse than Wall Street’s.
Posted: 5:48 am Tue February 23 2010 | Comments(13) |
[photos] Your Tuesday moment of zen
Your Tuesday moment of zen.
Montana flower. © 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.
Posted: 5:35 am Tue February 23 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad gets up early to write fiction
SF Signal reviews Interzone 226 — Including my story “Human Error.”
A Personalized Tumor Tracker — DNA changes could help doctors see if stray cancer cells remain after treatment. Interestingly, the test cases here almost precisely fit my cancer profile.
Paul Krugman on starving the beast — Will my conservative friends please explain to me how this is good for the country?
Coburn takes aim during McAlester stop — GOP the party of “No”? Republican Senator Coburn says, “I love gridlock. I think we’re better off when we’re gridlocked because we’re not passing things.”
Jobs Bill Passes Major Hurdle After 5 GOPers Join Dems — Department of credit where credit is due. Much to my frank amazement, several Republican senators apparently grew a conscience and voted policy over politics on cloture for the jobs bill. Will be curious to see how the smear campaign goes.
?otD: Did you write today?
2/23/2010
Writing time yesterday: 0 minutes
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.0 (slept solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (forgot)
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 4/10
Currently reading: [between books]
Posted: 5:32 am Tue February 23 2010 | Comments(2) |
[cancer] Life’s problems, department of other people
I’ve said before, cancer is a social disease. It affects everyone around me in ways I cannot even begin to count. I keep running into this with my friends, family and loved ones. I’ve had people say to me, “Wow, I feel lousy with the flu — Oh, wait, you have cancer, never mind.”
To which my response is always, “And? My cancer doesn’t make your flu any less unpleasant.”
Flu, work issues, indigestion, divorce, health, life issues. Stuff happens to us. My life isn’t yours, yours isn’t mine, and whatever’s up with you isn’t any less important or troublesome just because I’m down inside the chemotherapy meat grinder.
It’s something I hang on to, for my sense of normal. That everyone else’s life goes on, good, bad and indifferent. My cancer doesn’t devalue your experience. Your experience enhances mine. It’s such a simple, difficult thing.
Posted: 7:33 pm Mon February 22 2010 | Comments(3) |
[books] Pinion receives starred review in Publishers Weekly
Pinion receives starred review in Publishers Weekly
Pinion Jay Lake. Tor, $26.99 (448p) ISBN 978-0-7653-2186-2
Political conflicts and philosophical arguments find closure at last in this splendidly baroque whirl of geomancy and Victorian clockwork. Young Paolina Barthes, the gear-minded prodigy who became a target for the empire-building ambitions of rival governments in 2009′s Escapement, is on the run, heading south over the Wall that God built to divide the hemispheres and keep the Earth’s gear turning through the heavens. As spies and ancient secret societies scramble to find her, Paolina struggles to learn how to control her world-shaking abilities, while her heart pulls her toward Boaz, a golemlike man of brass. Lake wields big themes—magic and religion versus science, free will, colonialism, and a bit of romance—with surprising elegance, and readers will enjoy cherishing the characters and pondering the concepts of this “clockpunk” world. (Apr.)
Posted: 3:30 pm Mon February 22 2010 | Comments(1) |
[cancer] The long and grinding road
Another hard swerve on my cancer journey. Finally got the insurance benefits statement for session one of chemotherapy. They’re allowing about 9% of the $16,100 pharmaceutical cost. (This is before clinic charges, lab fees and physician fees.) Of the $1,500 they’re allowing, about $600 is being billed back to me as out-of-pocket and deductible.
While my out-of-pocket and deductible is limited to $2,000 per year, that leaves $14,600 per session, of 12 sessions unaccounted for. As it stands today, the hospital will be looking to me to make up about $175,000 in shortfall over the next six months.
So to my conservative friends who oppose HCR because our current system is ‘the best in the world’… my advice is to fall on your knees and pray to whatever god you believe in that you’re never in my position. Because it ain’t conservative principles and leadership that will rescue you from this. Even by your own standards, I’ve done everything right — good job, good insurance, good income. This will bankrupt me in a few months if I don’t fix it. Or kill me in 2-3 years if I can’t keep it going. Which of those choices is ‘the best in the world’? Please tell me, so I can really understand the rosy worldview of conservative America.
In my case, hopefully a hell of a lot of phone calling will help. But guess what I don’t have the time, energy and resources for? Full scale battle with my carrier, that’s what.
Posted: 3:21 pm Mon February 22 2010 | Comments(6) |