Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad hangs out at Seatac

Keep Your Thumbs Still When I’m Talking to You — Heh.

The Psychology of Cheating

Civil War’s last shots were fired in the Bering Sea

Can Hobbyists and Hackers Transform Biotechnology? — In his new book Biopunk: DIY scientists hack the software of life, Marcus Wohlsen explores the new movement in garage-based biotech.

Inside Japan’s nuclear ‘hot zone’

The great GOP tax cut fantasy — No matter how many times Republicans claim cutting taxes leads to increased revenues, it’s still not true.

?otD: What will you eat today?

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4/22/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (travel day)
Body movement: to come
Hours slept: 7.5 hours (interrupted)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Nifft the Lean by Michael Shea

Tags: Culture, history, Japan, Links, Personal, Politics, Science

Posted: 6:16 am Fri April 22 2011 | Comments(0) |

[travel] Off to Norwescon

I’m off to Seattle this morning, to hit Norwescon. We’ll see if my brain unlocks enough to write, in this week of renewed cancer madness, but I’m okay if it does not. I’m looking forward to seeing friends and colleagues. And my cold seems to be fading already.

Expect light blogging through Monday. If anything new crops up on the cancer front or otherwise, I’ll pass it on. For now, I’m just going to enjoy myself. I’ve got months ahead to go into the nitty gritty of this next awful journey.

This weekend is for me.

Tags: Cancer, Conventions, health, Personal, Seattle, Travel

Posted: 4:56 am Thu April 21 2011 | Comments(1) |

[photos] Your Thursday moment of zen

Your Thursday moment of zen.

Metal sculpture, Pomeroy, WA. © 2007, 2011, 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: Art, Photos, Washington, zen

Posted: 4:54 am Thu April 21 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad goes to Seattle

The Necessity of Blindness — Urban fantasy author J.A. Pitts on how writers see themselves and their drafting process.

Goodnight Dune — (Snurched from james_nicoll.)

Come On, I Thought I Knew That! — Font size may not aid in learning, but its style can. Huh?

Tsunami Warnings, Written in Stone — The stone tablet has stood on this forested hillside since before they were born, but the villagers have faithfully obeyed the stark warning carved on its weathered face: “Do not build your homes below this point!” This is downright post-apocalyptic. Some very cool culture stuff.

Only 26 per cent of Iowa Republicans believe Obama was born in U.S. — Or, put more clearly, 74% of Iowa Republicans are functionally insane tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists. But then, that’s pretty much the modern GOP in a nutshell.

Ignoring ‘The American People’ — The GOP insists public opinion is critical (on healthcare reform), except when they don’t agree with it (on Medicare). Hypocrisy? Business as usual? Both! Remember kids, character counts. Some conservative said that once.

?otD: Rainier or Hood?

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4/21/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (cancer follies)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.25 hours (interrupted)
Weight: 246.0
Currently reading: Nifft the Lean by Michael Shea

Tags: Cool, Culture, Fiction, Funny, healthcare, Japan, Links, Personal, Politics, Process

Posted: 4:53 am Thu April 21 2011 | Comments(0) |

[personal|cancer] Readings, colds and conventions, with a side of heavy PETting

I have woken up with what appears to be the leading edge of a cold. Upper respiratory crud, at a minimum. Which could be allergies, but those do not generally plague me so much.

This is of course a delight to my body and a balm to my heart, as tomorrow I am going to Norwescon. Thanks to cancer, that will be my last major writing event/convention of the year. Spending the weekend in dripping misery will be a lovely grace note on the part of the universe, just a little extra “screw you” to the utter derailing of my life that is currently going on.

I’m also concerned that having a cold will screw up the PET scan I’m scheduled for today. (This is the giant radioactive spider test, as previously described here.) I’ll be calling the nuclear medicine folks once they turn on the lights up the hill there.

In other news, last night’s inaugural session of the SFWA Pacific Northwest Reading Series went well. I enjoyed myself, as the audience appeared to. My basic advice to any of you is never follow Brent Weeks at a reading. He’s charming as heck, a great writer, and a great reader. I was the sandwich in the middle, with the always delightful Kay Kenyon closing us out.

Today, workie bits, then the PET scan, then packing for Norwescon. I’ll hit the road tomorrow morning. See some, all or none of you there.

Tags: Cancer, Conventions, Personal, Seattle, Travel

Posted: 5:49 am Wed April 20 2011 | Comments(0) |

[photos] Your Wednesday moment of zen

Your Wednesday moment of zen.

Metal sculpture, Pomeroy, WA. © 2007, 2011, 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: Art, Photos, zen

Posted: 5:39 am Wed April 20 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad heads for the department of giant radioactive spiders

A Polish reviewer comments on the translation of Trial of Flowers, a/k/a Próba kwiatów — In Polish, but it seems to be favorable. And check out the cover!

The Skokie Public Library blog comments on Mainspring — They seem to like it.

Where bad writing advice comes from — robin_d_laws on aspiring writers and the opinions of others. (Via biomekanic.)

The usually interesting Freakonomics with a somewhat fatuous discussion of the Google Books Settlement — In which I fight the good fight in comments.

Beyond the Red Edge — Centauri Dreams on the atmospheric signatures of plant life.

The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science — How our brains fool us on climate, creationism, and the vaccine-autism link.

GOP official who sent Obama chimpanzee email: ‘I am not a racist’ — Also, in Conservativeland, water is not wet and the sun does not rise in the east.

Former Senator Alan Simpson on GOP homophobes and misogyny

?otD: Ever done a PET scan? Did you acquire superpowers as a result?

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4/20/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (cancer follies, SFWA Pacific Northwest Reading Series)
Body movement: n/a (PET scan today requires no exercise prior)
Hours slept: 5.75 hours (solid)
Weight: 247.2
Currently reading: Nifft the Lean by Michael Shea

Tags: Culture, gay, Links, Mainspring, Personal, Politics, Publishing, reviews, Science, Trial

Posted: 5:37 am Wed April 20 2011 | Comments(1) |

[conventions|repost] SFWA Pacific Northwest Reading Series Tonight

As previously mentioned, I’ll be part of the introductory session of the SFWA Pacific Northwest Reading Series, along with Kay Kenyon and host Brent Weeks. The readings will be in the gym at McMenamin’s Kennedy School, which is well worth a visit in its own right if you’ve never been there.

This inaugural session will be Tuesday, April 19th, at 7:00 pm. Arrive early for dinner and drinks and hanging out with the writers

Tags: Conventions, Portland, Repost

Posted: 5:37 am Tue April 19 2011 | Comments(0) |

[cancer] Beginning the journey, again

Life is so damned circular.

Last Friday I received the carcinoembyronic antigen (CEA) bloodwork via the online records system from my clinic. It indicated a spike of well over 400% in my CEA levels. I didn’t see a rise in my CEA levels with either of my previous tumors — they’d always been pretty flat.

In other words, scary stuff.

I called into the oncology clinic to ask for an immediate appointment to discuss this. My oncologist was out of town and unavailable, and while I did speak to an oncology nurse-practitioner, she couldn’t tell me much without clearing it with my absent doctor. While I suppose I could have gone over there and camped in their lobby and made enough of a nuisance out of myself to get someone to talk to me authoritatively, I decided not to.

Instead I spent the weekend wondering if I had a metastatic bloom, or something worse.

Monday morning, my oncologist released the CT scan notes to me. At this point, unfortunately, I know how to read those things. They were quite clear about the tumor in the right lobe of my liver. By that time, this was good news, given some of the things I could have been facing.

So by the time I went in to the oncologist, I’d been through the emotional shock and some of the initial logical parsing of this. As a friend said yesterday, it’s like the old joke about the cat on the roof. Although that information release process really pissed me off at the time, in retrospect it was probably a good thing. I do question the wisdom of releasing such results to a patient without the attendant advice and counseling, but that horse is out of the barn.

What it boils down to is that this is a surgically addressable, single-site metastasis. (Which we will be confirming via PET scan tomorrow while also looking for ‘seeds’ that might indicate a metastatic bloom in the liver or elsewhere.) We know how to get these. This one won’t kill me. It plays hob with my long-term odds, but this isn’t the long slide into darkness. Not this time.

I’m not so much afraid this time as pissed off. I’ve realized that’s because I’m in familiar territory.

The things I never meant to learn. I’ve been to this rodeo before, and I’m fucking tired of it.

More to come, doubtless a lot of it.

Tags: Cancer, health, Personal

Posted: 5:14 am Tue April 19 2011 | Comments(13) |

[photos] Your Tuesday moment of zen

Your Tuesday moment of zen.

Self-portrait, Pomeroy, WA. © 2007, 2011, 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: Personal, Photos, zen

Posted: 5:04 am Tue April 19 2011 | Comments(0) |