Jay Lake: Writer

[personal] More dreaming, less sleep

Last night was another long, fitful night. I did not sleep well, and the lower GI follies were in full swing, interacting poorly with the sleep needs.

The recurring dream was a retelling of “Jeffty Is Five“, as if written by Neil Simon and starring NPR’s Car Talk producer Doug Berman as Jeffty, but using the sets (as it were) from my Linus Pauling/starship dream.

My subconscious is clearly a swamp. And then some.

Tags: dreams, Funny, Personal

Posted: 6:15 am Thu December 22 2011 | Comments(0) |

[photos] Your Thursday moment of zen

Your Thursday moment of zen.

Self portrait. © 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: Photos, zen

Posted: 6:10 am Thu December 22 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad sweats on cue

What Publishers Don’t Do — Andrew Wheeler on Michael Chabon and e-books. Chabon got this one wrong, which is unusual for him, I think.

Rocket-Powered ‘Aerotrain’ — Some awesome retrotech. (Via H—.)

Through a sun tunnel — APOD with an interesting image and write-up. I’d never heard of these.

Frankincense, Staple of Christmas, Doomed

Where the Tax-Cut Walkout Really Came From — Then, of course, along came the new Republican House majority under Newt Gingrich. They rewrote the formal rulebook which, to be entirely fair, really needed some of its more sclerotic provisions cleaned out. But they threw out the unwritten rules entirely. This culminated in the impeachment of Bill Clinton, and everything that has followed after, right up until this morning. They are not legislators. They are vandals in the house of democracy.

Speaker Cuts Off C-SPAN Cameras When Dems Attempt To Bring Vote On Payroll Tax Cut — The GOP: your party of good government. (Thanks to corwynofamber.)

?otd: When is the last time you watched the original Star Trek?

12/22/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 10.5 (very fitful plus napping)
Weight: 208.0
Currently (re)reading: The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey

Tags: Culture, ebooks, Links, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Tech, video

Posted: 6:07 am Thu December 22 2011 | Comments(1) |

[personal] More with the long sleep and weird dreams

I went to bed at 6 pm last night. Slept eleven hours, with weird recurring dreams. It’s always not a solid sleep when I’m like this so much as a hyperextended hypnagogic state. I have some awareness of my surrounds, but my eyes are closed and I am dreaming.

In this case I was giving eldercare to Linus Pauling while rebuilding both a classic railway steam engine and a starship propulsion system, somewhere in Alaska. I needed the train to transport the propulsion system back to the starship’s landing site. Plus I had a detour to visit my old high school and make a presentation on life goals. I took Dr. Pauling on that trip.

Usually I understand the symbolism in my dreams, but this one seems to be a random shot from the wells of my subconscious. I would like to stay up past dinnertime tonight, though.

Tags: dreams, Funny, Personal, weird

Posted: 6:39 am Wed December 21 2011 | Comments(0) |

[photos] Your Wednesday moment of zen

Your Wednesday moment of zen.

Self portrait. © 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: Photos, zen

Posted: 6:22 am Wed December 21 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad says Happy Solstice

If Dragon’s Mass Eve Be Cold And Clear — Go check out kenscholes‘ store at for.com. It’s worth your time.

First trailer for ‘The Hobbit’ arrives

Part 1. The Origins of Dinotopia: Childhood Dreams — Art guru James Gurney with a very detailed series of blog posts on how he developed Dinotopia. A wonderful series of pieces on world building for all you writers and artists out there.

Watch the Solstice Approach (and Recede) — Be sure to click through to the year clock.

Metal undergoes novel transition under extreme pressure — Under extreme pressures and temperatures, one of the main materials of the Earth’s interior has exhibited a never-before-seen transition. Cool.

Sheriff: Ohio man cleaning gun killed Amish girl — Ah, the death of a child. As my conservative friends stoutly agree in their party platforms, a small price to pay for the Second Amendment right to defense of essentially liberties. How many deaths are your guns worth to you?

In Madison, 1,000 Singers Defy Walker’s Edict — Ah, the price of free speech. (Via tillyjane, a/k/a my mom.)

Politifact, R.I.P. — The pernicious GOP “liberal media” meme strikes again.

Fox and Friends on the SpongeBob Conspiracy — Further proof that the conservative worldview is nutty crankery. (Via willyumtx.)

?otd: Long nights? Impossible odds?

12/21/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 12.5 (solid plus napping)
Weight: 208.8
Currently (re)reading: Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey

Tags: Art, clockpunk, Culture, guns, healthcare, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Process, Science, stories, video, Writing

Posted: 6:21 am Wed December 21 2011 | Comments(0) |

[cancer] ZOMG the sleep

Twelve hours straight through last night, sleeping. And that’s me off the chemo pump. Between that and the near-continuous lower GI distress, I don’t know how chemo could have gone on much longer. This is the bottoming out, right here.

For today, however, no wit or erudition. Soon, soon.

Tags: Cancer, health, Personal

Posted: 6:38 am Tue December 20 2011 | Comments(3) |

[photos] Your Tuesday moment of zen

Your Tuesday moment of zen.

Oregon landscape by the Child. © 2007, 2011, B. Lake

This work by B. Lake is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Tags: Photos, zen

Posted: 6:24 am Tue December 20 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad chops away

Into the Planetary Rainforest — Centauri Dreams with more on exoplanets.

Exoplanet Travel Posters — (Snurched from Curiosity Counts.)

The Department of Redundancy Department — A little tale of woe for those of you who somehow imagine private health insurance is efficient. If you think Obamacare is bad, try living with what is out there now.

Don’t Tax the Rich. Tax Inequality Itself.

Newt Gingrich takes aim at ‘activist judges,’ concerning some in GOP — Strangely enough, activism by conservative judges is wise jurisprudence. Bush v. Gore, anyone? Just another way conservatives cheat the system.

Mitt Romney, establishment candidate

?otd: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?

12/20/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 13.5 (solid plus napping)
Weight: 208.8
Currently (re)reading: Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey

Tags: healthcare, Links, Personal, Politics, Science

Posted: 6:21 am Tue December 20 2011 | Comments(0) |

[cancer] Chemo 12 of 12, day 3

Well, yesterday the pump came off for the last time in this chemo series. I am done with it for now. Chances are better than even that there’s a pump in my future again, but for now I’ll take the gradual return to normalcy.

I’ve got two or three weeks of side effects to look forward to, probably including an almost continuous run of severe lower GI disruption, if recent experience is any guide. By early January I’ll be in my climb-out though. At that point, the overriding issue for a while will probably be continuing fatigue. It’s not clear to me how long that will take place, but prior experience suggests months on the mend.

And of course, the next checkpoint is the forthcoming CT scan on February 15th. Last time I went about nine months between the completion of chemo and the detection of the next metastasis. It would be nice to have 2012 to work on Sunspin and enjoy my personal life.

Whatever happens, I’ll take each day as it comes. For now, I am on the road to healthy.

Photos © 2011, B. Lake

This work by B. Lake is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Tags: Cancer, health, Personal, Photos

Posted: 8:46 am Mon December 19 2011 | Comments(2) |