[personal] Getting myself neutered
Now it can be told…
(Amusing stuff, at least in my opinion, but under a cut for medical TMI and reader mercy) Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 9:09 pm Tue December 02 2008 | Comments(4) |
[personal] Living inside my body
Interrupting Gelastic Jew has an interesting post today on life choices, body image and the whole diet/exercise thing. By curious coincidence, I dropped below 220 pounds this morning for the first time in over 20 years. That’s 65 pounds lost this year, officially, and eight inches dropped from my waistline in that same process.
I’m sympathetic to her comments about obsessiveness and choice. And I don’t think I’m obsessive about this stuff myself. (This from the guy who can take a two and a half hour walk at 3 am…) In my case, I got scared straight about the overall state of my health through my excellent cancer adventures last spring. Then I leveraged some metabolic changes arising from my colorectal surgery — specifically, as I seem to have utterly reset my sleep clock, I took the two hours gained in my life every day and dedicated a significant portion of it to exercise. Likewise I’ve maintained some core dietary changes initially forced on me for medical reasons.
Was that a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card? Yes, if you can bring yourself to think of cancer that way. I didn’t have to break and reform a set of habits. They were broken and reformed for me. Where my discipline has been applied is in not simply resetting to my pre-cancer lifestyle. I haven’t missed a day of exercise since I first crept back to the stationary bike for five minutes one morning last July. (The one exception is travel days, where I figure I take enough steps hiking through airports to make up for it.)
I don’t think I’ve become an evangelist for lifestyle change, except possibly by example. I certainly don’t have a case of the one-true-way-ism to which Interrupting Gelastic Jew refers. In fact, quite the opposite — I wouldn’t recommend my path to anyone. On the other hand, I quite like where it has taken me. Living well may be the best revenge, but it’s also the best argument, at least in this context.
And living inside my body is the only way to live.
Posted: 5:33 am Tue December 02 2008 | Comments(1) |
[personal] Stepping into the dark side
Posted: 5:36 pm Mon December 01 2008 | Comments(0) |
[personal] …and a wee bit o’ miscellaneous updatery
One more squib before I launch into my work day. This weekend, the_child decided my house wasn’t writerly enough. To effect the change she believes in, my daughter rearranged my living room and created an attractive and functional promotional display so that visitors to the house are greeted with an overview of my work as a writer. Photographs later, when time permits. She did a lovely job, and even set out some of my business cards. Kid’s a natural born publicist, I tell you.
In other news, I’ll be out for a minor medical procedure later this morning. Recovery time is expected to be nil — this is something I can drive myself home from — but if I’m feeling unexpectedly wonky this afternoon, there may be less blogging than my hypergraphic norm.
Posted: 7:00 am Mon December 01 2008 | Comments(0) |
[personal] What I am thankful for
I am thankful that I have life. For this, I owe first and foremost my parents. (Plus a few megayears of human evolution and some cultural pressures that brought their lineages together — come on, I am a genre writer.)
I also owe my continued life to lasirenadolce, the ER team at OHSU, and Dr. Herzig, my cancer surgeon, and so I will be eternally thankful to each of them.
I am thankful for all the gifts which cancer has brought me, a malignant Santa Claus come down the chimney of my colon to change my life.
I am thankful for my daughter, who reminds me every day that those megayears of human evolution have a point, which is to create more human evolution, in my case in the form of 90 pounds of emotionally transitioning, off-the-wall, brilliant, beautiful, loving child.
I am thankful for the people I love, and the people who love me. Most of you know who you are.
I am thankful for the fiction I write, those who see fit to publish it, and most especially those who enjoy reading it. Heck, I’m even thankful for those of you who read it and don’t enjoy it.
I am thankful for a good job, a nice house, plenty to eat, decent health, an interesting life, friends both close and distant, and especially you who are reading this today.
Most of all, I am thankful that I have a today. Because without the day, there would be no thanks for me.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Posted: 8:28 am Thu November 27 2008 | Comments(0) |
[personal] Happy Thanksgiving
Wherever you are in the world and its cultures, even if this holiday is obscure to you, Happy Thanksgiving.
Posted: 7:07 am Thu November 27 2008 | Comments(0) |
[personal] Toby Buckell
Go check out Tobias Buckell’s blog. He’s in the ER as of yesterday. Send some good thoughts and honest cheer.
Apropos of Toby being ill, that makes a third Metatropolis author with major health issues this year. Which is just fricking weird, given that we’re a relatively young bunch. One is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.
Posted: 5:13 am Wed November 19 2008 | Comments(0) |
[personal] Walking into the light
I went walking this morning before dawn. The gibbous waning moon was thoughtful behind a thin veil of clouds. A finger of mist hurried by me, seven feet off the ground and not much larger than a family car, but it was on a mission. I took one of my longer routes, but widdershins in lieu of my usual deosil path, then left the path anyway to follow a side trail along the Springwater Corridor. Hiking in the deep dark on an unknown track is always interesting.
In time, dawn began to steal westward on a wider bed of mist. Salmon streaked the sky a while, before a deep, aching blue which had stolen its cobalt from Hephaestian mine. The fields near my house gave up their moisture as the heavens gave up their dark. I stopped amid scolding crows to look at a herd of Deere, then made my way home again.
Posted: 9:14 am Sun November 16 2008 | Comments(1) |
[personal] Watching the skies
When I went out for my long walk at 3 am, the sky was paved with cobbled clouds the color of spiderwebs after a spring rain. Later on they cleared and the countries of the moon were fair and bright, a hole out of which the light poured. Coming back home much later, a shooting star crossed my path from west to east. The meteor trailed sparks of hope as it aimed fruitlessly for the mountains beyond.
Such a beautiful morning.
Posted: 6:09 am Fri November 14 2008 | Comments(0) |
[personal] Mysterious lights were seen in the sky, flashing
Strange doings in the night sky here in Portland. The gibbous moon just over the eastern horizon appeared as bright as I can ever recall seeing it. the_child agreed with me. And there were an inordinate number of aircraft visible in the sky to the south, possibly as many as a dozen. This is unusual, to say the least, but I can’t find any evidence on the intertubes of PDX being shut down.
ETA: Two different reports in comments of meteors seen just after dusk, possibly the same one with a bit of time confusion (5:20 and 6:00 pm). Weird.
Working now on a sekrit projekt, then possibly a bit more Sunspin synopsis. Or maybe I’ll just read.
Posted: 7:33 pm Thu November 13 2008 | Comments(3) |
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