Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad awakens with slow reluctance

In case you missed it over the weekend, my new cancer tattoo: [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] — Yes, on the back of my skull.

Christopher Walken reads Where The Wild Things Are

Antarctica – Fantastical World without Borders — An Antarctica travelog, relevant to one of my future projects. (Via bravado111.)

Avería: The Average Font — Interpolative typography. Huh. Fascinating. (Thanks to kshandra.)

Washington Park: 1907 — Detroit’s “moon towers”, as depicted here, later were sold to the City of Austin, where most of them still survive.

One’s A Crowd — The trend toward living alone?

garyomaha on working lunches, or not

Neurocinematic comparison of monkeys and humans — Spaghetti western reveals differences between human and monkey brain. Mmm, neurocinematic. I loved this bit: Like most other films, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a complex multisensory stimulus, filled with rich, operatic imagery and, of course, Ennio Morricone’s unforgettable score. It is, however, fairly safe to assume that humans and monkeys will interpret the film quite differently. (Via danjite.)

Path Is Found for the Spread of Alzheimer’s — The headline is slightly misleading, as the story refers to Alzheimer’s progression within an individual rather than to transmission between individuals. Interesting stuff.

The Komen Controversy: Planned Parenthood Claims a New Kind of Victory in the Culture War — I am baffled by the conservative charge that Planned Parenthood “bullied” Komen. What is the Right’s treatment of Planned Parenthood but bullying, if you want to frame it in those terms? More to the point, for decades the entire forced pregnancy movement is about bullying desperate, vulnerable young women and their medical providers. What else is a clinic blockade or a doctor target list but sheer, awful bullying in the name of what? The god of love? Decency? Conservative bigotry and “morals”? Can you imagine the reaction if liberal-progressives blockaded churches and targeted pastors? Project much, guys? The Right can dish it out, but they can’t take it.

A Puritan’s ‘war against religion’ — Roger Williams, the Puritan who founded Rhode Island, insisted on the state refraining from intervening in the relationship between humans and God. Freedom of religion absolutely means freedom from religion. That is the best protection any church has against persecution. Despite the modern GOP interpretation, freedom of religion doesn’t mean the freedom to exercise oppressive bigotry, narrow-minded judgmenentalism, or tear down educational and cultural standards in favor of silly mythmaking.

ericjamesstone points out that I am wrong in characterizing Romney as saying he won’t have a Muslim in his cabinet — This in connection to my comment that I thought making an issue of Romney’ religion was a red herring, until he made an issue of Islam as a religion. Speaking as an atheist, there is nothing more or less at issue with Romney’s LDS membership than there is with Newt’s Catholicism or Clinton’s Southern Baptist faith. To me, the religion of the candidates would only be an issue if there were a straightforward atheist running on a major party ticket. Which won’t likely happen in my lifetime…

Senate GOP: Activist Federal Judges Wanted — The hypocrisy of a group of Republicans who are supporting the lawsuit against Obama’s recess appointments. Republicans being hypocritical? That’s as inconceivable as the idea of Newt Gingrich cheating on his wife.

The true conservative alternative: Ron Paul? — It’s sad that conservatism has become a race to the bottom to display the most ignorance, bigotry and sheer foolishness.

?otd: Dream much??

2/6/2012
Writing time yesterday: 5.5 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid)
Weight: 229.4
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

Tags: Antarctica, Art, Books, Cancer, Culture, gender, healthcare, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Religion, scorner, Tech, Texas, Videos, work

Posted: 6:29 am Mon February 06 2012 | Comments(0) |

[conventions|travel] Epic ConFusion Day Three, going home

Day three of Epic Confusion was very abbreviated for me, as I had to leave the hotel at 10:30 am in order to make my flight home. Still, I managed to attend a very nice breakfast, courtesy of cathshaffer and various concom folks, and say good-bye to a bunch of people by virtue of loitering in the lobby while my airport transportation ran 40 minutes late.

Which, yes, gave me a bad case of the “oh crap”s.

Nonetheless, I made it into DTW in a timely fashion. The flight down to DFW was uneventful, and I got the first part of what would eventually be 2.75 hours of editing on Sunspin done. I spent the rest of my time divided between Charlie Stross’ Laundry books and Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon, both of which I’m enjoying immensely. I don’t normally split my attention between two books, but I have Stross in eBook and Ahmed in dead tree, and the exigencies of air travel caused me to have to switch modes periodically.

In Dallas, we took a long time landing due to the 50 mph cross-winds on the runway slowing air traffic down severely. That also slowed down the arriving flight that would become the equipment for my Portland connection, to the degree of being almost two hours late. So much for my plan of flying through Dallas to avoid winter weather delays in Chicago or Denver. So much for a good night’s sleep, as well.

Anent Sunspin, I got through the first revision pass of the first half of Calamity of So Long a Life, and began embedding the comments for an initial pass through the second half. Right now, I’m actually a bit ahead of schedule for what I expected on this book. I think that’s a good thing, but it might also mean I have been skimming work when I should be digging deeper. We shall see…

Also, I forgot to mention that at Epic Confusion adelheid-p gave me a very nice gift. I need to thank her, and will post photos and a description some time in the net few days as time permits.

This afternoon is another girls’ basketball game, though the_child has been down with a respiratory infection the last few days, so it’s not clear if she’ll be able to play. She gets sick so rarely, this is unusual.

And of course, now that I’m home, Day Jobbery.

Tags: Books, Calamity, Child, Conventions, Sunspin, Travel, work, Writing

Posted: 6:42 am Mon January 23 2012 | Comments(0) |

[personal|writing] In which both progress and regress are made

Yesterday’s weather here in Omaha was beastly. The kind of weather that makes me wonder why anyone not under the supervision of a court actually remains in this place. In fact, this morning, when faced with 10 degrees, wind and ice patches on sidewalks in the predawn darkness, I gave myself a very rare bye on my morning exercise.

Day Jobbery yesterday was productive if lengthy. At home, if I get tired (and fatigue is still very much an issue), I can go sit in my easy chair for 15 minutes and read work email from there. No such option in the office, where you’re pretty much full on the entire time you’re in. It’s the little things that are wearing. Still, I’m holding up and doing well.

On the home front, the_child did another high school visit yesterday. We are coming to grips with her choices for next year. And though some subjects are definitely harder than others for her, she remains diligent in her assignments, while playing hell for leather on the girls’ basketball squad. She makes me proud every day.

In my own world of assignments, I got another writing session in after work. 2,400 word in an hour on “You Will Attend Until Beauty Awakens”. Plus the plot sort of did this origami lurch and I now see what my subconscious was foreshadowing the other day. Fred, the little man inside my head, is way smarter than me. I’m sure glad he’s in there. Doubtful there will be writing today due to my work and social commitments, but there will be more tomorrow.

And a little bit of WIP… Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Child, Omaha, Personal, stories, wip, work, Writing

Posted: 5:45 am Thu January 12 2012 | Comments(0) |

[personal] Miscellaneous Updatery

No writing time yesterday. I had a full day at the office, then we had an after hours holiday party at my boss’s home, so that pretty much filled the day. I did bring some Époisses cheese to the party, thanks to the rather excellent cheese department at the Whole Foods here in Omaha.

I also dropped by a Barnes and Noble to pick up a couple of Charles Stross books for my reading pleasure, and was amusingly mistaken for Mr. Stross by the store manager when I inquired about signing my stock. I did manfully refrain from signing Charlie’s books for him.

Workie bits today, and unless something expected crops up, writing time this evening. I’m not pressing myself on this story, just letting it come to life in my head and on the page. We shall see.

Anent yesterday’s hair rant, it occurred to me when I woke up this morning that although I miss my flowing tresses, as a practical matter it would be nice to have my eyelashes and nose hairs back. Trust me, being nasally bald is annoying and slightly indecorous. The eyelash thing is just sad.

I’ll be home Friday afternoon, off to a housewarming party Friday evening if I haven’t collapsed from exhaustion. I expect to spend much of the weekend working with the_child on some homework issues, but also hoping to finish the story-in-progress this weekend, so that next week I can fire up Sunspin revisions.

And of course, next Thursday, a week from tomorrow, I’m off to Michigan for Epic ConFusion. See some, all or none of you there.

Tags: Books, Cancer, Child, Conventions, Funny, health, Personal, stories, Sunspin, Travel, work, Writing

Posted: 5:39 am Wed January 11 2012 | Comments(4) |

[movies] Being entertained, or not

Lately, my fatigue has completely wiped out even my comfort reading. I’ve managed about six paragraphs of The White Dragon in the past three or four days, total. So when not in conversational company, I’ve been reduced to watching movies and tv shows via my Apple TV.

On recommendation from bravado111 I tried renting Elf [ imdb ] via iTunes, as it wasn’t available on Netflix Streaming. This is only the second or third time I’ve rented to watch from iTunes, and it was a bust. Six minutes into the movie, the sound cut out. Nothing I could do could bring it back. I do not see how this could possibly be user error, though I have considered the possibility given my current mental state. There’s no apparent path for either tech support or a refund of my $3.99 rental fee, though I will try calling Apple’s customer service line today. (There didn’t seem to be much point in calling on Christmas Day.) The iTunes rental customer experience was obviously designed with the assumption that nothing could possibly go wrong. Which is idiotic on the face of it. As big a fan as I generally am of most things Apple, I’m very disappointed, and not looking forward to the hassle that almost certainly won’t be worth the value of my perhaps eventual refund. I call fail on Apple and iTunes for this one.

Yesterday on a whim, the_child and I watched Mary and Max [ imdb ] via Netflix Streaming. I hesitate to call this film underrated, since I’d literally never heard of it and therefore there was no rating to be under, but it was a wonderful movie. It’s a claymation feature from Australia, told in something like an epistolary style, of the friendship between a sad, strange little girl Down Under and a rather sad, strange man in New York City. To be clear, this is a sad, strange movie. There is abuse and mental illness. There is a great deal of loss. But there is also completely appropriate redemption at the end. It’s one of those movies you just have to go with and stay with. Netflix billed this an ‘indie comedy’, which I think is highly misleading, but it certainly has dark, quirky humor. A soul-touching film, and well worth your close attention.

Okay, Star Trek (the original series) [ imdb ] isn’t a movie, but I’ve been watching it on Netflix Streaming as well. I didn’t grow up in the United States, and thus missed the endless reruns of Star Trek on tv in the 1970s. There are episodes I simply never saw that I’m finally getting to see now. It’s charming and hilarious and fun, and watching them in close sequence is letting me glimpse the gelling of the ensemble cast, the shift in characters as they found their footing, and the direction, such as it is, of the show. But I have to ask, knowing I’m almost five decades late to the party, did these people never hear of continuity? At least in the first season, each script seems to invent its own terminology and technology for Enterprise, her crew and her operations. It’s like the writers never talked to each other, and the show runners never read any two scripts in a row. This randomness has actually become annoying to me-the-critical-watcher, probably because as a writer I agonize over precisely these issues in my books. I’m fairly ignorant of television history, was in-show continuity just no big deal back in the 1960s? It seems to me to be such a basic cornerstone of building a believable SFnal universe, the glaring lack of it in Star Trek is very odd.

Today, more Star Trek, continuity or not, maybe mixed in with some season two Black Adder [ imdb ] for variety. I’ve Day Jobbery tomorrow, but I’m off the rest of the week, so surely there will be more William Shatner and Rowan Atkinson in my near future.

Tags: applefail, Books, Movies, reviews, Videos, work

Posted: 9:11 am Mon December 26 2011 | Comments(5) |

[personal|cancer] Dreams and mortality

Last night’s dreaming was varied. At one point cmdrsuzdal and I were with jlassen at a WFC apparently taking place on the set of Aeon Flux. Later, I was in post-apocalyptic Belfast as a partner in a law firm, my job largely being to torch surviving Victorian homes after looting them. Sort of Slightly Irritated Max instead of Mad Max.

But I woke up enough to interrupt the flow and lose a few. Mortality’s on my mind again. It occurred to me recently that one way to think about my cancer risks is that we’re all dying, I’m just probably dying a little faster than most of my peers. I want to write about that more than my brainspace is ready to cope with today, so maybe next week. I’ve got most of the week off and can really put some time into my thoughts, hopefully. For now, well, some Day Jobbery, then the holiday weekend.

Have fun, be well, celebrate what pleases you best.

Tags: Cancer, dreams, health, Personal, work

Posted: 6:17 am Fri December 23 2011 | Comments(0) |

[personal] Things are getting better

The heater guys came and went yesterday. It was a long day, and got awfully cold here in the house. the_child built a fire in the fireplace, and I made liberal use of my new quilt. Nonetheless, a ridiculous amount of money fled my bank account, and in return I have a new, high efficiency heater. Unfortunately, a lot of that money was my convention travel-and-lodging budget for 2012, so I may not be as many places as I’d hoped.

Meanwhile my GI has calmed. Not back to what passes for normal these days, but not in violent rebellion either. I’m hoping to taper off the meds today or tomorrow. We shall see. The result of this was that I slept solidly last night from 7 pm to 4:30 am. I’m still pretty worn out from the last couple of days, but I no longer feel like I’m in dire straits. Just an annoying passage.

In addition to a full day of Day Jobbery, I’m off the Author’s Lunch today, an occasional event here in Portland. Otherwise, I’m laying low and keeping my nose shiny and damp. Woof.

Tags: Cancer, Child, health, Personal, work, Writing

Posted: 6:12 am Wed December 14 2011 | Comments(0) |

[personal] More dreams, meaning what exactly?

@scalzi has been infesting my dreams lately, but last night was a doozy. In my sleep I was at the Scalzi Fortress of Solitude in Bradford, Ohio (a place I’ve never been in real life), which in my dreamscape looked like part of Coruscant under urban renewal. John had taken his role as president of SFWA seriously, and installed a large dining hall, an automobile service center and a publishing house, among other things. I couldn’t walk through the place without practically being assaulted by do-gooders working for him, trying to make my life as a writer and a human being somehow better.

I’m sure this is a metaphor for his yeoperson’s service as president of SFWA, not to mention his general nice-guyness, but mostly in my dreams it was overwhelming. Especially the mile-high Scalzi Tower that was under construction. I was amused as heck, and I surely hope John is too.

Family Christmas was yesterday, and my big present o’ presents was a quilt stitched by my (step)mother which featured all my book covers to date. Which as I write this I realize is much cooler than I just made it sound. Apparently production of this thing involved most of the adult members of my family, what with cover scanning, fabric printing and so on. At some point I’ll try to get pictures, though I doubt they’ll do it justice. the_child and the Niece scored big, as is right and proper for kids at Christmas, and I mostly sat around in an exhausted heap.

Workie bits this week through Thursday, and an unusual field trip for the_child‘s class Thursday that I arranged and may go on. Otherwise I’m resting and keying up for Friday’s final chemo session. Also having the new heater installed tomorrow, which will hopefully not be a signal experience.

And that’s the news from Lake Jaybegone.

Tags: Cancer, Child, dreams, family, health, Personal, work

Posted: 6:13 am Mon December 12 2011 | Comments(0) |

[cancer] Sleeping my life away

Yesterday, after sleeping ten hours the night before, the_child and I went to Thanksgiving lunch with Mom and Dad. We came home and I slept almost three more hours, napping in my chair. After watching Edward Scissorhands, I went to bed and slept another eleven hours.

This is insane.

I’m not fighting it, just letting my body do what it wants, but this is a ludicrous amount of sleep. I’m not even taking any of the various soporific drugs right now. None of them are prescribed as sleep aids, but at least four of the drugs in my chemotherapy cocktail and suite of helpers have drowsiness or sleep as a side effect. This is my body in late stage FOLFIRI.

I’m beginning to wonder if I can stay awake enough to work the Day Jobbe next week, and more to the point, the week following after chemo session eleven. If ten to eleven hours per night is the new normal, away from the drugs, I’m going to have to start going to bed around 6 pm in order to have any hope of a functional workday the following morning. Which, well, I can do, but I am starting to feel very much oppressed by my sleep needs.

Crazy stuff. Meanwhile, no Black Friday for me! I am very thankful for that.

Tags: Cancer, health, Personal, work

Posted: 9:36 am Fri November 25 2011 | Comments(2) |

[cancer] State of the Jay, continuing illness edition

I’ve taken today off work to continue rest and healing. If I’m not in good shape by Friday, we may have to skip chemo again, and that’s going to wreak an unholy mess with the treatment schedule for the rest of the year. I am currently experiencing a quiescent but not well-behaved lower GI, a vast improvement over the past two weeks. However, the head cold threatens to worsen, which causes its own problems. The tea burns are healing, and I’ve been sleeping a lot, so the overall fatigue is about what it (sadly) should be.

Back at the Day Jobbe tomorrow, with a weather eye on my continued health or lack thereof.

Tags: Cancer, health, Personal, work

Posted: 8:40 am Mon November 14 2011 | Comments(0) |