moon phases

Started this before change to "New Blogger", as backup in case of trouble with digiphoto blog "In a Small Dark Room", or rants & links blog "Hello Cruel World" . Useful - at one stage Dark Room was there, but like the astrophysical Dark Matter, we could't see it ... better now, but kept Just In Case.

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There is nothing. There is no God and no universe, there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination of that same Thought.
Mark Twain (letter to Joseph Twichell after his wife's death)
[me, on a bad day]

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WRITER'S LINKS
Absolute Write Paypal donation button:

Absolute Write is one of the leading sites for information on writing and publishing, especially the scam versions thereof. It has a broad, deep online community with an enormous message base going back years. Now it needs help. See the details and discussion here
Preditors and Editors
Everything you wanted to know about literary agents
On the getting of agents
Writer Beware
Miss Snark
Writer's Net

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(and my Wish List)

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Real Estate Ruminations  
Real Estate Report: Sydney's cheapest inner city flat? On the 6th floor of an attractive, if slightly seedy, Art Deco building with rather wonky lifts, in a central, if also slightly seedy (sketchy?) precinct where I live (close to shops, transport, my hospital, nightclub strip, courts, homeless shelters, drug, alcohol & mental treatment centres). A single room maybe 10 foot by eight. Not too much to keep clean, I guess. Rolled futon on the floor. Door & swing-space takes most of inner wall. Two nice light windows on the outer wall. Small wardrobe & a desk/dining table with shelves above cover left wall — agent suggests one of those fold-up 'murphy' beds.

Right wall taken up by world's smallest bathroom & kitchen ditto. I could sit on the toilet & turn the taps on the tiny handbasin opposite; a hand-held shower perched between them, with the shower curtain across the door.
In the kitchen, an eensy sink with room for a mini bar-fridge (say 18" square) beneath faced a bench with an electric hotplate/griller for the stove. For a space I could just stand & turn in, it had quite a few shelves & cupboards.

All this for roughly 3x mean male annual earnings — $155,000. Le sigh.

Hearing that it's now rented for $200/week shook me a bit. Makes me appreciate room @ $250/week even more, maybe 2.5–3 times the size. ($AU1.00 = $US0.64 approx.)

I did grab mine fast at the time (being evicted midway through chemotherapy), seeing many smaller, grottier places going at higher rents in my search area — not too hilly, walking distance to hospital, close to public transport.
Looking with mingled feeling at returning home. Friday night on the roof here facing the Southern Cross, with Orion behind my shoulder, I watched the full autumn moon rising while lightning-laced thunderclouds rolled up from the south. Aeroplanes from Kingsford-Smith criss-crossed flight-lines with flying foxes while the next-door pub's beer garden rumbled with Friday night crowd noise. Won't be quite the same there.

Labels: home, housing, Sydney

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 1:25 am

 
Bleh  
I'm in the third cycle of the Xeloda treatment — the one they changed to when the tests showed the first treatment protocol they tried wasn't working. Next week, at the end of this cycle they'll do another round of tests to see if this one has been doing better. I've been mostly able to control the nausea/diarrhoea, and it's nice to be getting hair back (except for the hair that's less popular, like the sub-prime moustache & beard).

The Hand-Foot Syndrome, though, makes life quite difficult and painful. Walking becomes not just tiring, but actually hurts — I'm reminded of the Little Mermaid — and doing all those little necessary, almost unnoticed stuff, like un/doing buttons or zips, turning keys, opening screw and non-screw lids of all kinds, using cutlery, even just writing, hurts and is awkward. White cotton gloves help somewhat, and being winter I can wear other gloves outside without looking too weird, which helps 'explain' my difficulty with getting coins out or picking up change.

What worries me is that if this is holding the cancer from expanding, but not shrinking it back, this drug is one they can keep you on long-term. I would hate to have to keep dealing with these symptoms for many months, or even some years. OTOH, it could be worse. We will see what we will see. Am hoping, unlike before, that cancer isn't advancing. At any time getting up the 57 steps can be a real chore, but it's worrying how just in the last week, following Don Giovanni, almost any walking has been exhausting & very painful.

Again, I'm so glad for the Australian medical system. These tablets are $700 a packet (about a cycle's worth), but I'm paying ~$30. I got a statement from MBF showing the thousands they've paid out in the last year (admittedly having paid them w/o claiming for decades). Plus there's the weekly home help. Recently Thomas M Disch, the American writer, poet & critic, committed suicide partly because he'd been bankrupted by the terminal illness of his partner and was being hounded out of his rent-controlled flat (also discussed at nielsenhayden.com/ makinglight/ archives/ 010413.html as well as elsewhere on teh Intartubes).

I've been continuing work at home, and got an injection of new leave to juggle at the anniversary.. I went in on the afternoon of my anniversary, after my earlier doctor's appointment, but was feeling quite sick, so I didn't go around to see different people. Luckily they didn't have anything arranged.

Am coping with the new flat, tho' it still has problems. I need to keep at the Strata Management people to get the leaking roof fixed, for instance. There's still things packed up in boxes, maybe 'cos I'm thingy about having to do it to move out, possibly in September when the lease expires. We've had a few problems with the flat nearby being renovated with sledgehammers and small jackhammers. Especially when they left the door open and cement dust got *everywhere*.

Labels: home, medical, quotidian, society

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 8:48 pm

 
Solar Systems – Straight & Heat Pump  
This is system I saw at Easter Show. It's a variation on the standard solar Hot Water System idea, rather than the 'heat pump' technology I'm quite keen on

Hills Endless Solar hot water system
www.endless-solar.com/faqs.htm

"Operates up to 40% more efficiently than traditional flat plate solar systems", "Perfect for cold, humid and hail-prone areas", "Easily fitted to most existing electric or instant gas systems"

Heat Pumps

Edwards Hot Water
www.edwards.com.au/default.asp?V_DOC_ID=882
http://www.qualitysolar.com.au/New/Edwards%20Heat%20Pump.htm


peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Edwards_Heat_Pump_for_Hot_Water
from the "Pure Energy Systems" wiki -- might have other info.

Solar Shop
www.solarshop.com.au/solar%20hot%20water%20page.htm
These have a range of different HWS (& other devices) to give you an idea of the variety of choices.
See the list at the bottom of the pages

"Solar Shop has a team of professional electricians as well as contractors who manufacture the renewable system in-house and perform the on site installations." -- www.solarshop.com.au/about%20us%20page.htm

These people have a range of systems:
Quantum Energy Technologies
www.quantum-energy.com.au

In General
'Be Green': www.begreen.com.au
Building – www.begreen.com.au/build_green.html
Investment – www.begreen.com.au/invest_green.html

Ecological Homes (Inner Sydney) – www.ecologicalhomes.com.au

Labels: home, reference, sustainability

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 9:33 am

 
Third Time Lucky?  
Third Time Lucky?
Well, Friday was the third dose of Adjuvant FEC chemotherapy. The dose has been slightly changed because of the problems the first two times (see previous entries).

This time they did have problems with my blood vessels. I'd been worried that might happen because of the amount of punishment they're taking with the treatment for the immune suppression, and only being able to use the one arm because of the damage from the original operation on the other arm. It took six goes to get a cannula in, but not too much bruising thank goodness. It was one of the worst parts of the previous chemotherapy. Am trying to work on the mental part there, with assorted things to promote calm, lack of stress, lower pain & distress, &c, &c.

But if all goes well, with taking extra care and the changed dosage, I won't need to be put on drips of antibiotics and fluids to help me through an episode of febrile neutropenia, and that will give my body time to heal up. After the first episode, they were able to prescribe me Granulocyte Stimulating injections — subcutaneous, so no vein problens — which is supposed to help my bone marrow to start producing white blood cells. It didn't seem to go that well, because I had a second lot of infection, fever & low white count, but maybe this one will 'take' better. Perhaps a little more exercise to help the blood flow too? And keeping up the healthy diet, plenty of fluids, &c.

In the afternoon I had an appointment for a fitting to get a prosthesis, which I brought home with a new special pocketed brassiere, kind of exciting. Will have to get used to wearing them both.

I felt strong enough the next day to go over and get some of my other prostheses, which were running low, from my previous place of habitation. Found several changes around the place, including one flat being sold, but don't know the circumstances fully. Also ordered furniture from a local second-hand place, but arrangements for delivery are still to be done. That will give me some places to put clothes and other things, and also get a few other things, like my stereo, off the floor. Still don't have a hanging-up wardrobe-type thing arranged, though.

Also used the available energy & momentum to do a bit of cleaning around the flat, and hang up sheer curtains over the bay window, to give me a better feeling of privacy in my main room. Works OK in daylight. Still a bit uncertain about night-time. Because I didn't want to drill holes, I'm experimenting with adhesive velcro-like stuff, designed to hang pictures on a wall. Will see how it lasts.

Labels: home, medical

More ... [permalink] posted by Mez at 1:04 am