Planet Moderan

May day

The doc took the otoscope, shone it in my ear, looked briefly at the spot of light on the opposite wall, and said, “I don’t see anything”.
We believe that is why I received no loss of cognitive function during my long term in the ICU-there hadn’t been any activity in that organ in the first place.

It’s been a year now since I got out of the convalescent center, Catalina Care. I’m getting to the point where I’m starting to envy people who have to go to work every day. Wish I could. Le sigh. As a professional lazy person, I find it unconscionable that I want to go back to working. But there it is.

Good old ARDS. We had a consultation with the pulmonologist last week. Apparently the scarring in my lungs isn’t any better than it was at this point last year. My “signs are a little too good to be on the transplant list,” I’m told. Imagine my glee.

I want one of those portable oxygen machines. I have a call in to case manager, but that call hasn’t been returned yet. The Pulmonary Doc said he doesn’t usually recommend them until after five years. I was too busy looking daggers at him to reply. What an asinine point of view-it’d be cheaper for the taxpayer to foot the one-time cost (@2500-3500.00) for one of those than to pay for eight weeks of 10-12 oxygen tanks/week.

That’s right, it’d pay for itself in @6 weeks. That’s how much it costs to have those tanks filled up. The delivery cost must be negligible-it costs the same to go and get them.

So there’s my argument, based on plain common cents. It probably won’t fly because, well, shit, it makes sense. Can’t have that.

I hate being a shut-in. Most of the time my only human contacts are Denise and the UPS guy. It’s hard for me to get out and walk around, because I get huffy/puffy pretty quick, but it’d be easier with the portable thing than the two or three tanks I need to, say, go to the movies or the library.

Yeah, it’s great that I’m alive. It was a miracle that I survived, and my case was worse than most. But this kinda half-life I have to lead, and the grim specter that some of it may have been due to the treatment of the syndrome (ventilator pressure is considered to be a leading cause of scarring in the lungs – it has to be very carefully regulated, and that’s only recently been discovered), which is really not well-known or understood among the medical community, both dovetail into quality – of – life purgatory pretty quickly.

I’ll have the brie, if you would.

I couldn’t do a day’s work if I tried. I have to take a nap after going to the grocery store.

Though a lot of the online information initially says that the recovery period is about a year, the websites go on to qualify that until it’s obvious that this isn’t the case at all.

My personal view is that nobody really knows.

Some say 3-5 years. The pulmonologist is one of those.

I’ve had marked improvement in the past year. But there’s a long way to go. Even those ARDS patients that have fully recovered experience some kind of loss of ability. Not real hopeful.

And the body of literature online is not very extensive. Much of it is bullshit. There’s a bogus support forum, an organization that exchanges greetings, nothing substantial or useful. Especially if one is a patient and wants specific information about things. Like why you can’t breathe, insubstantial shit like that.

It takes patient detective work. Sometimes you have to wait for the information to be published. Sometimes you have to go get it, or assemble it piecemeal, in vague form, collated out of a dozen articles and featurettes about something else. Christ! It’s almost like ferreting out real political information (you know, policies, real voting records and performance).

For instance, I’m on the track right now of the effect bodily production of protocannabinoids can have on the human immune response, if augmented by an outside source of cannabinoids. There’s a very real question about this, and the answer is important to a lot of people with immune-system-related illnesses (AIDS and lupus would be other examples).

The pharmas don’t want that answered publicly, I don’t think. But information is filtering out bit by bit. Some of that is for a novel, some of it is for myself.

Anyway…I’m just trying to get a little attention for the syndrome, to help others who might have the thing happen to them, to be able to impart a little information.

I’ve been there. I’m there now. I’m sorry. Here’s what you need to know…

There’ll eventually be a book.

So you taxpayers that I work for, this is what I do with your money. What do I need to do for a raise?

Ooops!

Yeah, so it’s been a couple of months since I posted anything here. Been a little busy. Sorry about that.

Some good news-I have the cover art for my book, all finished and ready to go. I’ve written out all of the stories, have final edits on most of them, and have preliminary sketches for the interior illos. All systems are go for an indy printing, which I’ll do in October if no other options present themselves. Updates to any or all of these conditions can be found on the book’s official facebook page. You don’t have to be a member of or join facebook to access that page.

I’ll be doing a promotional video, featuring this background music. I wrote it and played all of the parts except for the drums, which I assembled from premade loops and midi sequences. They sound pretty life-like but they’re Frankenstein’s monsters like all of my percussion tracks. The music is pretty wild if I do say so myself.

If at all possible, I’ll do a tune and a video for each story as well.

In the background, here at the planet, I’m assembling some secret stews and making some progress on future content. The copying and pasting of pages from Letters from Outside is underway, at last, and that archive should be fully moved by the end of the year. The webcomic/graphic novel Fear and Loathing in Innsmouth are well underway, and will definitely see the light of the new year. I need a lotta wiggle room because, frankly, I’m not as industrious as I’d like to be. My lungs still haven’t fully recovered from the shock of double pneumonia, followed by pneumothorax and the rest of the misadventures my body went on while my mind was otherwise occupied. If nothing else, I have the material for a lot of nightmares. Some sequences based on periods of delirium have already found their way into Crazytown.

Have managed to accomplish some things, in my persistent although faltering way.

I’ve been lurking in the Cracked writing forums and have submitted a couple of article ideas. We’ll see what happens with that. I’m also penning a few reviews, destined mostly for the Lovecraftian ezine if they’ll have ‘em. Going to take a look at some things that I haven’t seen reviewed anywhere else, like the October 79 issue of Heavy Metal/Metal Hurlant.

And finally, more music. I have some stuff in the can that will get outed this year, and some new things that are starting to take final shape. Some of these last have actual vocals on them, mostly the cover tunes. I have six done of a possible howevermany (A baker’s dozen is my original plan). More on that below: Continue reading Ooops!

Pitons

I posted as my facebook status a little while ago that I feel like I’m finally beginning to ascend my mountain of projects. It’s a common thread around here that I keep my projects in my head while she (her;Denise:the little woman) keeps them lying around the apartment. That’s the only difference-that she doesn’t trip over my “wips”.

So there is at least some distance between the writerly world and the knitterly world. My musical projects are usually kept out of the way on internal and external media, so they don’t count.

But not enough distance. In the end, whether inside my head or piled up higgledy-piggledy in the closet in the master bedroom, it’s clutter.

Yep. Now I ‘fess up. We’re both clutterbucks. It takes a determined effort to clean anything here because of all of the things that have to be moved out of the way.

Or rescheduled. I’ve organized and re-organized my mental trash-trove into a new reality (for me). That means… Continue reading Pitons

Mediterranean Monday Madness

It’s about a week until the anniversary of the day I was taken to the hospital. I admit that I’ve been having some anxiety over that fact, and it hasn’t helped that I’ve had a nasty little chest cold for a week or so.

The cold seems to be subsiding. We had a nice little outing today, despite our original plan having been scuttled by discovering that Quizno’s (where we had been planning to go, based on their toothsome commercials featuring giant prime rib sandwiches) had been closed.

We could have opted for Luke’s Chicago, as they are on our shortlist of good food/pigout joints, but we opted instead for a Mediterranean joint, next to the former sandwich shop, and that turned out to be a good choice for many reasons. Continue reading Mediterranean Monday Madness

Punxatawney Phil Looks in Mirror, Sees Shadow

I think that’s how you spell the little guy’s name. I could be wrong, but it looks alright.

Anyway. I managed to go a whole month without posting anything. That’s pretty good for a confessed internet addict who spends most of my waking hours in front of a computer.

At least some of the time was used wisely. I continued to watch hockey games, discontinued (involuntarily) watching football games. I started cooking again, and pictures and descriptions of some of the results will find their way here. I drew a few pictures. Those will appear elsewhere.

Some of the intervening time was spent contemplating my cache of unpublished fiction to determine the publishability of it once and for all. More if you want it————> Continue reading Punxatawney Phil Looks in Mirror, Sees Shadow

Randomosity

I had my own line of comic books when I was eight. I’d work on them during school, especially when I was sitting in the hallway for being disruptive, which was pretty often.
They were made in those composition books with the black and white covers that everyone had, so they were more like graphic novels than anything else. The drawing was gawdawful and I’m sure the writing was bad too but one of my heroes was the Inedible Bulk, who hailed from Battle Creek, Michigan. He battled a villain called the Cereal Killer.

You have to remember what famous company is in Battle Creek. Then the joke becomes obvious.
My bent for satire was established even then.
I also did a ton of sportswriting and sportscasting. We listened to the baseball (and the football, and the hockey) on the radio in those days ( mid-late sixties). If the tv was on, I’d usually turn off Vince Lloyd and Jack Brickhouse, who I didn’t care for, and do the play-by-play myself (I don’t even remember who did the Bears and Hawks telecasts). I’d do imaginary interviews, and write them down on notebook paper.
The greatest thing about all of that is that later in life I got to meet and interview some of those same people.

Things are cyclical that way, even if the cycles are unpredictable as far as intervals go.

As a further example, I’m about a third of the way through my first graphic novel in 35 years. We’ll start to see some of it here at the planet next month.

Even that contains cycles within cycles. At about the time I was starting the aforementioned comic book empire, I was discovering the way to unknown Kadath, in the cold waste, and braving the gathering night-gaunts to ascertain just whose face it was that was carved on the slope of Ngranek.

Discovering HPL led to my first short stories. Searching out his work and the work of others who became linked to his work led to a lifetime of reading and writing.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

***

Here’s a guest article I wrote that has more on this subject.

Sarcasm On

Overnight, I had a strange series of exchanges with members of the customer service department of my isp/phone/cable company. It seems that they have inactive sarcasm meters and a general lack of reading comprehension skills, which led me to getting increasingly verbal/savage.

The genesis of the thing is that I ordered an upgrade to my services, which didn’t take because the apparatus to do so onsite doesn’t work for those who are already customers. But you’ll be able to figure that out from the context (or at least I’d hope so).

Just for the sheer fun of it, I hereby present the entire exchange, with some judicious editing of names and figures: Continue reading Sarcasm On

The Fork…

…in the road to the playoffs apparently didn’t show up on the Bears’ collective GPS. The Bears took the route that had the “Bridge Out” sign.

Earlier today, on another forum, I posted this:

Good afternoon. I’m getting ready for some football. Bears and the Denver Tebows. I predict the Bears will leave the mike lb in spy position, run basically a cover one, and neutralize the running qb aspect of the Broncos’ option offense. That’ll force Timmy to throw the football, heretofore not a strength.
What all that gibberish means is that the Bears will leave one safety back and have one “float” near the line, heading back on obvious passing plays, but providing run support so that the middle linebacker can cover the quarterback if he “scrambles”.
The end rush by the defense is extremely important-Tebow must not be allowed to run around the offensive line, must be bottled up by Idonije/Peppers.
On the lighter side, I have plenty of sausages and am in my full Bears regalia:

Ridiculous garb aside, that instant analysis would seem to have been spot-on. I failed to account for the Tebow Magic. I agree now, having seen how it’s done, that “magic” is the only word for what happens. I don’t see NFL-level QB talent. I see some guy running around throwing prayer passes. That he’s a past-annoyance-level proselytizer only makes that more apt. Continue reading The Fork…

gametime 12/04

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Today’s feature is the Bears against Kansas City, at Soldier Field in Chicago. As I write, the Bears are perched on the 4, 4th down and 1 yard to go. A nice td pass is about to be taken back because of a penalty, and the Bears will be shooting for the field goal. Game’s a little chippy-lol, the announcer said that just as I was typing.

False start on “Gate 68″. Dunno what Omiyale’s doing in the game but they’ll try the kick again from further out. 32-yarder, good. First points of the game.

So far, so meh. Neither Bears 2nd-stringer Caleb Hanie nor Chiefs’ qb Tyler Palko seems all that interested in actually moving the ball downfield. Matt Forte got dinged up (knee) and Marion Barber has come in, running hard. Bears have good rb depth. Chiefs have Thomas Jones, who is starting to slow his age a little but is still reasonably effective.

Lotta punts. Bears have two or three sacks. I saw two that I remember, from Melton and Idonije, and I was away from the screen for five minutes or so.

Cheez. Earl Bennett had an easy six right there. I could’ve completed that one. And a sack follows, back to the 33. Robbie Gould is money, but the five-yard penalty makes it a 56-yarder.

Punt again. That was a three-point sack for KC. More in a bit. Continue reading gametime 12/04

Gametime 12/03

So the Hawks are on the road against the rival Blues. The St. Louis squad was once the prime rival of the Chicago team…or at least on an equal footing with the Wings and the North Stars. At least, that’s how I remember it, and I refuse to be dissuaded.
The Blues are a team on the way up, seemingly. Coach Ken Hitchcock has them playing his patented defensive system and they’re getting into the playoff hunt with ten wins in their last 12 (I believe).
At present, we’re about halfway through the first, and the Blues have a one-goal lead, courtesy of a goal-mouth scramble. More in a few. Continue reading Gametime 12/03