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Stacy and I visited Grandpa and Grandma today.
My Grandfather is unfortunately on hospice care as he has a large tumor on his colon, as well as one on his liver. He’s only just started to experience the pain from that, so he’s not on heavy drugs yet, and isn’t too loopy yet.
He seemed ok during our visit. He was a bit frustrated as he was shivering for no reason during his dinner, which made it difficult to hold his food, but his cornball sense of humor did show through a bit. He looks a bit rough, but still not bad enough that I’m forced to deal with what’s really going to happen to him in the next few months.

Afterwards, we visited Grandma Jean. She’s been fighting diabetes for 10 years, and a slow blood cancer for the last 4. And recently, she’s developed some calcification within her spinal canal, giving her severe back pain. Given she was on the last day of a week of chemo, she looked ok. We did talk about medical challenges for an hour or so, as that’s a large part of her life at this point, but she was happy for the visit, as was my grandpa.

I’ve been preparing for what’s happening for awhile, or at least I tell myself that, but I still don’t think it’s going to sink in for awhile. I’ve not been close to them for a number of years, but they were a large part of my life during my childhood. They rescued different members of my family numerous times, financially, medically and personally. They helped pay for some large medical expenses I had a few years ago, and helped me deal with financial difficulties due to the dot-crash and joblessness, and my personal inability to manage my money.

It’ll be tough to get through the near future, but one must push ahead. What will be will be.

I just finished Kelley Armstrong’s ‘Bitten’, first of her ‘Women of the Underworld’ series. The novel centers around Elena, the only female werewolf, who’s left her pack to live a ‘human’ life in Toronto.  She’s called back to her pack to help deal with some killings, and she reluctantly goes.  A steamy but difficult reunion with an old lover, a bunch of murder, and general werewolf fun.
The book didn’t really grab me at first.  The characters initially seemed somewhat shallow.  Elena, young woman journalist in Toronto, etc.  Her lover?  A bit too perfect. After a few chapters, however, Elena became much more interesting.  Hey.  She’s a werewolf.  She’s a werewolf dealing with other werewolves.  How interesting is that? Yes, there are many other werewolf novels out there, and I’ll probably read them, but this one made the grade after I found myself empathizing with Elena.  And the sex scenes were nice too.
Urban fantasy really is all about characters and sex, now, isn’t it. I say read it.

Last night, I dropped by a CD Release party a friend was putting together for Upchuck, Gone but Not Forgiven.
The CD is a posthumous release honoring Upchuck, a Seattle punk icon from way back.  He was cut down by AIDS in 1991, a tragic loss to the Seattle punk scene.  Gay, known for wild punk-glamour costumes, and generally over the top, it was apparent he was very much loved by the crowd that attended.  While I never saw Upchuck play, as I was in a different place back then, I attended the party as my friend was the nephew of Upchuck. We arrived in time for a performance by The Nasty Habits, a friends band.  They did a pretty good set from my position, although Rachel, the guitar player, said they played a bit too fast.  Great covers of all sorts of 80’s music. Then, we saw a performance by the Fags, the inheritors of Upchucks legacy.  It was punk.  Punk like I remember from the 80’s.  Loud, strong, a very enjoyable performance. So here’s the surreal part.  Most, if not all, of the band was over 40.  And there was a lot of gray hair in the crowd.  All of these 40-50 something folk rocking out to hard core punk.  Wild stuff. Anyway, it was a great experience.  And I now have a fresh Upchuck CD to enjoy. Oi oi oi.
Oh, I should add.  They had a guest.  Stone Gossard of Mother Love Bone and Pearl Jam.  Stone grabbed an acoustic guitar, and played a little song as Barb Ireland of The Fags proceeded to cut his t-shirt from him with a pair of scissors.  She dropped his pants, took off his shoes, and then dressed him in an awful strappy dress.  Was a lot of fun.

We’ve a few extra months before the end of the universe.  The Hadron Supercollider had a mechanical issue, putting off the end of the world for a bit.  No planet-eating black holes.  No spawning of new universes in Switzerland.  Whew.  Ok, we’ll fall into some Star Trek like spacial anomaly in a few months, but at least I won’t miss Halloween.
In other news, I reformatted my current writing project to ‘standard’ manuscript format, double spaced with a readable font, 1″ margins, etc.  I’m at 96 pages…yikes.  And so many more to go.  It’s like giving birth, I tell ya.
Now for some fun drinks when you go out on the town: Black Orchid: rum, tequila, vodka, gin poured into a pint glass with ice.  A squirt of blue curacao and grenadine.  (different from the traditional recipe, but my favorite) Tokyo Iced Tea: rum, tequila, vodka, gin with Midori Irish Car Bomb: A shot glass of Baileys and Irish Whisky dropped into a pint of Guinness 

What can I say.  Liquid diet, I’m down 16 pounds since before surgery. (20 from a few months ago) Holy crap on a crap sandwich (which I can’t eat).  It’s only been a month.  My clothes are getting kinda loose, and clothes which I’ve not been able to wear in awhile are fitting well.  Oh, and a number of outfits that I bought a bit ago that were overly ambitious, they’re starting to fit too. Should be interesting when I go back to bellydancing.  Perhaps I’ll perform on Wednesday at Neighbors.  Maybe I’ll get that 4-pack. I did manage to go to Red Robin last night and eat a portion of a small hamburger, as well as some fries.  Kinda rough on my teeth, and it filled me up quickly, but it was nice. In other news, well, there’s no other news.  Not much time for other news right now.

Yarrrrrrr!

Finally, after all these weeks, solid food. Last night, Stacy’s parents took us out to Beth’s, my favorite 24 hour greasy spoon.  Scrambled eggs are easy, but I was also able to stomach the hash browns and wheat toast. Not too much, though.  After 3 weeks of liquid food, my stomach has shrunk to the size of, er, a very small stomach.   Today for lunch?  Fried rice from the Vietnamese restaurant near my work.  And Dinner?  We all went out to Thai Siam, my favorite Thai place.   Seriously, go there, the food is divine. The Thai food was a challenge to eat.  Vegetables are not forgiving.  And Phad Thai just gets caught in my braces.  The won ton soup went down well, though. I’m going to continue my predominantly liquid diet, though.  I’m about 13 pounds down from where I was 3 weeks ago.

Note to self:
If your doctor says take your medication at the same time every day, simply taking it in the ‘morning’ after you wake up isn’t good enough, especially if you wake up one day at 1PM, and the next at 9AM.
The dizzy spells and nausea are just not worth it.

Some of you may know, I’ve started writing fiction. It’s been a dream of mine to tell stories in one way or another.  I’ve touched on it with video, and I’ve always wanted to try my hand at writing video games.  Both of those require equipment, money, and possibly coworkers. Writing, however, requires a brain and something to get stories on paper.  My choice, as with most writers these days, is a laptop.
Anyway, I’ve been working on a project that’s on some edgy topics.  Drugs, prostitution, and even sexual abuse and rape.  Unfortunately, I’ve been able to do research into these topics, as I’ve too many acquaintances who’ve experienced these things. I’m finding there’s probably a balance between how graphic and emotionally intense I can write, and what an audience can handle.  Finding that balance is a challenge.  How far can I go.  How much ‘truth’ can I convey without going too far. Those are challenging questions, hopefully I’ll be able to find some answers to them.

We went to see a free preview of the movie Cthulhu yesterday.  It’s a new take on the classic by H.P. Lovecraft, set in a small town on the Oregon coast.   Written by Seattle local Grant Cogswell, it was shot in Seattle and Astoria, Oregon with a number of not so well know local actors.  There are some interesting deviations from the Lovecraft classic.  Of course, the setting is Oregon which is quite different than Lovecraft’s original take.  It’s set in current times.  And the most striking change, especially in this day and age, is the protagonist, Russ.  He’s gay.  The movie opens with Russ looking out the window of his Pike Place apartment after reading a letter announcing his mothers death.  A young ‘club boy’ lays in his bed, and upon hearing of Russ’s loss, simply gives him a ‘that sucks’ followed by a request for $20. Russ returns to his hometown in Oregon, where he renews his relationship with his childhood friend, which moves from strong friendship to something more.
Anyway, the cinematography, makeup, and acting at the beginning of the film were rough, to say the least.  The film was cheap and grainy, you could see the purple eyeshadow on Russ, an attempt to make him look emotionally distraught, and the dialog was simply not believable. However, once Russ travels to his Oregon hometown, things fall into place.  The graininess adds to the mystery and horror of the film, and Russ brings his character to life. It’s worth seeing, if you have access to one of the small independent theaters where it’ll be shown.