Moved my blog again

I have gone over to the dark side - livejournal. It has a much crappier interface (for me as a user), and allows far less customisation, and costs money if you want anything that looks halfway decent. So why did I move?

It has one powerful feature: friends. LJ understands the power of the Internet to connect people. I can see my friends' blogs pages, and they can see mine.

So, bye bye blogger, bye bye.

Come on over to my new blog.

You'll notice I have deleted a bunch of comments from this post. That's because they are spam. I don't appreciate people posting completely irrelevant links promoting their own stuff on my blog even if it is closed.

Banned books meme

Here's a list, according to this meme, of the top 110 banned books - clearly from various times and places.

Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've partially read. Underline the ones you specifically want to read.

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Qur'an
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh (Mayan creation myths)
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Magic Casements

Sydney's Magic Casements festival occupied my entire weekend. Sarah came to stay at my place (though we weren't actually there for long). On Friday night most of Sydney's Clarionborg component went to dinner - Chris, Cat, Wendy, me and Sarah. We had a brilliant time, scoffing Vietnamese food and drinking, rolling down the road for outstanding chocolate tarts and cocktails.

Magic Casements began at the ungodly hour of 10am. The panels, for once, were actually interesting. People had prepared, they gave talks on things they'd researched, and they had Stuff to Say. Yay for them! The best part was as always the company. Lots of people came from interstate for the day, Nike, Trent, Donna, Kaaren, Lucy.. oh heaps of people. I chatted a little with Margo Lanagan, who is very cool, and who in a fit of I don't know what I invited to join Thorby's writing group. I do hope she accepts, but suspect we aren't at the standard required to actually make it worthwhile for her.

I am reading "Black Juice" at the moment and each story just goes boom.

The dinner in the evening at Dome was good too, the food basic and the atmosphere loud but there was snappy service, plenty of drink and the ability to move around freely.

On Sunday there was a small gathering at Wendy's, primarily as a farewell to her as she jets off today to Belgium for six months. We had way too many champagne cocktails, ate ourselves stupid on pain chocolat, smoked salmon, pears, rasperrries, you name it, and got extremely silly. At one point I realised we'd been laughing almost non-stop for about an hour.

Later we repaired to Chris' place, taking the snacks with us (Wendy would only throw them out), but by 9pm we'd run out of steam, finally, and headed for bed.

So cool to see everyone, and even more cool that I could last the distance without being totally wiped today.

Orchestras saved from doom?

An orchestra is not like a company. Companies can decide to do more lines of business or less, expand or contract, and their fundamental purpose - making money - is not at risk. Not from the act of expanding or contracting itself, unless they are done at the inappropriate moments or implemented badly.

Orchestras really can't be cut as easily. The A New Era, Orchestras Review Report 2005, an investigation for the Federal Government by former Qantas chief executive James Strong, says cuts should be made as follows, according to the Sydney Morning Herald:

"the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, to be reduced from 47 players to 38; the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, to be reduced from 74 to 56; and the Queensland Orchestra, from 89 to a 74."

That turns the TSO into a chamber orchestra and significantly reduces the amount of repertoire the others can produce. An orchestra has fixed costs you just can't do anything about. It takes a certain number of rehearsals to get ready for a performance, and there's nothing you can do to reduce that unless you want completely shit performances.

The reduction means the bigger romantic repertoire can't be done. Freelancers could be brought in, but many musicians will stop freelancing, they'll take up other jobs. If there are no permanent jobs around it affects the entire job market, not to mention all the supporting infrastructure, like teaching in schools, workshops, etc.

Thankfully, there was a bit of a revolt. A dozen MPs complained that it would become an issue in their smaller States. See the full story.

The whole thing makes my blood boil. We subsidise swimming to the tune of millions each year, and no one turns a hair. Why? In the end what does it really matter, if one person swims .002 of a second faster than another, in the grand scheme of things? On the other hand, music, as an art form, is in my view an essential feature of life. Preserving its execution is even more important when culture has become so standardised.

Classical music has always been subsidised, in previous centuries by kings and patrons, and in ours by governments and large companies. And so should it continue.

Beware the Ides of March

On Tuesday it will be the Ides of March.

Which is just a day. The Romans only named three days of the month and counted before or after them. Ides was the 15th day of the month. Presumably they called it "eedess", not "eyeds" the way we do in Shakespeare.

Anyway, beware it!

A new story

I should be putting the finishing touches to the joint story I wrote with Nathan. Or doing a second draft of the other joint story with Nathan. Or writing my novel.

Instead, I am writing a new story, because a great first line came to me and ate at my brain. And then a discussion with a friend about space habitats and such provided great material for a setting. So, in the last four days, I have written a complete first draft of the story, and any minute now I'll send it off to Thorbies, hoping they have enough time to critique it before our meeting tomorrow.

We have some new members, from this year's Clarion South, and at least one will be attending this month. I'm hoping it will be an infusion of creative juice for our group. Though more probably they will be Clarion-fried for a few months, lol.

We have our Clarion tshirts at last, and we can wear them to Magic Casements next weekend, so the citizens of Balmain can reel in shock at the filth that's on it. Hardly a quote is actually clean!
Well it amused us at the time, what can I say? You get rather punch drunk when you're in a writing hothouse for six weeks.

Well blow me down!

I just took the Tickle inkblot test, and apparently my subconscious mind is driven by kindness. Not the answer that would have sprung to my mind, but then again, that would be my conscious mind, LOL. Interested by this test, I actually bought the report, which I rarely do. Here's an excerpt.

"Your subconscious mind is driven most by Kindness

You have a deep desire to be kind and fair to others. You are preoccupied with finding kindness in the world around you, far more than you may realize on a conscious level. This makes you unusually empathetic and very sensitive to other people's feelings. Your kind nature makes you an optimist at heart and allows you to see the best in the people around you. Because you're not judgmental, others seek you out when they need a friend.

Your concept of reality is highly similar to that of others but not an exact match. Your perceptions seem to fall in between those who create their own unique realities and those who possess more mainstream perspectives. The difficulty for people like you is that at times you may feel pulled between taking the popular viewpoint and accepting your own vision of what is right.

Compared to most people, your thinking is highly flexible. When someone challenges your values or opinions, you're one of those rare types who are usually willing to sit back and listen. People like you tend to enjoy this kind of intellectual sparring and may even welcome the opportunity to examine and reexamine your views. In addition, flexibility can be paramount to fast learning. This is true because unless you're able to question what you already believe, it's difficult to believe in something new.

You can be highly prone to fantasizing. This doesn't suggest that you aren't in the real world. Your ability to see things clearly may be completely unencumbered by your tendency toward fantasy. It all depends on how you use your ability. Your answers indicate that you're able to use fantasy in a way that makes your world more vibrant and imaginative than it is for most people.

You appear to have a balanced approach to interacting. You're not consistently the one who is active or passive. This mixed pattern indicates that, relative to other people, you try to either be sensitive to the needs of a particular situation or the people with whom you're dealing.

Take the test. (You'll need to register first, but it doesn't cost anything to get the basic report).

Book sale

If you're in Sydney in March, drop into Collins in Broadway. Many titles are reduced including general sf and antasy, Tolkien editions, fantasy art books and specialist hardcovers. Reductions range from 33% to 50%. Since they have a great range of spec fiction it's worth a visit.

Woohoo, going to conflux

I just had to tell you that I've booked for Conflux. (www.conflux.org).

It's on over the Anzac weekend at the Rydges (yech, I hate that hotel, but that's where it is).

Now, what to wear for the masquerade???

Another infection

As regular readers will know, I have had a lot of trouble with an infection in the breast which had the cancer. Right after the operation it became severely infected with staph, a bacteria that lives in most people. I had to have a second operation, opening the original incision, to drain the breast.

Right the way through chemo, the breast was hot and tender to varying degrees, but I kept it at bay with seven weeks' worth of antibiotics so it never got serious, which is good, because if it does while you're having chemo it can kill you in 8 hours. Your immune system is seriously compromised during chemo.

So, why am I telling you this? Well it's back. The last few days the breast has been rather sore, which I notice when lying on my right side. Yesterday I realised it's actually hot, a slightly darker colour and tender, and that's the same as it was during the chemo. So, I have the infection back.

Luckily the doctor gave me a prescription for months worth of antibiotics. He said if it comes back to just fill it and take the first course, see how it goes, no need to go back to him. Which is good, because it eats at least half a day to see him.

Sigh. Just when I thought my body was back on track.

No wonder I've been tired this week. Not just the usual tired, but drained. Of course, work has been rather hectic, and I've been feeling rather stressed about it, so probably that's it, it's lowered my immune system.

Meanwhile I've been doing the exercise program devised for me by my personal trainer brother in law Patrick, increasing my walking so that yesterday I did an hour (though in three 20 minute bursts with 10 minutes of rest between.)

I think I should increase my meditation too, to help keep my stress level down.

I am trying to feel my normal life is back, but of course it isn't. It's only 9 weeks since I finished radiotherapy, I'm still recovering.

A matter of time before 3 out of every 4 people die?

The bird flu thing is deeply worrying. I've been concerned about it for quite a while now. Bird flu has a 75% mortality rate, compared to the flu epidemic in 1918 which had a mortality rate of 2%, and that killed 30 million people. Even Ebola only has a mortality rate of 50%.

So let's see, if it does take hold, out of Australia's 20 million people, there would be just 5 million left. No family would be left untouched. Our infrastructure would disintegrate. Things would stop working. Worldwide depression, panic, riots. It's black death stuff.

The only thing stopping the virus from completely screwing up the world is that at present, it's not transmitting very well from chicken/duck to human, and neither does it transmit easily between humans. All it needs is to mutate a little for ease of transmission.

It seems that world experts completely expect this to occur and have been saying "the sky is falling" loudly for some time, but no one is really listening. According to the Sydney Morning Herald:

"The world is in the gravest possible danger of a global pandemic," Dr Shigeru Omi, WHO's regional director for the Western Pacific, told a bird flu conference in Vietnam. Just a year ago WHO dismissed such a threat.

Personally I wish that governments act now as if it is going to happen, because when it does, there won't be enough time to do much. The incubation period is very short, and the symptoms don't show up until after the infectious period (unlike SARS). Some governments are stockpiling antiviral agents, but not enough of it.

At this stage, they think you can only catch it through direct contact with infected poultry or contaminated surfaces. That's a comfort.

ABC story on bird flu.
Here's more about bird flu.
Transmission to humans.

I'm an English genius

Or at least so says OKCupid.

"You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!"

Well, that made my morning.

I'm alive!

I enjoy being alive so much. My body is finally starting to move properly again, I can walk at a normal pace for up to 20 minutes. I can dance a little. Oh, the pleasure of using my body in a normal way!

This morning I put on some salsa music as I got ready for work, and danced to it as I showered, brushed my teeth, dressed. My dog thought I was rather strange, but I just can't restrain my pleasure in these simple acts of living.

This is where I thought I would be, back in the darkest days of chemo. This is what I held onto all that time. And now I'm here, I'm so happy and grateful it sometimes brings tears to my eyes.

Can you stub a finger?

This morning i hit my toe on the side of the bed and yelled "ow". Well okay, it wasn't ow, it was something a little stronger, but you get the idea. Tony called out, "you okay?" I said, "Yeah, thanks, just stubbed my toe."

Amazing. I have in my brain a special word to indicate the act of hitting one specific body part against something else, and even while in the first flush of pain, this word springs to my mind automatically.

It's weird when you think about it. There's no special word for hitting your finger against something, or your hip, or knee, or whatever. Maybe because you do stub your toe more often than other body parts. The only equivalent I can think of is when you hurt your elbow. There's not a specific word for the act of it, but there is a word for the part of the elbow that hurts - the funny bone. That's damn odd as well.

Can you think of any other body-part-specific pain words?

Lego-Linta

You can go to this cool site and build a little lego-you.

Short hair

Now that my short hair looks as though I cut it on purpose, and not like a cancer victim or accidental chainsaw accident, I'm sort of getting used to it, I guess.

It's way curlier than it was, and darker as well. Apparently this effect is common and lasts about a year.

The weird thing is when I meet someone who doesn't know I've had cancer. Take our roofing guy Arthur. Our roof began leaking in the wild storms last week, the only part of the roof we didn't have replaced two years ago by Arthur, so we called him. He spots me. "Oh!" he says, looking shocked and not a little disappointed. "You've cut your hair!"

Me: "Yes."

Since he doesn't like it, clearly, that's the end of the conversation. I don't volunteer the fact that it's short against my will, that I've been sick.

The same thing happened at a client's office recently. I hadn't been in since April. "Oh, you've cut your hair! It looks great."

Either way, if the person likes or doesn't like it, I feel weird not saying, it's because I had chemo. But usually I don't know the person all that well.. hence not having seen them for such a long time.. and I don't want to have the whole cancer conversation. But then it feels weird, as though I'm lying somehow.

Real life vs the Internet

This is a cute guide to the difference between real life and the internet: how to tell, and tips on how to cope.

Warning. This clip is big, and has sound, and contains rude words. So maybe not suited to play while at your desk.

Hunter S Thompson's suicide

I haven't said anything about this so far, not because it didn't touch me. But because I wasn't sure how to respond.

Hunter S Thompson, in case you don't know of him, is a famous journalist and writer. He wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and began "gonzo journalism", in which the journalist admits that s/he is irretrievably part of the reportage. It's not possible to be objective, so you may as well be open about your bias/attitude.

I have a love/hate relationship with this journalism approach. Done well it's brilliant, done badly it can become self indulgent in the extreme.

However.

HST has committed suicide. Some will find this sad, others romantic. I find it an appalling act of terror against everyone who knew him.

I had a friend who committed suicide some years ago, a cellist. He was in his 40s, and did an audition for a major orchestra, and was told, "go and practice some more, come back in a few years." He decided he was never going to make it, and he had problems in his personal life as well, so.. he hung himself. Ironically, in death he was described on the radio as "well known cellist....". I know he would have laughed at that.

It's not something I like to dwell on. It's worse than a natural death, way worse, it hurts those who are left terribly, who often feel as though the dead person "did it to them". Usually though it's more that the person couldn't go on, and it does take a certain stretch of my empathy to get myself there. I can do it though. If things were really bleak with no hope of improvement, I can see why someone might want to do it.

So my thoughts were initially with HST, why did he do it, was he ill, was just tired of living, why why why? Then I thought, he had reasons, or he wouldn't done something so extreme. I can't possibly understand what those are, and frankly I'm glad I don't, it's got to be a shit place to be.

But in the end, it was his decision and his choice, no matter what anyone's opinion is of that. My thoughts are with his friends and family, whose bleakness and pain is just kicking in, and who had no choice in the matter.

A suicide leaves a deep slice into their loved ones' hearts that never quite heals.

Ten things I've done that you probably haven't

I caught this meme in the end. I tried to resist, but.. guess my meme immune system is low.

1. At the age of 10, performed solo on the cuckoo and the ratchet in The Toy Symphony, accompanied by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

2. Worn a $1500 wig.

3. Been married to the same man for 26 years, and still in love.

4. Made a transistor radio from scratch, that actually worked.

5. Built my own telescope, also from scratch, that actually worked.

6. Read every single page of a 10 volume encylopedia.

7. As a child, caused a Minister of religion to consider abandoning his faith, by the simple expedient of asking, "how did the platypuses get from Mt Ararat to Tasmania after the flood? I mean, it's a long way, and platypuses can't survive in salt water. How did they?? The Bible says,"Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark". Went, not "were transported halfway across the planet". If you know the answer, please do let me know. Still burning to find out.

"Oh, and did Noah put two of each animal on the ark, or seven? If the Bible is supposed to be God's word, how come he's confused about something so simple?"

8. Sung Silent Night one Christmas Eve in a wobbly cherry picker 50 metres above Pitt St Mall, Sydney, with 20 other singers equally frightened out of their minds.

9. Waited up all night, with my dad, to see UFOs land in a remote mountain area of Tasmania. They were supposed to land in that place at that time, according to some UFO expert. They didn't.

10. Caught a perfect, huge crab, then threw it back into the water. (I was only a kid, I didn't know you could eat them.)

Clarion gestalt story

Back in Clarion South 2004, we wrote a group gestalt story. It takes up every stupid joke, meme and funny plot point from our stories and life at Clarion.

Claire has put it up on her site.. check it out. She's annotated it to explain all the jokes too and that's even funnier.

Don't tell me your cancer story, okay?

Everyone I meet knows someone who's had cancer. As soon as they find out what's happened to me they want to tell me the story, so I guess it's a natural instinct.

But I hate it so very much.

On Saturday, the lovely young beautician who gave me a pedicure, told me that her mother had breast cancer three years ago. She didn't get as fine a surgeon as mine. My surgeon offered me a 'sentinel node' exploration, which means they look at the lymph node closest to the tumour, or perhaps two, to see if the cancer has spread. If it has, they remove the lymph nodes, but if it hasn't, you get to keep your lymph nodes, which has significant effects on your health.

They didn't do this for the girl's mum, instead taking all of her nodes just to see. They removed 21 nodes and none had cancer. As a result, she has a completely numb left arm, rendering it not useless but a major problem. I had the same nerve cut, but it has regenerated. I think my surgeon did a better job.

Two years later.. last year... she got cancer of the cervix.

Two years.

That's the period my doctors tell me is the danger period, the period I am so freaked out about. Why would I want to know about someone who's had the recurrence?

It upsets me, it forces me to face things, it makes me scared, and I hate it. So please, I don't care how close your cancer person was to you, I don't want to know about it. I want to push it out of my mind and just live my life. Thank you.

Thorbies today

Thorbies, as regulars know, is the writing group i belong to. We met this afternoon for the first time this year and it was a cool afternoon. Several of this year's Clarionborg came, including members Emma and Nathan, but also Trevor and Ellen.

We crowned Emma, for publishing a story in Borderlands, Nathan, for getting into Ellen Datlow's Year's Best recommended list, and Chris, for getting a story into Rob Hood's Daikaiju collection.

Then all this year's Clarion survivors were feted and clapped, and a thunderstorm raged outside.

Ellen Klages and Trevor were deemed honorary Thorbies for the day, and Trevor insisted on having himself annointed by means of Chris's sword. Photos to come...

Ellen has also gotten herself a Nebula nomination for her story Basement Magic, so she scored a crown as well.

The group reviewed my plot outline for my novel, bless them (it was long, and a huge favour really). Lots of useful comments as always.

Lymphodema - don't worry

My surgeon told me - was it last week or the week before? - that I should not worry too much about my arm. He said that there are no studies showing a link between most of the things the lymphodema clinic people said were a problem, and getting lymphodema.

The things he said were proven are:

• don't let your arm get infected. Protect it against cuts, scratches, any breakage of the skin, and if you get one, disinfect immediately. I carry bethadine in my bag and use it wherever I happen to be



• on plane trips, don't use the expensive compression sleeve I bought, or the nasty compression glove. This is because the main association they can find between plane travel and lymphodema is that you keep your arms still for hours. The best thing to do is to move your arms around during the flight, especially up and down. Same sort of thing that you do to prevent DVT.

And that's it. Repetitive moments are fine, gardening is fine, just watch for scratches, carrying heavy things is fine, but not for a long time or a huge weight. Lymphatic massage is of no use, he said.

So, I will take his advice. The lymphodema nurse did in fact tell me that most of the things she recommended were just what they think is a good idea, and have no real scientific basis. Can't see the point in cluttering up my life with a huge amount of stuff for no reason.

My breast cancer story

I received a copy of Mamm magazine today in the mail, "women, cancer and community". It looks like a great read.

They have a story this issue on blogs, and have been kind enough to mention mine, so I thought it would be a good moment to include a guide to my cancer-related entries here for your convenience.

June 2004, scroll down for Diagnosis, breaking the news, biopsy, reality hits, support, positivity, getting perspective, type of cancer, operation confirmed, aack going to hospital tomorrow.

July 2004, surgery, hospital sucks, doctors and nurses, my friends rock, the low down on the big C, recovery, infection, second surgery, fear of baldness, drugs, life the universe and everything, brain fog, scars, protection pillow, getting the drain out.

August 2004, pre-chemo holiday, support group, port for chemo, back to work part time, weight loss, fear of chemo, chemo begins, zonked, creative visualisation, emergency room visit, nausea, support group visit, wigs, fear of dying, my hair chopped short, wearing a wig, nausea, health insurance.

September 2004, life the universe and everything, asking for help, sore arms, teeth, nausea, chemo going badly, new drugs, infection threatens again, dreaming of a cure, 'you look good', seeing a counsellor, have had enough chemo already, total freakout, chemo diet.

October 2004, feeling blah, chemo continues, menopause, protection from pressure at work, lymphedema, nausea, more nausea, even more nausea, last chemo.

November 2004, "is it working yet?", radiotherapy - horrible doctor, me without hair, radiotherapy begins, radiotherapy - nice doctor, tired and crabby, it's not going to be all over.

December 2004, bald now, i am 'so brave', lymphodema clinic, coffee enemas and a weird truckie, radiation hurts, stubble, and i go bareheaded, nukes really really hurt, blubbering, all finished.

January 2005, post-chemo holiday, radiation burns not healed yet, immune system diet, getting fit, being sad, breast nearly healed, unmenopaused.

Obviously not.

This is how the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone today.

"Obviously no one would want someone in any event who's a permanent Australian resident, but least of all someone who had what we now understand ... a long history of a pre-existing mental condition, to be in those circumstances."

The quote refers to the treatment that Cornelia Rau got. She is a mentally ill woman who ended up losing her identity, believing she was someone else. She's German born, but an Australian citizen. As a result, she was incarcerated at Baxter, one of our concentration camps for refugees and asylum seekers.

Not only that, she was placed in the isolation unit, where people are kept in their cells most of the day, and let out for half an hour a day, or up to four hours if the guard is feeling kind. They are not permitted contact with other inmates, the rooms are searched at any time of day or night, and the lights are always on.

Think about that.

Imagine yourself there. In a tiny room, lights on, people bursting in on you at 3am to search you and your room. No one to talk to. Nothing to do. Intense heat. For ten months. Ten.

Amanda Vanstone says, "obviously", that's no good for someone "who's a permanent Australian citizen".

I want to kick Amanda Vanstone and all the others in our system who support this view. Listen up: it's no good for any human being. I don't care what the person has done, they could be Osama Bin Laden for all I care, it's just not right to treat anyone that way. Full stop. Where's the apology for all the other people currently suffering the same treatment? Where will it end?

What, if you happen not to hold a particular passport, it's okay to treat you like dirt? Violate you? Strip you of any semblance of dignity? How does passport holding, or lack of it, affect what it's okay to do to someone??? I just don't get that.

If you think refugees and asylum seekers should not be let into Australia, I disagree with you, but respect your right to that opinion, totally. And while I don't support my government's stance on that, I live in a democracy that has voted that government in. However, even if I did agree with you about refugees, I certainly do not need then to agree that their treatment is right.

Even if you think they should all go home, treating them as criminals or prisoners of war is simply cruel. Wrong and cruel. In years to come, people will condemn this, and say, "it's how they thought at the time", in the same way they do now for all kinds of inhumane treatment in our past. But it's not. I don't. And I won't sit here and pretend I do.

I want to be part of a humane society and it grieves me immensely that I'm not.

Go to the A Just Australia site for information about what you can do to help.

Beautiful voices

To me, a beautiful voice is alluring. I love the voice of Courtney B Vance on Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I'm not especially desperate to watch the show but I often watch it just so I can hear him speak. Sadly his lines are relatively few. His voice is deep, rounded, mellifluous, slow as a summer's day. Tony is amused when I give a big happy sigh when Courtney has finished speaking. If ever this man makes a movie I will be sure to watch it no matter how bad.

I heard a man talking on his mobile recently, and my head swivelled to see, not because he was annoying, but because he had a beautiful voice and I wanted to see who owned it. Unfortunately he hung up, possibly he thought I was offended. Darn it.

He was a completely ordinary, nice enough looking man in his thirties, not at all remarkable. But to me, heavenly.

Bah humbug on Valentine's Day

I love to get flowers, choccies, and any other romantic pressies that may come my way on Valentine's Day. But I don't much care for going out to dinner.

The restaurant is full of "Romantic Couples", capital R capital C. Many have not ever gone out to a proper restaurant together before. These are awkward, looking beautiful, but trying hard to Be Romantic, smiling a little too much, the woman laughing a bit too hard at his jokes.

Then there are the long-together couples who only ever go out on special occasions, birthday anniversary valentines. They're often awkward too, wishing they had a newspaper to read, dredging up stuff to say to each other without discussing The Kids.

Everyone is working so hard to be romantic and I can't stand it. I prefer to stay in. We'll drink French champagne laced with peach liqueur, in honour of the occasion, and if we feel like being romantic, we will, and if we don't, we won't.

I like olives!

Last Wednesday I didn't like olives. And on Thursday I did. Boom, just like that. We ate out, a dish of small black olives appeared, and I ate one. Every so often I do, just to see.

And to my immense surprise, it tasted good. And so did the others I ate. I'm sure they were top quality olives and that has to have helped.

Weird though.

Carmen, and sensual potatos

We went to see the latest production of Carmen last night at the Opera House. I love this opera. I've performed several seasons of it, in both 1st and 2nd violins, but I've never seen it from the audience. I was looking forward so much to seeing it.

But it was a total let down. The first 20 seconds told me what was in store. Carmen, sung by Andrea Baker, strode out on to the stage, centre front, and as the orchestra began the overture she gave what I'm sure was meant to be a smouldering stare to the audience. Only it didn't smoulder. At all.

The production is 14 years old and is showing its age. Plus many aspects of the direction sucked. For instance, the set design meant that a good quarter of the audience would have missed a crucial duet at the end of Act 2.

And as Carmen comes out at the beginning at the back of the stage, the men are facing towards her, with their backs to the audience. Er. This means you can't hear them properly. And did I mention this is opera? That you listen to? Too tricky by half.

The whole thing had a feeling of stiffness, of trying too hard.

Carmen is all about passion and sex. Yes, it's damn hard to find a mezzo soprano with the required vocal ability (it's the mezzo role, after all), stage presence, stamina, appearance, and the x factor needed. But Andrea Baker just didn't have the x factor at all. She made the moves. Wiggle my hips. Look coquettish. Twirl dress. But it all added up to a big fat zero.

Teddy Tahu Rhodes, likewise. I was looking forward to seeing him in a major role (I liked him in Love for Three Oranges just fine). But he bombed in my opinion. His big number in Act 2, the famous Torreador song, is meant to be a cocky striding rooster-call of a song, such that Carmen swoons and is smitten instantly with lust for him.

Well it was more like a bit of a singalong in the back of the bar at 1am. He was pleasant. I ask you, Escamillo, pleasant?

And Carmen looked at him with all the lust of a woman eyeing the salad bar for lunch. Oh. Another lettuce leaf. Right.

Then the big seduction number, my favourite aria in the whole opera, was just a big fizz. This woman did not seem to be seducing a man. She wiggled hips. She strutted. She swayed. But there was more sensuality in a potato than she had. Julian Gavin as Don Jose seemed about as smitten with her as he might be with his left boot. Less.

He sounded like he had some scope left in his voice, no doubt to be used in the final Act where needed, but we left at interval so didn't experience this. For my money I'd rather see the movie with Julia Migenes, in my view the best Carmen ever. She smoulders. And she sings. And she acts. She's utterly perfect. Not a potato in sight.

Still, we had delicious cocktails afterwards at the Opera Bar. If you're from out of town, make note, it's a great thing to do even if you're not at a performance. Swing on by there around 5.30-6, grab a drink, sit outside by the water, listen to live jazz and watch the sun go down over the harbour. Beautiful.

Cool old SF mag covers

Check out the ultra cool mag covers. My favourite is Matador of Shame. That just looks all wrong written down. It should be said in a Claire-voice, all portentious with doom. MataDor of SHAME.

What is that woman doing? Thrusting her bulls horns (?) into the red rag? Que?






See more here

(This link courtesy of Cat.)

Getting my haircut tomorrow!!

This may not seem very exciting to you. But to moi it is a red letter day. I had all my beautiful long wavy hair "fall" out from chemo. I say "fall" and not just plain fall, because actually it feels like it's being yanked out piece by piece, and fall sounds so very gentle.

It started to grow back in early December, I stopped wearing my wig in late December and looked like a skinhead lesbian. Now it's grown back a little to about 3cm and looks ragged round the edges. I can go back to the lovely Pat, my genius hairdresser, and get him to tidy it for me.

He has no idea what's happened to me other than what I said back in June, "I'm having some health issues and won't be in for quite a while". It'll be interesting to see how he reacts. Back then I wasn't in a mood to discuss my cancer with him in such a public venue, but now I have survived I can do it. Anyway my extreme short cut will bring new meaning to the phrase, don't take much off!

Here's how it looked long.

Furniture as territory

I went to a cafe for lunch. Outside tables had horrid little stools, and inside tables had comfy plastic chairs. So, I took a comfy chair outside to a table. This caused gasps of horror from the waitress, and evoked comment from my lunch companion.

It's true: people have issues around moving furniture. If you stay at a rented beach house, do you find it uncomfortable to move the furniture, even though you plan to put it back exactly the same before you leave?

I have no such qualms. I reckon it'd be rude if I didn't replace the items, since their owners clearly wanted them there. But why is it such a taboo to move them? Odd.

Dragon pieces

Driving up Goulburn St past Chinatown this morning I spotted a dragon sliced into pieces. Three or four Chinese men with black tops and huge orange fluffy costumes, one carrying a dragon head, three more with various bits of orange costume. Two of them were carrying a huge drum painted with Chinese characters between them.

Ah. Chinese New Year today. Happy Year of the Rooster.

Kung hei fat choi!

Personal space & reading

I'm in a coffee shop reading a book (Best SF 21). The whole place is nearly empty, since I usually take lunch late. Six guys come in and take the table right next to mine, begin yakking their heads off. In their 50s, with the kind of face that's been around, like a suit that needs dry cleaning.

Why *right* next to mine?

I move tables pointedly so I can keep reading without getting distracted (bursts of: yeah mate, that's a good one; i dunno if he can keep this up mate; dya think we can get a bus?).

Not one of them turns a hair. Apparently, it's my problem. I'd be willing to bet none of them has read a book in ten years.

Toilet sign in the Tower of Doom

If you go into an office building for a job interview, and in the toilets you see one of those signs that read "ladies, please keep these toilets as you would like to find them", or similar: RUN.

Last week I visited what I shall term The Tower of Doom.

The Tower is a disgusting building in a faraway suburb, built probably in the 70s of rotting concrete streaked with grime and graffiti. To get in you must go the back of the building. The front is only for employees, who must swipe their security cards two or three times to be admitted.

At the back there is a car park and underground area, and a tiny entrance room about 12 feet by 5 feet. (No, don't ask me that in cm).

A dour security man is at the desk, behind a security window that would do Fort Knox proud. To get in, you must phone someone inside the building. If that person isn't at their desk no one else picks up the phone, you just get voice mail. So you must wait. There's nowhere to sit and no aircon.

The security man might offer another phone number for you, but he can't, because, he claims, he doesn't have an up to date list. (Of course there is a list on the company's intranet, but he claims not to have access to that, even though you can see from behind the window that he does).

Once someone is finally made to acknowledge your existence, he slides a book through the window. This is done the way cashier windows are usually organised, a little depression and a slidy thing so that you can't stick your gun under it.

You fill out the book and slide it back. He slides back a temporary pass and now you can operate the doors.

By now, I was feeling pretty crap, treated like that. Now you might think that this building contains secret files, money, or something like that. Nope. It's just a place where people do office work.

So, you go in and things get worse. The furnishings are tatty, nothing quite meets up at the edges. People have a harried expression, or as the person I was with put it, "a pleading look behind the eyes" as if they are trying to figure out how fast they can get out of there.

Someone's birthday is being celebrated by means of a dozen cheery red balloons affixed to various partitions, but the effect is only to emphasise the drabness of everything else.

The loos contain the dreaded sign, not once but twice, with details of exactly what one should and shouldn't do. For example, one is exhorted to place one's sanitary items in wrapping in the bin, and check it's not stuck to the lid!!! EW.

Any place where employees don't treat their loos well is a place where they don't feel well treated themselves. As I said, RUN.

Fuzziness

My brain is slowly coming back online. If you've just joined me, that's because I'm recovering from breast cancer and I had heaps of the worst kind of chemo in existence, plus a month of daily radiation.

I have days where I'm fully "on", and others where I can hardly figure out what my name is. I have sleeping problems, sometimes sleepy all day, other times can't sleep at all.

And I'm still quite emotional, my doctor says that's normal. And of course I'm still grieving for my mum as well, so...

Back at work full time now, but my boss is understanding about my need for less pressure than usual.

Better or worse in the olden days?

Some things that were worse in the old days
**All of these items need the word "mostly" or "usually" in them.
Kids had no rights. Adults could beat them if they wanted to.
Children were molested and had no one to talk to. If they did, no one believed them.
It was believed that "kids just get over it" and many people have lasting hurts because of this.
No one talked about a lot of important things.
No meant yes.
It was fine to bully or tease other kids, or exclude them.
You could treat someone as badly as you wanted to because they were different - race, sexual preference, etc. It was socially perfectly fine to do this.
Girls were not allowed to do higher maths and discouraged from sciences, woodwork and physics.
Girls were taught to shut up and play nice.
Boys were taught not to show feelings to the point where as adults they often don't know what their feelings are.
Boys were taught that men own women and to expect their wives to wait on them hand and foot.
Sex was considered shameful and any girl who liked it was automatically a town bike/slut.
Girls could only consider three careers, teaching, nursing, librarian.
Girls knew that they had to find a husband if they wanted any kind of comfortable life.
Everything had DDT on it.
Smoking was cool.
Tanning was cool.
Bubble shirts and striped leg warmers. Ugh.
It was nearly impossible for men and women to be friends, just friends.
Women were sacked for being married or wearing trousers (I've been sacked for being married twice)
Women couldn't be the boss
There was no internet

Some things that were better in the old days:
Fruit
The air quality
It was okay to climb Ayers Rock
You could, as a child, run off in the morning, not tell your parents where you were, and only come back when it was twilight
You could drop in on your friends, and they dropped in on you
Far far less traffic
There was no AIDS
All of the antibiotics worked and there were no antibiotic resistant bugs
No one discussed their sex lives on a mobile phone loudly where you can't escape
You "went somewhere" and "met people at a certain time", not "made plans to hook up some time"
Companies were loyal to their employees
Superannuation was far more generous
Universities were free, at least for a while anyway
Men were men, women were women, and little fuzzy creatures from Alpha Centauri were.. nah. Scrap that one.