Lana

Everyone who reads this blog regularly knows that my wife, Lana, was diagnosed with cancer this past March. She went through chemo and radiation over the summer and it was certainly the worst thing that either of us had ever been through. Weight loss, hair loss, vomiting, weakness, full body rash, and a hundred other symptoms that made minute by minute living miserable for her. Much of the time she couldn’t even sleep to escape it.


There were many days when I could barely get out of bed myself, and I can only imagine how hard it was for her. Actually, I’m pretty sure I can’t imagine it. Many times she said that she just couldn’t take it, and yet she did. Day after day.

The treatments finished several weeks ago and she had begun to feel quite a bit better and was able to eat and sleep again. But we still had to get the full body scan to tell us the final results. Well, she got that scan on Monday and late on Tuesday she got the call with the results. She’s clear of the cancer. We both wept a little bit at that news. Talk about Thanksgiving!

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The World According to Detail

Outside my window this morning, a Chickadee perches, worrying at a sunflower seed to get it open. I see his little black cap and the white eyeliner he wears. A cardinal, dressed in angry red, lands on the same branch. The Chickadee wisely hops to another.

Lana comes in and points out a female Indigo Bunting in the yard. She isn't brightly colored but if she is here the blue bedecked males may not be far behind.  I see some of our resident doves on the ground near her, in a patch that is bare of grass where we spread seed every other day.

The leaves on the trees are still summer green here.  Mostly. I can see a few brown ones scattered throughout, and at places in the woods I see red and yellow leaves on some of the bushes. We will have a fall, though it will be a brief one. You wouldn't want to blink.

There is much to be thankful for this day. This morning I have a few minutes to think, and it is a joy. And it is our 5th anniversary. Lana and I have a five-year-old, you might say. I'm looking out on the same backyard scene we saw that October day 5 years ago. We were married on our own deck. And this whole last week Lana has been feeling so much better. That, too, is such a relief.

I hope your day is going as well as mine.

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Lana Updates

The last two weeks were nearly our lowest point, even worse than the week we spent evacuated from our home and living in hotel rooms because of Hurricane Isaac. Lana’s radiation sessions had ended, but the radiation keeps working after that. Her chemo sessions were over too, but she was so dehydrated and low on potassium for various reasons that we were going every two or three days to get her fluid infusions, which generally lasted four or more hours. She was sick constantly, often spitting up bile every 15 to 20 minutes. She wasn’t eating because she couldn’t swallow, and everything either tasted foul to her, or had no taste whatsoever. She drank a lot of fluids but couldn’t even hold those down half the time. Her voice was barely a whisper.

Because I was back full time at school, she was generally sleeping on the couch, partially so that she wouldn’t wake me up every few minutes when she got up. I still heard her, though. And each time she was sick it drove daggers in me. Neither of us was getting much sleep, and I could tell that Lana just constantly felt like hell. Her normally bright and expressive eyes were so sad that I’m sure my own eyes reflected the same.

When you go through weeks with no joy, you begin to wonder if there’ll ever be joy again, or even just some peace of mind. I begged for peace of mind. There was none to be had.

Lana was so beaten down last week that they ended up doing fluid infusions on both Thursday and Friday.  But by the weekend we began to see some rays of light through the darkness. The difficulty in swallowing eased. Her chemo rash finally cleared up. Most importantly, she started to ‘feel’ a little bit better, and she began to eat again, little bites of things at first, but then a bit more.  She told me how ‘good’ orange juice and Sprite was, and it brought a smile to my face and my heart. How long had it been since anything tasted good to her?  Months!

Yesterday, for the first time since this hell began, she went out and took a few photos of our neighborhood, and this morning she was up early and went to the Flatwoods park near our house and took more photos. For a woman who had simply stopped having the energy for such things, this felt like a major turning point to me.  Life is coming back. The bleakness is resolving a bit. Even as we move into the world’s autumn, it feels like Lana and I are reaching for spring.

We return to the doctor on October 15^th and at that point we will schedule her next full body scan. We are in something of a holding pattern until then.  But, in the meantime, I’m sitting on our deck to write this, the first time I’ve spent more than a minute on the deck since summer began. The air is cool. I see a Chickadee cracking seeds. I see Cardinals at the feeders. For the first time in a long time, there is a hint of a smile in my heart.

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Season of Change

A strange end of summer. We had our faculty meetings, got through registration, had one day of classes, and then Hurricane Isaac came in and did a slowwww fade over southern Louisiana, dumping tons of rain and causing Xavier to cancel school until this coming Tuesday.  We're basically starting from scratch because there'll be a new registration period, and there were so few students on our regular first day of classes that no one really covered a lot of material. I had to send out revised syllabi to everyone from a hotel room in Byram, Mississippi where Lana and I rode out the storm. I would probably have stuck it out at home but Lana was very concerned about the heat if the electricity went out, and that was enough to convince us to leave.

We did lose electricity. I don't know how many days, but we threw out a couple of hundred dollars worth of food this morning that had spoiled or was beginning to. We spent four days in Byram, then came back to New Orleans to another hotel for a day and a half. I drove out to the house on Saturday to find that the electricity was back on so I fetched Lana and we were happy to be home. She slept well for the first time since we'd left.

We were pretty lucky. The house did not take any water and no trees were down on our property. Our next door neighbors were not so lucky. The patriarch got blasted in the head by a tree that came down on their house and he had to be evacuated and have his scalp stapled. They also lost a car. Lana's car had water in the floorboards, but only on the driver's side. We'd parked it in the highest spot in our yard and that turned out to be a very good thing. The car started fine.

I spent a lot of Saturday and today cleaning up and trying to get the water out of Lana's floorboards. I'm also worried about her because she just can't eat. She's been living on a liquid diet for a couple of weeks now, and not even any protein drinks, just ginger ale and occasionally some tea. She was drinking milk but has given that up. She's getting her energy from putting sugar in her drinks. I'm sure that part of the problem now is the side effects of the meds she's being given. She's also almost given up talking since it hurts her throat to do so and her voice is so raspy it's hard to understand.

Anyway, I was able to visit some blogs today and probably will tomorrow. But then it'll be back to school so things will be haphazard. We'll have a lot of catching up to do.

Updates

Lana's 2nd chemo treatment is tomorrow.  Her first seems to have worked wonders on the cancer site, which has shrunk dramatically.  The doctor told us today that he wanted to start radiation therapy in about 2 weeks and, hopefully, that will knock this thing out.  The radiation treatment will be a major pain in the ass, with her needing to go five days a week for treatment, for six weeks.  The treatments themselves will be short but it's a  little less than a 2 hour round trip for us.  But if that is going to do it then it's a tiny price to pay.

Skyrim: A Player's Perspective

A couple of summers ago I bought myself an X-Box.  A student of mine actually gave me my first game for it, called Doom.  I'd played earlier versions of Doom on other systems and loved it.  I played this one and loved it too.  I also played a Halo version that came with my game system, and tried a racing game.  Halo was OK, thought not up to Doom quality, and the racing game left me cold.  Then I discovered Red Dead Redemption, a western role-playing game, and I liked it as much as Doom.  It took me longer to finish it because it was much more complex, and I had long stretches where I didn't play at all.

Then Lana brought home Skyrim, which is a fantasy role-playing game.  Lana was a Dungeon Master for a Dungeons and Dragons game in Canada and was interested in perhaps playing Skyrim herself.  It's the same kind of set up in a video game.  We each set up characters and began to play the first day.  Lana didn't really like the fact that when things happen in the game you often get vibrations shooting through the handset.  She decided to watch me play a while and enjoyed that.  And I was hooked.  I've spent many hours playing already.

The game is incredibly complex, far more so than Red Dead Redemption.  There are many more weapons that can be used, and a huge world to explore.  You can take one of three basic routes, warrior, mage, or thief, although you end up combining all of them to some extent.  You also can have followers and own homes.  You can learn smithing and alchemy and magic.  The open endedness is extraordinary. By now I'm carrying a range of weapons that I enchanted myself, and many different kinds of potions to be used for specific tasks. I've fought many dragons, as well as mages, pirates, walking corpses, shades, bandits, and demigods, not to mention sabertooth cats, cave bears, wolves, and giant crabs and spiders. 

I have to say, this is the most engrossing video game I've ever played, although it doesn't have the moment to moment intensity of Doom.  In Doom you are always pretty much on the verge of being attacked.  There are peaceful moments in Skyrim.  I've found I really enjoy the Smithing aspects.  Maybe I was a frustrated blacksmith in another life.

And Lana is enjoying the game vicariously through me.  She watches when I end up going through some tough dungeon and she has saved my bacon many a time with her knowledge of the whole role-playing game concept.  She catches traps I miss, locates things I can't find, and in emergencies, goes online to find information that I can't discover on my own.  If I ever beat the game, which seems a long way off, it'll be a team effort.

Harmland and other Updates

The writing has been slow but at least I'm doing some.  My planned collection, "Harmland," is coming along. It's almost completed in content and I've pretty much got the cover issues resolved.  Probably it will go up in June.  Yesterday I put in several hours of work and managed to finish three book reviews that I've promised to The Dark Man Journal.  I'll give those a final look through today and email them off. It will be good to have some stuff going out instead of having more things pile up on my desk/computer.

Lana and I had planned a trip to Yellowstone right about now, but had to cancel it because of her chemo.  Although I enjoy such trips, I'm enough of a homebody that I'm not really going to feel that bad.  And, Lana's chemo seems to be working at present. The swollen node in her neck has decreased in size and that's a good thing.

Off to give those reviews a final read through.  Then we need to do some grocery shopping since we're about out of food in the house.  I wonder if I should have a shower before I leave the house?  If you hear about any strange wild animal sightings in Abita Springs, Louisiana on May 29 you'll know I decided against the shower!

First Chemo, and a some vague thoughts on writing

Well, Lana had her first chemo treatment yesterday.  It was a long day, from about 8:20 to 2:00 in the chair with infusions of various medications running into her body.  She handled it like a trooper.  We took along my laptop and she was even able to get online with it and do a little facebooking as a distraction.  She had some weird feelings in her body later but so far not a lot of problems. I understand the worst often hits after a couple of times.  She also has to go back today for a half hour for another infusion of some med to counteract the nausea effects of the first meds. 

I actually did some 'thinking' about writing yesterday evening, for the first time in quite a while.  Mostly I was thinking about the cover to Harmland, and deciding I needed to add a subtitle to make sure folks knew it was short stories rather than a novel.  Also, in the first version I posted, a couple of folks thought the "eyes" down in the left hand corner were headlights, so I wondered about adding another pair of eyes, or two, to dispel that possibility.  I also enlarged the font size of my name and the title, and moved the title in a bit, which several people suggested. Anyway, I've copied the new mock-up below.  It's still not completed, of course, but let me know if you see problems. I'm not really happy with the subtitle of "stories," but haven't come up with anything else yet.

Much News: Even Some About Writing

We left the house a little after 8:00 this morning and got back a little before 7:00 in the evening. Lana had an appointment with another doctor about her cancer and they ended up doing another needle biopsy. Before they could do that, though, I had to run to a couple of other hospitals to pick up some of the scans she's already had. It made for a nice little 200 mile or so round trip, but the news was generally encouraging in that we are being told the cancer cells appear to be encapsulated, which is a good sign. We celebrated, if that is the right word, with dinner at Red Lobster before coming home.

A couple of nice things happened in the blogosphere today too that I want to mention. Over at Adventures Fantastic, Keith has a very nice review of "Harvest of War." He picked up on some of the elements I was particularly happy with in the story. Thanks, Keith. I appreciate it.

Then, out of the blue, Jess, over at Praise, Prayers and Observations did a post called "C is for Charles." I'm pretty humbled by that, and very appreciative. Thanks for the kind words, Jess.

Lastly, Harvest of War is now FREE for Amazon Kindle. This should run for about four more days so if you have any interest in the story, or think you might at some point in the future, now is the time to get it. Since the story is dedicated to my niece, Tammy Kalb, who died of brain cancer only a few days ago, I wanted to make sure the piece was free at some point so her family could download it if they wanted to.

Thanks again to Keith and Jess, and also to Scott, Tom, and Randy, who also did reviews of "Harvest of War." I'm lucky to have all of you as friends, and everyone else in the blogosphere who has been so supportive of me.
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Lana

This is the hardest post I've ever had to write on the blog. Many of you already know, from Facebook, that Lana has been diagnosed with cancer. It's associated with the lymph gland in her throat but we don't know anything else at the moment. We are trying to schedule doctor's appointments now.

I'm actually pretty angry at the local doctors she's been seeing about this issue. She reported to a doctor almost two years ago about a swollen lymph gland. They kept assuring her everything was normal. Well, it turns out, not so much. And now they seem to be giving her a run-around even about setting up an appointment. She is looking tonight for alternative sources of care, and I'm going to make sure to go with her when she gets an appointment.

The past few years have been some of the happiest of my life, and we are both hoping for many more. But life has changed irrevocably for both of us. I guess the law of life is change. I would have liked to go on just like we've been for at least another 20 years. But mostly you don't get what you wish for.

I wish I had something more profound to say, but my mind is moving at glacial speed right now. I've become largely an automaton. I expect to be that way for a good while. I have to keep working so we'll have money and insurance, but I guess it's a good thing I've been doing this teaching thing for a long time and can do much of what I do on autopilot.

I don't plan to stop blogging. In this modern world, the people I blog with have become part of my social support network. We now all have good friends who we've never met. I will be blogging less. I'll probably cut down to one or two posts a week, which I've been kind of doing anyway during the school year, and I won't be commenting as much on other blogs. I will miss that.

I know you will, but please send us your best wishes and prayers. And thanks for being there.
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Lana is in for Surgery

Lana is going in this morning (Dec. 21) for surgery on her shoulder, for a torn rotator cuff. I will try and post later once she's out, but won't be visiting blogs on my regular rounds today.

UPDATE: It's 12:45 now and Lana is HOME, and asleep. She came through everything OK. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes.



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I'm Back!

Well, I'm back, although I'll be digging out from under emails and snail mail for a good while. I had 935 posts backed up on blogger and decided I didn't have the strength so I had to mark them all as read. I'll start visiting blogs again today. It'll take a bit to get back in the swing of things.

If you're wondering about my "hiatus," Lana and I had a vacation, something we haven't had in quite a long time. We took a road trip through Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. We saw dinosaur footprints, petrified wood, painted deserts, meteor craters, giant caves, small canyons and giant ones, sand dunes and dust devils, tumbleweeds and massive human-made artifacts both old and new, and lots of varied wildlife. Lana took a couple of thousand pictures so you will be seeing some of those here as I start posting occasional details about the trip. I honestly didn't post that we were having the trip in the first place because these days you can't be too careful about who might be paying attention on the internet. We didn't want to come home to an emptied house.

Despite the fun of the trip, I am most glad to be home. One thing good that happened while I was gone was that the book Dreams in the Fire was published. I have a story in it called "A Gathering of Ravens." This is a charity anthology, with fiction and poetry inspired by the works of Robert E. Howard. The proceeds go to the Cross Plains, Texas group called "Project Pride," which consists of some of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. Project Pride maintains the Robert E. Howard house and museum in Cross Plains. There are plenty of professional writers in the anthology, as well as some new voices. All authors are associated in some way with Howard fandom. If you're fan of Howard or just a fan of good fantasy and adventure stories, this collection might be for you. It's available at Lulu. I've posted the cover below.

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My Talented Lana

Today's post is dedicated to my talented wife, Lana, whose photography skills are lately being recognized all over the place. On Saturday night she won first place in photography for her "Foggy Morning" over at the Lacombe Art Guild Spring show. Her "Grebe and Grasses" photo, which I personally love, got honorable mention. You can check out her post about the contest and see the winning entries at her blog.

To make things better, Lana's winning entry, "Foggy Morning," was taken almost outside our front door. Gotta love that.

Lana already picked up another first place award for photography at another art show earlier this year, and her photos were in high demand at a recent art market in Madisonville down here. These days, with technology, many people can take good photos with the digital cameras available, but there's still something about the eye of the artist that adds to the quality of photos and turns them from the mundane into an art form.

Quite often as we are out on our nature walks, Lana and I will see the same physical scene, but her eye catches patterns of light and shadow that I never see, or she will become entranced with the geometric lines found among growing plants or in natural arrangements of stone. Often, with wildlife, there will be only a second available for the special shot, the one that raises the level of the scene to art, and she somehow manages to capture it. I stand in awe. I hope you'll check out her blog.
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Renaissance Fair Weekend

Lana and I went to the local Renaissance Fair yesterday, and the weather was gorgeous. The Fair is held outside Hammond, Louisiana, out in the woods. We attended the jousting and the “Birds of Prey” demonstration. Lana got some great bird photos and put some up over at her blog. We also watched a few of the comedy shows and browsed the shops. Other than food and drinks, we only bought one thing this year, a wind driven item for our deck. I admired the leather tankards but at 95 bucks a piece I decided to pass. I already have a drinking horn from a previous year.

Last year they didn’t hold the jousting on the day we went because it had rained so much the field was a lake of mud. I was glad to see it this year, and, besides being hilarious, our knight won! Well, his name was “Victor” after all.

The birds of prey demonstration was awesome, as it has been every time I’ve seen it. I even ran into a few old friends, including Stephan, who looked the part of a wandering Celt. Lana and I did not really dress up, although I wore my leather hat and the long coat you see me sporting in my profile pic. I felt a bit like a time traveller from the 1880s. I did admire the costumes though, including swordsmen and travelling minstrels and a host of either elves or Vulcans. It’s the ears, you know. And I always pick up interesting tidbits of renaissance lore, including this year a lesson in the types of siege weapons used in medieval times.

If you’ve never been to a Ren Fair, then get ye olde self to the next one you hear about. They’re well worth the tickets and the trip. Eat, Drink and be Merry. For tomorrow we return to the real world.
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Book Titles

As I’ve said before on this blog and elsewhere, I love good titles. I know I’m in a minority, but a good title on a book is far more likely to earn the work a second look by me than is a good cover. If the cover is interesting I may look at it and no further. But if the title is good I’ll always open the book to have a look inside.

As far as my own longer works go, Writing in Psychology was a natural in nonfiction but Write With Fire was tough to come up with. I spent close to a week trying out and discarding different titles on that book, but in the end I’m pretty happy with the one I chose.

With fiction, the Taleran books were pretty easy to title. I wanted a format that was in keeping with common practice in Sword and Planet fiction, such as Warlord of Mars or A Sword for Kregen. Cold in the Light seemed a natural title for a horror thriller, and Bitter Steel is a title for a heroic fantasy collection that I’ve had in my mind since graduate school. My vampire haiku chapbook was harder. I wanted something to evoke the sense of the vampire, and also suggest a certain eroticism. I ended up choosing Wanting the Mouth of Lover, which was a title I’d already used years before on a vampire short story. My image today is the cover of Wanting the Mouth of a Lover by the way, which was drawn by the Lovely Lana.

Now I’m struggling with a title again. And this one, too, is going to be for a collection of vampire material, in this case short stories. My original choice for a title was Holocaust in Rosary, which is the title of one poem in the collection. I like that title a lot but I’m worried that it might be a bit misleading. Here’s part of my problem. Although there will be some pretty nasty vampires in the collection, the majority of the stories feature more of the romantic/erotic kind of vampire made popular by writers like Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton. These are the kinds of vampires that were popular and selling when I first started writing vampire fiction in the 1990s. “Holocaust” seems to suggest a bit more bloodthirstiness than will be evident in the book, although “Rosary” certainly seems to soften the edge a bit.

A second issue, and one I’d like some feedback on, is that I believe this is the first book of mine that could be more popular with women than with men. Now, I hope I don’t get blasted for being sexist. I know plenty of women who like hardcore horror fiction and who read sword and sorcery and hard boiled noir fiction. However, I still think the readership for books like the Talera novels is more likely to be male, while I know a lot more females who read Rice and Hamilton. I hope my collection will appeal to both genders, but the core of the material seems closer, to me, to the kind of fiction that is more popular among women.

That being said, I have to wonder whether “Holocaust in Rosary” is the kind of title that might appeal to women, or if I should try something different. Here are some possibilities that I’ve been thinking of. Anyone have a preference?

HOLOCAUST IN ROSARY
MIDNIGHT IN ROSARY
BLOOD IN ROSARY
MIDNIGHT IN CRIMSON
MIDNIGHT IN RED
MOUTH TORN WITH SORROW

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Imagination

I just read Stephen King’s introduction to Nightmares & Dreamscapes and he had something to say about imagination that really resonated with me. He was talking about his childhood, and here are his words:

“I knew even then, you see, that there were people in the world—-too many of them actually—-whose imaginative senses were either numb or completely deadened, and who lived in a mental state akin to color-blindness. I always felt sorry for them, never dreaming (at last then) that many of these unimaginative types either pitied me or held me in contempt…”

I wasn’t quite as observant as King when I was a kid. It never occurred to me then that anyone could lack imagination. My own imagination kept me company 24 hours a day. Every moment was magic. The sky filled itself with battleships and pirate galleons; the woods were populated with living shadows, both human and inhuman. Even at night my imagination never slept. There were nightmares sometimes, but always my dreams were vivid, intense, otherworldly. I couldn’t understand why others laughed at such “fancies.” Didn’t they have the same experiences?

What I did know, though, was that I was laughed at, pitied, and held in contempt by many when I shared the thoughts and ideas that excited me. I was told many times that I read too much, that I needed to get my head out of the clouds, that I needed to pay attention to the ground instead of the sky, that I was wasting my life away daydreaming. When I was little, it hurt. I began to develop an inferiority complex. When everyone is telling you that you’re going about life all wrong, you often begin to believe them. Fortunately, I realized in time that they were the ones who were doing it all wrong.

I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I’d given in to the criticisms. I may not be a great success by any stretch of the ‘imagination,’ but I never have to suffer from boredom. And I often think that I’ve actually lived many lives instead of just the one. I’ve lived in the Old West, lived on other planets. I’ve known heroes and villains, monstrous aliens and gentle ones. I’ve explored across time. All of that inside a couple of pounds of spongy pinkish matter.

When Josh was little I actively tried to cultivate his imagination. Yes, it meant he had a few bad dreams. But I hope he’ll realize over time what a true gift a good imagination is. I think he does. Whenever a child's imagination is stifled, the human race comes a little closer to extinction.

Now I think I’m going to go daydream. The sky is blue, the woods are dark. And there are worlds within worlds.

Art copywrite (c) The incomparable Lana Gramlich, whose imagination I greatly admire.
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Updates and Reviews

Lana is improving steadily but my stepfather is still in the hospital and is struggling. Please continue to send him good thoughts. Our steak dinner with Josh and his girlfriend Heidi went off very well, though, and we had a great day.

I ended up cutting the preface for the anthology down by about 50 words and I think it’s a lot better. I also rearranged the story order in the book a bit because by putting the six Thal Kyrin stories in chronological order I would have had a relatively weaker story up first. I know you don’t want that in an anthology. I’m on the final read through now.

I just finished reading The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King. Often, I find King’s endings relatively weak and the rest of his stories pretty compelling. This was the reverse. The ending was quite strong but the path to get there was slow, slow, slow. This was one of King’s shorter books, only 254 pages in paperback, but I felt he really had ideas for a novella at most. I think cutting out a hundred pages toward the front and middle would have made this one sing. I haven’t much enjoyed the last couple of books I’ve read by King, but I so loved works like Misery, The Mist, and The Cell that I keep giving him chances. I know he can do it. That’s the thing.


I also finished Voices from the Dark by Gary William Crawford. This is a poetry collection. Most of the poetry is pretty dark, but I’m not sure I’d call this a “genre” collection. The cover certainly suggests that, but isn’t totally accurate. Crawford’s work really crosses all genres and ventures well into the mainstream. The book is subtitled “Selected Poems: 1979-2009” and is kind of a “best of.” I’ve read a fair number of the poems from the collection before, and have reviewed other collections by Crawford here on the blog; his works are regularly nominated for the Stoker Awards. Gary’s poetry is the kind that demands rereading anyway, though, so I didn’t mind revisiting some old favorites. There’s a lot going on in these pieces. If you haven’t tried any Crawford before, this would be a great introduction to his work. Highly recommended.
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Health Updates and Star Trek

Well, Lana is feeling a bit better, although she still has plenty of pain. She’s doing some passive exercises on her arm to keep the range of motion up. Unfortunately, I just got a call from my brother this morning to tell me that my step-father is in intensive care after a heart attack. We’ve been so worried about mom, and Ray has been a rock. But rocks crack, too, I guess. Two other family members are facing serious health issues as well. It’s been a hard couple of months for the family. Our world will change dramatically in the next few months.

But I didn’t start this blog to talk primarily about personal issues. I started it to talk about writing and reading, etc., and right now I need the distraction. Last night, before I got the latest bad news, Lana and I finally got around to watching the new Star Trek movie. I really enjoyed it. Watched it twice, in fact. I thought the characterizations were pretty spot on. The new Kirk, Christopher Pine, was the most different from the original character, but I really liked the character as he was envisioned. He’s a little harder edged maybe.

The writing was crisp and the overall story was excellent, even though I’ve not always been a fan of time travel stories. You can see that the writers and director paid close attention to the things that made Wrath of Khan such a great movie, and they riffed off of that pretty hard. I didn’t mind in the least.

I had wondered how I’d feel about the alternate universe storyline, but in retrospect I think it was an excellent as well as necessary choice. Should we call this series, Star Trek AU (for alternate universe)? It sets up dramatic future opportunities for a completely altered Federation, and I like the characters enough to want to see more. In fact, I thought the choices for the characters were truly inspired and they played off each other very well. And, the nice touches, like having the “red-shirt” get it on the space drop, were appreciated.

Of course, I could mention a few quibbles. I wasn’t enamored of the relationship between Uhuru and Spock. I can see that they are setting things up for Spock to be a much more emotional character in this series, and that may weaken future storylines. I’m also not sure about Scotty’s “sidekick.” Not sure what they’re going to do with that. The ship itself is also much “busier” on the inside, and that detracts a bit for me from the visuals, although it is probably realistic. These don’t really detract from my overall enjoyment of the story, though. The new Star Trek was a rousing good adventure and I highly recommend it.

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Christmas Break Begins

I finished my grading and turned them in Friday. Then I went to bed and slept for over ten hours Friday night. Saturday I took it pretty easy, although I did some reading on the anthology. Later I watched Terminator: Salvation. I thought it was decent, better than Terminator 3 but not as good as the first two movies.

Today, I dug in on the anthology, reading through the whole thing and making some minor changes here and there. Tomorrow is thinking time. I’ll make the final decision on the order of the stories. After that, a week of intense reading and revising should follow before it’s done. I will be doing a short preface and I believe I’m going to need a few very short intros for individual stories. I need to explain just a bit about the Thal Kyrin tales, and about the humorous pieces. I’m looking forward to really focusing on that work.

In other news, the New Orleans Saints are 13 and 0. They have led the NFL in scoring for the past two years. In fact, they have two of the three highest scoring seasons in NFL history. They have set numerous records this year, and not only team records but NFL records. I never thought I’d be able to say these things about the New Orleans Saints. Never! Ever! You know, I really like rooting for a winning team.

Finally, send some good thoughts our way in the next few days. Lana will be having surgery on her shoulder on Wednesday. I probably won’t be posting for a few days but will let everyone know as soon as I get a chance as to how she’s doing.
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For Lana

If I die tomorrow
I’ll call your name
From the dirt

I’ll sing this song
In the white;
In the smoke

And you’ll know
The last word I whispered
Love

The last name
I called
Yours

If I die tomorrow