it seems something happened out there wherever my laloca database is stored, and content back to early ‘08 got zapped. luckily i last backed up in late june ‘09, and posting for a variety of reasons has been light since then.

google’s cache to the rescue, which has some of the missing posts between mid-feb and last june. stuff will slowly be coming back, but alas, some things may be permanently lost in the ether.

james (a.k.a. “host”) has a touch more info on how it all went *poof* – but in the end, he’s as clueless as i am.

wordpress generally does a good job of filtering spam comments, but every now and then a few slip through. my most recent ones have been… interesting.

Lilly has not wanted, or rather I should say, she has not given in to my grabbing hands for a while now. ,
i can’t help but wonder what’s been going on between the speaker and Lilly. they should talk more. the speaker’s inability to distinguish between Lilly’s lack of desire (no means no, bucko) and lack of action is troubling. Lilly needs to get out of the relationship. or perhaps the speaker needs to stop listening to so much depeche mode. Lilly, are you ok?

And of course a brand-spankin’ new pair of shoes from Maitreya. ,
shoes are an awkward implement for spanking, but far be it from me to question another’s proclivities. especially when the buddha is selling the shoes.

They need to hitch a parasitic ride with whites to stand a chance! ,
i’m so geared to public health that i got caught up with the notion of parasites and only a moment later noticed the racism in the sentence. nice. (by the way, the most recent issue of medical consultant has an article on emerging tropical diseases, including dengue and leishmeniasis. it should really be “worsening tropical diseases,” as they’ve both been around for a long time. but still, fascinating stuff.)

This is an appalling state of affairs. ,
my spammers have apparently carved a window into the last year of my life.

sigh
no, that’s just me.

on that note, i should go bring in the trash cans. this last week’s snow led to a pileup of recycling and the stinkier sort of rubbish. life marches on, doesn’t it?

in the next few months, i am going to have a crash course in the work done by reproductive endocrinologists.

funny, i never thought that this would be my life. but miscarriage #3 seems to be concluded, so we’ll see what happens. i may or may not blog about this, or anything else much. the urge to stick my virtual head in the virtual sand is strong.

(and it just struck me that when i created the category “women’s reproductive health” i never thought i’d be talking about me…)

i love me some medicoliterary geek humor.

i suppose, since i have the post editor open and all, that i should take this moment to apologize for the dearth of posts in recent months. i know i’m letting my loyal reading audience of 3 down, and i’m sorry. it’s just a bit difficult to tread water and type at the same time.

1535: henry viii declares himself head of the english church.
1780: continental congress establishes court of appeals.
1879: harper’s weekly runs first cartoon portraying donkey as the symbol of the democratic party.
1934: babe ruth signs contract for $35k.

and most important of all:

1944: my dad was born.

happy birthday, dad!

when the monstrosity next door went up two years ago, i thought the construction had driven out the bunnies.

today’s snowfall suggests i was wrong. yay wabbits!

i need to eat dinner. and some dessert. and maybe then a bit more food. but before midnight – because tomorrow morning’s my surgery.

bah.

g accompanied me to the pre-op appointments on tuesday, wherein i had my vitals taken, my pregnancy status ascertained, the informed consent forms presented and signed (it’s surgery; it’s on an extremity; YOU COULD STILL DIE. yes, thank you.), the anaesthesia type determined (sedation with a block; general if that doesn’t take – i have a history of waking up during procedures), and the post-surgery boot and crutches acquired and fitted.

a few words on those last two. i get most of my health care at walter reed, so i’m used to seeing the casualties of the war on terror. amputees walking (or rolling) the halls, burned soldiers awaiting new skin grafts, and so on. but the rigid boot is provided by the prosthetics department, and the crutches by physical therapy. so at the end of my multitude of appointments yesterday, i felt like i was invading their territory: there i was, a (mostly) healthy woman, standing in a line of wheelchairs in prosthetics. then, a physical therapist ran me through the basics of walking with crutches, and getting myself up and down stairs. around me, soldiers were trying to learn how to walk again, or stretch, or just balance themselves.

i know i should have this surgery – with each passing day, my foot hurts more, the bones continue to erode. but it seems almost frivolous to have the procedure done when i’m surrounded by men and women with real injury.

i had signed up for NaBloPoMo with the best of intentions. a post a day for a month? i could handle that. even with some light holiday travel, i could post from my phone. i’m not working right now, so what better way to exercise my photography and writing muscles?

who was i kidding. this is 2009. if there’s been a consistent theme this year, it’s been this: make a plan, have it fucked with. it’s amazing we even got to mexico (the asshattery of acapulco notwithstanding), all things considered.

so what happened to my plans this month? well, i learned two new medical terms, of course. (i hate learning new medical terms. “fetal bradycardia” was the first one of the year, and it’s been a constant suck since then.) these are the new two:

giant cell tumor of the tendon sheath; and
pigmented villonodular synovitis

there’s a school of thought that they’re really the same thing, just in different sites. from a treatment point of view, it doesn’t matter which one it is. neither is malignant; they’re both benign aggressive soft tissue tumors.

and i have one or the other in my right foot. it’s about the size of a golf ball. it wasn’t always so big, and only recently has it begun to cause any pain. by now, though, it has enveloped the two peroneus tendons and eaten up part of the cuboid bone (the x-ray and MRI look amazingly like a mouse has been at it). because of this, it needs to be removed before it causes major permanent structural damage. it needs to be removed NOW, because i’m still trying to get knocked up, and i’m not about to undergo general anaesthesia while newly preggers – again (we saw how well that worked out back in april). or, for that matter, hugely preggers (i know i’m getting ahead of myself, but i’m still hopeful). and since it’s an aggressive tumor, if it’s not removed, it’s going to keep growing, getting more painful, and doing more damage to my dainty (okay, size 9 – but it’s long and elegant at the moment) foot. even with the tumor removed, there’s a 45% chance it will grow back. grmpf. the upshot is that the week after thanksgiving (and two days before my birthday, no less – those plans certainly got screwed too), i’m going back under the knife.

that’s right. i’m headed for four surgeries in oh-nine. one for each quarter. yay me.

so i’ve been too grumpy to blog daily, and for the last week i’ve been gimpy due to pain and swelling following an exuberant core biopsy that angrified the tumor and the foot, which cut in on photography, and my plans to start working out again, and my plans to look for a job.

and there you go. the universe is mocking me. doing a damn good job of it, too.

photos from the dawn monument stroll. fake polaroid dry transfer technique on scanned paper bag. mixed results. ww2 monument is my least-disliked one.

and textures, and states of decay.
oh, and snuffy.