by Alinta Thornton

About writing, breast cancer, malignant glioblastomas and other stuff.

December 2004

Wednesday 1 December

Plot agony

I suck at plotting. I have chapter summaries, forming an outline, for most of Apulder Sweet, and in a desperate effort to avoid fixing the plot I am doing almost anything else. Last night it was playing online Scrabble. Last week, writing poetry, for god's sake.

I know I need to beef up my antagonist and pay attention to those chapters where not much happens other than world building and general lalala. However, I don't seem to have the energy. Thus, I rewrite chapter four -six times and come out with pretty much no improvement.

Okay, I know I'm sick. Perhaps when I'm feeling better I'll find the energy for this. I hope so.

Nuking count

Only 18 more nukes to go.

HOT HOT HOT

Another scorcher today, in the high 30s C. Perhaps Nalo would consider a house-swap for the summer?

Awwwwwww

This is Tony with our nephew Jamie. To you, a boring picture of a guy and a baby. To me, awwwwwww.

Going bald

Okay so I have almost no hair at all left, just the odd strand. I will post a pic up here soon so you can gawp. But also thinking that tomorrow I'll get the last few tufts shaved off. There's no point in keeping them now because they don't even look any good escaping from my weekend scarf the way they did even two weeks ago.

And anything that does grow there will be official, fresh new hair.

I got an email from one friend saying I don't look "too bad" with a short hair cut. Just what every woman wants to hear!

Ah well. Only 18 months to grow it long again.

The very second I have a quarter inch on my head I'll be ditching this wig which in this heat is unbearable. I don't care if people think I'm either gay or a skinhead or both. Maybe on the weekends I'll even ditch the scarf as well, and watch how people react to me. Should be interesting.

Hmm. Wig on ebay: wonder how much it'll fetch?

Thursday 2 December

Standing for your country

Chris and I were at the Opera Bar last night, and I noticed an English guy at the next table. Why did I know he was English? I just did.

I listened to him speak and sure enough, he was English. Then I realised it was how he was standing that did it. He was tense, his hips thrust forward a little, but shoulders neck and arms ready for action.

Australian men hold themselves more loosely, less guarded. American men are even looser as a rule, but they walk with a confidence few other nationalities have.

I am so brave

Yesterday the radiotherapy nurse said that I am so brave. I said, why? She said, you never complain about anything. In fact I do, just not to them. What's the point?

What brought this on was, she asked me how is your skin, and I said, red and sore.

However, yesterday I did break down and bawl over lunch with one of my colleagues. What brought it on was a truly unpleasant episode with my stepfather. He's refusing to speak to me, for reasons he won't disclose.

I called him, and he didn't call back. So I called again and reached him. He said hello, then without pausing he said, "I don't want to speak to you", slammed the phone down on me. When I phoned back, he slammed it again. I really had no idea what the problem was or what he thought I had supposedly done to deserve this.

I rang around and found out what the story was, too ludicrous to detail here. I think he is angry about mum's death and taking it out on me and my sister. Basically he's spreading stories about us that are just not true and profoundly distressing and hurtful to us both.

Yesterday it seemed like a very big deal, and I was distraguht. Then my doctor said, patients who are "emotionally happy", respond better to treatment. Meaning, they live longer. So try to put this out of your mind.

So I did. I decided he is just lashing out. Yes, it comes from grief, but there's really no need for this level of nastiness no matter how upset you are. I mean, we're devastated too, and not treating him this way.

It's something in his mind rather than anything real. Plus, he's very forgetful these days and most of the stuff he's talking about either didn't happen, or he's missing crucial conversations and facts.

So today I have decided not to engage with this issue, or him, until well into next year. It's self protection.

Mum would be so sorry to see this happening.She loved us, and wouldn't have wanted us to be treated this way. And she loved him, and wouldn't have wanted to see him this distressed and angry.

Me? Well I have to pull away and detach myself. I have no chocie in the matter if I want to take care of myself.

Lymphodema

I went to the lymphodema clinic today and the woman there explained to me how to prevent it. It's not much more than I already knew, except for two things.

One, I really should wear a compression sleeve on planes, even for a Sydney-Melbourne hop. And two, I should do breathing and lymphatic massage every day to stimulate lymphatic drainage, since my body can't do it very well for my arm.

The sleeve is truly awful, I look like a freak in it. It comes with an even more freaky black glove.

I hate it.

But the woman said, you may hate it, but think how much more you'd hate it if you got lymphodema and had to wear it every day.

She has a point.

Earrings!!!

As compensation, I bought six new pairs of earrings today. I found a shop that sells gorgeous dangly ones and will convert them to clipons for you on the spot.

I suddenly realised I'm going to have short hair for quite a while, and can wear earrings again. With long hair there's not a lot of point, because (especially seeing how thick mine is) you can't really see them.

In the last few days, my pre-chemo hair has fallen almost completely out, and lo, there is some brave new hair poking through, just a little, in the spot that was last week completely bald.

So.

Here are pics of how it looks now.

Bigger image

Bigger image

Oh, and please don't email me to tell me I look come hither in these photos, because I will just laugh.

Saturday 11 December

Coffee enemas

I know that may seem like an odd title, but bear with me here. I will show the relevance, your Honour.

On Monday most of my mum's stuff arrived. This is the stuff she left to me in her will. Of which more later.

We sent it via Pack & send, who did indeed pack and send everything. Nothing was broken, and everything arrived, but they were a little slack in terms of organisation, quoting etc.

Nick*, the truck driver [*not his real name] showed up at the time he promised to (yay!). He knew I had cancer, it came up because of the timing conversations. The first thing he wanted to tell me was that his wife had died three years ago from breast cancer.

Now, if anyone tells you that, you know that in fact they died of their secondary cancer/s. In her case, bone, brain and kidney cancers. Breast cancer in and of itself doesn't kill you, it's only when it spreads (metastises) that it does.

Anyway. Nick explained that it went into her knees first, then her legs and hips, brain and finally kidney, and it took three years for her to die. He gave up his job in the RAAF to become a truck driver, so that he could "look after his wife". By this he meant buy her stuff - not private health care, but stuff that she wanted to make her time easier.

Of course, it also meant he spent five out of seven days on the road. Leaving her alone.

He commented that the support group she was in was her lifeline, and I found myself thinking of course it was, with him away. Talk about your denial and not-dealing strategies.

Then he said, "If I had my time over I'd do things differently. You can never get that time back. Tell your husband."

I didn't have the heart to tell him my husband was already there for me.

It was awful listening to it all. He wanted to compare his wife's illness with mine. She had a 3.8cm tumour, mine was 3.5cm (about the same); she had 3 cancerous nodes, I had 8 (mine was three times worse); she wasn't oestrogen positive, I am (and this is a very good thing).

After a couple of hours he had to come back with a packet of paintings he'd forgetten to unload for me. He stood in the hallway and said, out of the blue "Coffee enemas". The moment stretched in a nightmarish fashion.

I said, "what?"

"Coffee enemas", he said. "My wife swore by 'em". I forebore from pointing out that since she'd died, it wasn't exactly a glowing testimonial.

Geez.

Anyway on Thursday, my doctor (Dr Regular) explained that the highest risk for me of metastising is in the next two years.

So, great, if I'm going to die of this, I should know fairly soon. Better make sure 2005 is the best year of my life.

Damn Nick. Wish he had kept his gob shut. Actually I'm sick of hearing everyone's cancer stories, everyone seems to have one.

On the way home from the hospital on Thursday I had to pull the car over and have a big cry and call my counsellor. Fear overcame me, and I panicked.

He advised me to let myself feel the fear, and let it pass. So, I did feel it. I'm trying to get the "pass" part down now.

Mum's stuff

The will hasn't yet been executed, but while we were in Adelaide for the end, my stepfather said he wanted us to take everything then and there. It suited me because it meant I didn't have to come back, but it was very difficult doing it only a day after mum had died.

Still, it was great to have it arrive. As well as property and shares, mum left us all her artwork, personal effects and object d'art and this is what we took.

She also left me her huon pine dining table, on a 600-year old oak base, and a Lalique bowl made in the 20s or possibly 30s. The table was bought by my dad in the 70s and I have fond memories of us all sitting around it. Plus which, it's very beautiful. It's in the dining room and it looks as though it was built for this house.

I don't have any suitable place to display the bowl, or indeed any of the other glassware she left me. There are five green drinking glasses with grapes on them, two bright blue hand made wine glasses, and huge crystal salad bowl, Limoge cups (that I gave her), etc.

Plus I have a number of her paintings, mostly they're things that she bought over the years, but also a few that she'd been given or that her parents had painted/drawn.

We left behind a few of her paintings for Michael, my stepfather even though she'd left them to us, for him to remember her by.

It's lovely having her things around the house. One of my favourites is her silk sarong that she bought in Hamilton Island when we were on holiday together. It still smells faintly of her, and I have vivid memories of her in it. In fact the last time I saw her well she was wearing it.

The other important item is the painting of the Coorong by an artist named Watts. She bought it in the 90s, and rang me to tell me how she'd splurged on it, and what did I think. I told her it was fine, if she loved it. She'd always wanted to go there.

A few years later we did go there together and it was a wonderful week, we mainly hung out together but also we visited the beach at the Coorong, something she'd always wanted to do.

She'd always told me that she wanted me to have that, and for my sister to have a painting of a car she bought another time, and since Lesley and I have utterly different tastes, and we wouldn't argue about it in a million years, she didn't bother listing them in the will.

And as it turned out, there was no problem, we didn't argue at all. In fact we had no difficulties splitting up her things between us, which was great.

So now that painting is hanging in our bedroom and I can see it every evening and every morning. It's peaceful and beautiful and it reminds me of that lovely holiday we had.

Radiation

My breast is getting very tender indeed. Radiation burns, yum. The skin is peeling in a couple of places and it's red, sore and hurting.

When I go in, someone usually tells me that I won't feel anything. I reckon these people have been told this but they haven't been in the machine themselves.

I can feel it. It's a tingling, slightly burning not very pleasant feeling. It gets my pip when they tell me you can't feel it. "I can feel it", I say. "There's nothing to feel", they respond.

Right. You try it then.

GI Jane

OK so today I decided to try wandering about with no wig and no scarf. Yesterday I had the remnants of my old hair clipped so it's all neat and buzz cut looking.

I didn't, as far as I could tell, attract any attention, though I was wandering about in the Inner West, where lots of people look odd.

I was tempted to buy some cool stuff at the markets, a black studded wristband with matching collar. I reckon I'd look pretty intimidating with the hair cut and those, and it would be a hoot to see what happened.

But I didn't bother.

I'm not sure yet if I'll wear this cut to work.

Writing

I'm struggling with the plot of Apulder Sweet still. Writing the outline has been a fantastic exercise even if not finished. I can see the lack of antagonist action, and see how little my heroine takes point of view, while the hero gets much more air time. She needs more involvement. This has happened because originally he was the sole point of view character, and I haven't yet built her up enough.

There are in fact three main characters but when I began (back when it was a short story!!!!) I didn't know that and the gaps are showing.

I don't have much energy for it but I want to keep going anyway, doggedly doing a little each time I sit down to work. Eventually I'll get it done.

Would really like to finish it in 2005, in case I do get sick again and there's no more opportunity.

Bleah.

Monday 13 December

TaDAAAAA

On Saturday I took a big decision: to leave my wig off and wear no scarf. My hair, bless it, has always been fast growing in the short time since I took the pic above it's grown so that it covers my head completely.

So now, instead of "cancer patient", it looks more GI Jane, or Annie Lennox.

Walking around the Glebe markets was hilarious on Saturday. There was a huge gap around me.. loads of personal space. Most people thinking, omg, here comes a tough chick better give her room.

Hmm. Could get used to it.

At Thorbies yesterday, I got mixed reactions. Some peple said, cool. Nathan said, he saw me from the front door and didn't recognise me at first, and thought, "who's that tough chick?"

Zara, followed by most of the others, decided I looked just like Servalan from Blake's 7. While my sweet SF friends may enthusiastically agree, I doubt most people would spring to that conclusion.

This is Servalan, in case you've forgotten. (As you can see, her hair is WAY longer than mine. It won't be this long for at least a month or two.) I'm quite pleased with the comparison since she's quite a babe.

Anyway I decided to hell with it, and wore it to work today. Most people said, wow, it looks great, and wanted to stroke my hair. (For the record, it's growing darker than before and extremely soft). One poor guy didn't know what to say.. so I guess he doesn't like it.

It feels way more comfortable in Sydney's humid warmth. The wig is hot and tight. Plus this also feels more honest.

Now, what do I do with a used, very expensive wig? Ebay, here I come!

Nukes (ewww warning)

8 more nukes to go. My boob is really really sore. The area under my arm that rubs against the top of it is red, the skin is thin and a little has peeled off. Ewww. Ouch.

Using one's power for evil

For some reason I was tooling around on wikipedia and came across a list of logical fallacies. It's well worth a tour, unless you're already a philosopher.

One favourite of mine is the availability heuristic. This is where something is fresh in your mind, either because it's been in the media, or someone close to you has had something happen. We form a judgment based on memory, not on complete data. We use this to judge how often or how likely something is to happen.

"For example, most people think that dying from a shark attack is more likely than dying from injuries sustained from falling airplane parts, yet the opposite is true by a factor of 30. Perhaps this is because sharks are inherently terrifying or because shark attacks receive more media coverage. Many people seem to fear plane crashes, yet a dark fate is much more likely to befall you in an automobile accident on the way to the airport."

On the other hand, it's just as stupid to believe that sharks won't kill you. Sometimes, they do.

This led me to read the Changing Minds web site. Scary people. They have listed there ways to inflence people's decisions based on all the easy logical fallacies people routinely make.

The availability heuristic can be misused like this. Long before you ask someone to make a decision, make sure that they have remembered instances that will support the decision you want.

"Make those things which you want the person to use for decision-making (perhaps at a later date) vivid and very easy to bring to mind, for example with repetition and visual language. Make those things that you do not want them to use vague, abstract, complex or uncomfortable."

The sheer number of ways in which our beliefs and decisions can be influenced by irrational or faulty thought processes is dead scary.

Tuesday 14 December

Warming the cockles

A couple of Ursula LeGuin stories today. First is her pithy comment on the new movie of Wizard of Earthsea. (Scroll down a bit to see it). The movie was made without her co-operation, so that doesn't bode well.

While reviewing this, I came across this totally heartwarming page she has put up for the de-blubbification of new writers.

A rejection slip for her all time classic, The Left Hand of Darkness. If that doesn't cheer you up, nothing will.

Wednesday 15 December

How urgent is urgent?

Driving to work today I spotted a colourful van in front of me bearing the slogan: "Urgent condom delivery".

So. You're about to, er, go for it and realise, uh oh, out of condoms. Whaddya do? Call for an urgent condom delivery? A van that takes, what, half an hour or whatever to show up at your door?

It's been puzzling me all day.

Sleep!!

Last night I slept a full 7 hours, the night before 8. This may not seem like much to you but it's the first time in weeks and weeks.

I'm so tired, even with the sleep. It's not a "tired" kind of tired, it's more a drained kind.

Thursday 16 December

Anniversary

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary. Yeah, I know I look too young to have been married that long.. but I was married at just 6. No? Would you believe, 10?

Oh all right. I was 18.

So, I've been married my entire adult life, which is a source of continual amazement to me, and also, amusingly, to others. Like the guy who sold me Tony's anniversary present (a silver heart-shaped keyring with a diamond set in it).

He looked at me like I was some kind of circus exhibit. That's amazing, he said. You never hear of that these days. His tone was as if I'd said I climbed Mt Everest or walked across the Simpson desert.

Come to think of it, he has a point <grin>.

Anyway, this morning Tony gave me the most divine diamond eternity ring, five rows of little diamonds, all sparkly like.

He gets many many husband points for that.

Tonight, we're going to Tony Bilson's new restaurant for dinner, and tomorrow, we're staying at a swish hotel for the night, complete with champagne and a lie in.

He gets even more husband points for that. Oh yeah, I remember why I'm still married to him now. He's so lovely.

Sadly I had to take the ring in to be resized, and won't get it back until next week, so I can't flash it around until then. Dammit.

Aurealis award!!!

Not an hour after the whole diamond ring over breakfast excitement, I received an email to let me know I'm shortlisted for an Aurealis Award. It's for Kathleen, Furnished with Bees, a horror story published in December 2003's Dark Animus 5 (too late for last year's awards).

This is also the story that got me into Clarion, so I guess it must be an OK story.

My first instinct was to ring mum and tell her, and it made me so sad that I couldn't.

I have little expectation of winning, considering the competition, but am completely thrilled to get on the list. It means I can go to the Ellen Datlow workshop the day after the Aurealis party.

Maybe one day I'll be so cool I can just go, "yeah?". Instead, I'm jumping up and down and grabbing lapels demanding to tell them the news. Hehe.

Hey, something good had to happen this year.

Saturday 18 December

Anniversary report

Bilson's is my new favourite restaurant. Of course, at those prices, I will not be visiting much. Is favourite the one you go to the most, or the one you cherish the most?

We had the degustation menu, all 10 courses, though the waiter did hint that 7 might be more prudent. I'm glad, despite how full we were, that we went for 10. Otherwise we would have missed out on the best dish of the night, something described as "coddled egg".

I've never really wondered how one coddles an egg. Talk to it softly? Gently stroke its rounded shell? Snerk.

However it's achieved, it was a total marvel of cooking heaven. A bit of egg yolk at the bottom of the eggshell, and at the top some kind of nirvana sauce, I know not what. On the side, toasted brioche soldiers and trout with dill and some kind of cloudnine dressing.

Each flavour balanced perfectly. Each texture contrasting perfectly. The whole a complete and perfect mixture of tastes, while retaining the individual flavours of each. This is in fact Tony Bilson's signature effect, even though I believe he doesn't cook here himself, every Bilson restaurant I've eaten at has had this high-impact result.

Did I mention it was perfect? Sheesh, a writer out of superlatives.

The rest of the meal was also divine:

A Fine Vegetable Consommé with Basil and Spring Vegetables (except I'm pretty sure ours was in fact chicken consommé)

Chaud-froid of Coddled Egg, Tartare of Smoked Ocean Trout and Grilled Brioche (drool)

White Asparagus with Girolles and Spring Herbs, Tomato Vinaigrette

Grilled Scallops with Cêpes and a Tart of Mousse of Foie Gras

Risotto of Spelt with Yabbie Tails (however, the chef apparently threw this out that particular night because it wasn't up to snuff, and we had lobster instead. Pity, LOL)

Roast Spatchcock Boned and Stuffed with Wild Mushrooms Served on a Bed of Lentils (Lentils, I hate 'em.. the only thing in the entire meal I didn't like)

Fillet of Angus Beef with a Millefeuille of White Turnip and Potato, Truffle Butter (I've never eaten as nice a piece of beef as that, totally melt in the mouth)

Selection of Ripened Local and Imported Cheese with Fresh and Dried Fruits

Our Seasonal Sorbets with Caramelised Fruits (we had pineapple, raspberry and blood orange)

Raspberry Soufflé, Chocolate Sorbet, Ginger Pannacotta

Unlike some other degustations I've had, including Tetsuya's and Becasse, this meal managed to create surprise and interest with each course. Nothing blended together. As far as I could tell, base stocks were not reused, or if they were they were given a fresh slant for each dish.

The whole was more complete than the sum of its parts.. yeah I know I'm raving, but truly this was a masterpiece of cooking.

I will only describe one more course, the final one, in the interests of relative brevity.

It was a raspberry souffle, utterly perfect, smooth and light with a little teeny crust, as should be, very sweet and tasting of fresh raspberries. In a little dish on the side was a ginger pannacotta, smooth as can be, the tang of which balanced the sweet souffle.

Just when I was thinking, uhoh, this is too sweet, even with the ginger, I took a taste of the third dish which contained a dark chocolate sorbet. It held not a skerrick of sweetness, only darkest bitterest purest cocoa. It delivered such a kick to the mouth (pow!) you wanted more pure sweetness again.

Absolutely inspired.

The wines, chosen for us by the sommelier, were heavenly as well, the service completely impeccable - things arrived when we wanted them to, no one stood and chatted, they were polite, knowledgeable and friendly, we only had to ask once for anything, and no one was snooty or overfamiliar.

Best of all there was carpet and thick curtaining so I could actually hear what Tony was saying.

So what it if the bill was horrendous? You only celebrate 25 years of marriage once. And if you do it twice, well I'd be at least 68, and I think I won't worry about that right now.

We spent the whole night chatting and flirting and holding hands. At one point Tony said, we're the couple everyone else is jealous of. I guess it is amazing that we're still that way after so long together.

Of course like anyone, we have times where we argue intensely, and even times where we can't stand each other (these pass quickly). In the main, though, Tony and I are best friends who still fancy each other, and you can't ask for more than that.

The trick? Here's what I usually say when I'm asked. First, pick the right person. Then, be nice to them.

Seriously though, we agreed the other night that a key thing is that we haven't tried to make each other be something we're not, and have encouraged each other to grow and change, to do what we want to do in life.

Considering how young we both were when we got together (17 and 24), that was very important, but it reamins so even now.

Last night we spent at the Observatory Hotel and that was lovely too, in an old fashioned kinda way. A beautifully comfortable room and great service. They even put out little evening slippers on a linen mat, and the makings of a cup of cocoa for you.

All in all, we had a fab anniversary. Now, back to real life! Cheese on toast for dinner tonight, I think.

Aurealis excitement

Meanwhile, I've been grabbing anyone who'll listen and telling them I'm shortlisted for an Aurealis Award. Man, it's exciting. I know I said this in an earlier post, but I had to say it again.

Woohoo!

Very cool that so many Clarion borg got onto the short lists as well - four apart from me: Chris Barnes, Paul Haines, Cat Sparks and Brendan Duffy. Paul distinguished himself with two shortlisted stories and a highly commended.

Plus stories from borg magazines: Sarah Endacott's Orb, Cat Sparks' Agog and James Cain's Dark Animus.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Boob

My boob is so unbelievably sore. The radiation burns have turned into raw welts, peeling, red and painful. Whole slabs of skin on the upper breast, nipple and the area under the breast are just coming off, revealing raw skin, and where that isn't happening it's red and itchy and painful, even with gel and dressings and painkillers.

And I have to go back and let them burn me three more times.

The nurse told me yesterday that I'm one of the worst cases she's ever seen.

So, I had one of the worst reactions the doctor had ever seen to chemo, and now the worst for radiotherapy as well. Grrr.

Tuesday 21 December

Blubbering

I thought tomorrow was my last nuking, but to my horror Jeff, the head radiotherapy guy, had miscounted and it's actually two more. When he told me I burst into tears. I'd been counting on finishing up and had been telling myself, two more, two more, then one more, one more, and now it was back to two. Just unbearable.

He put his hand on my back (bare, because I had one of those hospital gowns on at the time), and said, we can see you twice tomorrow, then you'll finish tomorrow.

I accepted, but it wasn't the point. I have two more to go, not one. It's abuse.. having such burned skin and going in and letting them burn me some more.

Then I felt silly, crying about something like that. Then I felt guilty for feeling silly. Then I was embarrassed. Finally I was just miserable all over.

Then I thought, get over yourself woman, it's just one more, what does it really matter?

See, I'm just an emotional mess. I do hope this stops soon, I'm not usually like this.

Borginess

Went to dinner tonight with Chris, Wendy and Jamie (Zara's partner). Z herself was unable to make it, I believe due to some overzealous Xmassing on her part, the lucky thing.

Anyway we ate piles of fairly good Chinese (lovely fresh dumplings, crispy red bean pancake), for just $13 each. It was a pretty ordinary looking restaurant, but it had clean toilets with actual soap in them, and nearly all the specials had English translations, two major pluses in my book.

We fantasised about Clarionborgs sweeping the Aurealis awards, in particular me in horror and Chris in Young Adult. How cool would that be.

Flash!

I got my ring back from the jewellers today and have been flashing it about all evening in that Elizabeth Taylor, I-just-got-my-Burton-diamond kinda way.

Wednesday 22 December

Yeeow

Even the radiotherapy people, who see a lot of radiation burns, were looking at me this morning, tutting and saying, gawd, that looks sore.

Yep.

2004 round up

I thought I'd sum up the main events of the year, in roughly chronological order

Yep, it's been very eventful year. I am wishing for 2005 to be very very boring, with the most interesting thing happening being my hair growing back. Or, OK, it would be fine if I sold my novel.

Thursday 30 December

All finished

So I've finished the radiotherapy now. My breast is still sore and raw, but it's already healing and I think in a few days will be healed over. Nice pink skin is forming. It's an amazing process to watch. The body is totally freaking amazing.

The day it finished, Tony and I broke open a bottle of French champagne and toasted each other's fortitude.

Such a relief I can't tell you. Next week I start on the hormones that I have to take for five years, but that seems trivial compared to what I've been through.

Now, the job of focussing on the long term, and imagining myself as a dotty old lady of 80.

Plot happiness!!!

Tony read my plot the other day and spent an hour or so talking it over with me, making suggestions, and listening as I talked myself into dredging up from my subconscious what I knew all along. He's so cool.

Clearly, Liom (the antagonist) had to antag some more, and once I started talking it through it became obvious what the antag action should be.

I spent a solid 8 hours at the keyboard without even a loo break, so engrossed was I, and I think that's actually what it needed. Both the 8 hours, and a brain unclouded by radiotherapy or chemo treatments.

Anyway, woohoo! Now I can finally stop writing in teensy little circles and go forwards once again. So easy to write when you know what you're going to write.

Heaves sigh of relief.

Exterminate

You are going to be SO jealous what I got for Xmas. It's a remote controlled Dalek. Tony scoured the country for the first ones available here after having played with one at a BBC Xmas do he went to.

He's such a great present chooser.

Off north

We're off to Palm Cove in Far North Queensland again, for some R&R. Glad we didn't choose Phuket, which we might easily have done.

Tsunami funds

We donated to the relief fund today. I like Oxfam/Community Aid Abroad, because they have a high ratio of donations going to actual relief vs admin (70/30). Plus, they do cool projects which involve local communities rather than just handing out dough. I donate to them monthly anyway, so they're my charity of choice.

Here's how.

Friday 31 December

Off to the sunshine

Yeah, it's sunny in Sydney, and in Far North Queensland it's not very, being the rainy season. But it's warm, and intermittently sunny, which is dandy, and more importantly it's away and on holiday with nowhere to be, no treatments, no doctors, no working, just relaxing.

We got a hire car to the airport, Tony ordered it and it's about twice the cost of a taxi. But damn it's good. The driver drives smoothly without swearing or looping loopyloos around anyone, stops at red lights and knows the way. The car is comfy and clean and great Latin music is playing. Yeah, could so get used to it, though budget wise, not so much.

Arrived at the Qantas club insanely early in order to nab the business class upgrade. There aren't any when you call up, but on the day, like two hours before the flight, they have two up for grabs. This in my view is ridiculous, but that's Qantas for you. So, we get there early, nab the seats, at 5000 points each, and spend a relaxing time in the club nibbling on the buffet and drinking coffee, reading the papers. All good.

We arrived at the Sebel Reef House mid afternoon, and by the evening were rather tired. However we bravely partook of the New Year's Eve dinner we'd booked, which consisted of a ludicrous amount of food.

<begin food porn> Entree was a crab and avocado tart with salmon roe, main was a HUGE lobster, seriously three the times the size of any I've ever been served previously, with a delicious sauce on it and a few token vegies. Dessert was really superflous by then but we forced ourselves to eat a little of the delicious meringue layered with cream and pasionfruit, sort of a tart-shaped Pavlova only way fresher than you normally get. </end food porn>

End of the year shenanigans

We didn't do any. We were two tired little teddy bears, feeling very middle aged as we snuck into bed at 10.30, bravely reminding ourselves this was really 11.30 Sydney time. But still.