if ever you need to find Jude - have a little sniff of the air for the smell of dusty book jacket - then follow the scent. The woman is surrounded by books 24/7 - it's all very late 19th century.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
One week into radiation
One week into radiation and the hair is growing stronger as the teeth grow weaker (another one chipped yesterday)... mind my eyebrows are BLIUE.
Bing (my nurse, I know - nursed by an 80's gaming sound effect) had warned me of both; not much I can do to influence either. Mind if the mouth REALLY dries, threatening the teeth, then it's time to swap spit with an android and go to 'artificial saliva' (yum)
Not much to report here, still bald, still fat, still making it unaided to the radiation sessions (walked from 14th to 72nd yesterday).. let's hope it stays thay way
Bing (my nurse, I know - nursed by an 80's gaming sound effect) had warned me of both; not much I can do to influence either. Mind if the mouth REALLY dries, threatening the teeth, then it's time to swap spit with an android and go to 'artificial saliva' (yum)
Not much to report here, still bald, still fat, still making it unaided to the radiation sessions (walked from 14th to 72nd yesterday).. let's hope it stays thay way
Friday, June 09, 2006
Ah the World Cup
the World Cup starts today - hurrah!
A chance to be misguidedly and fleetingly patriotic, jingoistic, xenophobic and ultimately disappointed.
A chance to wear 'replica' shirts of scratchy Nylon, to sing offensive songs and to openly sneer at the rest of Europe.
A chance to hang a flag without seeming American, for the middle class to behave in what they imagine to be working class fashion - all loutishness, gutteral consonants and beery homo-erotica.
A chance for the newspapers to dust off their best puns, for the TV networks to besy off their best pundits and for the supermarkets to sell off their nest Punjabi Vindaloos.
Unless of course you live in the US - where it's a chance to rediscover ESPN2 - home of International Paintballing and the World Soccer Cup
Pah!
A chance to be misguidedly and fleetingly patriotic, jingoistic, xenophobic and ultimately disappointed.
A chance to wear 'replica' shirts of scratchy Nylon, to sing offensive songs and to openly sneer at the rest of Europe.
A chance to hang a flag without seeming American, for the middle class to behave in what they imagine to be working class fashion - all loutishness, gutteral consonants and beery homo-erotica.
A chance for the newspapers to dust off their best puns, for the TV networks to besy off their best pundits and for the supermarkets to sell off their nest Punjabi Vindaloos.
Unless of course you live in the US - where it's a chance to rediscover ESPN2 - home of International Paintballing and the World Soccer Cup
Pah!
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Where's the Sun?
After a May that was all sun we're now into a wet, gray and miserable June. Weather guys keep forcasting a break two days hence, but it seems that the sun is always two days away.
This makes the schlep up to the hospital (and it is a schlep; the Upper East side is a schelp even in resident's language) all the more frustrating.
Still at least the torrential rain has stopped; it's cold though (16C) ruining my plan of 4 weeks in the sun, with the dog, during radiation.
This makes the schlep up to the hospital (and it is a schlep; the Upper East side is a schelp even in resident's language) all the more frustrating.
Still at least the torrential rain has stopped; it's cold though (16C) ruining my plan of 4 weeks in the sun, with the dog, during radiation.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
How's radiation?
"How's radiation" seems to be the question of the week. To which the flippant answer is "It's three minutes of high powered toxicity attacking your DNA" but that answrs a different question and anyway I'm not one for flippancy. I don't even like dolphins.
So - radiation is surprisingly timely (they run EARLY). It's surprisingly informal (I've already given up on the changing room in favor of stripping in the equipment room) and it's unbelievably quick (I can be in and out of that place in the time it takes Rachel Ray to whip up a merengue - I know this because the TV in reception is switched to the food network
Side effects will build up as the radiation takes hold and should include irritate sunburned skin, a sore throat, lack of saliva (there go my few remaining teeth) and possible nausea.
The secondary cancers are something that tend to come much later. Well, later.
Administration is simple. Check in with mumbles the male receptionist, settle into your book, get startled by Creeping Moses - the nurse who makes no sound until she coughs "Mr Walls?" into your ear. Up onto the table, head in the mold they made of you, on with the laser guide, a little time being slid from position 'A' to position "A.0" and then everyone leaves, the giant phone receiver hums, the stars on the ceiling glow a little brighter and you're ready for the 15 minute walk back to the subway station (that takes in what we've dubbed 'the Cancer Cafe'; a coffee shop full of worried looking parents and their bald children)
And that's it. Easy, easy, so far very easy.
It'll get harder.
So - radiation is surprisingly timely (they run EARLY). It's surprisingly informal (I've already given up on the changing room in favor of stripping in the equipment room) and it's unbelievably quick (I can be in and out of that place in the time it takes Rachel Ray to whip up a merengue - I know this because the TV in reception is switched to the food network
Side effects will build up as the radiation takes hold and should include irritate sunburned skin, a sore throat, lack of saliva (there go my few remaining teeth) and possible nausea.
The secondary cancers are something that tend to come much later. Well, later.
Administration is simple. Check in with mumbles the male receptionist, settle into your book, get startled by Creeping Moses - the nurse who makes no sound until she coughs "Mr Walls?" into your ear. Up onto the table, head in the mold they made of you, on with the laser guide, a little time being slid from position 'A' to position "A.0" and then everyone leaves, the giant phone receiver hums, the stars on the ceiling glow a little brighter and you're ready for the 15 minute walk back to the subway station (that takes in what we've dubbed 'the Cancer Cafe'; a coffee shop full of worried looking parents and their bald children)
And that's it. Easy, easy, so far very easy.
It'll get harder.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Quick planning vent
Most of the planners I work with either want to be the client (‘I wanna be the brand manager on this’) or want to hide behind the voice of a third and fourth parties (‘research says that consumers don’t want to hear that’). And both attitudes drive me mental.
So here, for those who care, are the six things that I’d demand of a department were anyone brave enough to hand one over to me.
1) Planners should be experts in advertising
They should know how it works, be able to map and model it, to diagram it and they should be perceptive enough to abandon all of those things when they see magic rather than logic
2) Planners should know what people care about
And know what they could be made to care about – and what they’re going to care about next
3) Planners should be Babelfish
Able to talk to anyone, knowledgably and at the other person’s level – and then be able to translate what they learned when they talk to the next person. There’s no point in having an idea if you can’t express it
4) Planners should have a point of view
Their own point of view, not a 3rd party point of view or a cocktail party point of view. Planners shouldn’t be afraid to start sentences with “I think…” or “I believe”
5) Planners should be masters of the hook up
They should be clued into popular culture, they should know what’s happening, who’s making it happen and how to rope those people in to help.
6) Planners should make a difference to the work
They should be judged on the quality of the work not the cleverness of the plan. A planner whose thoughts live only in powerpoint is a planner that’s adding nothing.
Okay – so it’s all very simple, obvious stuff. But simple and obvious is what’s missing from most planning departments.
So here, for those who care, are the six things that I’d demand of a department were anyone brave enough to hand one over to me.
1) Planners should be experts in advertising
They should know how it works, be able to map and model it, to diagram it and they should be perceptive enough to abandon all of those things when they see magic rather than logic
2) Planners should know what people care about
And know what they could be made to care about – and what they’re going to care about next
3) Planners should be Babelfish
Able to talk to anyone, knowledgably and at the other person’s level – and then be able to translate what they learned when they talk to the next person. There’s no point in having an idea if you can’t express it
4) Planners should have a point of view
Their own point of view, not a 3rd party point of view or a cocktail party point of view. Planners shouldn’t be afraid to start sentences with “I think…” or “I believe”
5) Planners should be masters of the hook up
They should be clued into popular culture, they should know what’s happening, who’s making it happen and how to rope those people in to help.
6) Planners should make a difference to the work
They should be judged on the quality of the work not the cleverness of the plan. A planner whose thoughts live only in powerpoint is a planner that’s adding nothing.
Okay – so it’s all very simple, obvious stuff. But simple and obvious is what’s missing from most planning departments.
Ali's birthday
after yesterday's self indulgent post I thought that I owed you a picture of the birthday girl.
I do like this new camera
I do like this new camera
Monday, June 05, 2006
Happy Birthday - again!
Another evening another birthday party – this time not too far from the house in a tiny restaurant blighted only by the dead rat on the sidewalk directly outside.
Good crowd of people. Bosnian film makers, jewelry artists, a great guy who’d tried and failed to dye his own hair and Ali – our ‘friend in New York’ who has been great at coming out to Williamsburg throughout this whole cancer malarkey (she’s also possessed of great wit with great tits to match)
Eclectic menu as well as eclectic company – our table had everything from Spiced African Chicken through to an Elvis Sandwich (fried bread, peanut butter, fried banana – not alas battered bits of The King)
It feels weird not only to be out and about again but to be amongst interesting people. More than anything I’ve missed character and cultural currency. The chance to talk issues of the day (Dutch soldiers and their failure to do their job in Bosnia; Angelina Jolie, caesarian and herpes) with people who have something to say. Sure YouTube is fun, but there’s only so much adolescent nihilism that a man should have to stomach.
Radiation treatment? So far so good. Fast, painless, efficient. Switzerland then. And like Switzerland the nasty underbelly will reveal itself at a later date.
Enough of this inane rambling. Have to put together a proper proposal for ‘Last Shot’ ahead of pitching the idea to some ‘TV execs’ and have some ideas for how Progressive Insurance could actually BE progressive in more of their products (not that anyone has asked me for the latter, but hey you call yourself Progressive and you open yourself up to suggestions)
BTW if the people responsible for the tacked on ending of ‘The Break-up’ do the all too thinkable and follow it with ‘The Make-Up’ I will do a Ronnie Biggs and up sticks to Brazil.
Good crowd of people. Bosnian film makers, jewelry artists, a great guy who’d tried and failed to dye his own hair and Ali – our ‘friend in New York’ who has been great at coming out to Williamsburg throughout this whole cancer malarkey (she’s also possessed of great wit with great tits to match)
Eclectic menu as well as eclectic company – our table had everything from Spiced African Chicken through to an Elvis Sandwich (fried bread, peanut butter, fried banana – not alas battered bits of The King)
It feels weird not only to be out and about again but to be amongst interesting people. More than anything I’ve missed character and cultural currency. The chance to talk issues of the day (Dutch soldiers and their failure to do their job in Bosnia; Angelina Jolie, caesarian and herpes) with people who have something to say. Sure YouTube is fun, but there’s only so much adolescent nihilism that a man should have to stomach.
Radiation treatment? So far so good. Fast, painless, efficient. Switzerland then. And like Switzerland the nasty underbelly will reveal itself at a later date.
Enough of this inane rambling. Have to put together a proper proposal for ‘Last Shot’ ahead of pitching the idea to some ‘TV execs’ and have some ideas for how Progressive Insurance could actually BE progressive in more of their products (not that anyone has asked me for the latter, but hey you call yourself Progressive and you open yourself up to suggestions)
BTW if the people responsible for the tacked on ending of ‘The Break-up’ do the all too thinkable and follow it with ‘The Make-Up’ I will do a Ronnie Biggs and up sticks to Brazil.
In the words of Frankie Goes To Hollywood
"Hit me with your lazer beam"
Yup; it seems that years as a miserable pleader have finally paid off... the hospital has agreed to treat me today.
It will mean much sitting around, much bad karma (as I pray for a cancellation - c'mon granny don't wake up) and too much time in a hospital 'gown' but I will get tested today and I will get zapped.
Treatment I think will be like that scene in Dr. No (was it Dr. No?) as the laser heads up between his open legs and towards his crotch
"Do you expect me to talk?"
"No Mr Bond, I expect you to die."
Hurrah!
Yup; it seems that years as a miserable pleader have finally paid off... the hospital has agreed to treat me today.
It will mean much sitting around, much bad karma (as I pray for a cancellation - c'mon granny don't wake up) and too much time in a hospital 'gown' but I will get tested today and I will get zapped.
Treatment I think will be like that scene in Dr. No (was it Dr. No?) as the laser heads up between his open legs and towards his crotch
"Do you expect me to talk?"
"No Mr Bond, I expect you to die."
Hurrah!
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Cool new features
My new camera has some very cool new features, so when I saw these women having a red themed picnic it seemed rude not to try one of them out.
Have a call in to the doctor's office tomorrow at 9.30 (I'll try to hold off until 9.45) and then a 'final test' appointment at 3pm.
Hoping that they'll buy off on one of my two options
1) Finish the treatment in June
2) Start the treatment in mid-July
But kinda resigned to that not happening - just not going to voice missing my vacation as a viable option.
We'll see if they bite - here's hoping that they do
Have a call in to the doctor's office tomorrow at 9.30 (I'll try to hold off until 9.45) and then a 'final test' appointment at 3pm.
Hoping that they'll buy off on one of my two options
1) Finish the treatment in June
2) Start the treatment in mid-July
But kinda resigned to that not happening - just not going to voice missing my vacation as a viable option.
We'll see if they bite - here's hoping that they do
We went to a party last night
We went to a party last night; it felt very strange being able to dance (not well you understand but to jig about in a breathless making fashion) and to drink (though my tolerance level is very low these days)
Actually it just felt weird being healthy amongst normal people. Radiation might dampen that for a while but only for a while... 'tis good to be alive.
Actually it just felt weird being healthy amongst normal people. Radiation might dampen that for a while but only for a while... 'tis good to be alive.
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