Little help?

Any Seattle area readers have an extra office I can use? We are going to be shooting a PSA for a contest sponsored by Fred Hutch for their End Colon Cancer Now program and I need a location. It takes place in a doctor's office so an exam room would be great, but an office with a desk would work well, too. If you know of anything that might work, please add a comment and I will get you more details and we can see if it will work. Thanks!

UPDATE: We got it. Thanks!

Travel Pics

In the process of unpacking in the new home, I came across a bunch of old unlabeled floppy discs. I had to bring them into work in order to see what was on them. Turns out they are a whole mess of digital photos from my trip to New Zealand in 2000. The digital camera I was using was old even for the time, so the resolution on these is not very good, plus I am not a very good photographer, but here are some samples.

I still have to check my journal on some of these because I do not remember all the details, like which range this is.


This was on an overnight boat trip. I do not remember the name of the bay but it was on the South Island.


Likewise, I do not remember the name of the glacier but I do remember that I got stuck at one point.


Lucky shot.


The last day of a three day hike. Day 2 was 6 + hours, more than 5 of them above the tree line in a pouring rain.


The northern most tip of the country.


In case you get lost.


Yes, this was an actual street sign.

Shutting down

So I have not been posting much recently. And I have not been doing much creatively recently. Took me a while to figure it out, but it comes down to shutting down. Creativity generates strong emotions. I have not been wanting to feel strong emotions recently. The infertility stuff is still bringing me down and I have not wanted to feel the full weight of it. So the defense mechanism kicks in, feelings get walled off and creativity goes right out the window. I am getting a better handle on it. And there is reason for hope on the infertility front. So hopefully, I am going to be revving up again, because I am getting kind of bored without any creative outlet.

4 years ago

4 years ago today an amazing woman did an amazing thing: she married me. Amidst the whirl and the confusion of the day; amidst the press of family and old friends and people I had never laid eyes on before that day; amidst all the emotions that seemed like they would overwhelm me at any moment, one thought kept running over and over and over again. "I am so blessed."


Over the course of the past 4 years, amidst the mundane and the struggles and the conflicts and the heartaches, that thought will reappear at least once every day. She will laugh at some corny one liner I toss off, or she will reach out and take my hand, or she will be laying into me during a fight, or she will be crying softly into my shoulder, or she will just smile at me, and the thought will hit me as strong as it did 4 years ago. "I am so blessed."



And every now and then, less often then I used to, I will wonder that this amazing woman did this amazing thing. I will shake my head at her foolish choice to spend the rest of her life with me, to raise a family with me, to love me. And the thought is there again. "I am so blessed."

Happy Anniversary, Tiger. I love you.

BFF

An 82 year old woman starts blogging so she can stay in touch with her best friend of 60 years. And she is a damn funny writer, too.

Torturing Democracy

Torturing Democracy is a documentary film made for PBS. PBS decided not to air it until the day after Bush left office. Given the subject, the chosen air date raised a few suspicions. It is now letting member stations air it if and when they choose. (The Seattle PBS station has completely wussed out, but is trying to save face by airing the documentary at 11pm the day before the election and then the Saturday after.)

Forgive me for asking such a basic question, but isn't the point of reporting to give us the facts so we can make informed decisions? Shouldn't this be the kind of information we get before an election? When did that turn into a bad thing? This is like the New York Times sitting on the story of Bush's illegal wiretaps until a year after the election. Isn't that the kind of thing we needed to know before we re-elected him? That he is actively breaking the law? And shouldn't we have a full picture of the current administration's actions before we elect a new one?

Fortunately, you can at least view the documentary online here. And you can check that same site to see when it is airing in your area. Here is a clip.



I imagine this is going to be very difficult to watch, but it is vital that we get this thing seen far and wide. We have to know what we did (yes, we; we are all responsible for this) so that we can a) stop it and b) prevent it from happening again.

Quick Update

I had an appointment with a urologist yesterday to discuss my low numbers. For a good 24 hours before the appointment I was in a pretty dark head space, certain that he was going to tell me I could never have kids and starting to wonder if the cause was due to some major health issue. Well the good news is that neither of those are true.

The short version is the drop in morphology, while not usual is not uncommon either. A six point drop, while steep, can happen from stress or other factors. He said a retest would probably show another fluctuation. Is the low morphology hurting our chances? Most likely. Is it the single reason we cannot conceive? Probably not. I think his exact words were "don't hang your hat on this one number." The bad news is that they do not really know what causes low morphology (aside from a couple of physical ailments which I do not have); it could have been as far back as the pneumonia I suffered when I was two or three. And there is no particular treatment.

So, what next? I have an ultrasound scheduled this morning (the doc did find a small nodule, most likely nothing for either health or fertility but we are checking it anyway), and Trish is making us an appointment with her Ob Gyn to discuss Intra Uterine Insemination. The doc said our chances with that technique are lowered because of my numbers but he deferred to the Ob who would perform the procedure to see if it was worth our while.

We came out of the appointment with two different reactions. I was greatly relieved to hear that the number can fluctuate and that this is not necessarily the end of the road for us having our own child. Trish was greatly frustrated that we still have no hard answers as to why we have not conceived and what we should do next. (A frustration I share, by the by, but we talked it out and she feels better about it. I am sure she will describe her feelings in more detail on her own blog.) All in all, I feel pretty good this morning.

Oh, and I will continue the posts with Mike's e-mail very shortly.