The best-laid plans...

I had this goal of writing up a usage post today, possibly on the subjunctive (which I think to most people sounds like a terrible eye condition), but my shoulders are on fire from this awkward computer setup at home, and I just don't have the strength. I would go get a massage, except I found out my contracting agency didn't pay me for my last week at the Evil Empire, and that my manager never got my time sheet to approve, and that it went to two guys whom I've never heard of who couldn't be bothered to ask, "Hmm, I wonder if this person needs the approval and why I'm getting this, perhaps they may not get paid if I ignore it..." And it'll be a couple weeks before the new owners pay us, since we became employees just after their pay cycle. Yippee!

But I am done with the Mag 7 vid. I just decided that last night. Even though feochadn did indeed make frowny face (I do not like being so lame that she has to make frowny face, because then I fear she will never want to vid with me again) and says there's something bothering her she can't put her finger on (and that it's draggy), I made some tweaks to it last night and am gonna call fork time. Because the tweaks ended up causing me something akin to the old VCR problem of cascade damage -- all the timing went pearshaped after the tweaks and I couldn't get it back right the way I wanted it, so I had to fuck and fuck and fuck with it till I was just fried. I know, I know, time code is my friend. But it's not in a lot of ways -- I just don't respond to numbers. I edit by feeling. I can try to match the exact length of the clip I replace, but if I have to cut instead, then I start getting into "feeling" territory and everything goes to hell. I think it's paced better in the draggy spots, but it's all out of whack in my head-space now. I don't have time to figure out how to make it better since the deadline approacheth, and the truth is, it's never going to be as good as most of the vids there will be anyway, so I just have to accept that it's my little cowboys in love vid and be done with it. With all the cool things other people can do, this just doesn't stack up, but that's okay. It's like the cartoon I have on my refrigerator: The Little Engine That Could, But Was Too Self-Realized to Have to Prove It. The train is looking up the hill, and he's saying, "I think I can, but if I can't, that's cool too."

Question: Do any of the F&F people going to Escapade want to get together and do a dinner or something, a la the dinner the SG fans often do? I may not be the best person to ask this since I seem to be persona non grata these days, but I know kadymae's got a panel up on the list, and there's enough of us going, I think, that maybe we could figure out a place to have a dinner gathering. If people are inclined, anyway. Just a thought, anyway.

Dear Mr. Fantasy, play us a tune

Something to make us all feel better...

I called my sister tonight as I was leaving my dad's new apartment. She told me that I needed to not leave, but to go back upstairs to tell him that the colonoscopy she had Wednesday showed she has small tumors in her pelvis and colon and that the biopsy showed they are cancerous. So I sat on the couch by the elevator having this horrible conversation with her as all the sweet elderly people came by trying to discern why I was sitting there with my head in my hands, crying. Then I went upstairs and sobbed on my dad's chest in the doorway, which is something we do not do in my family: no crying, no touching.

She has to have surgery again. Possibly a colostomy. They are going to do a new type of chemo where they pump heated chemicals into the cavity during surgery and swish 'em around, then later in the hospital through a direct port. I don't know if she can survive this. When I saw her a few weeks ago, she was a blasted out shell of a human being. She was never strong or healthy to begin with, very skinny, and there is nothing left of her. She is miserable and physically in agony all the time (I won't go into the gross details). She won't be able to work and now will probably lose the job they were holding for her and she's not sure how much longer her disability will last.

And worse, I know from experience what this means. My mom at least got a year in between her final chemo and the cancer coming back. My sister's cancer returning while she's actually in chemo means she is not going to get better, and she will die. She didn't even get a fucking month. She knows this, and she is really wondering whether it wouldn't just be better to go to Australia and Europe and come home and die. While I don't want to hear her say that, I can't blame her. I don't think I can handle losing another person I love to this fucking illness, I can't handle losing my twin sister. And I don't know what to do.

Who was it in mythology who was chained to a rock and had his liver pecked out by an eagle through eternity? Prometheus, right? I feel like Prometheus, only it's my heart and my guts.

Why isn't destroyed a mood?