Spank the Bad Blogger, but She's Back and Boogieing!

I'm a terrible, terrible blogger, I know! I left y'all in the lurch. I have a post partially written, but it's a complicated one that's about a very sensitive subject. I want to make sure I say what I mean in the most precise way possible. However, seeing as I've been totally distracted of late, I haven't trusted myself to do the topic justice, so rather than writing about the other things going on in my life, I didn't write anything at all. I promise, though, to those that are waiting for my blog about abortion, I have not forgotten. Quite possibly just post this will kick my lazy butt into gear on that one. I need to get back in the habit of writing again.

So, what has been going on? Well, as my regular readers are aware, I've been working on +The Kovacs Literary Perspective for a few months, doing the website, having a contest, etc. Well, we announced our contest winner a little over a month ago - Lee Bullen, who wrote the novel Beset that was based on his personal experiences with his son being diagnosed as autistic and being in the midst of a divorce, all while in the midst of the global economic crisis. He literally felt beset by everything that was happening in his life, and thankfully chose to share the experience through his novel. We had some other really great entries, but this one stood out as a clear winner.

Lee won a 15-minute promotional vodcast interview, and so we've been recording the interview. Outside of that, we've been testing the various programs for viability for doing worldwide interviews. Skype is fast fading from favour with us, so we needed another option. We finally discovered another video chat program that gave us everything we needed in one tiny package. Having never done serious editing work with video files, however, I was dealing with an intensive, self-taught crash course. I'd mucked about with them before, so I knew I'd be okay with it, but getting down to the finer details was rapidly becoming a necessity.

The end result of playing in the muddy world of muxing (yes, that's a word), turned out to be pretty darn great, though, if I do say so myself. Admittedly, I had to have the material to work with, and the heart of the whole video is the interview itself which was really, really good. +Steve Kovacs did an amazing job, as usual, but then he's a professional with a lot of experience interviewing people. You should really watch the interview with Lee Bullen. available in both widescreen or in standard format. For future reference, though, you might want to just subscribe to our YouTube channel and make things easier on yourself. It looks like we've got another interview coming up very soon, so we'll be letting you know all about that.

I've been having a lot of fun with all this, I have to say. As much work as it's been, I've been learning a lot, and I'm always at my happiest when I'm in the midst of challenging jobs. I've managed to do some things that were really cool, and I had no idea they were even possible. I'm going to be doing a lot of mud-playing in my near future, me thinks!

On top of the satisfaction of a job well done, (or at least I'm going to pat myself on the back for it anyway,) is the happiness I've been given with a successful visit to a new family doctor today. I was so leery about this one. I'd read great reviews about her, and I'd read terrible ones, so I had no idea what to expect when I went into her office. However, even the building was a surprise. It was huge, clean, up-to-date, and had every facility imaginable under one roof for a primary caregiver. It seems to be a pretty comprehensive medical care centre, so that made me happy. Then her nurse was really good. She came in to do a preliminary interview with me, and we chatted about a mutual health issue once we'd gone through the necessary stuff. I was feeling a lot better by the time the doctor came in, and then I felt even better once we started to talk.

What was so great about her? Well, she listened to me, for one thing. She didn't write me off as 'just the patient' who couldn't possibly know anything valuable. She asked about the pain reliever I was currently taking (Tylenol Ones), and what my previous doctor had me on. I think she liked me in part because I specifically told her I did not want to be put back on Percocet, or any other narcotics for that matter, and I wanted to get away from the Tylenol because of the damage to my liver. As soon as I asked her to put me on Gabapentin she nodded her head and started doing up the prescription. It's a neuropathic pain reliever that more doctors are trying to get their patients on to keep them away from narcotics. It's similar to Lyrica, which more people have heard of, but Lyrica isn't covered by a lot of drug plans. I would guess that it's not available in generic form yet, but I could be wrong about that.

Sadly my previous doctor didn't want to put me on Gabapentin. He was too lazy to do any research about it, and I actually went in for three separate visits with him saying he was going to put me on it, but then he never did. It was just easier for him to keep me on Percocet. I wasn't thrilled. I don't need the damage from narcotics. Never mind the fact that they make me sick as a dog and turn me into a zombie.

The best part of the visit, aside from the fact that she didn't make me feel like she had one foot out the door the whole time, is the fact that she's going to send me to the orthopedic surgeon for my hip surgery as soon as she has my MRI result. It looks like the time-wasting is over now. I have to go back in a month. It takes time for everything to get sent over, and she wants to see how I'm doing on the medication. So, all in all, I'm a very happy camper with all that.

I finally managed to use my gift certificate towards a new tattoo on Tuesday, as well, and I'm thrilled with the results. Tyler at Rockstar Ink here in Hamilton did the work, and he improved on the original image I e-mailed to him.

Stimpy Memorial Tattoo

Now, this was taken about an hour after it was finished, so you can see that it's still bleeding a bit, but it's healing well and I'll take another picture in about three weeks to show the final product to everyone. The purple awareness ribbon is for pancreatic cancer, which is presumed to be what killed my ferret, and I asked him to add the green section for kidney cancer awareness, as he also had that. I had it done on my forearm/inner arm area, right near the inside of my elbow, so that I could see it at all times. It's not that I'd ever forget my "Angel Boy" as I liked to call him, but this makes me feel a lot closer to him, like he's still in my arms.

My social life may be improving, too, but for now that's all I'm willing to say on that subject. I'm getting out of the house more these days anyway, and walking far more than I should be. Today it was over three kilometres (almost two miles), Wednesday it was over a kilometre, and Tuesday I walked a kilometre and a half. I'm not supposed to be walking at all, really, but necessity required it of me. Buses might be great, but they're not perfect, and today I didn't even have any tickets, so walking was my only option. There was no way I was missing that doctor's appointment, and I'm so glad I didn't. You know, I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship...