At my church, our pastors very frequently like to make comments about major sporting events. Father J closed mass today by pointing out that today is Superbowl Sunday. "So we have the Saints," he says, holding his right hand up high. "That means the other team must be..." He holds his left hand out at waist level. "The sinners, right?" The congregation chuckles.

"So as Christians, which team should we root for?"

There's an incoherent mumble from the congregation.

"Right!" says Father J. "The sinners! Go sinners!"

Rah team Sinners!

Dear brain,

It's great that you keep working on my science articles while I sleep. I am impressed and amazed that you can do this. The problem is the schedule. I really need all of my brains working together as a team on a big project, so we can finish together at the same time. It is embarrassing to write a letter to my editor on a Saturday morning saying that I left something important out, but fortunately my brain was on the case even after I checked out.

Also, it's disappointing the way you managed to blow both deadlines, while essentially staying on schedule the whole time. The way you did this was you flipflopped the two deadlines for Feb 4 and Feb 5. Then you accidentally promised one editor that you'd turn the story in a day early, on Feb 4, meaning both were now due on Feb 4. And THEN you didn't get either of them done until Feb 5. Brain, we have a problem here. Try to do better next time!

 Moi

 As I am grinding away at my mountain of work, a funny story from my Dad comes back to me, reminding me why I do this, and who I really am, deep down. It seems like everyone could use a funny story right about now, so here goes.

When I was a wee tot, and it was time for me to be potty trained, my father sat me on the potty, and lo, I did my job! Go me! He was so happy, he gave me a candy bar. 

The next day, it was time to try again. My father once more asked me to use the potty. I said, "Candy?" Now, my father was a young and idealistic man, and I do not think he liked the idea of bribing his two-year-old with candy every time she used the potty, so he firmly said, "No candy."

My response: "No candy, no potty."

Is it any wonder where I've ended up in life?

(Coda: a long battle ensued, and it was many, many, many months before I was finally potty trained. My Dad says if he knew then what he knows now, he would have bought a huge box of candy bars.)

Here's an interesting link that takes a contrarian view of the Macmillan/Amazon scandal, at least from an author's perspective. Indie Author Aprill Hamilton thinks that if you are a Macmillan author backing Macmillan in this dispute, you might be backing the wrong horse. Although I'm not sure anyone wants to be on Amazon's "side" in this mess, given their disproportionate response of pulling all of the print Macmillan titles, it's an interesting analysis of why Macmillan is not really doing their authors any favors: Are you backing the wrong horse?

Some sensible commentary on eBooks from K. Tempest Bradford. Via earthgoat

I couldn't agree with her more. I know people are pretty much ignoring everything I'm saying because I'm not a published novelist so I don't know shit. But you know what? Not having a canine in the kerfuffle gives me a bit of perspective and clarity, I think. As does the fact that I work in a thriving nonfiction field that is almost all published on the web. I know that new media is good news for writers, and ebooks are part of that whole package. The number one reason that I am NOT in this mess with MacMillan is that I am too busy getting PAID writing for the internet. I am tired of hearing how people like the smell of the paper and ink or what they think the economics of ebooks are. This is a very exciting time to be a writer, but we need to understand the importance of e-rights. We need to know that our publishers are handling them well, that their marketing and pricing strategies are sound, and that they are not just making deals with the big guys like Amazon. Writers need to understand that their best interests are not the same as the publishers' bests interests and that if the publishers go down, they are not going to take all of western literature with them. 

There are many different schools of thoughts and theories about ebook publishing and marketing out there. As writers we need to hedge our bets and realize that it's anyone's game right now. I don't think anyone is disputing that paper book publishing is a tough business with a lot of risks and low margins. Ebooks is a different world.

The headset for my son's Xbox 360 broke recently. It fell on the floor and the thin piece of plastic holding the mouth part onto the head part broke. The electronic bits worked, but it wasn't wearable, and my inept attempts to kludge it together with a hot glue gun were an epic fail. Glen was bummed and since it wasn't his fault it broke, I bought a new one for him for $19.99. We got it home and had the usual problem of getting the #$@!ing package open. I think it was made of some kind of high tech uncuttable teflon plastic, I'm sure. The military should really look at this stuff for lightweight vehicle armor. By the time we got it open, the package was mangled. We pulled the headseat out from inside the cardstock envelope and found that the cord was wrapped much higher inside the packaging than we thought, and was neatly severed just above the plug. Dammit! I am pretty good at letting go of spilled milk situations, but this one was pretty upsetting. Glen and I were both near the point of tears. My "solution" was to stuff the whole mess back in the package and plan some very pointed abuse to unload on the store that sold it to us. However, Brent swooped in and swapped the broken bits from each headset out, creating one complete working headset! Even better, he has absconded with the broken pieces, which he thinks he can repair, splicing the snipped wire and doing some kind of magic with drill and wire and such for the head piece. I love a handy husband!

(I would have thought of switching the broken parts with the good parts, eventually! I was just more interested in abusing some hapless clerk first.) 

I've been waiting to reach a certain benchmark before updating on this project. I've been steadfastly dieting since Thanksgiving and have now lost 6.5 pounds. (My "beginning" weight was actually taken on Dec. 19, so the overall loss could be more, but for a couple of weeks, I couldn't bear to get on the scale.) I've now hit my first benchmark and am rather encouraged. It has been so tough for me to even begin to lose weight in the past couple of years that I had begun to despair of it. I have tried Weight Watchers, food journaling with calorie restriction, running, yoga, and various combinations of the above strategies with no success.

I finally added a low carb diet (Sugar Busters) to the mix. I am now doing lots and lots of exercise, especially yoga, journaling all of my food, and low carbing. I think all three are necessary for me to budge the scale. Even so, I basically started on a plateau, then hit another one after losing a couple of pounds. 6.5 pounds in 9 weeks is not a lot. In a way, it's been a tough slog. But in another way, it's not too difficult. I have not been particularly hungry, except maybe at night when I would like to have a bedtime snack, but don't because one of the Sugar Busters rules is no eating after 8 PM. Otherwise, I feel pretty much eat whatever I want. I think using three things together works because it gives me a backup when one or the other of my methods inevitably falters. If I succumb to temptation and eat a sugary sweet, then at least I have the food logging to document it (which makes me aware and prevents one indiscretion from becoming a 10,000 calorie bender) and I have the exercise to mitigate the effects. If I can't make it to the yoga studio or the treadmill (all the way on my enclosed porch), then at least I have the low carb and calorie counting to keep me on track. I've also kept going right through holidays. I allowed myself exactly one day of indulgence for each major holiday, while keeping up with the calorie counts, and then right back to the plan.

The other thing I did is stress management. I gained the extra weight during a period of high stress, and that is undoubtedly the reason my body wouldn't let go of it. Intensive problem-solving over a period of eighteen months was necessary before I could even spare attention and energy for the weight loss problem. Interestingly, yoga helped not only with the weight loss and stress management part, but with the transition. Yoga is more than just a series of poses--it is a life practice. There are many branches of yoga having to do with how you live and choices you make. I have learned that finding time to fit yoga into your life is *part* of yoga.

It's going to be a long haul getting all the way down to my goal weight, especially if I'm only losing .75 pounds/week on average, but it will really feel worth it.

I want to bump up a link that amberdine offered over the weekend that is relevant to ebook pricing. A short summary of it is that this is the blog of a professional thriller writer, who has many books in print with a conventional publisher, who is comparing his earnings on kindle ebooks. He has clearly found that he has sold more books and made more total money on ebooks he offers himself for $2, than on ebooks sold by the publisher for $6. He believes that he could make a good living on ebook sales, and is looking forward to some of his other titles going out of print with the publisher so that he can self-publish them as ebooks and make more money. Please click on the link and read the whole post before forming an opinion, though. There's a detailed analysis that is worth reading.

Another dialog worth reading is here, where Jay Lake makes some good points about the difference between a physical book and downloaded ebook, and Cory Doctorow weighs in with some very good observations and examples from the music industry. I thought his example of the success with consumers of the $.50 price point for music, and the music industry's refusal to consider a lower price, was very compelling.

Last weekend, Brent cooked up a huge amount of food that we ended up eating all week. It was nice to not have to worry so much about cooking during the week, so we did it again today. Here is what we've cooked up today: meat pies made with last week's roast and stew, white bean and chicken chili, home made rye crackers, and home made peach pie. I also made sure we had all of the ingredients on hand for Monday Spaghetti Night. So with that and leftovers, we should be able to avoid a dinner crisis until about Thursday, and we've got lunches for the whole week. Yay! I also got caught up on two months' worth of bills and budgeting (I've been sort of randomly throwing checks and stuff that looked urgent without really doing a proper job). Now to fold the laundry. Amazing how often I spend the weekend recovering from the previous week and preparing for the next. But it's worth it. The alternative is a lot of fast food and dirty underwear.

 The dispute between Amazon and Macmillan over the price of ebooks has ignited a debate over what that price should be. Predictably, authors back Macmillan, with its insistence on a higher price point for an ebook, and I see a lot of fear and anxiety over what is perceived as a dangerous practice of offering ebooks for lower and lower prices. I'm going to try to convince you that lower prices are in everyone's best interests, including authors.

First, what do you buy when you buy a book? Do you think you're buying a good story, maybe a couple days' entertainment? Wrong. Here is what you are buying:

1. A physical object that you can keep as memento or share with others.
2. Instant gratification--no waiting for the latest from your favorite author.
3. Convenience--get the entertainment you are looking for easily, rather than having the schlep to the library or rummage around a used book shop. (Or download an illegally scanned copy.)

You are not buying the story or the experience, because with just a bit of patience or minor inconvenience, both can be had for free. I should know, because this is the way I read books. Yes, I must confess. I am not a book buyer. I very rarely purchase new books, unless I am motivated by one of the above, or unless I want to specifically reward a beloved author with an actual sale. (And that last is a motivation that I don't think is very common outside of writers, so I'm not making in number 4.) I am an avid reader and booster of the written word, and I don't buy books. I can't afford to, especially not $30 for a new hardcover. I get most of my reading material from the library. And I don't think I'm alone.

So what I hear in this whole ebook pricing debate is the assumption that the potential market for ebooks is the same exact size as the market for hardcover or trade paperbacks, and that we can't afford to price them any lower than, say $12, because then the publishers and authors would starve--would be "eating the seed corn." But what if there's a vast untapped market for books out there that has been sidelined because the paper is just too damned expensive?

My family income puts me in the upper middle class, and I can't justify buying books. How many book lovers are there below the poverty line that are snatching up a new $30 hardover every week? Not too many, when that $30 could be your whole weekly grocery budget. And do you think cutting that price in half really makes the titles more accessible, especially when you have to buy a $400 ereader to get them? Not so much.

Here's my humble opinion. Publishers need to have the courage to go lower. When you buy an ebook, again you are not buying the story or the experience of reading it. Here is what you are buying:

1. A clean, well-packaged file that is guaranteed not to be corrupted, loaded with viruses, or have the ending chopped off or something--plus all of the reasons for buying a traditional book, above.

As soon as the price gets high enough to make you stop and think whether it's worth it, it starts looking awfully good to grab a copy off the internet. I can't say what the right price is, but I think it's a lot lower than $15, because, for me, $15 is still too much to pay for a book I can get at the library. For me, I would be seriously tempted by new books that I could buy for $2 or $3. Better yet, let me buy a media subscription account that gives me access to a set number of books or magazines each month, and then give me a subsidy on the ereader, sort of like cell phones. (Or let people subscribe through their cell phones.) These models have worked for music--you have iTunes with the $.99/song model and Rhapsody with the monthly subscription model. What we've seen is that when music is $.99, people will buy a lot of songs. When books are $3, or $2, or maybe even $.99, I think a lot of people will buy all of the books they want to read, rather than holding back and buying only the books they can afford. 

There's a saying in business that you can increase your market share by going for a larger piece of the pie, or by making the pie bigger. Publishers and book sellers have an opportunity to make the pie much more humongouser here, but are holding back because of preconceptions of what the pie is based on their experience in the dead tree market. Ebooks are a tiny fraction of the book-buying market now, but it is a very rapidly growing segment. Mistakes made now will cost a lot in four or five years when this technology approaches maturity.

Ultimately, selling books for less is just more democratic. People have been complaining for a while now that there aren't enough people of color in the SFF field. Considering the inequities of our society, and that a large proportion of people of color are poor or on the low end of middle class, a lower cost of access could be key to introducing a more diverse readership to the genre. When you think about it, it's kind of embarrassing that books--the commodity of ideas and status in our culture--have been priced out of reach of poor people for so long--that they have to get in line at the library and read them months after the buzz has died down. 

Simba once again proves that he is quite an interesting cat. (By the way, as I write this, he is lounging draped over my husband's shoulders as husband is wandering around munching on crackers.) Last night, Brent came in from running an errand, and I saw that Simba was hanging out on the front porch. I was surprised he didn't want to come in, because it was extremely cold. But I just shrugged. There is a person in the house who worries a lot about fur-bearing mammals that might catch a chill if they are outside too long, but I am not that person. (Check out who is playing the role of feline "beast of burden" above for a clue on that one.) Anyway, where was I? Yes, shrugging.

We settled down to watch a movie. (House of Flying Daggers) About forty-five minutes into it, the phone rings I pick it up and it's my next door neighbor, Tom. He says that Simba is at his back door, begging to be let in, and should he let him in? I laughed and went to my back door, and Simba immediately from Tom's back door to ours. Never let it be said that Simba does not know how to get his needs met! 

I just read "Creature in Your Neighborhood" by jimhines , and I want to say that it is a travesty of a story, and contrary to all that is good and holy and precious about chidhood, and that you should purchase Esther Friesner's Strip Mauled and read it forthwith, without delay, so that you can be just as traumatized as I am by it. And if you should find yourself giggling out loud while you read it, you should know that you are just as sick and depraved as the author. I think a good many people on my friendslist will fall into that category--more's the pity.

I also deeply, deeply regret that although Jim prodded me to purchase the anthology at Confusion (here I was thinking he was being sweet, wanting to share his work with someone whose opinion he respects--ha!), that I did not read it until last night, and hence missed my opportunity to smother him in his sleep with a pillow!

Jim, you realize that at least half of your career is based on your children's entertainment? O, the humanity!

Taking the morning off from yoga to have a nice, focused day-in of work. I'm motivated to make some forward progress in my various writing endeavors this year. One thing I've been wanting to do is bring some of the lessons I've learned in nonfiction writing to fiction. The biggest lesson is it doesn't matter if you're inspired or have a great idea--just write the damn thing and get it turned in by the deadline. An amazing thing is that often the brain will offer some good ideas if you start typing words--sort of like self defense or something. Like you back your brain into a corner and brandish a knife and say "Be creative or die." I can't count the number of times I've sat down with absolutely no idea how to write my article, and ended up with something pretty decent. In 2009, I wrote and published 56 pieces of nonfiction, much of it without a shred of inspiration. A second lesson is that often you never know what is your best writing and what is just a'ight. Sometimes I send in something that I think is barely adequate, and get a compliment on it. Sometimes I make an extra effort, but the article ultimately just isn't that great. I rely on editors to bounce it back if it needs work. This is why I appreciate editors. They help me with my authorial myopia. 

I should be able to have this same work ethic for fiction--shamelessly cranking out thousands of words of hackwork in the hope that most of it is publishable and some of it is great. To that end, I put together a story for the 100 Stories for Haiti project yesterday while my son was at religious ed. It is one hour and fifteen minutes, and it's usually not worth it for me to go anywhere while he's there, so I set up at a child-sized table down the hall with my laptop and work. In 75 minutes, I came up with an idea for a story, wrote the story, and gave it a once-over revision. What is kind of amusing is that out of habit I did a word count, translated the 963 words into $963, and did a mental ka-ching--then realized that a) this is fiction and I can not haz $1/word and b) it is for charity. Funny and rather telling. Also kind of funny is that when I was ready to click 'send,' I was stricken with apprehension. "Surely it's not good enough! I should send it to a writer friend to review first. I don't want to send a bad story. Maybe I shouldn't send it at all." I took a firm grip on myself. "Catherine," I says to myself. "Did you send last week's article on Microplate Instrumentation to a writer-friend to see if it was okay? No? Well put on your big girl panties and get this thing out of your drafts folder so you can get on with your life." I clicked send. If they like it, they like it. If not, oh well. 

So I think I will make a point to keep on cranking out fiction like this and sort of throw it at the wall like spaghetti, to see if any of it sticks. I am going to also try Toby Buckell's idea of working on two projects at once. For years, I have denied myself any new fiction projects until I finish the one I'm working on. It hasn't made me any less stuck. It only means that my output has screeched to a halt.

I'm also trying to incorporate more things in my life that motivate me to write fiction. A big problem I have is that I am just not as singleminded as some of my friends. I can get distracted for months at a time by a shiny new hobby or watching 20 episodes of a newly discovered TV series in a weekend, or making an authentic Cerberus costume for my son. I need things in my life that remind me that I am a writer and I should be doing that. One of these things is reading books. Every time I finish reading a novel, I get a boost to work on my own. Another is spending time with other writers at conventions and retreats. So I am going to make sure I do lots of that. 

Even better would be if I had fiction editors sending me assignments like the nonfiction editors do. It is very difficult for me to launch into a short story project with no particular deadline and with no one to hold me accountable. So if there are any editors out there who would like a story, please ask me for one. It will force fiction into my regular work queue, and that's a good thing right now. I know this isn't how the short fiction market works, but hey, it's worth a try!

1. Feeling much better after a rather grueling yoga session. Four days of drama, unwisely ingested substances, and perhaps a bit of con crud sweated out in one 90 minute session. It wasn't pretty, but I think it worked.

2. Thank you to everyone who extended sympathy about my mother's hospital adventure last week. It is much appreciated. However, I wasn't exactly seeking sympathy and I don't want people to feel weird and awkward about it. Emotionally, I am 100% fine with where my Mom is with her health problems and the care she is receiving. I get phone calls from her 2-3 times a week with similar levels of "reality distortion," and my goal in writing about it really was to see if I could communicate the special craziness of it all. The "I Think I Had a Stroke Incident" is just one particularly exciting example of it. She wakes up around noon, and usually by 2 PM she has assigned a name/number to the feelings of dread, anxiety, and paranoia that have overwhelmed her for the day, and my phone starts ringing. It's nuts, and it's okay to laugh or crack jokes, because we all do, even Mom. In fact, if we didn't laugh, we would cry. It certainly isn't her fault, any of it. I've said for a long time that I am not ready to write about my life and my experiences with Mom and her illness(es). Maybe that's beginning to change a little.

3. I was remiss in my baby name-check list. Twins get all the attention! But earthgoat 's lovely daughter was also in attendance. Being a singleton, she was more effectively guarded by her parents, so I did not manage to get my paws on her. There were also some babies-in-utero in attendance, and I am very excited for all of the new and expectant parents.

4. John Scalzi is running for SFWA president, with "running mate" Mary Robinette Kowal for VP. They are in fact putting together a full slate of officers that will be posted over at John's blog fairly soon. They have my full support and well wishes, and I hope all of my friends who are SFWA members will consider voting for them, as well. Also, I know a few people who have let their memberships lapse and have drifted away. Now is the time to reactivate! I am so impressed with the work Mary has been doing on the new web site, and her professionalism while doing it, as I have sent her a number of idiotic emails in response to the mass emails she sent setting it up and she was always very gracious about it. I think this team will make SFWA more of a functional organization and less of a melee of competing egos and interests.

It was a pleasure to reconnect with friends at this weekend's Confusion. Things started off well, but by Saturday evening I wasn't doing so well. I regret that I wasn't able to be fully present for my friends, or share as much time as I usually do. I did begin to explain to some of you this morning, but I thought I owed everyone a bit more of an explanation. I received some terrible news on Thursday evening about a friend. I was immediately stricken with shock and sadness, but I also realized it would take some time to process. With the rush of work, child care, packing for the convention, and other distractions, I let this issue sink to the back of my mind, knowing that I would revisit it many times and work through it as it develops. Over the weekend, I found myself distracted, irritable, and stupidly fragile. Conventions are a bit stressful for me, as I am a shy person, but it is normally not overwhelming. With this background grief process running, I was unable to tolerate small stresses and disappointments like not finding friends to share a meal with, not being able to find a book I thought I'd brought from home, or feeling like I'm a loser compared to all of my accomplished friends. I retired to my hotel room with Glen on Saturday evening and spent some time resting and moping. Glen, jimhines and I ended up watching Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in the room, and it was delightful. The next morning Glen (yes, my 10 year old) and I talked through a couple of things over breakfast at Panera, and I felt better. It wasn't until then I realized that my thoughts kept returning to that phone call on Thursday and how very bothered I am about it.

The news does not directly affect me. It is a close friend of my sister's that has been sort of adopted as a member of the family. It is not something I really care to blog about or even talk about, and if you do not know the person in question, it is nothing that will be interesting to you. It is not life changing for me or even particularly suprising--it just came at a bad time.

There were many good aspects of the convention for me. I enjoyed having my son there with me, and he had a great time. I also got a chance to talk with almost everyone I wanted to, including the beautiful new Buckell babies. I sneaked in a soak in the hot tub, and I received needed encouragement and cheerleading from friends toward finishing the Neverending Novel Revision. I once again ate a meal on Tor's tab, and had a long talk with my editor about soccer and music and books.

One amusing aspect of the weekend is that I seemed to utterly fail at all of my self-medication attempts. Two drinks on Friday night laid me out flat--I am not sure why. I had alcohol-induced insomnia, and woke up still drunk at 6 AM (what??), unable to go back to sleep. I had coffee with breakfast--too much--and so was nervous and wired the rest of the day with a nasty caffeine reaction. Sunday morning, I felt like my allergies were acting up, so I took a couple of antihistamines, and zonked out for a while. I think I'll stick with fresh water from glacial mountain streams from now on. 

A while ago, I came across a blog post by a woman who was enthused about skinny jeans. She was so excited because they fit inside your boots and don't they look and feel great and on and on and on.

I could talk about what it's like to watch a fashion trend come, and go, and come again. I could talk about how fleeting are perceptions of what is beautiful or fashionable. I could talk about how my taste in genes is different now than it was when I had 34 inch hips, and how perhaps those very narrow ankles really don't do anything for your butt unless you are a very petite 13 year old. I could talk about how to fold or "peg" your straight leg jeans to make them skinny. But I won't. Because my real response to this is a weary, "I have lived too long."

In the future, whenever anyone observes that my fashion sense fossilized in the year 2010, let them point to this day as the official day. I have followed the cycle around one curve, and another one again, and this old racehorse just does not have the energy to make it back around that last turn, to revisit the skinny jeans. Goodbye, youth culture. Remember, I was once like you.

I caught a piece of an interview on NPR yesterday with the author of a book about addictions. He made a very good point about how the recovery culture, with its anonymity, has in some sense prevented the emergence of an advocacy culture. Shame connected with suffering from addiction and addiction-related disorder effectively shuts down any "addiction awareness parade" type activities.

I am off to a science fiction convention this weekend, and I have been wondering for a long time why certain addiction related issues are not discussed at SF cons on panels and in more informal settings. Conventions regularly post tracks on issues of interest to the fan community such as proper hygeine at a convention, instructions on basic ettiquette, or fundraisers to help members of the community with various problems or endeavors. But as far as I can see, there is often an elephant or two in the room that nobody talks about, and these problems are never more apparent than at a science fiction convention, where they are on display for all to see. I'm talking about binge drinking/alcoholism, compulsive overeating, and sexual addictions. I think the first needs little explanation. The second is a delicate subject, but very telling is the fact that I had to sit my son down on the eve of his first ConFusion and explain to him why he could not expect to get any desserts at the dessert reception. And the third is something that I think is completely buried and denied in the sex-positive fan culture. Is there such a thing as too much sex? Isn't someone who has a lot of sex a hero? And yet sex addiction is very real, and I often wonder if it is necessary to celebrate quite so much the lifestyle of some people who seem to make it a constant preoccupation. According to the author on the radio, this type of addiction is just as destructive as alcoholism, and many sex addicts can't even function well enough to hold down a job.

Anyway, it's not my job to fix people's personal problems, but it occurs to me that an SF convention could be a more supportive environment for people who suffer from addictions, as right now it is a hugely enabling environment. (And by this I mean that the con could offer space for people to discuss them, or ways for people in recovery to connect, not somehow limit behavior.) Thoughts?

Sometimes there's just nothing you can do. I know this, and yet I can't help trying to be helpful. It's in my nature to solve problems, not ignore them. My mother makes this very difficult. The truth is that there is no task or procedure so simple that she can't get it wrong. Take, for example, electronic devices. You know how tech support always starts with checking to make sure your stuff is plugged in? Well, with my mother, it's a whole nother level. Last weekend, I found myself talking her through how to plug her mp3 player into the wall, and after a number of phone calls, she still couldn't get it right. My Mom is reading the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, writes poetry in French, and can crochet a zigzag afghan in three colors without a pattern, but she can't charge up her mp3 player and use it, even after I have showed her how several times.

And others get sucked in with her. Her belief that a device is defective becomes contagious. When I suggest she get someone at her home to help, the idea contaminates their thinking. They become unable to plug it in and turn it on, as well. Soon I will make a trip to her home, for the third time, to charge up the device and prove to her that it works. I feel like I have some vaccination against my mother's reality distortion field, having lived and dealt with it for so long. But yesterday proved to me that I am just as vulnerable as I ever have been.

I came home at about 1:30 PM to a message from my mother that she had had a disturbing symptom. She had awakened and found herself unable to talk--nothing but gibberish came out. Her speech was halting and uneven on the phone, and she sounded really upset. I called her back, and she recounted the incident for me. She said it had happened about an hour previous, and that when she informed one of the aids, R, it had basically been dismissed. R is one of the people who shared Mom's inability to insert a plug into an outlet, so I was not impressed. I was very alarmed, because I know that loss of speech is a symptom of stroke and should be taken seriously. After asking her about other symptoms, I called our family doctor. They connected me through to the nurse, and she told me to call an ambulance and take her to the hospital right away.

When I arrived at the house, the workers were very upset, not understanding why EMS was showing up. (I didn't have time to call them.) They insisted that Mom was fine, and had not been talking gibberish that they heard. Mom looked fine, and I got frustrated with EMS who seemed skeptical that anything was amiss. As an aside to one of the paramedics, I said, "She's very unreliable." What I mean by that is that I have seen many times where she might be having a major symptom, such as severe pain, or blurred vision, and forget to mention it, even if prompted. It is always hard for me to trust what she says, even though she is excruciatingly honest.

She finally got to the hospital, and they got her in very quickly and gave her the battery of stroke-related tests. I heard one of the nurses comment, "Million dollar workup." Meanwhile, a different aid from the group home showed up. By company policy, he was required to wait, and we asked him to do so out in the waiting room. He asked what happened, and when I told him she had been talking gibberish, he asked if anyone heard it. "She was talking to her room mate, C," I said. He rolled his eyes.

About halfway through the process, my Mom suddenly said, "Why would C wake me up?" realizing that what she remembered didn't exactly make sense. I didn't know what to say. This is not the kind of thing Mom is usually wrong about. When she knows something for sure, she knows it. It's when we wander off into uncharted territory and vagueries that she becomes unreliable. Or so I thought.

"Maybe you woke up on your own," I suggested. But I felt like I had missed something important.

The neurologists' conclusion was they did not know what happened, but could not rule out a TIA, transient ischemic attack. It could possibly be related to her tooth extraction last week, if there were any complicating heart issues. They wanted to keep her overnight for more tests. I groaned because it seemed like she was fine, and it did not seem necessary for her to stay in the hospital. She got admitted, and I went home.

Later that night, Mom called me and said she'd spoken to her room mate, C, and that C did not wake her up. "But did she remember speaking with you?" I said emphatically.

"I don't know," Mom said. "But she didn't wake me up." This is classic. She is fixated not on the part that is medically significant, but on a different detail. I had her call C again to ask her for more information, but Mom was unable to communicate to me what C had said. "C didn't talk to me hardly at all!"

"Did she talk to you or not? What does 'hardly' mean? Did she hear you talking gibberish?"

"I don't know," Mom said.

I finally called C myself. C never spoke to my mother during the time period in question and thus did not witness the gibberish talk episode.

We are now left with an incident which my mother clearly experienced and was disturbed by, and which sent us to the emergency room for the "million dollar workup," but which may not have happened. I spoke with my mother's nurse in the hospital and explained the situation to her, which she said she would convey to the doctors. From there, I have no idea what happened or will happen. My mother thinks it was a hallucination, but if so, unlike any she has ever had in her life. Was it a dream? Was she actually talking gibberish, but half-awake and confused about the context? I wish I knew.

And this is how, in doing the best I possibly can, I fail. Over, and over, and over again.

We just watched _No Country for Old Men_ via Netflix. I would like to share my review:

Uh, whut?


That is all.

I thought this was pretty neat. It's about using the Hubble to look out between the stars and galaxies we've already seen. I think they are being a little overly-dramatic. I'm pretty sure the scientists knew what they were looking for when they planned the project, and did not just decide to look at "nothing" for the fun of it. The question would be whether the camera would be able to detect anything. Anyway, enjoy!