#but I do suspect I am an outlier time-wise?

[tj-crochets]

Do you have any tips about how to work on quilts? I’m just starting out and I’m in awe at how quickly you can make quilts and how beautiful they turn out.

Hey! Thanks, and welcome to quilting, it's a lot of fun! So, these tips are going to be a bit haphazard and out of order, because that's how I operate lol - do iron your fabric before you cut it - do iron your seams before sewing rows together, and before assembling your quilt sandwich - you can use the backing as the binding for your quilts and then you don't have to try to wrangle binding strips, it's all attached and easy to do - this one is going to sound kinda silly, but use fabric you like whenever you can. Even a super simple patchwork can be awesome if you use fabric you like, and the most complex intricate pattern can be terrible if you don't like the fabrics - sewing clips are the BEST. I think the brand name is clover wonder clips, but the generic is so much cheaper and nearly as good. You'll break the generic versions occasionally but they come like 100 for less than 10 bucks so you can throw away the broken ones and the rest still work. They are just so much faster than using pins - a rotary cutter, quilting ruler, and cutting mat make quilting so much easier - your seam allowance does not have to be 1/4". It can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you either account for it while making your pattern or use a pattern where it doesn't matter as long as it's consistent (like a simple patchwork). Do make sure you seam allowance is large enough that the fabric won't fray apart around it - never buy batting full price at Joanns, it goes on sale regularly or you can almost always get like a 40% off one full price item coupon when it's not on sale - when you are cutting fabric on a rotary mat, you can cut more than one layer of fabric at a time (might be obvious, but I did not know that at first lol) - shop around online for replacement rotary cutter blades, the prices vary wildly and seem to have no rhyme or reason, sometimes it's cheaper to get a two pack of blades than to buy just one? Most of all, make patterns that you want to make. Almost all the quilt patterns I make (except my improv scrap quilts) are really, really basic quilt patterns, because that's what I like making. I like keeping the pattern super simple and letting the fabric be the star, because my favorite part is arranging the fabrics like a puzzle. I have a quilt friend who makes really really intricate, beautiful paper pieced quilts I 100% do not have the patience for, but that's what she likes making and she's great at it. Enjoy what you're making and you'll find the parts of quilting you like best over time :)

[chronotsr]

Pre-G1 Modules, part 4B - The Judge's Guild Roundup Completed

Oh. Oh we're still doing this? It won't end? Gods. At least we made it to 1978. Anyway, happy eclipse to every. Reminder: the people who run Judge's Guild now are full-on nazis, do not buy their books. Go hug your loved ones instead.

The Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor (1978)

Maybe I was too hard on the Prince Valiant-ass artstyle. It looks very proud for a bandit fortress, don't you think? The full color version that comes out later is even nicer -- it's the one you find on google images first. Anyway. Fort Badboybaskaur was founded by ''The Emperor of Glorious Doomfire''. It truly was the era of so-bad-its-good naming! The fort was built so that if raiding happened, the many small villages could congregate there for safety. Only, it turns out there was a red dragon underneath. And then that got resealed. And then an evil demigod took over. And then bandits took that over.

I read this section like five times and for the life of me I cannot find a prophesy here. They just kind of say it because it sounds cool. The prose in this hand out is, really really rough, it's a lot of proper nouns and moral history tropes -- empire becoming successful and spawning evil religion yada yada yada. The proper noun addiction is strong with this one, we get quite a few undefined proper nouns here. He's another classic: "Zanaaphic the All-King of the Spirit Universe". I have so many questions! None of which will be answered. "Angall of the Perpetual Void" Wow! Those are some neat nouns! The net effect, however, is there was a really skilled evil wizard who got confronted by a god, beat him, and by defeating him became a four-armed dragon-skinned bat-winged magical null. He does up to 16 pips of damage with his silly flails!

So the cover image is lying a little bit about the fortress. In both of the presented maps, there is no cool rampart that you have to slowly siege, there are mountains both in front and behind the fortress, and there are way more than three turrets. I am actually a little fond of this keep layout-wise, it's less cramped than the Keep on the Borderlands is. Naturally, it sits at the foot of Mount Deception.

It's a nice little fortress, no? I would recommend getting a modern copy of the map if it wasn't for the ownership sucking ass in an extreme way. Plus, having dungeons under your keep on the borderlands seems like a great idea, actually. Or, shit, having a rival keep on a rival borderlands sounds kinda rad. Anyway, the room by room is pretty rote. The exterior rooms are mostly just services you'd give to anyone walking in, but the real juicy stuff is all kept inside the mountain walls. We've got your usual suspects. Guard captain, bossman, bossman's terrible wife (and the wife is legally required to be evil because male writers), pawnbroker, human trafficker, tavernsssssss, gemcutter, blacksmith, et c. Some of the names are okay, "Hole in the Hill Inn" run by ogres was really funny to me, I would change them to hill giants to complete the joke.

The dungeon has an interesting conceit where there are some generic "alternate rooms" in the back of the book that come with a blank room number that you can swap if you dislike the default room contents. I'm really in favor of this mindset. I have thought for a while that it'd be kind of nice for adventure books to be shipped in some sort of editable capacity? Like if I wanna do open heart surgery on a floor of a dungeon, but I like the other 4 floors, it'd be nice to keep it in the original format instead of having the adventure book and then some loose-leaf with the changes penciled in. Tragically, the alt rooms are overwhelmingly just monsters in a room, with the outlier being a wererats with a little kidnapping scheme.

Underneath the fortress there are five levels, one is actually above ground level and in the cliff face behind the keep, and the third level leads to the surface via caves. Neat! I'm kind of imagining Gerudo Fortress here on a lot of levels. Here's a quick skim of the best contents:

There appears to be a little rat treasure hoard where the rats have to pay their dues to their little rat kings? What's going on here is kind of unclear to me, but I can't help but imagine one of the guards trained the rats to hide money in the walls for him and the ten rats with silver formation are a kind of animal-passcode.

A chest trapped with some sort of reverse truth serum -- it removes your ability to speak, see, or hear for a week if you open it without permission. Naturally, the chest is decorated with the three wise monkeys 🙈🙉🙊 (and a mysterious fourth monkey the text implies nothing about, maybe it's Sezaru? Curse of erectile dysfunction!)

The alarm system seems to be gong-based

Oh, I don't like this beholder at all. Ewwww! But also, why is this drawing here? There's no beholders in here? Is this some kind of silly trap for snooping players? In fact, most of the monster illustrations are…kind of just random monsters.

The treasury is booby-trapped to hell and back. We have a standard guillotine trap disarmed with a tile puzzle on the wall, a hell-hound guard dog, and the most prominent magical item is a necklace of strangulation. Rough break! Just go ahead and put all of the treasure on pressure plates with flame jets at that point.

A reverse gravity pit-trap -- you pull a book, you fall through a hole in the ceiling and then it traps you in the ceiling. It's just a pit trap at the end of the day, but way vivid!

A chair made of a dragon's arms and horn that will animate and attack you if you try to pry gems off it or attack anyone

Two wizards are having a battle over who gets to own a trained lizard that can sing and carry heavy loads. I understand guys. That lizard is worth it.

Under a sarcophagus is written "If you can read this, you're too close", as well as some explosive runes

The treasure hoard of a lost king, if you attempt to steal it, will turn into a treasure construct shaped like the king. Awesome!

"A similar cabinet on the north wall is labeled "For Future Imperialists". In the top drawer is a Gem of Brightness, the second is a pair of Bracers of Defenselessness, and in the bottom drawer is a pouch of Dust of Sneezing and Choking." I would fully lean in, make it a Cursed Gem of Brightness that you can't turn off, and put the Bracers in the top drawer if the goal is to prank an evil character into hurting themselves.

A reverse-vampire giant lizardfolk that consumes the unlife from undead. So, Tomb of the Lizard King got beat to the vampire-lizardfolk punch, I guess?

Large swaths of this dungeon genuinely feel randomly generated. The worst parts are about half of floor 2, 3, and about half of floors 4 and 5. It just feels like padding to me. And in true Judge's Guild fashion, there are treasure stores in the temple that are "instantly max your character" amounts of loot. Now I get that shares are a thing and you gotta pay your hirelings, but still, 1.5M gold represents like, even if you're a party of 10 you're still looking at instantly maxing a thief, shooting a fighter to level 8, and shooting a wizard to level 9. And there's no way you were at 0xp when you smuggled that statue out, that's going to be an instant max for just about anyone. The big reveal that I…guess you could conceivably puzzle out? Is that the dragons were nearby because they were minions of a dragon-king entombed under this fortress before it was built. A cool idea, that desperately needs more foreshadowing. The love clearly went into making those tombs cool, so if I was going to rip anything off from this module that'd probably be my second port of call.

Gen Con IX Dungeons (1978)

What a name, right? How come Tsojconth got a name and these dungeons didn't? Blatant favoritism. Well actually one of the two dungeons may as well be called the Halls of Grsk. And, wow, everything about the design notes are ominous. "Simplicity would be the prime requisite". So….does that mean this adventure is boring on purpose, Bob?

The adventure is split into two bits, the player-side info and the gm-side info, which…okay. Sure. The titular dungeon is set in the "Celtic mythos", whatever the fuck that means (Bob, the Celtic cultures covered almost all of Europe and parts of Asia. That phrase is meaningless!). TL;DR the old king's wizard went evil and killed the king, left no one to rule, and then went nuts and much later summoned a bunch of demons to protect his loot now that he's old and dying. The local wizard, Framschamsnaggle (seriously?) bullies you into raiding his tomb to get a staff back. There's a dragon in there and you were handed a teleportation amulet that will zip you out as soon as you get your hands on the staff.

Oh. Oh that's not good. That's a very not good dungeon layout. That's a very bad dungeon layout. And the contents are, as bad. I wonder if it was considered bad at the con itself? I couldn't find a single remarkable thing in this whole dungeon. It is neither weird, nor funny, nor clever, nor interesting. It's 30 random dungeon rooms in a row, with a rare trap that is practically randomized also.

The sole joy I can find in this module is this illustration, which looks like a shitpost.

The second round of the tournament (1st round eliminates) is set in a completely different place, which is more properly called the Halls of Grsk. Almost all of this area is also just, save or suck traps and monsters. There is one trap that's kind of classic and okay -- picking up the giant ruby locks all exits, many red herrings, room starts heating up like an oven. The solution is to smash the ruby, which instantly kills the heating element. It's not amazing (how are you supposed to guess it's a ruby? It behaves like a pressure plate trap but the ruby itself is contact-activated) but it's the least bad thing in here. The portal-that-eats-you prank in particular grinds my gears, the game communicates every possible thing to say it kills you, and by blind faith you go through and is the best solution. Picking up the fake secret item instantly kills you, because fuck you. The fakeout trap's sole hint is "why are there two normal doors on the north wall?" which, it's a points-based dungeon, they're going to assume it's for extra points. Also, the whole dungeon is a massive straight line in disguise. It's a wreck.

Actually, the whole scenario feels like a worse "Tomb of the Lizard King" in a lot of ways, down to the silly rhyme on the last page that gives you a critical clue about how to kill the undead baddie. In a sense it's also like Tomb of Horrors in that way, I guess, but the vibes are a lot more like Tomb of the Lizard King.

Damn it Bob, you made it boring on purpose.

Citadel of Fire (1978)

This is truly one of the dungeon covers of all time.

Is… is that The Golem? I hope Rabbi Loew is available. Or, maybe it's good that he's not in the module, because obviously this construct's creator is going to be evil in this module.

This is the least least imaginative of the Judge's Guild modules in this series. It is, simply a wizard's tower. If you have ever in your life read a wizard's tower module, you've read this one. The JG staples of constant slavery mentions continues with slave girls being in every single damn room of the towers. There's, not really much plot to go on either. There are wizards, the hill is good for magic, they are aligned with the goblins, go chop 'em up.

Sigh. Here's the memorable bits.

Nearly out the gate, we get one of those paragraphs that you would hope would be so obviously bad to the writers that they would second guess the decision. Why the actual hell did you stat out some 200 nearly identical goblins manually?

What is that and when do I get a bestiary entry for them? That's not a joke, the module never mentions what this is and now I want this Weresalazzle in my adventures.

The vague allusion to "Shabast", which are apparently a species of people who are intelligent clouds? But only sometimes.

A variety of pens for animals the wizards are working on, which include an Irish deer, a jackalwere, a baby lammasu, a giant slug named Skippy, some orcs, man-eating apes, an elephant, and a hydra

For…some reason there's a tavern on the 2nd floor of a dungeon. In the lightest defense of the module, at least the 2F has a surface access and no pre-programmed encounters between here and the tavern (random monsters thoooo). The owner sleeps with a new person every night, highly critical detail.

?????????????????????

OK so many rooms later there's a pyrohydra with a toothache. Mystery solved, that's why there's a magical dentist!

I hesitate to complain, but after multiple dungeons with 100k+ gold rewards, this dungeon's treasury having roughly 11,000 gold in it feels like an anticlimax. The fact that it's protected by that pyrohydra and electrified locks adds insult to injury.

This is a joke, right? That's your final floor? Anyway, this is just The Demon Floor. There is more treasure here than upstairs, which is a little strange given that the demon serves the wizard and not the other way around.

So on the whole, deeply shit. In conclusion, Early Judge's Guild leaves a lot to be desired. Next time we will -- wait, am I free? There's no more pre-G1 modules? I get to finally do TSR shit and leave this mire?

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS (edit: I was half-right -- there was one more pre-G1 module, but it was TSR!)

[recurring-polynya]

So you ever try to wrap your brain around Yachiru being Kenpachi's zanpakutō? It seems to violate all known (manga-canon) mechanics.

So, to be honest, that particular plot twist hit the note in my head that says “Yes, this is pleasing and not entirely unexpected to me!” I think it’s the fact that the idea of his zanpakutou being embodied this whole time made more sense than ::gestures vaguely at all of Yachiru:: this.

I don’t exactly remember, but I think I may have been spoiled on this one--I got spoiled on a lot of the Bleach endgame, and that always affects the way a plot twist lands, so please take my opinion with that grain of salt.

I think there were a lot of hints along the way-- that although Yachiru is very, very strong and somewhat bloodthirsty herself, she always seems more interested in seeing Zaraki gets the fights that he wants, and watching them raptly, deeply invested in his happiness. She doesn’t actually act like a child, she acts like someone would expect a child to act-- mischievous and silly, but she does not grow and explore or, most importantly, assert her personhood, the way a real person does. She never seeks to grow stronger, or to fight for herself. She wears the lieutenant’s badge and goes to the meetings, which she neither complains about, nor takes any interest in. A real child would either not put up with this shit, or seek to be taken seriously in this role (try to imagine young Byakuya, for example, being named a lieutenant). Most importantly: She is constantly trying to give him directions and they end up lost every time. We thought it was a running gag, but it was a metaphor.

It also seems to me that the other child characters in Bleach grow and age at times when their powers are developing. We see Rukia, Renji, Gin, Rangiku, and Shuuhei as powerless children, and then they age to teens when their powers develop. Toshirou is definitely seen as a smaller child in his Rukongai flashbacks, and it’s implied that he is currently at in impasse with his powers, having difficulty with the upper levels of his bankai. Even so, though his body is stuck in an adolescent state, he has the faculties and personality of an adult. Yachiru, if I am figuring things correctly, is older than Rukia and Renji. It seems like she must be an enormous outlier in the Bleach universe, and it’s frankly weird that, say, Yamamoto wouldn’t take a greater interest in her (unless he knows exactly what she is, and I suspect that both he and Unohana both do).

Unless I’ve missed something, we hardly know anything about zanpakutou-spirit dynamics within the Bleach manga canon. As far as I know, we only ever see two-- Zangetsu and Zabimaru. I think it’s safe to say that Zangetsu already violates all known normal mechanics. I also want to point out that I was a lot more pissed when Zangetsu turned out to be Yhwach (or whatever that was, please no one explain it to me I don’t want to think about it). It was telescoped well enough, but it poisoned a character who had always been there for Ichigo as a mentor and source of strength and it gave me the same yucky feeling as when they killed off Han Solo-- I do not like this. This does not feel right or enhance the story.

We don’t get a whole lot of Zabimaru either-- they can manifest on their own, and do so in order to bother Renji. They seem to be a fairly simplistic being-- they want to fight and be strong and are impatient with Renji’s (very reasonable) desire to take a minute to think things out.

Nobody asked, but I feel like it might be helpful if I unleashed my personal headcanon on Where Zanpakutou Come From. In the Zanpakutou Spirits Arc, the episodes are prefaced with a voiceover that says that zanpakutou are born and die with their shinigami, and I am sorry, anime filler arc, I reject this. One of my favorite Bleach phrases, which seems like it should it could have come from some angsty hurt-comfort fanfic, is “There are no ghosts in Soul Society.” (it actually came from a filler arc episode where Ikkaku, Nanao and Hanatarou get lost in the sewer). But I think there are! When shinigami are killed and reborn in the Living World, presumably, it is as a normal human with no powers. I like to think that some essence of their power and their zanpakutou are left behind, free-floating, nameless, formless, but with some distillation of the principles that guided their shinigami’s life. This ur-zanpakutou attaches itself to a young, spiritually strong person, and becomes intertwined with their soul. They develop a form based on the thoughts and memories and hopes and fears of their shinigami, and their names and specific powers are born of the union of zanpakutou and shinigami. Noble souls often get zanpakutou passed down from previous generations, who take the form of a grandparent, or form that their grandparents zanpakutou had. For kids from the Rukon, I think that most zanpakutou spirits takes the form of a barely remembered mother from the Living World, or a particularly frightening woodcut from a favorite storybook. As an aside, this theory also explains why almost every Rukongonian shinigami we see died as a child-- it’s easier for a free floating zanpakutou spirit to bond with a child’s developing psyche. It’s also a reminder of one more way that Zaraki himself is an outlier.

Zaraki is a really messed-up guy, I think we’re all on the same page there. Like, he just really needs a shit-ton of therapy, I can’t even start. He was a feral murder-child, and I think he saw Unohana as a mother-figure who rejected him. Unlike Ichigo, who needs a wise, experienced mentor to guide him through his warrior journey, Zaraki needs validation that he is a Normal Guy with Normal Murder Thoughts and Feelings, so his subconscious shapes his zanpakutou into another feral murder-child to love him and be his family. Zaraki doesn’t know how little girls act-- pink hair seems good? Stuffy people hate kids, right? It makes perfect sense that Yachiru would go fuck around with Byakuya. Zaraki finds all of Yachiru’s antics hilarious-- the names she makes up for people, the way she climbs all over Ichigo, her general proclivity for going ham. Zaraki is an incredibly simplistic person. My favorite Zaraki parts of Bleach are where you think he is about to get real deep and have some sort of insight, and it turns out to be “I’m gonna stab you, but I’m gonna use both hands” or this entire problem-solving process I’ve pasted in below, which ends in him finding Tousen by letting Tousen stab him. He’s just stupid, bless his heart, and having a murder gremlin for a guiding light just... tracks?

The weirdest thing about Yachiru is that she has her own zanpakutou. I spent about 10 minutes thinking about it, though, and decided that she’s just a recursion, and that the weird feeling I get thinking about her is exactly the way I feel about writing a function that calls itself, and I find that little paradoxical frisson to be kinda cool, actually. The second weirdest thing about Yachiru is that there does not seem to be any connection, thematically, between Yachiru and Nozarashi. After he finally learns his sword’s name, I would have liked to see Zaraki have a trip to his inner world (like Ichigo does, in the midst of battle) where he meets an adult spirit who has qualities of both Yachirus (which he absolutely does not recognize) and that there is some interesting explanation of Nozarashi’s special abilities. To be honest, I couldn’t even remember what they were. Kenpachi has always been one of the strongest Bleach characters and so much about him is just iconic, and then his bankai was just completely bland and unmemorable, with no symbolism whatsoever. Lame.

[faemoria-arch]

@hallowedcraft || King Anduin Llane Wrynn Put a 👫 in the vending machine , get four headcanons back

                i . I have vaguely mentioned this in our thread already , but Toothiana knew Landen ( Landan ? I’ve forgotten which one is correct . I’ll check later . ) Wrynn who , if I am recalling my warcraft lore properly , would be Anduin’s Great Great Grandfather . Landen was the closest Tooth got to trusting a mortal of Azeroth in a very long time , and she was fairly hopeful for how she saw his son , Barathen Wrynn , growing as well . However she still decided to distance and seclude herself away from the more inhabited lands , in fear of what would happen should the wrong person discover her and the power she holds over memories . So they made their farewells with oaths that should his line remain wise and gracious enough to prioritize the overall survival of life over the war-hungry desire for conflict the mortal races seemed so naturally inclined to , Toothiana would return to aid them .             Unfortunately what she returned to was the makings of the Gurubashi War , and Toothiana’s faith was cast away once again . Now , however , in Anduin she sees that same desire for true peace that she saw in his ancestors , and that is why she is hesitantly open to learning more about the plight of his kingdom and others . The conflict of Horde vs Alliance to her is.... garbage , when entities like Sargeras exist , and she is not shy about voicing disapproval in perpetuating it or paying it any more thought than necessary for only the existing conflicts which , at this point , cannot simply be ignored .

            ii . Toothiana is still not comfortable around his men in the slightest however ( with very few exception ) , and understandably they are not super comfortable with a creature of sort they have never seen , who’s strength and ability is entirely unknown , staying in the vicinity of humans let alone near their King either . Because she eventually trusts that Anduin is genuine when he orders his men not to harm her , any who do try are taken as outliers , and not something she holds to Anduin’s accountability ( or suspect he is secretly the incitement ) . Accordingly , Tooth also makes a point to show restraint in any matters of self-defense involving his people , as she accepts that respecting his hospitality also means respecting his authority and own dispensing of justice . She might . . . not be as passive as she could be in retaliations , but at least she’s definitely being non-lethal . ( give her a cookie ) 

           iii .  At some point Tooth is struck by an arrow through one wing and her opposite shoulder . Anduin offers to have one of his healers tend to it , which she vehemently refuses . He offers to do it himself , and she hesitates , but eventually refuses as well , although she at least thanks him for the offer . Eventually it becomes clear that she is extremely adverse to any sort of close or intimate ( I feel like directly healing someone’s wounds is inherently intimate maybe that’s just me idk ) contact , and it is an extreme tribute to a growing trust that they eventually start doing even the most mundane things , like catching the other when they lose balance , offering a hand when the other falls , or touching a shoulder to get attention .

          iv .  Tooth provided Anduin with two of her titles, Sovereign of the Kinnaree and Queen of Memories quite quickly but she has expanded little on them . There is always a subtle feeling of nostalgia present anywhere Toothiana goes , so that can be attributed to the latter title easily enough , and she certainly carries herself regally , but she has otherwise displayed nothing else to deserve it . As for the Kinnaree , she has confirmed that is what she is ( not a harpy tyvm ) , but otherwise revealed very little about them as well , besides the fact that they have existed on the planet long before humans , and that she is the youngest . At some point it will probably come up that she is the last one and that is by the fault of humankind , but for now it doesn’t appear to be information she believes Anduin needs to know , or that she is willing to share , although she comes close to mentioning it when he recollects out loud on his own passed family .

[braindamageforbeginners]

Cycle 5, Day 1

A friend recently asked me why I wasn’t writing a novel based on my experiences, and I could only say I didn’t really know how it would end. She pointed out that I was a reasonably imaginative person; but the reason why I’m writing this is because so much of what happens is beyond comprehension, let alone imagination, that just trying to imagine it would be disingenuous and/or a disservice to anyone else trying to figure out how to do it (in this case, it’s a couple of comments that I never would have expected myself to make; albeit in a “Good God, I never realized I was that witty” way). We’ll get there shortly. AUTHOR’S NOTE: I am presenting this particular reminiscence in the logical order, not the actual temporal order in which they occurred, because the way it actually happened is almost too chaotic for me to keep track of, let alone make fun (basically, I spent a lot of the day retracing steps because there was a hold-up getting lab results, and the chemo nurses and pharmacy don’t do anything without those labs).

The first day of every cycle is, scheduling and logistics-wise, a bit difficult (I’m refraining from using a certain synonym for “disaster” that involves four-letter words out of respect for some of my religious friends who may be reading), since everyone wants a piece of you, almost literally. I get blood-draws, a consult with one of the Warlocks (or their legal representative, as it were), and an infusion (which takes two hours in and of itself). Today was made a little harder because Senior Warlock is usually the one who oversees me, but he was out for the day, and he is old-school in a lot of ways (there was a line in the immortal neurosurgery memoir, “When the Air Hits Your Brain” that “the most incompetent bedside disaster [on behalf of a physician] is better-received than the most expert-managed care by phone”); definitely in that he wants to lay hands on me directly before clearing me for another round of chemo. Although I’d say that Junior Warlock is probably equal in terms of competence, he actually tends to read what various nurses, tests, PAS, etc. tell him before actually coming in the room. Which means there’s a lot of people who I see before Junior Warlock is ever on-scene, and there’s not a whole lot left for him to do/test by the time he arrives (unless something’s wrong), apart from a quick once-over. Don’t get me wrong, if there’s a problem or question or complaint, he’ll move on it, but if I’m just showing up to get medical clearance and everything’s going well, I only see him for ten minutes. Which is fine, but it’s kind of a let-down after 40-some minutes of assorted technical staff and assistants filter through to get a quick once-over for medical clearance.

At the joint blood-draw/IV installation, the nurse found my radial vein (that’s twice in a six-month period; that’s pretty good) on the first try. Which is great news for me; the farther from my shoulder and neck they go, the better time I seem to have the next day, side-effects-wise. I guess there’s a reason nurses don’t go for it more often, though: NURSE: I think I can get that vein, but are you sure? We’re going to rip out a lot of [arm] hair when we take the tape off, SELF (unexpected line #1): Given what I’m paying for this, I’d say that you guys can throw in a free Brazilian wax. I realize that cancer wards aren’t exactly comedy clubs, but I almost feel bad for making that poor woman laugh that much over a vaguely-dirty joke. Come on, cancer patients, I can not be the only one in there trying to use humor as a defense/coping mechanism. Then I got handed off to another nurse: OTHER NURSE: Is there anything I can get you? SELF: I always ask you guys for a steak and a carton of cigarettes, I’m already paying the price for that lifestyle, I might as well enjoy it. OTHER NURSE: I think we have juice and some crackers around here. I suppose that’s sort of like steak. SELF (unexpected line #2): Yeah, if you have never seen or heard of steak. Apart from that, the perfusion was unremarkable.

What is worth note is that, due to an odd schedule glitch, I didn’t have to be in the hospital until 12 pm, which enabled me to get a good nights’ sleep. Or it would’ve, if not for the nasty tendency of the sun in SoCal to come up at 4 am and start burning a hole through my eye sockets. I’m exaggerating that, but it’s kind of what it feels like, especially since I have have a weird, glitchy diurnal pattern thanks to the chemo. Also, getting injection that late means I might sleep through the worstest/weirdest side-effects, although I’ll be waking up tomorrow with Temodar in my veins (for those of you wondering, standard chemo for brain cancer comes in massive horse pills that you choke down ten minutes before bed, so you wake up all lemony-fresh and not severely-possibly-fatally hungover at all)(this effect gets worse as the week wears on, because you take Temodar for the first five nights of each treatment cycle).

Anyway, since I’m staying up a few extra hours tonight, let’s celebrate my almost-functioning brain by doing some math. Depending on whose data you use, brain tumors/cancer have an occurrence rate of 1-5 per one hundred thousand patients. We’ll use the upper-end of that (which, I think, is the CDC’s 2014 data), which, as a decimal, is 0.00005. Now, in the last few weeks, I’ve been contacted by a few folks with parents getting brain tumors/cancer (they weren’t always specific), and I know of at least another friend with a brain cancer-plagued mother. Including me, that’s four people I know of or have heard of. with brain cancer. I realize we’re jumping way over Dunbar’s number (the hypothetical upper limit of “maintainable relationships” - or, in practice, “people you know”), but rounding my social media friends up to 500 (the folks in question contacted me that way, but I have personally met all of them, so I figure the math might sort of even out) and assuming everyone has two parents gives me a rate of 4/1500, or, a brain cancer rate of 0.00267 in my immediate sphere of influence (I like to call it the Splash Zone, but that’s just me). That’s over 50 times the upper CDC estimates. Admittedly, this is all self-selecting, and I’m a statistical outlier already, but it does make me suspect that we’ve either been dramatically low-balling prior estimates of brain cancer, or there’s something new in the water (lead, if you live in Michigan). Or, as I suggested, the Baby Boomers are just getting into their carcinogenic prime; but it does offer a glimmer of hope (in a weird, almost-parasitic way, I’ll admit) that there’s going to be a massive influx of GBM patients. Which is good for current brain cancer patients (sort of), because it might mean more political and economic incentive to do something about this accursed disease. Certainly there’ll be enough patients to provide better statistical data than we’re seeing. Of course, that could just be the experimental chemo finally catching up to me.