First Monday with Characters

Edited by Morris Dean

Jack Cover feeling reborn

This late summer and early fall have been much better for me. I now have weekly infusions of Torisel, which seems to be keeping my cancer under control. Cam and I now go every Wednesday to Duke; if it's Wednesday, it's Duke day. I am past the hiccups and swollen legs (edema), but still have a little problem with balance.
    My latest set of scans showed my larger tumors shrinking slightly, but I do have several new small ones on my lungs. The scans showed nothing in my brain, which my doctor delights in pointing out. Cam still says she knew there was nothing in my brain without the expensive high-tech scan. Getting a CT scan every twelve weeks means that it is only a matter of time before I start glowing. So the guy knocking on your door with a special glow is not me in an old Halloween costume with glitter, it’s really me.
    The hiccups and edema are gone, so I am resuming a much more normal life. I no longer shake the bed with my hiccups, to Cam’s great relief. And I can drive again. I feel reborn.
    I have stopped losing weight. I am sleeker and svelter than I have been since college. You can even see my abs these days. Turn green with envy, weight loss programs!
      Cam and I walked with our daughter-in-law, Miranda, in the second annual Renal Cancer Awareness walk. I did not know until Miranda told us she would walk with us this year that her father had died of renal cancer. I guess my own renal cancer awareness needs to be significantly raised. Thanks to those of you who contributed to the walk.

Torisel treatment is interesting. Cam and I go to a treatment area, where I get in a lounge chair that puts me in nearly horizontal position. Both of us get a warm blanket (my favorite part of the treatment). A line is put into a vein. I am then given a anti-nausea medicine and a large dose of Benadryl. I regularly feel about one martini in with the Benadryl (my second favorite part of the treatment). I have been known to doze off during treatment. A half-hour after the Benadryl is given, the Torisel drip starts. A half-hour later I am ready to leave. The Torisel no longer makes me as ill as it did during the summer. I still have a bit of edema (excess water in my legs). I am still fighting fatigue; I know some of you attribute my fatigue to homegrown laziness.

Cam and daughter Jenn were arrested as part of the North Carolina Moral Monday effort. Moral Mondays were thirteen weeks of protests in our legislature, protesting the attack on women’s medical decisions, as well as the gutting of support for education, unemployment insurance, health insurance, and help for the weak and marginalized. Cam and Jenn are working on their 25 hours of community service as part of their plea deal. Jenn is working on registering voters (one of the legislative efforts made it much harder for the marginalized to vote—the Voter Prevention Act). One of Cam’s friends is working for the local LGBT support group with the idea of supporting the group that will most infuriate the legislature.

Please keep me in your prayers.
    God bless,

Madison Kimrey fired up

Thanks to all my supporters who came out to Alamance County Moral Monday on October 28. It was awesome to get to meet so many of them! The event was written up in the Burlington Times-News: "Young Burlington activist gains national following." I'll tell you more about it, from my perspective, in tomorrow's "Tuesday Voice" column. Or you can read it about it now on my own blog: "Fired Up."

Tom Lowe in a new pattern

Sometimes a trivial incident makes you realize how much you take something for granted, and how its absence complicates life. Case in point: late Monday night AT&T had some problem with their DSL service, cutting off my Internet. So the next morning my routine went to hell since most of the things I do after getting up tend to be interspersed with checking email, news sites, and some regularly checked web sites. I’ve been in this pattern for five or six years, and hadn’t re-examined the pattern since it works for me.
    I’m slightly surprised to realize how much the web has become a primary communication tool for me. Now this doesn’t mean that I’ve become a denizen of the “intertubes,” I still have a stack of books I’m reading and subscribe to a few magazines, notably London Review of Books, but it was a nuisance to not just get on the computer to check something or post a note to a friend via email. One perspective on how we all have been assimilated by the web: "14 Common Words That Didn't Exist 20 Years Ago." [For example, "blog."]
    Beyond that, my primary task these days, and it looks like for at least a couple of more months, is recovery from my misadventure of the Summer. So I’ll have plenty of time to read, write some stuff, and plan creative projects for when my heel is healed.

Susan C. Price considering gifts

birthdays bring gifts and challenges..this 65th one was no different. an early 30s niece i thought of as distant for years, attended a party we held in NYC on our trip. she said that no one in her life had as many photos of her as i did in my collection on my phone! then she said that she wrote about me several times for essays in junior high as an independent, capable female...then my daughter gave the most lovely toast to me last night...but i was so in my Gimlet and busy crying that i dont know exactly what she said...but it does look like i matter...to a few folks...what a gift

Chuck Smythe at music in Colorado

The most recent concert I participated in is described in the program below. It was so recent, I’ll have to really jump to do it justice in next week's "Second Monday Music" column, especially since I'm dog-tired from rehearsals and performances, and I have a piano recital coming up this week....

Geoffrey Dean at music in Bulgaria

October is the month of my AmBul Festival of American and Bulgarian Music in Sofia. This year’s edition was the 13th, and also the 1st of a third set of six editions. Each set has had a different name: first it was American Music Week in Bulgaria, then AmBul, and now, ensAmBul. In keeping with the new (expanded) name, the festival now entrusts entire concerts featuring world and regional first performances to chamber ensembles with a special affinity for new music and improvisation. The most “serious” programs were those of the Frosch Quartet, which premiered Ventzislav Dikov’s first string quartet, and the Musica Nova Ensemble, which premiered Stilled for 11 instruments by Petros Ovsepyan and gave the first Bulgarian performance of the classic Chamber Concerto by Gyorgy Ligeti, who challenged the limits of chamber music with this work back in 1970. The presence of a non-American, non-Bulgarian composer also extended the limits of the festival’s stated American/Bulgarian focus, as did the participation of German clarinetist Michael Thieke and a group of teenage folk musicians from neighboring Macedonia in the opening concert. This was the most “colorful”program, in which the Ardenza Trio teamed up with a young wind quintet and the Macedonian “musichari”for a set of free group improvisations modeled on John Zorn’s Cobra gaming pieces. I served as the coordinating “gamemaster” and also tried to get the audience involved, as the photo suggests.

André Duvall out and about

Last weekend, I made a trip to Nashville to meet an old college friend who lives in Knoxville. In addition to touring portions of the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens (rain prevented seeing much, but see photo below), I heard Michael McDonald performing old favorites with the Nashville Symphony downtown. This marks the third time I've heard him live, the other two appearances being in Little Rock and Memphis. His live concerts are always a wonderful experience, and are never over-amplified for the space in which they occur. He continues to shine as a bright spot in American music in so many ways.

    The fall colors of the trees along I-40 from Memphis to Nashville were stunning, with the amount of green slowly lessening as I approached Nashville. I am hoping this means that the yellow, orange, and red hues in Memphis will only intensify in the next few days. Despite dealing with a drawn out, nasty cold bug and a minor car accident, I've enjoyed October and the shift to crisp, cool weather it brings. I plan to seek out a "yellow wood" to walk this week in one of the parks in Shelby County to complement trips to corn mazes from earlier in the month.
    This weekend I heard Michael Barone, the founder and on-air host of the radio show Pipedreams from American Public Radio, host our monthly organ guild meeting. Three different organ concerti were featured on the program. Pipedreams can be heard in many areas across the country, and features interesting organ music on instruments around the country and the world. Tune in sometime!

Allen Crowder from amateur to pro

On October 18, at "Battle in the South" in Wilmington, I won my last amateur fight before going pro. I wish I had a longer bout to show you:

   And on Saturday (two days ago), I participated in the North American Grappling Association (NAGA) tournament in Concord, North Carolina, where I placed second in the gi (jacketed) competition and the no-gi (non-jacketed) competition. [From Wikipedia: "There are two forms of dress for grappling that dictate pace and style of action: with a jacket, such as a gi or kurtka, and without. The jacket, or "gi", form most often utilizes grips on the cloth to control the opponent's body, while the "no-gi" form emphasizes body control of the torso and head using only the natural holds provided by the body. The use of a jacket is compulsory in judo competition, sambo competition, and most Brazilian jiu-jitsu competition, as well as a variety of folk wrestling styles around the world. Jackets are not used in many forms of wrestling, such as Olympic Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling."]

Paul Clark, aka motomynd at retail online

We have an update on our missing compatriot Motomynd. In addition to his freelance writing on a variety of topics, especially all things relating to Edward Snowden and the NSA, and his preparing to be a father for the first time—at age 59—he is revving his "little online and retail business" for the holiday sales season. Want something shipped to you anywhere across the country or around the world? Paul's Eclectic World does that through their eBay store. Paul, in his Motomynd persona, readily admits to not being the biggest Walt Disney fan in the world, but if you want new-in-the box Disney collectibles from the 1960s through '80s, he also admits to having just taken possession of about 600 cubic feet of such which he hopes to sell between now and the holidays. It is a far cry from rambling Africa in an old Land Rover with a rifle on the dash, but here is a sampling of the travails Motomynd faces these days: "10 results found in Disney Collectibles." What price domesticity, eh?

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Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean

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