LughIldanach: Blog

In February and March of last year, I found myself having less and less energy, already with some problems of heart disease and sleep disorders. A couple of times, I variously have fallen asleep in my desk chair, slid out, and injured myself mildly. At first, I didn't get much response from the emergency physician although my primary physician was worried, as was I -- I'm a medical scientist. After a couple of days, I developed a urinary infection that taught me the meaning of 10/10 pain. The next ER doc, however, was skilled and humane. He looked me in the eye and said, "I don't know what's wrong with you, but you're really sick. You need to be here and let us fix it." I went up to a room for management of my urinary infection, but a little while later, several nurses RAN in and rolled me to intensive care, having found several life-threatening cardiac abormalities. By then, I hurt so much that the possibility of dying wasn't all that upsetting.

Given where I'm writing, I can share that the consulting urologist came up with some specialized suppositories that did relieve the pain. To my amazement, it varied with the individual nurse's technique, but the insertion was, to put it mildly, pleasant.

They got me stabilized enough to replace my aortic valve through the aorta -- I would not have survived open-heart. Things started getting a good deal better, and by July, treatment was to get more aggressive. Implantation of a biventricular pacemaker-ICD, which treats heart failure by synchronizing the pumping chambers, failed in July but succeeded in September. That's given me a good deal more energy, although I had a couple more hospitalizations probably related to sleep disorders, and also to insulin not being affordable until insurance changed. I've been waiting months for a sleep specialist, but will see one in a different practice in a few weeks. I'm optimistic.

Anyway, I've started up with both fiction and enterpeneurial projects. Earlier, I was a research assistant on a biography of GEN Jim Mattis, outgoing US Secretary of Defense. I'm starting a new universe that has just a little do-over, but, in particular, with psychiatric treatment models that also treat hypersexuality of various forms most positively.

I'm also thinking of restarting my time-travel about the JFK Administration and historical variants on Vietnam. I've written history about those war games, and also was an intelligence analyst, so the details and variants will be well developed. Yeah, I'm doing it over from a time when I was in high school, but with just enough extra abilities to affect politicians.

Might reexamine getting re-involved in the Swarm Cycle -- if you get away from some of the FTL and AI, I think some current US "information warfare" is superior to the Swarm. It's an interesting balance issue to produce fiction without kicking their asses.

An extended family member and housemate knows less than he thinks about computer hardware. I'm a software engineer and hardware/networking architect, but never suggested I was good at building PCs. My desktop is down and I desperately need to get it back to being big and fast. I do a lot of multitasking when I write.

Perhaps 20 years ago, there was a multi-part novel, in one of the Penthouse Variations clone magazines, which was written by a well-known science fiction writer whose name I cannot remember. It had a fascinating SF and societal theme, coupled with some of the best erotic writing I have ever encountered. I'm hoping someone can recognize it. I'd like to do some stories based on it, with credit.

The premise was that the society had gotten increasingly puritanical, and cut off medical assistance to people with HIV/AIDS. A gay virologist-infectious disease physician lost his lover to a horrible death, just before independent researchers found a true cure for HIV. He sought revenge, and created something known to society as "endorphin". It was wildly popular but had a biological time bomb.

Endorphin, applied to the surface of the eye for absorption, tremendously increased sex drive, and apparently general health. They enjoyed a very wide range of sexual activities. Users kept their weight and physique where they wanted. The society split into very promiscuous people who enjoyed its effects, opposed to anti-sexual "neopuritans".

Endorphin also, however, transmitted Sexually Acquired Neoplastic Disease (SAND), a term modeled after the original HIV diagnosis, Gay-Related Immune Disorder. Endorphin users became prone to a wide range of aggressive cancers.

The story ended when a cure for SAND was discovered, somewhat by accident. I'd like to write on the post-SAND society.

Anyone recognize the story?

Not too long ago, I started on some perhaps alternate history involving Donald Trump, the ladies with whom he interacted, and politics in general. Without spoilers, my approach is a series of television shows, interspersed with flashbacks, after he's no longer in office. The story actually speaks to hope for American politics, told by the new Wolf News Network -- more honest and sexually frank than Fox.

With Michael Flynn's guilty plea, and more and more craziness, I'm working hard to keep my fiction more or less tracking reality.

I'm debating whether to start posting while I still write.

At least I'm enjoying writing them. I've got to look at the announcement for Book 2, which has had very few downloads although decent scores from those who do download.

spoiler (Book 3 and beyond) [underlying theme, not specific giveaway]

I'm trying to figure out how best to introduce one background theme of the series. While the cats in the stories aren't the David Weber/Honorverse treecats, various interactions between feline and human are turning them, at least, into telempathic facilitators for the humans. Right now, I'm working with the humans having more and more thoughts that the cats are more than the average house feline. I attribute this to some of the self-awareness trainings, drawing from Jungian archetypes and shamanism, that many of the main characters use.

"Venery" is a generic term for collections of animals, such as a parliament of owls or a murder of crows. Appropriately enough, it's also an archaic term for sexual activities. The first story in the Veneries universe is A Parliament of Owls

The next venery in this universe will be A Troop of Baboons. It is a common error to think that the venery term for baboons is a Congress. Since baboons usually accomplish things when grouped together under their usual discipline, "Congress" clearly is inappropriate even when the story involves U.S. Senators & Representatives.

Welcome to a world of politics and sex that I spent a few decades learning.