the story so far

For anyone who’d like a quick recap of current events in this blogger’s life:

My mother’s body is suddenly shockingly crowded with cancers. They couldn’t cut it all from her colon, and it’s in her abdominal wall and all through her liver. Chemotherapy begins when she’s recovered from surgery. She’s in Gosford, with Dad; the whole family is devastated, and rallying. Her gentle, resilient spirit is undaunted.
Drew and I are past halfway in the protracted resolution of a qualified separation. He thinks he might move to Elizabeth Bay. Anyone need a huge sunny bedsitting room that’s a bit noisy in the mornings but otherwise glorious, brilliantly located and cheap?
Eugene and I are maybe halfway through the protracted recording of an album-size demo and its spawn. I’m trying to get better on ProTools but I’m kinda pressed. This is theoretically the most important thing in my life, but right now my life seems a bit of a madwoman’s breakfast.
Life modelling is keeping me on the run at the moment, writing deadlines loom, bills come in, the whole hysterically purposeless treadwheel keeps clacking over, threatening to break us, buy us or eat us all alive. I’ve been saying I need a holiday, but weekends in Gosford wasn’t quite what I had in mind.
Comments are still disabled on this blog due to a software anti-spam deficiency. We actually have to put the blog onto different software but as I say, we’re kinda pressed atm. Email comments to jaqilenpascoe@yahoo.com.au. And heartfelt thanks to those who’ve already sent their goodwill.

my mother has cancer

mum

Originally uploaded by Illuminata.

It’s in her bowel and her liver; they will be operating next week, with chemo to follow. Mum is of superbly sturdy stock — the type that beats the odds again and again — which is handy, since her chances about match the words (and their shadow) she used to answer ‘how are you?’ with characteristic understatement — ‘fair to middling’. She reckons that’s all she needs, and I reckon the strength of that conviction is her best friend.

On the phone, I was calm and collected for the whole call except for one moment, when she was telling me about Granny’s reaction to the news. Then I lost it quietly, but had to fess up to being ‘a bit teary myself all of a sudden’ when I couldn’t speak properly. We chatted for an hour or two, about all sorts of things: prognoses, practicalities, memories, plans. Clare will be down in Sydney this week, as it happens, and she and I will go up to Davistown for the night on Wednesday.

I called my grandparents. Granny, whose voice down the phone grows fainter and huskier with every call, answered the phone in emergency response mode: ‘yes, Jaqi, what is it?’ She was relieved I was just calling to find out how she was, and pleased to announce Grandad home from hospital. She treated me to a few minutes of gently fluttering reminiscences and small insights about Mum; we agreed it was a tragedy that such bad fortune should befall one so selfless. Grandad said the same in his turn. But what else can we do but bear up? he asked.

Clare lives in Armidale, my parents are in a retirement village outside of Gosford, my grandparents in a village in Galston, across the gorge from Hornsby. I am gearing up to do regular weekend trips to Gosford. Life shifts again.

no comments here but…

My dear and valued readers,

This is just a short entry to notify you that comments have been temporarily disabled on Day Book because of a problem with our anti-spam capacity. We’re working to upgrade our technology; in the meantime, if you really feel the need to comment, email jaqilenpascoe@yahoo.com.au and, if you so request, I’ll store your comment and upload it later.

Meanwhile, I emailed the guy who runs The Oz Politics Website with a polite question about the legality of government action detailed in my blog entry bring out the military and shoot to kill and got back a rather (I suspect characteristically) rude answer which is nonetheless illuminating to a degree. Actually the emailed answer was simply that he’d taken the issue to his blog, which I thought was pretty cool till I read the tone of the blog entry. I couldn’t help commenting. Time will likely show that I’m not made of the kind of hard stuff it takes to bicker with a political commentator… If you’ve a taste for vicious amusement and would like to follow the thread, it’s here.

no comments here but…

My dear and valued readers,

This is just a short entry to notify you that comments have been temporarily disabled on Day Book because of a problem with our anti-spam capacity. We’re working to upgrade our technology; in the meantime, if you really feel the need to comment, email jaqilenpascoe@yahoo.com.au and, if you so request, I’ll store your comment and upload it later.

Meanwhile, I emailed the guy who runs The Oz Politics Website with a polite question about the legality of government action detailed in my blog entry bring out the military and shoot to kill and got back a rather (I suspect characteristically) rude answer which is nonetheless illuminating to a degree. Actually the emailed answer was simply that he’d taken the issue to his blog, which I thought was pretty cool till I read the tone of the blog entry. I couldn’t help commenting. Time will likely show that I’m not made of the kind of hard stuff it takes to bicker with a political commentator… If you’ve a taste for vicious amusement and would like to follow the thread, it’s here.

snapshot of a police state

From the Guardian comes this story written by a journalist catching the London Underground to meet his girlfriend. He never makes it — detained for nine hours by police who decide that wearing a jacket and carrying a rucksack is suspicious behaviour. They lock him up, fingerprint him and take DNA samples, search his flat, interview his bewildered and frightened girlfriend and confiscate a number of his belongings without making any inventory. Upon release, the apology is perfunctory, some of his possessions are still missing, and the details of his ‘case’ remain on the National Police Computer and possibly, via Interpol, on police databases around the world. His absolute innocence does not protect him from this permanent classing as a suspect.

Remember, under Australian law as it now stands, if similar events happened here reporting it would be illegal.