First the bad.

It's very likely that one of our hamsters has a tumor. We took Becca to the vet a few months ago for a growth that was discovered on her underside, near her right leg. The vet said it looked for the most part like a cyst, and she was able to drain the majority of the fluid out of it. There was a little bump left, but it was something that they wouldn't be able to get rid of without surgery. Anyway, after that Becca was spry and bouncy and extremely friendly. Sometimes she got a little annoying because she was so hyper, wanting to come out of her cage and play all the time.

A couple days ago, Janet noticed that that area was looking bigger again, so I called the vet and made an appointment for this morning. After checking her out, and trying to drain it again, the vet told us it was no longer filled with liquid, but instead with this viscous peanut-buttery-type stuff that has the properties of cancerous material. She took out all she could, but the rest is solid. She also injected Becca with a small amount of prednisone to try to shrink the area up a little.

We've been checking on her throughout the afternoon, and she's pretty grumpy (well, you would be too if strange people kept sticking you with needles). We'll need to see how she's doing over the weekend, and make some decisions on Monday if she hasn't gotten better. There's a huge risk with surgery on hamsters, and there's no guarantee that she'll live even a few months longer even if it is successful. And the thought of putting her through all that is pretty soul-wrenching. Hopefully, the steroids will do their thing, and she'll start feeling better, and we won't have to worry about it, but it just tears at me that we might not have Becca around for much longer. She's got such a wonderful and fun personality, and I would really miss her.

The less bad news is that the Matisse/Picasso exhibit at the NC Museum of Art is sold out in its final weekend. I've been wanting to go over there since the exhibit opened in October, and just kept forgetting about it. This week, NPR has been hyping the closing weekend a lot, and Janet and I were prepared to go sometime early early tomorrow morning (like, after Saturday Night Live), but every time is sold out except from 3-5 a.m., and that's just too early/late for us. So we'll be missing it. Dammit.

Okay, now the good news.

I'd been feeling bummed out and uninspired for the last week, and completely unable to get anywhere with "In Jurong," part 3 of my "BlueGreen Quietus" triptych. Parts 1 and 2 sing on the page, full of glorious, melodious prose. And then I'd look at part 3, and it's pedestrian, and boring. Going here, going there, la la la, who cares. It's not an action-packed story by any means, and has always been meant as picaresque, an exploration of landscape and character, and landscape of character. But shit, if I as the author think it's boring as hell, I certainly can't expect a reader to enjoy it.

And this really sucks because it's a necessary part of my MA thesis, which needs to be finished, at the latest, by the end of February. So I'm not enjoying it, and I'm simultaneously paralyzed by this deadline.

Then I thought of a way to maybe recharge the batteries, with visual stimulation. I was hoping to see some Picasso and Matisse paintings this weekend, but that won't happen. So, movies it is. We saw A Very Long Engagement last night, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's WWI film starring Audrey Tautou, which finally opened here in NC. It was an excellent and visually stunning movie, as usual, if a bit graphic (though when the subject matter is war, it's expected you'll be seeing many people dying in pretty horrible ways). He did the opposite in this film than in Amelie, in that instead of pushing the saturation of color, he dialed it way down, until everything looked a bit like a sepia tone or duotone. It's a beautiful film, and the mystery-style story is an interesting thread that keeps pulling you all the way to the end.

Another movie I've been looking forward to seeing, and which also just finally opened here, is House of Flying Daggers, which maybe we'll see tomorrow afternoon. It's by the director of Hero, and is apparently even better than that film.

Imagery is such an important part in both these films, and I'm hoping that I'll get the juices flowing again after watching them.

UPDATE: I wrote this a few hours ago, then put it aside to start work again on "In Jurong." Another thing that seems to have motivated me is "We the Enclosed," KJ Bishop's new story in Leviathan 4, which arrived in my mailbox yesterday. It deals with enclosures, and the search for someone, but also with memory: three things that my story addresses. I also decided to switch the POV to second person, which I know will turn some people off, but it feels necessary now that I've made the change.

I'm rewriting the story from the beginning, and it's already more interesting than it was. Wish me luck.

Now Reading:
The Art of Happiness by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
and Howard C. Cutler

Stories Out to Publishers:
9

Books Read This Year:
2

Zines/Graphic Novels/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
1