doubting thom

I didn’t post yesterday.
Had a reasonably good day at work, and the evening started off well, but I had a bizarre and rather extreme reaction to some things, in There, later in the evening, that left me angry, unhappy, and exhausted.

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OK, the photo referenced in the previous entry appears to have been removed from the list of thumbnails and the progression of war pictures on the Yahoo! News site. The picture is still accessible using the direct URL, but it’s been replaced in the thumbnail table of contents and the photo sequence with a picture of a burning building, so that it’s no longer accessible from those. Dead bodies, looters and burning buildings apparently are fine to show during war, but I guess a picture of one man joyfully (and completely non-sexually) kissing another is just too extreme.

Thanks to Synaptic Discharge for bringing this fantastic photo to my attention.

The Friday 5
1. What was the first band you saw in concert?
Hmmm. The first artist I saw in concert was Neil Diamond, with my parents and my cousin, when I was probably around age 10 or so. The first bands I saw, most likely, were the Boston band Human Sexual Response and Hüsker Dü, both of which performed at Harvard my freshman year. (Addendum later Friday night: Turns out I also saw Peaches and Herb, and Rupert Holmes, at senior weekend at Busch Gardens my senior year of high school, but I really don’t count those.)
2. Who is your favorite artist/band now?
I really don’t have a favorite. I do have some favorite genres, including folk and Celtic, and what seems to be called “progressive” these days but that sounds what we used to call “alternative” in my younger days, and I have a lot of women’s voices in my CD collection: Tori Amos, Jonatha Brooke, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Clannad, Enya, Dixie Chicks, Nanci Griffith, k.d. lang, Patty Larkin, Annie Lennox, Loreena McKennit, Sarah McLachlan, Natalie Merchant, Bonnie Raitt, etc. I also like Barenaked Ladies, Travis, Josh Joplin Group, Ben Folds Five, among many others. And a real favorite was October Project which, sadly, no longer is together.
3. What’s your favorite song?
Another tough one. This depends so much on my mood at any given time.
So I’ll pick one recent favorite, with the caveat that it isn’t necessarily an “all-time” favorite: “Come What May,” from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, and sung by Ewan McGregor (who knew that the hottie could sing, too?) and Nicole Kidman (she gave it a good try, at least). If I were ever to have a commitment ceremony (though the fact that another favorite from the past is “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” by Bonnie Raitt, gives a hint how likely that is), “Come What May” is something I’d love to have sung.
4. If you could play any instrument, what would it be?
Well, I do play a few instruments badly. But if I could snap my fingers and be proficient at any instrument, it would be one of two, depending on whether I’m in a more or less practical state of mind. The more practical choice is keyboards; the less is Celtic harp.
5. If you could meet any musical icon (past or present), who would it be and why?
Mozart, because he seemed like such a fascinating individual, especially for his time; J. S. Bach, to hear about the sheer mathematical genius of his work; or Sondheim, for the wonderful magic of his lyrics.

Filed my federal and state tax returns just now. And the refund is a nice one.
So that’s one task completed. There are some dependencies in some of the big life things I need to do, and this was the first domino. Now I take the money from the refund and use it to pay the closing costs to refinance the condo. Then I’ll take additional cash out, pay off the old failing car and put a down payment on a new one; replace the six-months dead dishwasher and the dying shower and light fixtures; and finally hire someone to paint, rip out this horrible 20-year-old original carpeting, and put some nice slate, tile and wooden floors (depending on room) in its place.

In an earlier entry, I spoke about the Enneagram, and my guess that Matt might be a Four, like me. Last night I got an email from him (including some more recent pix–from 2001–than the ones I’d earlier found online, from 1994-1997).
He took the short-form instrument, and turned out to be a Five, the same as Roger. A Four-Five pairing, apparently, can be very good, as “[b]oth… can be extremely creative and both love to share their findings with the other, making stimulating, wide-ranging conversation and open communication a hallmark of a Four/Five relationship, both in the intensity of their conversation and in the sincere interest they bring to their listening to each other. Each type usually brings a noteworthy sense of humor and love of the bizarre and the outlandish that can give their relationship a quirky and unique character all of its own…. They have a mutual tolerance for whatever the other comes up with and neither is easily shocked. They generally find each other stimulating and are tolerant of each other’s idiosyncrasies. Both inspire creativity in the other and give permission to the other to be themselves and follow their own inspirations.”

The Washington Post had an article about mead, specifically a meadery in Northern Virginia that specializes in meads, melomels and metheglins.
I love mead, and am making a note to myself to get out there sometime this spring.

I’m in a very distracted state. In addition to my worry about my dad, I was trying finally to do my taxes tonight, and TurboTax is having a lot of problems on my PC. The one-click update over the net won’t work. I found the manual update files on the website and tried to install them, but the manual install wouldn’t complete properly, complaining about a file that was, somehow simultaneously “missing” and “not the same size,” and then the application wouldn’t restart at all, and had to be uninstalled and reinstalled. After three times through this cycle, I went online for tech support… their suggestion when this occurs (and it’s near the top of the troubleshooting FAQ, so it must be a common problem) is to try to update manually; then, if you get the problem I did with the manual update, they suggest–what else–uninstalling and reinstalling. Nothing about what happens when that doesn’t work, either.

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Got an somewhat distressing email from my dad this evening, followed up by a phone call later.

Got call today that my white blood cell count continues to be low after two
reductions in one of my medications to prevent rejection. We have to go to
Richmond Wednesday to see Dr. S– at 12:45 PM. Transplant nurse said to
come prepared to stay. They have an apartment for us. I may go in the
hospital or may be treated as an outpatient. We really do not know a lot
about what is to be done. Reduced Cellcept from 1000 mg twice a day to 500
mg twice a day on 3/19. Reduced again on 3/31 to 250 mg twice a day. Blood
work continues to show white blood cell count still too low. So off to
Richmond we must go. Your mother will update you when we know any thing more.

The phone call confirmed that they don’t know anything more than that at this point. Richmond is about three hours from them, but it’s where the Virginia Transplant Center is, and where he received his kidney transplant the middle of January. Dad doesn’t know if they’ll admit him to the hospital, or put them in the onsite apartment (where we stayed when he was hospitalized last year with an infection, and where he and mom were housed for a few weeks after the transplant) and treat him on an outpatient basis.

And with my car more and more out of commission (today its shifting gears very sluggishly), I’ll probably need to rent a car this weekend to drive down to Richmond to see him there.

I updated the casualty counts entry to include this information about journalists dead, missing or held in Iraq.