I suppose I owe you all an explanation.

After I made my brave post about starting to write again regularly, I went for a mammogram. It was to be the last of the bi-annual, five-years-after-treatment one, the one that would declare me cancer free.

Instead, they found something. Not a lump, quite, but something.

There were consultations. There was research (you know me!). After thinking about it a while, I decided.

I went in for surgery two weeks ago. I am still waiting for the pathology results. See, the slides had to be sent "for further review."  So it's either very good news, very bad news, or very weird news. Considering me, probably all three.

I am still writing, but my mind refuses to settle. It's the uncertainty. Once I know, once there's a battle plan drawn up, everything becomes clear and I'll be able to start regular writing again. After all, Tardis!Ianto is insisting that I get back to his Universe. Or else.

For those of you who still look in here from time to time, I want you to know that I'm still here and still trying to write. Trying being the operative word.

This is what's happening, and I'll really try for the short version.

For the past few months, I had been noticing a steady decline of energy. My ability to concentrate was shot. I had terrific mood swings, and it wasn't just low-to-high-and-back-again. It was paranoid-to-ecstatic.  Slowly a number of other problems showed up: leg cramps, joint and bone pains, colds I couldn't shake.

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So bethmccombs sends me to her journal and I see this test thing. And I take it. And the result is:



You are Captain Jack Harkness
Take The Doctor Who Personality Test and Horoscope today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.


I'm Jack. Jack bleedin' Harkness. *giggle*.

Excuse me. I'm going to find my Ianto and have some fun.

I'm putting this under a cut just in case some of you don't want to be spoiled

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This makes me angry.

What in hell is wrong with people? The bloody Internet is big enough to hold all of us. We don't even have to acknowledge each other if we don't want to. You like CoE? Fine, go to it. You hate Gwen? Your privilege. I don't give a flying flip. You don't like what I write? Don't read. It's as simple as that. Considering how many of us are writing Torchwood, and how many variations of Ianto there are, it's hard to believe that people have to try to force writers to conform to their ideal.

You have an ideal? You write it, you cowardly jerk. Lay it out for everyone's criticism. Be willing to accept whatever comes your way. Hundreds of us do. Have the balls that God gave a mouse and jump into the real fray. Learn what it is to work hard to perfect a craft for the sheer pleasure of it, to be willing to give up evenings and weekends to doing something as if you were a professional, which most of us will never be, or even want to be. Get out of your fever swamp. Come on, I dare you.

Food, cooking & mealtimes	Pets	Exile	Aliens made them do it	Dancing/dance marathon
Myfanwy	Anniversary	Secrets & Lies	First house	Cuddling by the fire
Wedding	My best friend is an alien!	WILD CARD	Coming of Age	Erotic Feeding
Taxes	Marriage (Arranged or Otherwise)	Chance Encounters	Pregnancy	Mortal!Jack
Crossover - Books	Sunburn	Magical Creatures	Singing	Crossover - Movies

So here's my table for Long Live Ianto's Cliche Bingo. I THINK I can make it fit in something I have been working on for a while, so what the heck. Meanwhile, I am at a computer conference for the next three days, so no posting, though I am working on stuff!

If you're wondering if I'm still alive, the answer is yes. If you're wondering if I'm still sane.... let us take that into consideration later.

It has been a bad beginning to the year, tied to the miserable end of the last one. When that happens, I start to make my life smaller and smaller until I find a size I can cope with. I question everything, including my own beginning and end. It's painful and I try not to inflict it on anyone.  Truth is, if bethmccombs  hadn't been around (hey, Beth), I probably would have stopped writing.

But I think I'm at the end of the tunnel and it was actually sunlight, not the headlamps of an incoming train, so... I'll be posting soon. And after I finish Angel of Death, I'm going back home to the Tardis!Ianto verse. Ianto's namesake and godson wants his story told.

See you soon,.

If you're wondering what has happened to me.... let's just say my lungs and my sinuses have combined to give me hell. Until yesterday all the energy I had was used up in going to work, coming home, and attaching myself to an oxygen machine. Finally I gave up yesterday and came home early. Today, I'm running a slight fever, although my breathing is somewhat improved. Enough I can sit at the computer for an acceptable period of time -- I hope.

I am writing on and off, but the medications make it hard to concentrate. There are stories, though. Trust me. There are.

One of my most beloved friends died yesterday. He had survived seven years of dialysis, one kidney transplant and a heart attack. He was given the all clear by his surgeons two weeks ago. Tuesday he drove himself to his doctor's office to check what he thought to be acid reflux. The doctor found his lungs were full of fluid. He was taken from the doctor's office to the hospital and put on oxygen. It was serious but not dangerous, or so everyone told us. A few more days on oxygen to dry out his lungs and he would go home. Yesterday, as he was joking with his mother, he lay back, blood poured from his mouth, and he died.

He survived a lot, but mostly, he survived being a gay Cuban-American male, in a culture where being gay is at best considered a disease and at worst a disgrace. He didn't "come out" to his family until after his father's death; there are still older members of his family who think he dated my sister through his thirties, and are grateful that they managed to remain friends after the "breakup".  Because he lived in Miami, where gay culture is a substratum that is in many ways not really visible unless you're part of it, he could be shocked at the openness he found in other places like San Francisco or LA or London.

He didn't know science fiction from a hole in the ground, so when I told him about Torchwood, he was all meh. Even when I told him about Jack and Ianto, he was sure that they would turn it into "the terrible secret" as so many American tv shows of his teenage and young adult years did. Then I sent him a clip of the To The Last Man kiss. He called me in complete shock. They showed that on television?  I teased him about being "the straightest gay man" I knew.

His sense of humor was notorious among his friends and sometimes when he was on a roll we resorted to hand signals not to give him an opening. He convinced a whole gaggle of Japanese tourists at the Met in New York that some Egyptian frescoes were a description of the Egyptian myth about the invention of beer. Once, on a crowded train from London to Canterbury, he whipped out an imaginary writing pad and started what became "the Penelope letters," messages sent by a rich spoiled aristocratic girl to her papa. It was amazing seeing him reduce a car full of serious, Times-reading Brits to barely concealed laughter.

I am going to miss him dreadfully.

Turns out the old man is ok. After three days in the hospital and a gazillion tests, they think it was all stress. Which means, for me, that even though I'm spending a lot of time getting the house ready, regularly scheduled writing can resume tonight. I hope to post the next installment tomorrow.

And most important, I want to thank all of you who commented or emailed. Sometimes when you see fandom embroiled in stupid arguments or playing head games you can get a little put off. But I can say without doubt, Torchwood people are the greatest!

Things might get a little complicated around here. My father was rushed to the hospital this morning due to a massive loss of blood pressure. He's stable but they want to keep him in for observation for at least 24 hours. My sister and brother-in-law are with him and my mom and I'm home taking care of pets, house etc. On top of that, my father's sister, whom he hasn't seen since 1969, is coming to visit. This week. On Friday. In the middle of a massive renovation. I don't even have a bed to sleep yet, since I'm sleeping in the guest room while my room is done.

Real Life... Ah. Real Life.

Anyway. I'm still writing but getting to the actual editing and posting might be a bit more difficult...