Sorry, I've been too busy working on my NaNoWriMo blog to post anything here.  Maybe I will post a link from this one to the other one at some point, when I have the first draft done.  I went to the doctor today and got good news.  The interferon seems to be working really well.  It's been a long, long time since I've needed a phlebotomy, and I likely won't need one any time soon.  The side effects from the interferon have also decreased over the past few months, and I've actually been feeling better lately than I did before I started taking it.  That's huge, because I felt pretty shitty when I first started on it.  It also seems that there is more published research about the effectiveness of treating MPDs with interferon, and it may soon become the standard here in the US (it's already the standard in Europe).

I got home from the doctor this afternoon, and discovered a phone message from my insurance, saying that I should call right away today, and that it was about my interferon.  Apparently, the company that manufacturers the injection pen I've been using for the past 2 years has suddenly stopped making it.  There was no explanation for the change.  So now, they will ship a powder that I will have to mix up myself.  That sounds kinda sucky.  The premixed pen was nice because it was pretty much dummy proof.  Now I have to worry abut measuring and mixing it properly, and avoiding bubbles in the needle may be more of an issue now, too.  I was supposed to gt a shipment of interferon tomorrow, but now because of the change my doctor has to submit a new prescription for it, which will probably delay the shipment by several days.  

I have enough to get by until next week, but it would have been a lot easier to coordinate the switch if I'd been informed of the changes a few days earlier.  That way I could have actually talked to the doctor about it today in person, and made sure the paperwork got faxed to the insurance before I left the clinic.  I searched online just a bit ago and discovered that the discontinuation of the pen has been public since at least last Wednesday. Poo!

Here's a kind of a funny story from work.  A coworker forwarded everyone a link to www.booktour.com, saying it's a good website to see what authors will be visiting the local area.  So, I checked it out and saw an event scheduled in December featuring Aleksander Solzhenitsyn at Centuries & Sleuths in Forest Park. I got all excited ... partially because I had thought he was dead, partially because reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich had an impact on me in high school, and I also admired the man.  I was already composing (in my head) the email that I was going to send out to people, urging them to go with me to see him on December 11. Then I saw that the event is scheduled for 11pm, and decided to check out Centuries & Sleuths' website to see if it was some kind of mistake.  It was listed on their website all right, under "Today in History" .  December 11 was his birthday! The bookstore staff apparently list author events and author's birthdays in the same way on their website. I looked at Wikipedia, and it turns out that Solzhenitsyn IS dead.  Now I feel all ripped off and annoyed. Stupid creators of false hope.  See if I ever visit your book store.

Halloween Theme - John Carpenter
The Boogie Monster - Gnarls Barkley
Nightmare On Elm Street
Thriller - Michael Jackson   
Living Dead Girl - Rob Zombie   
Lullaby - The Cure   
Is There a Ghost - Band of Horses  
Earwig Town - Chairlift   
Shankill Butchers - The Decemberists   
White Chalk - PJ Harvey

Ranked on a 5-point scale:

Inglourious Basterds : 4.75 (added 9/20)
District 9: 4.5 (added 8/29)
Up: 4.5 (not to be confused with What's Up )
The Hurt Locker : 4.5 (added 8/23)
The Hangover : 4.25
Zombieland : 4.25 (added 10/17)
Where the Wild Things Are : 4 (added 10/17)
Star Trek : 4
Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince : 3.75
The International : 3.25
Angels & Demons : 2.75
X-Men Origins: Wolverine : 2.5
Terminator Salvation : 2
Law Abiding Citizen : 2 (added 10/24)
Taken : 1.75

I like to celebrate Banned Books Week each year by reading a banned book.  I started in 2006 with Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War .  In 2007 it was Chris Crutcher's Athletic Shorts .  Last year I read Living Dead Girl, a new book that I assumed would soon be banned (if it hadn't been already) because the main character is a victim of kidnapping and child rape.  And, yes, according to the author it has since been banned. This year I'm reading Ellen Hopkins' Crank.  It was banned most recently in Oklahoma - just 2 weeks ago. I went to a YA Literature Conference yesterday, driving all the way to Naperville to see several authors, including Hopkins, in the flesh.  I bought a copy of Crank while I was there, and then stood in line to have her sign it for me.  I asked her to write a Banned Books Week message, and she obliged, writing "Fight the good fight against censorship!"