She’s dry alright
I think I’m starting to get the hang of this living-in-a-bushfire-prone-area thing. In the last week we’ve put the fire plan into action three times - that means preparing to defend the house against a fire reported in the area. The latest of these is currently burning 2 kilometres away, and as I write this the house is locked up, the hoses are at the ready, the gutters are blocked up and full of water, and I’m watching the planes and helicopters buzzing back and forth as the CFA deals with the fire.
All of this is happening in utterly dreadful weather - it’s 45ºC outside, there’s a vile wind blowing, and the air smells of smoke.
While all of that is hard, I think the hardest part is the constant apprehension of impending disaster. Even when there’s no fire reported in the area, on days like this you find yourself sniffing the air for smoke, watching the skies, listening to the radio, and always expecting that something bad is about to happen.
Today is the 29th of January, and so far this year we have had not one drop of rain, and there is no prospect of rain in the next week, probably more. I do not remember ever in my life going through a whole month – any month of the year – without any rain at all. According to the Bureau of Meteorology, the last time there was no rain in January in this part of the world was 1930. We depend on rainfall in this house because the only water we have – for drinking, cooking, showering and gardening – comes from rainfall harvesting. We’re doing OK for water at the moment but it won’t last forever without some rain.
Honestly I wonder where this all will end.
Click to enlarge
This image provided by GeoEye Satellite Image shows Washington D.C.’s National Mall and the United States Capitol, far right, Washington D.C. on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009 taken at 11:19AM EDT during the inauguration of President Barack Obama. The image, taken through high, whispy white clouds, shows the masses of people between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. (AP Photo/GeoEye Satellite Image)
Straight male christian becomes President of the US
America’s new president is a non-gay man, just like all those before him. What a nation of homophobes!
Seriously, the new Pres has a pretty good set of objectives for the GLBT people who voted for him — check em out.
links for 2009-01-19
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Efforts to reverse the proliferation of invasive species on Macquarie Island, a 50-square mile piece of land located approximately halfway between Australia and Antarctica, have taken a disastrous turn for the worse–with the likely end scenario a complete "ecosystem meltdown." (TreeHugger)
So long, farewell…
Above: A White House staffer carries a framed photograph of US President George W. Bush outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, on January 13, 2009, one week before Barack Obama is sworn in as president. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
The long nightmare is almost over. Hope is the prevailing mood in America and around the world. Change is coming. Four, or eight, years from now, will we recognise the world as it was in 2008? I hope not.
Eight years ago…
- Why Bush Should Win (Buggery.org, 11 Dec 2000)
- American Dumbocracy (Buggery.org, 15 Dec 2000)
Four years ago…
- Sheesh! Can’t you freaking yankees get anything right? (Buggery.org, 3 Nov 2004)
Top Ten
Will we miss Bush when he isn’t available to poke fun of any more?
I want a new drug
After nine years, two months and 11 days, yesterday I said goodbye to efavirenz. I’ve continued to have good results with this well-loved combination, but the side effects have finally worn me down.
Efavirenz causes most people who take it to have a range of central nervous system side effects – things like sleeplessness, vivid dreams, agitation and so on. It’s kind of like getting stoned, except not in a nice way and every single day. To combat this, you take the drug at bedtime which means at least you’re asleep when you’re fucked up, except when you’re lying in bed wide awake, which for me has been part of almost every night for the last nine years.
The official line is that these side effects usually go away after a few weeks, but for me they continued in one form or another for the whole time I was on the drug. Occasionally the effect can be moderately amusing, verging on lucid dreaming. Occasionally it can be deeply disturbing. Mostly its just annoying and often means I wake up more tired than I was when I went to bed. But I’m a stubborn bugger and I put up with what I felt were manageable side effects so that I could be sure of being on the best therapy available to combat my HIV. In those nine years I’ve never had a detectable viral load, so I’m pretty happy I stuck with it.
Lately it’s started to veer more towards the annoying/disturbing end of the spectrum. More than a few times lately I have woken in the night (or dreamt that I was awake – it’s hard to tell which) and been unable to remember who is the person in bed with me. I’m not interested in not knowing who my husband is, so I decided it’s time to change at last.
When I started that combination at the end of the last century, I was running out of treatment options and the efavirenz was really my last good chance – another reason I stuck with it. In the intervening period there’s been a bunch of new drugs come along, some good and some not so good, so I do have more options for the future, although almost all of them involve taking ritonavir, which I prefer not to.
With some forceful argument on my part, yesterday my doc agreed that the best option for me was etravirine, the new (not yet licensed) non-nucleoside being developed by Tibotec, so he got me onto the special access list.
It’ll be interesting over the next couple of weeks to feel the efavirenz wash out of my system and my fevered brain return to normal. I have a slight fear that after so long on this drug my brain will either have become addicted to the efavirenz (in which case I’ll go into withdrawal) or my brain chemistry will have been permanently altered by it (in which case I’ll have to put up with the symptoms anyway). But I have no reason to think these things beyond my normal paranoia.
So it’s goodbye to efavirenz and hello to etravirine from this point on. Hopefully I’ve made the right choice.
Hit it, Huey!
links for 2009-01-06
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Amazing photographs from the NG's annual photo comp.
Happy New Year
Above: Palestinian men bury the body of 4-year-old Lama Hamdan at Beit Hanoun cemetery in the northern Gaza Strip December 30, 2008. Lama and her sister were reportedly riding a donkey cart Tuesday near a rocket-launching site that was targeted by Israel. (MOHAMMED SALEM/Reuters)
