Month: April 2005

The Tensor wants to know what language the Cardinals will speak when they’re sequestered away to choose the next Pope. Personally, I wonder what language the Cardinals will speak in batting practice tomorrow! [rimshot]

Actually, I find this whole thing partly fascinating, and partly of the “Wake me when it’s over” variety. I think it would be funny, actually, if they just had a big “rock-paper-scissors” competition, with the winner being made Pope.

And I think it would be cool if the next Pope took the name “Gigantor”. Just because the world needs a Pope Gigantor the First. (And, in all likelihood, the same guy would be Pope Gigantor the Last.)

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(This is a long post with a lot of graphics, for which I apologize in advance. This post also may not be for those on the squeamish side.)

Now that Little Quinn is nearing the eight-month-old mark, I’m feeling slightly reflective. That eight-month span has, in some ways, seemed terribly short, and there are times when I genuinely feel like it was just a week ago that our second attempt to have a child came this close to ending perfectly before it all went wrong. But then there are times when that night seems like it was a lifetime ago, considering all of the things we have learned and fought and struggled against and come to terms with since that day. I imagine it will come as no small surprise to anyone who knew me in college to learn that, among other changes to my lifestyle, Little Quinn has turned me into both a morning person and a regular church-goer. (That second, though, is admittedly less for religious reasons of my own than for family reasons.)

Anyhow, with all of the medical struggles we’ve faced with him, by far the greatest single day-to-day challenge to raising Little Quinn has been feeding him. It’s a lengthy process that on one level strikes me as a kind of medical miracle, and on another strikes me as a horrible perversion of nature. I’m happy that we’ve developed this method of feeding an infant who is unable to reliably take food by mouth, but I wouldn’t wish it on anyone or their child.

After Quinn’s initial set of health problems stabilized, the next problem was determining to what extent the brain damage he suffered at birth would affect his day-to-day necessary tasks. Swallowing, it turns out, is a fairly advanced bit of coordinated activity in the mouth and throat, as is sucking; and without the ability to reliably do either, Little Quinn faced serious problems with feeding. It was determined that he was able to swallow, but not all that strongly, and his gag reflex is very underdeveloped. And this, in turn, meant that in the event that he regurgitated — a dead certainty with infants — he would have serious difficulty in protecting his own airway. That’s one of the huge “design flaws” in the human body: we take air and food through the same passage. (Note to God: When you get around to designing Homo sapiens v. 2.0, I’d put this bug at the top of the list of things to fix.)

So, because Little Quinn had some ability to swallow and clear his mouth of secretions, the doctors determined that at that time he did not require a tracheotomy. But because his oral function wasn’t up to taking food, he did require surgery to put something called a G-tube in his stomach, through which we would give him food through a syringe and an extender tube. At the same time, his esophagus was “looped around” at the bottom, a procedure which would still allow him to take food by mouth later in life but would render him incapable of spitting up (and, we shall see later on, burping). A G-tube is basically a little “port” in the stomach, held fairly loosely in place by a couple of saline-filled balloons on the inside and with a little plastic flap that closes the opening when not in use.

And this, in a photo that I took just an hour or so ago, is what Little Quinn’s G-tube looks like.

Here it is, closer:

What’s really creepy about that little thing, at first, is that it’s not anchored in place. It actually spins freely, and it can apparently be pulled right out of the stomach with little effort. And in the event that that happens, we’re instructed to stick it back in there and whisk Little Quinn off to the ER for “reinstallation”, because the incision in which that thing is rooted apparently can close extremely quickly. Like, within an hour. No, this has not happened to us yet.

So, obviously the idea is to simply pour liquid nourishment right into Little Quinn’s stomach through that thing. One doctor, sensing our trepidation about the whole thing, described it to me in precisely that way, even going so far as to say that “A G-tube is nothing,” in one of those doctor’s remarks that immediately makes me want to respond, “How healthy are your damned kids?” (Luckily, my inner sense of tact prevailed. The doc was genuinely trying to put me at ease, and there is a sense in which he’s right. It’s amazing what you can make part of your daily life when you have no choice.)

The reality of the tube in action, though, was quite a bit different.

As I noted above, the looping of Little Quinn’s esophagus made him incapable of burping, which anyone who’s ever been around a baby will know is absolutely necessary. In Little Quinn’s case, the only way we have to get gas out of his system is to hook up his tube and prod his stomach until the bubbles pop out. This was by far the most difficult part of the whole operation in the first months. A baby with a belly-ache is bad, but a baby with a belly-ache and a G-tube is an inhuman nightmare. Patting a baby’s back until he lets the gas out through his or her mouth is one thing; literally squeezing the gas out of his stomach through a man-made hole that shouldn’t be there in the first place is something else.

The more recent development is that we’ve had to switch almost entirely to using infant formula for Little Quinn’s feedings. This is a disappointment, but it was unavoidable. Since he has never nursed, The Wife has been unable in the end to artifically pump enough breastmilk to keep his caloric intake at adequate levels. We started off having to mix formula into the breastmilk, and now Little Quinn is being fed formula almost exclusively. We take solace in that we got him through his first winter almost entirely on breastmilk.

(I’m pretty militant in my views on infant formula: so far as I am concerned, the stuff should be available by prescription only. It’s a food of convenience, and I see little to be gained in giving people “fast food” as soon as they are out of the womb. The topic came up at work recently, and a co-worker sagely pointed out that “Breastfeeding isn’t for everybody”, as though it’s a mere lifestyle choice. My reply was that breastfeeding is for everybody; that’s why women have them. Few things make me crazier than to hear a new mother say that she tried breastfeeding but it just “didn’t take”, and when I ask her how long she did it for, hearing a response of, “Oh, a day or two”. This is one of very few topics on which I am pretty militant.)

So, how does a tube-feeding work? What’s it look like? Well, here is Little Quinn’s afternoon feeding from today, in pictures. It starts off like just about any other time you feed a baby: with the kid in your arms.

But you don’t stick the bottle in his mouth, nor do you slide your nipple in there, if you’re the mother and you’re breastfeeding. Instead, you unbutton his outfit (by the way, the presence of the G-tube makes baby clothes that button in back totally impractical) and hook up the G-tube to the extender tube and syringe. Here’s what the whole “device” looks like when fastened.

That white clamp in the middle of the tube is the key to the whole affair. It pinches off the tube, so that the fluid inside cannot run. (And by the way, that little tube — it’s no more than a foot in length, and narrower than a standard USB cable — costs over one hundred dollars. Imagine trying to afford that if you had no health insurance, considering that those tubes wear out very quickly since you’re using them six times a day, every day. We’ve been going through two a month.)

Now, you can’t just start puring breastmilk or formula right in there, because if you did that, the flowing liquid would force the air that’s already in the tube into Little Quinn’s stomach. What happens first is that we hook up the empty tube, and then open the clamp and gently massage Little Quinn’s tummy until whatever’s in there comes out:

Hopefully, it’s mostly gas, and this will actually explode out and make a pretty funny “burping” noise, but often we’ll get bubbly remnants of his last meal. And if we’re really scraping the bottom of an empty tummy, we’ll actually get stomach acid in the tube. Did you know that stomach acid is the same color as Mello Yello or Mountain Dew? I don’t drink either anymore.

After we’re done with the “venting”, we fill the tube and syringe with food. This means clamping the tube, unhooking him, rinsing it clear, pouring milk or formula into the syringe, and then unclamping the tube, allowing the contents of the syringe to run free. (Obviously, we stick the “exit” end of the tube into the bottle so it runs right back into there.) Then, while it’s flowing, we re-clamp the tube. If done properly, this results in the tube containing nothing but milk (i.e., no bubbles). Then, we hook Little Quinn up again, and unclamp the tube, holding it up so that the contents of the syringe flow into his stomach:

Thie feeding method is called “bolus feeding”, and it employs gravity: by holding the syringe above the level of Little Quinn’s stomach, the milk drains downward into his tummy. However, the rate of feeding can be altered by lowering the syringe to slow it down, and if we actually hold the syringe below the level of his tummy, the milk will actually run out of his stomach and back into the syringe. When doing this, the milk will actually pulsate along with the rhythm of Little Quinn’s stomach contractions; and sometimes, if he has to cough or sneeze or has a stronger reflux, his stomach will actually force the milk out at a surprising rate. It will actually form a spout in the syringe, which is one of many fascinating things I’d give anything to have never seen at all.

Due to some principle of physics, I assume, we can never get every drop of food into his stomach, but we can get it so the tube is empty except for a segment close to his tummy, like this close-up of the tube in mid-feed after the syringe has been emptied the first time:

This is where time becomes a factor. A feeding is generally four ounces, but we can’t just pour four ounces into Little Quinn at once. We have to do it a little bit at a time (for comparison, that large syringe has a capacity of two ounces, so he gets two of those in a full feeding). We give him a bit of food, and then we clamp the tube and allow him to “rest” for a bit. Then, we unclamp him and again massage his tummy a bit, because bubbles can form in his stomach that quickly. Here’s what the bubbles look like in the tube, as we squeeze them out:

That’s what burps look like, people.

Now, if Little Quinn is feeling “under the weather”, he might cry a lot during a feeding and resist it and even push it back into the syringe while we’re trying to get his food into him. Unfortunately, there is little we can do in such cases except wait him out because eventually has no choice but to digest what we put into him. These feedings are very difficult, however, because in addition to having a screaming baby in our lap for what seems like eternity, the milk becomes thicker and thicker as it comes in and out of his stomach. That means it gets harder and harder to get it through that skinny tube. This was true of breastmilk, and it’s even more true of infant formula. Little Quinn’s feedings used to be like that all the time, but over the last couple of months as he’s finally started putting on weight and getting stronger, the “rejection of the feeding” has happened far less frequently. The reaction we like to see is this one:

That’s a yawn, not a cry. (It was hard getting the photo to snap at the unmistakable instant of “yawniness”.)

It takes about half an hour, if everything goes smoothly, to get a feeding into Little Quinn so that he isn’t uncomfortable afterwards. But after the feeding is done, the wrap-up is simple: we disconnect the extender tube, close up the “port”, button up his clothes, and then do what parents always do with freshly-fed babies. We rock them to sleep.

And if we’ve done our job well, this is the reward that awaits us for a completed feeding:

That’s a reward worth waiting for, n’est-ce pas?

UPDATE: An update of this post, detailing our use of an electric feeding pump for Little Quinn’s G-tube feedings, can be found here.

UPDATE, 30 November 2005: For those who are finding this post via search engine requests for information on the realities of g-tube feeding, I wrote this post to serve as an aid of sorts for parents who find themselves in a similar position to ours, and who might be looking for an actual parental perspective as opposed to the clinical perspective the doctors can give. Doctors can be wonderful, but while they can tell you what to do and how to do it, they generally can’t convey what it is like to incorporate the realities of medical procedures into one’s daily life. It was in that spirit that I wrote this post, and I am more than willing to answer questions about it via e-mail.

Sadly, I should also report that Little Quinn’s story came to an end on November 28, 2005. The details thereof can be found here.

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Yup, it’s another one of them blogging game meme things, pilfered this time from Sarah Jane Elliott. What I’ve done is this: below is a list of twenty musicians I particularly admire, and what the readers need to do is try to guess my favorite work by each one. Some of these, admittedly, will be film composers; I’d like those suggestions narrowed down to specific tracks, but failing that, feel free to name a general score. I’ll bold the entries on the list as the correct guesses roll in.

(Oh, and these are in no particular order; I’m just listing musicians as they come to me.)

1. John Williams (“Yoda and the Force” by The Empire Strikes Back)
2. Hector Berlioz
3. Pink Floyd
4. Van Halen
5. Van Morrison
6. Jerry Goldsmith
7. Sergei Rachmaninov (“Symphony No. 2 in E minor” — but man, that Second Piano Concerto is enthralling)
8. Enya
9. Kate Rusby
10. The Chieftains
11. Alan Silvestri
12. George Gershwin
13. Frank Sinatra
14. Bobby Darin
15. Lerner and Loewe (“On the Street Where You Live”, from My Fair Lady. “I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face” is right up there, though.)
16. The Platters
17. Ludwig van Beethoven
18. Loreena McKennitt (“The Highwayman”, indeed. Great bit of song-storytelling there.)
19. Dougie MacLean
20. Jim Croce (“Photographs and Memories” it is! Although “Operator” is the first Croce tune I really loved.)

Give it a shot, folks!

UPDATE the FIRST: Hokey-dokey, folks — I’m starting to see the trouble with this particular game. I listed the above musicians with specific songs or works in mind, but now that I see a few of the comments, I’m wondering if my original “favorites” are my real favorites or not! Well, keep commenting — I’ll update this as events warrant.

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That’s the apparent official rating for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, according to AICN. That bodes well for the dark and violent film most fans, including myself, are salivating for.

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I’ve mentioned the book The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to Celtic Music, by Fiona Ritchie, a couple of times before in this space, and now my review of said book is up at GMR:

I would imagine that more than a few people first encountered Celtic music through the public radio program Thistle and Shamrock, which has run on National Public Radio for over twenty years. That’s certainly the way it was with me. Hosted for all that time by Fiona Ritchie, the show is an institution that takes listeners on a weekly tour of Celtic music, sometimes focusing on the newest music available, sometimes focusing on more classic material, sometimes highlighting the grand “old names” of Celtic music, sometimes leaning toward the newest crossover artists. With Ritchie’s extensive knowledge of the music and the infectious enthusiasm and passion that fills each episode, it’s the most natural thing in the world that she should write the Celtic Music entry in NPR’s Curious Listener’s Guide series.

Click the link to read the rest.

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I’ve never much liked the movie Se7en, mainly for storytelling reasons — the first two-thirds of the movie are very engrossing, and the last scene is absolutely chilling. What gets me is that I always feel a huge disconnect between the first two acts and the third act, as if the writers, having gone from point A to point B, couldn’t figure out how to logically get to point C, so they just copped out by having “the Killer” simply walk into the police station. When I first saw the film in the theater, I just felt the air going right out of the movie when that happened, and instead of watching the final scene in growing horror, I was basically sitting back and saying, “OK, so how does he kill Gwyneth Paltrow?” (Because frankly, if you couldn’t see the Gwyneth Paltrow character’s horrible demise coming a mile away — the fact of it, if not the precise manner — then you simply don’t have a pulse. It’s what Roger Ebert calls “the Law of Economy of Characters” at work.)

But that last scene is certainly a good scene, and had it existed in a context that made more sense, I’d be among the chorus of voices deeming the film utterly brilliant.

So where’s the weirdness, you ask? Well, it’s in seeing that final scene enacted using stuffed animals. Now that’s just wrong.

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Read this.

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I just watched Bull Durham, a movie that’s got one of the great all-time screenplays, and I just caught a terrific line that isn’t as famous as some of the more familiar ones from the movie:

ANNIE: The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.

Man, that’s some serious philosophy, there.

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I’ve stolen yet another “List of Crap About Me” thing, this time from QuirkyChick (whose blog design, by the way, I absolutely love). Enjoy. Or not. (None of this stuff is likely to be any surprise at all to longtime readers. I’m mainly doing this quiz because some of its questions are phrased in a way I haven’t seen before.)

V I T A L S

(I’m omitting this section, containing stuff like name, height, eye color, and whatnot because its questions are answered pretty much everywhere you might look for such info on this blog. Moving right along….)

S C H O O L

Are you still in school: No.
Favorite subject: Philosophy and music. (In college, I majored and minored in both.)
Least favorite subject: Economics. I just couldn’t shake my sense that it was all made-up mumbo-jumbo that didn’t really explain much. But I liked the one econ prof I had in college quite a lot. She was a neat lady. (Still is, I guess. I don’t think she’s dead.)
Do/did you buy lunch or bring it: Ummmm…is this a high school thing? In my Junior and Senior years, I rarely bothered to even eat lunch. In college, I ate in the school cafeteria a lot the first two years, and then moved off campus the last two years, so my diet then consisted of large amounts of Ramen noodles, canned ravioli, Mac-and-Cheese, and the occasional pizza when a check from Mom and Dad arrived.

F A V O R I T E

Number: I vacillate between 2187 and 1138.
Clothing : Well, my fall, winter, and early spring wardrobe pretty much revolves around the theme you see in the pictures in the sidebar — sweaters, long-sleeve henley or t-shirts, and overalls. During warmer climate, though, I pack the heavier stuff away in favor of t-shirts and bermuda shorts. As always, comfort is my key when picking clothes. If it’s not comfortable, I don’t care if it makes me look like Cary Grant. I’m not wearing it. (Obviously, clothing required by work is different, since I don’t have the option of not wearing what they tell me to wear, but I work in a place where the required clothing is generally pretty comfortable. And it’s nice to not have to sit around thinking, “Gee, what should I wear tomorrow…” Plus, they’re pretty lenient about letting us accessorize in ways that add flair and personality to our garb. Such as the Celtic hair ties I recently bought.)
TV show: Hmmm. The West Wing has made quite a comeback this season. CSI is still a favorite. For reasons passing understanding, I am totally hooked on The Apprentice. And even though it’s only two episodes old, I can see Eyes becoming a big favorite. That show’s just fun. I also like Desperate Housewives, believe it or not.
Fruit: Apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries, kiwi.
Movie: Star Wars Epiosde IV: A New Hope.
Scent: Cooking meat. (If this is actually asking about perfume or something like that, I have no idea.)
Ice Cream Flavor: Coffee Haagen-Dasz. Once the subject of a college road-trip at midnight.
Color: Purple. I also like red a lot. And blue. Black is also highly useful.
Season: Fall. Why Buffalo isn’t spending money to aggressively market its October climate in the hot states is absolutely beyond me. October is the greatest month of all — weatherwise, sportswise, it’s just an all-around awesome month.
Holiday: Thanksgiving.
Thing in your room: Which room? Heck, I dunno. My single-volume of Lord of the Rings, maybe. But really, I don’t know. (Oooooh wait, I do know: my writing desk. How’d I forget that?!)
Author: I can’t pick just one. But if you held a gun to my head, I’d yelp “Guy Gavriel Kay”.
TV channel: The only reason I miss cable is because I can no longer watch the Food Network. For local news, Channel 2 is getting my nod, which is a surprise since local news here has sucked for years.
Shape: Ummmm…the feminine hourglass. Let’s move on….
Time: Early evening. Between five and seven.
State: Bliss. (Or are we talking like which of the fifty US states? That would be New York, obviously. Because it’s home. But every state is worth being proud of, to its inhabitants, when you get down to it. Well, maybe not Texas. That place is just messed up!*)
Disney character: Peter Pan, with Emperor Cuzco from The Emperor’s New Groove a very close second.
Scary movie: The Silence of the Lambs.

» T H I S O R T H A T «

Hot or cold: Weather? Cold. Tea? Hot. Coffee? Hot. Wings? Medium.
Winter or summer: Winter.
Spring or fall: Fall
Shakira or Britney: Dunno who the former is, and utterly detest the latter. Moving on.
MTV or VH1: DVD (I’m keeping QC’s answer for this one, since it’s perfect)
Rollerblading or skateboarding: Rollerblading. I suck at it, but I enjoy the hell out of it. And I imagine that seeing me coming at one on a pair of rollerblades is a fairly terrifying sight!
Black or white: Black.
Orange or red: Red.
Yellow or green: Green.
Purple or pink: Purple.
Cell phone or pager: Cell phone. (Even though I don’t have one.)
Powerpuff Girls or Charlie’s Angels: Charlie’s Angels (but only as long as I can have the originals!)
Scooby Doo or Dino: Satchel (from Get Fuzzy)

Y E S O R NO

Are you a vegetarian: No. I long ago decided that nothing ever eats that something else doesn’t die, so I’m fine with it.
Do you like cows: Well, I love The Far Side, which has to count for something.
Are you a bitch: Huh?!
Are you artistic: Not with the visual arts.
Do you write poetry: Once in a while. It always stinks.
Can you ski: I’ve enjoyed Nordic skiing. Never done downhill.
Are you British: What?
Are you straight: Again, what?
Are you evil: Well, the Objectivist Weirdo over on the FSM message boards has told me that I’m evil, but that’s the only such testimonial I have as yet.
Is Britney a whore: I have no idea as to her “whoreness”. I do think that she’s an untalented tart who uses sex appeal to gain fame. If that’s the same thing, then yes.

P R I V A T E

Have you ever been in love: Most definitely. More than once, even.
Do you smoke: No.
Do you smoke weed: No. I might have tried it in college, had the guy I knew who did smoke weed on occasion ever had any when I dropped in to visit. But no, I never tried it.
Crack, heroin, anything else: Absolutely not. Never dabbled, either. The strongest thing I ever take is Excedrin.
Beer good or beer bad: Well, that depends, doesn’t it? Yuenglings good. Schlitz bad.
Are you the sissy who drinks wine coolers: Great God Almighty, NO!!

» T H E L A S T «

Thing you ate: Peanut M&Ms.
Thing you drank: Water.
Place you went: The Store for the weekly groceries.
Thing you got pierced/tattooed: Never done any of this.
Song you heard: An aria from Tosca, which was playing on the radio on my way home.
Person you instant messaged: I don’t IM much anymore, and I don’t even remember.
Person you laughed with: The Wife. Other than her, a very good friend at The Store.

N O W

What are you eating: The same peanut M&Ms.
What are you drinking: Nothing. (I finished the water and will be having a Pepsi shortly.)
Any shoes on: My hiking boots.
Hair: Tied back in one of my Celtic hair-ties. (I should post a picture of these sometime — I think they look pretty cool.)
Listening to: My keyboard, and Little Quinn snoring.
Talking to anyone: No one but me here right now. (The Daughter is outside playing as of this writing.)

L A S T

Last Cigarette: I’ve never smoked. See above. (I had two cigars in 1995, when two guys I worked with had babies in the same month. That’s the only smoking I have ever done.)
Last Alcoholic Drink: A bottle of Yuengling’s. It’s been a while — maybe a month or more. I don’t drink very much at all any more.
Last Car Ride: An hour or so ago.
Last Good Cry: The frequency has fallen off quite a bit at last, but for a while there I was having these hourly.
Last Library Book: I always have a stack, some of which I read and some of which I don’t. I can’t recall what I have out right now, except for a book called Brush Up Your Poetry.
Last book bought: The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to Celtic Music (of which I should have a review appearing in GMR tomorrow — I’ll post a link if it’s there).
Last Book Read: The Bad and the Beautiful: Hollywood in the Fifties
Last Movie Seen in Theatres: Finding Neverland
Last Movie Rented: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. (I also check movies out of the library a lot. Right now I’ve got Open Range.)
Last Cuss Word Uttered: Probably “dumb ass”. I also tend to mutter the F-bomb under my breath, but I really try to not say it out loud except to certain people I trust enough to hear it from my lips. (And there are people I do trust that much, but don’t really feel right saying the F-bomb around. It’s like, I don’t know, uttering the Lord’s name in the presence of a nun.)
Last Beverage Drank: Didn’t I answer this already? This is the weirdest quiz ever.
Last Phone Call: The Wife.
Last TV Show: Scrubs, which we taped on Tuesday and watched Thursday.
Last Time Showered: This morning.
Last Shoes Worn: Again, didn’t I just answer this?
Last CD Played: The soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back.
Last Item Bought: A bunch of food today.
Last Download: Hmmmm…I don’t do much downloading, really. If I’m going to own content, I want to own something physical. I’m just not that wild about paying for a transfer of ones-and-zeroes to my computer that might completely disappear if my hard drive ever goes “Kablooey”. I know that I’ll most likely be forced into doing so over the next however many years, but I’m still not wild about it.
Last Annoyance: Grocery store shoppers who, although the aisle is wide enough for two carts to pass one another, steadfastedly insist on walking down the exact middle of the aisle with their carts. That annoys me greatly.
Last Thing Written: I’ve started noodling about with some poetry in a leather-backed journal of mine, and I’ve started jotting the beginnings of a script about life in the supermarket world.
Last Key Used: My apartment deadbolt key. (This is without question the strangest blog-quiz question I’ve ever seen.)
Last Sleep: I dozed off while feeding Little Quinn about half an hour ago.
Last Ice Cream Eaten: The Store’s brand of cookie-dough ice cream, night before last.
Last Chair Sat In: Uhhh…the chair at my computer, duh! (That question almost topped the “Last key used” one from three questions back. But not quite.)
Last Webpage Visited: Assuming we’re not talking about blogs, I was browsing eBay a bit earlier.

Well, I’m not sure if I liked that quiz or not. It’s got some goofy stuff in there, eh?

* I’m kidding about Texas. Even though you guys gave the world two Presidents Bush, Tom DeLay, and the Dallas Cowboys, you guys also have some wonderful music and barbecue that’ll make you cry. So I’ll call it a wash.

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Just a quasi-regular reminder that I sell stuff on eBay from time to time. I’ve been weeding out the CD collection lately, jettisoning film scores I no longer listen to and classical recordings I don’t much care for; I’ve also listed some of the books I accumulated when I was studying philosophy. The link to my sale stuff is in the sidebar, so go have a look. All items are guaranteed to be of high quality and smell of mint!

(OK, they don’t smell of mint. But I’m not selling my junk — high quality stuff abounds!)

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