"vacation"

Work has remained unpleasant. After an outburst from a coworker that was so unhinged that he may have been fired from a normal workplace, I needed a break and took a spontaneous week of vacation. The plan was to mostly hang out in bed and do nothing. Alas, life intervened and I broke a tooth, my range died, and multiple people I love needed support. I want a do-over! I can't reasonably take another right away, but I am stealing a couple hours a week by letting my boss continue to believe I'm getting allergy shots twice a week. (I've reduced them to once a week due to side effects, much as I would like to get the ramp-up period out of the way.)

we don't deserve dogs

A love letter to dogs from Blair Braverman.

a competent medical system, how odd

Six months after my headache began, I finally got to see a headache specialist! He didn't really listen to my history, seemed confused about why I was there, and told me to take some supplements, which were listed on a millionth-generation photocopy originally from like 1999. But he did also prescribe an injectable preventative. I braced myself for insurance shenanigans. And they did happen, but to my shock, the neurologist office dealt with it for me and eventually worked out that I'd get it delivered to my house for less than my usual copay. Sweet!

It arrived today in a large insulated box with an entire sharps container to hold the one auto-injector pen. So I'm feeling bad about the environmental impact but not bad enough to spend a bunch of time on the phone negotiating a change and paying more at my usual pharmacy. I have now stabbed myself in the thigh and in a few months will have a good idea of if it helps.

books

I discovered when getting surgery that reading a book while sitting in doctor's offices is a better distraction and stress reducer than the internet or social media. I spend even more time waiting now that I'm getting allergy shots and so am finding myself with appointment-specific books. I don't want to dick around with reading glasses when I'm out and about so I use large print and e-books instead of whatever else I happen to be reading. 

(1) This means I usually read three books at a time now (home, appointment, audio) and I need to make sure they're different enough to not get them confused. When I was younger I always had a bunch going at once but I lost that cognitive capacity years ago! (Aside: Jo Walton meanwhile has an unhinged system of reading 16 books at once.) 

(2) I had to start paying attention to library due dates so I finish them in time, since I'm usually in waiting rooms for less than 90 minutes a week. 

(3) I don't usually like to listen to audiobooks unless I'm doing something else at the same time, but when I go in after work I'm often so exhausted I want to close my eyes. So maybe I should keep some extra headphones in my car.

it does not mention how the fire was extinguished

A pissing match at a local volunteer fire company led to its president breaking into a safe with an angle grinder, which set on fire some of the documents he was trying to access. He then used the jaws of life to extract them quickly.

veggie burger review

The grocery store gave me a free coupon for Notco veggie burgers so I gave them a try. I like the taste and recommend them if you like burgers that taste like meat (I find Impossible burgers super bland) but my stomach didn't appreciate it. I generally find that pea protein doesn't agree with me. The internet claims this is because it's high fiber, but beans/ lentils/ split peas have been my primary protein sources for decades; that is definitely not my issue. I guess my intestines only want my ultraprocessed foods to come in the form of cookies and chips.

I'm not a fan of sirens myself

Someone stole a WWI air raid siren from a private home. I am very curious about this. Is it because it looked cool? (There's a picture; it doesn't really.) Because they didn't trust the owners to properly inform the community of zeppelin attacks? Or my top theory: the owners played with it randomly and it annoyed the neighbors.

down two pounds is too many

A relative discontinued a GLP-1 agonist and I microdosed their leftovers for two months. They have anti-inflammatory effects and I was curious to see whether they would improve my general pain and fatigue levels. Results are inconclusive; I think I saw benefits but would need a higher dosage and/or more time to be sure. 

When I started, I was already at the lowest weight that keeps my blood pressure high enough for me to function. I had to stop taking it because I could not eat enough to maintain that weight, even though I used much lower dosages than generally used for weight loss. Frustratingly I had to go from counting calories and being uncomfortably hungry to avoid overeating before starting it, to counting calories and being uncomfortably full to try to avoid undereating. Honestly I'm grumpy that I put in the work to lose 30 pounds when I could have done it effortlessly with meds! I can't imagine how bitter people who've had more significant and longer term weight issues might be.

old ladies unite!

Because it's a challenge to do any kind of cardio when all your joints and connective tissue are messed up, I started taking an "Aqua Zumba" class offered by the school district. The instructor reminded me of D'arcy from Resident Alien. Though I do not believe she was drunk at the time of the class, I wouldn't swear to it! She was very happy and very disorganized. She did not introduce herself or ask our names, but let us know she was single, and that we should introduce her to any eligible men we knew between the ages of 30 and 55. At the end of class she made a speech about how important it was for the world that we all be kind to each other. "If you see someone leaving your office with their hands full, make sure you hold the door!" It will be interesting to see if she's like this every week.

this is how I do it

 A decade late on this, but Gotye compiled a bunch of amateur covers of "Somebody That I Used to Know" into one, and it's cute.

SCIT

Because being allergic to dogs is unacceptable and because it could theoretically help some of my other problems, I started getting allergy shots (immunotherapy). The office has carefully arranged their schedule to make this as difficult as possible for anyone with a typical 9-5 job to do this. It's not open before work or after work, and is close 12-1:30 to prevent people from going on a lunch break. I can only pull it off because I have a ton of sick time saved.

So far the shots are kicking my butt: minimal local reactions which are most common, but I am EXHAUSTED afterwards. I'm hoping this doesn't last forever. ("Forever" is how long you have to get allergy shots for, though I'm hoping to be able to reduce frequency in six months.) I'm also hoping that since I'm there so much and don't even have to check in with a human, that eventually the massive anxiety I get every time I walk into a doctor's office abates eventually. 

I mean I don't like calling contractors either but...

Vacancies have increased in NYC public housing, leading to squatters moving into and/or vandalizing the vacant units. A commission recommends solving this by... inspecting the vacant units monthly. Erm, how about reducing vacant periods instead, which would not only solve that problem but would be PROVIDING LOW-INCOME HOUSING? Units sit vacant for more than a year, which is blamed on renovation needs, but mismanagement is the only reason for it to take that long. 

TV show reviews

* Dispatches From Elsewhere: This defies summary so I won't try. I was intrigued by the puzzle of the first couple episodes. Then I got annoyed for a few; it felt like they were doing wackiness for the sake of wackiness instead of putting together something that would come together, and it felt cheap and silly. But I was wrong about where they were going and it ended up being  a sweet story about loneliness and community and making amends. (There was even a romance that didn't make me gag, and that doesn't happen often!) 

BUT THEN! The final episode was so self-indulgent that it calls itself out for it. It also distanced us from the emotional impact of the previous few episodes. It might hit differently if you know and care who Jason Segel is, but I don't, and would strongly advise stopping before the last episode. 

* A Man on the Inside: A lonely widower takes a PI job spying on a nursing home. It's primarily a comedy but, like the above, has a lot to say about finding community when feeling alone, and is sweet without being saccharine. 

Do better, married people!

(Another thing of note: one of Gisèle's primary supports was a friend she had cut off 20 years earlier because the friend tried to tell her that her husband was skeezy. People do this all the time, fixating on their primary loyalty instead of hearing everyone out and recognizing there can be space in their lives for people who don't like their partners. And even after they buy into toxic monogamy in that way, this is far from the first time I've heard of discarded friends remaining loyal when the wife comes crawling back after recognizing their husband was indeed skeezy, and they need support.)

bygones!

This article about Gisèle Pelicot (the French woman whose husband drugged her and brought in other men to rape her) discusses how some people want to dive deeply into their past traumas to work through them, and others just want to downplay it and move on. (This has caused a big rift between her and her kids.) These differences can be cultural, generational, or individual, but I'm finding for me it's also changed with age. I don't have much interest in dwelling on what's too late to change now. I don't know if that's because of memory loss, other neurological changes, or having learned that it's more productive for me.