Since it's episode 40 we're allowed to derail the discussion immediately, right?

I am okay, but I wouldn't mind a crystal ball to see whether people are still going to be talking to, or about, Thomas Chatterton Williams 18 months from now. Not that that's terribly important.

The guy yelling at Bouie? I already forgot him.

Speaking of my need to stop reading Twitter, "Christian Colon" was trending and I thought it was Falwell again.

It's my fault for following too many journalists on Twitter. But he's written books and stuff.

This morning my random reading of Auden came up with a perfectly prophetic stanza from 1938:

The quick new West is false, and prodigious but wrong

The flower-like Hundred Families who for so long

In the Eighteen Provinces have modified the earth.

I am NOT OK.

Anybody know how Chris Y is doing? I seem to remember he broke a bone or something.

7 NOOOOOO!!!!

8 Also Mossy hasn't been around much lately.

Whoa, that's true, Moss-moss has been absent. I'm shocked that this slipped by me.

11 I've sent him an email.

There's been kind of a lull here - kid has been doing outdoor-socially-distanced-masked day camp set up by the city, so we can work-from-home relatively peacefully. That finishes this week, though, and whatever form school is taking, it's not starting for at least a few weeks. I do not really have a good strategy for keeping Mr. 8 busy all day for weeks by myself, nor do I want to turn him into a video game vegetable.

As for the form of school, we may be becoming pod people, but the negotiations are kind of exhausting and stressful. And it's not clear that it'll even work.

I'm gradually starting to expand my pod, included a couple I'm close with here, he drove me for some errands the other day while my car is being fixed and tonight a few more friends from work and their spouses one of whom is having a small dinner party, there will be six of us all told, I'm bringing Pola as my plus one.

Turned in the paperwork to get the full 12 weeks of FMLA. We're going to my dad's cabin for Sept and Oct. My bet is that I won't mind being present with my kid if I don't have the option to have the internet my own self. Been ordering paper books and stuff to do. Mountain Megan is going to read a lot more demanding stuff than city Megan has ever consistently read. She's also gonna be a better mom than there's any evidence of here in town.

Not even gonna attempt remote learning for a kindergartner. He can catch up in November, if necessary.

He replied, Mossy is alive and well.

Yay Mossy being well!

The weather finally broke in this part of London. (Apparently parts of south and west London got downpours yesterday? It's been a desert here. This city's incomprehensibly big.) Finally. 25C/77F right now after weeks of 30C/86F+ weather.

London is more than twice the size of Pittsburgh.

8. I'm in rehab learning to walk for about the sixth time in my life. Tomorrow I have a doctor look at how the breaks are healing and meet with a physio and an OT to discuss whether I should go home in a couple of weeks and carry on there or if I would do better staying here and working intensively with them for a bit (free at the point of delivery).

Seriously bored, as no visitors allowed. Don't feel up to reading serious stuff.

I too am a bit concerned about MC; would be good if he checked in.

16 to 19.last

I'm glad your well, Chris, if bored.

18: The borough I'm in has 2/3 of Pittsburgh's population in an area the size of Squirrel Hill (both parts). It's on the smaller end of borough populations, and there's ~32 of them.

I'm glad you're well, too, even if bored. Hope you're at least consuming good unserious stuff.

Here's a question I've been wondering: I'm interviewing a potential babysitter on Saturday for a quasi-pod-ish arrangement. Is it ok to ask if she lives with anyone who would be at risk for exposure? Or is that a violation of law or ethics?

I'm mostly anxious, not bored. I was thinking about being a poll worker but decided against it for fear of it making it impossible to visit my mom if visits are allowed.

You could ask something like 'how are you and your household handling COVID?'. Having been relatively loose about risk all along, I didn't press hard after hearing, 'oh, we don't go anywhere'.

22: It feels illegal.

Binge reading Ben Aaronovitch and Philip Kerr. Any other recommendations welcome.

It does feel illegal, but I'm wondering if it's because it feels close to gender-related intrusive questions about family and pregnancies.

So it seems like it may be legal, but unethical if it's too direct? I think Megan's question is ethical.

You can get pregnant without risking Covid. You just need a wall with a hole.

You shouldn't ask candidates if they are willing to do that. Just mention it as an option being promoted by the government of Canada.

28: The University Health Center at the University of Georgia has advice -- https://twitter.com/defNotChuck/status/1292227060358938624

In Canada, the formal name for a glory hole is "Timbit."

My wife is being forced to go back to work at her office by THE University. She actually had been looking forward to this, but now she's anxious about it, because her bosses don't appear to have give any thought to proper precautions like limiting occupancy of the bathroom or break room.

Also I told my sister that I'm not going to her son's wedding. I think she's furious at me, but she didn't say anything.

The bathrooms at my office are the problem. No ventilation at all.

Even before Covid, it was a problem.

Anyway, we might get new office space.

22: Re legality, except for the Civil rights Act of 1866, which only concerns racial discrimination, the federal and Texas non-discrimination laws only cover employers with 15 or more employees.

https://www.twc.texas.gov/news/efte/major_laws.html

Oh, 7 is tragic. I hope recovery and repairs happen.

I went to a hospital this week for an MRI. There were few people in the public spaces so it felt OK. Not great, there are sick people in hospitals, but OK. The MRI was inconclusive so I'm supposed to get an endoscopic procedure. But before that, a COVID-19 test! I suspect I'll be agreeing with poor Pebbles. I wish her well on the surgery.

I used to have a picture of my stomach from an endoscopy. Be sure they do the lighting well. Mine had such a large area of glare that it looked really ugly.

That's how they cure the covid.

39: so you're saying that inside a Moby, you do need to be able to read?

Wow, one of these threads finally served their intended purpose.

Most things are about my stomach.

I ate too many brownies yesterday and got a terrible stomachache. I had to lie down for a while.

We managed to escape America (despite our PCR samples being more than 72 hours old) and are now ensconced in a beach house in southern Portugal for the next 2.5 weeks with Iberian Fury's family. I still have a bunch of teaching-degree stuff to do, but this is still very nice. I feel like one of those possibly-apocryphal who post "Blessed! [smiley face] [heart]" gratitude messages on Facebook.

41. Ha!
39. They're going beyond the stomach. ERCP.

Best wishes. I just had gastritis.

Ugh, I'm prepping for a hearing and I don't yet know whether it's going to be in-person (in a county nationally famous for its rabid antimask residents) or virtual (which presents its own set of complications). Also, I'm trying to untangle the substantive issues, and, have I always been this dumb, or is my brain broken?

Anybody heard from Dairy Queen?

44 is also known as Doing a MoDo.
I am being sent back in to work 1 or 2 days a week starting the end of this month but I get to pick which days I want each week.

Not that kind of brownies.

Alive and well. The blah is hitting my wife particularly hard right now; we're both really looking forward to the Yosemite Valley loop trail next week. This really does seem to be the year to get in any close to home things that are usually buried in tourists.

Speaking of Yosemite, one of our local state senators is being scrutinized for using his office to get into Yosemite without getting tickets the normal way. It'd be such a dumb reason to lose office... and of course his is one of the more competitive races.

14 well that was very nice indeed.

I saw that, about TJ Cox. So dumb and so much better than Valadao.

Also best meal I've had in 5 months

Frowner, I've been thinking about you and would love to know how you're doing.

Dinner was very nice, no beach or walk this morning so I ended up sleeping late till noon which I haven't done in a very long time.

Work has been kicking my arse. Mostly writing contracts and bids and assisting clients with funding applications, and continually being shifted off of all of the billable work I am supposed to be doing in order to do this. My academic hate is burning very bright at the moment. My own boss has been a ghost for months, and AIHMHB my dedicated backup member of staff who is supposed to be able to fill in for me has been suffering with "stress" and so I am basically doing his job in addition to mine (instead of the formal model in which I am supposed to be handing him work when I have too much).

We have been trying to book a shared holiday at the end of the month with some friends, which has been fraught, just because everyone else involved is either a shit communicator, or a terrible decision maker, or both. To be fair, some of the other people have been super busy with A level results and things, but it had to be done yesterday or it wasn't going to happen. Thankfully, that's all done and should be good.

Mrs ttaM is not doing well with enforced non-working (since she was made redundant). xelA has been pretty good, though, and is enjoying going to football (soccer) day camps and not doing any home schooling.

It has rained a lot here in west London the past few days, but it is still hotter than Satan's arsehole. I sometimes turn round and check the thermostat in my home office, and it's 30C+ (86 F) and wet with humidity by early afternoon.

We did get away on Tuesday and went to the beach, which was great. The sea was positively Mediterranean.

I have picked up some unexpected and stressful work, about which I should not complain; my sister is staying for a fortnight, which is sort of nice, since my work room also doubles as the spare bedroom; no progress on our house purchase which is stressful.

On the other hand, if you want family psychodramas, this twitter thread on Dr Peterson is hard to beat.

I accidentally put my updates in the other thread because I got thinking about school openings, but school will be opening online soon. My new asthma medicine really seems to be working and I can feel more of my lungs today, which is encouraging! Also it's supposed to rain all weekend, so I shouldn't be too tempted to overdo it. I thought there was something more I wanted to say here but now it's gone. I really appreciate seeing chris y's updates. All who have bad ankles are friends of mine, or something. And the girls finally seem to be getting bored enough that they're reading, which is delightful. Selah got a whole bunch of books from Odile and me for her birthday, so she's all set!

Consultant reckons I'll have the pot off in three weeks as of today. Meanwhile the OT here has written an action plan which is quite a good read in that it's fairly optimistic, but implies that I stay here till early September, which is a bit of a hard decision to make. Whatever, they're offering me a shower tomorrow, which feels like a milestone.

Maybe they just need to clean it?

My mother joins you in broken ankle solidarity! Weight-bearing joints are the worst. (She's doing great, but American health care can die in a fire.)

Oh yeah, I'm profoundly sick of being IT guy/research guy/can fucking use Google guy, for the entire family.*

* this comment brought about by a long day in which every fucker expects me to materialise information for them.

And here I was about to ask you to answer questions in the other thread. Maybe some other time.

I'm not running distance because of my ankles, but I'm trying to run for speed. I can now do 5 minutes running at an 8 minute-mile pace, but I can't do a whole mile in less than 9:10.

I'm short, old, and overweight. When I was just short and overweight I could do two miles in 16 minutes.

The pandemic (and tree-hitting-house) disruptions have really screwed with my fitness, and I'm at an age where I degenerate quickly with any decrease in activity. I set a personal adult record just prior to the pandemic -- an eight-minute mile on the way to a 16.5-minute two miles. A few weeks ago, when i was still getting some kind of regular exercise, I was struggling to do two consecutive 11-minute miles. I'm now in a place where I think I have to revert to brisk walking to build up a bit of endurance.

I've been running a bunch too, given that I can't lift weights because of the pandemic, but I am very slow. Because of being a consumerist tool, I bought a watch that nags me about running, and I'm on a twelve-week training program that in theory is going to get me able to do a 5K in 28 minutes. I'll believe it when I see it.

I did a 5k in about 26 minutes back about twenty years ago. That was an exceptionally hilly course. I remember being passed by a guy pushing a baby in a stroller.

I've been running. I've been working in the early mornings because I'm the most productive then, which means I've been running in the 11 am-1 pm window, trying to avoid the 2 pm - 5 pm death pit of fire, but it's still grotesquely hot and unpleasant.

I loathe the end of August and all of September so much.

The park where I'm jogging has a leanly fit thirty-something who jogs with a double stroller. I still took it as a personal victory the first time I passed him.

Does he have two kids or is he just showing off?

I've also experience the deterioration. I walk a fair bit, but I don't do much else at the moment, as I am not going to the gym. I was doing weights regularly, and I really really notice the fall off in overall strength and condition in just a few months.

I can't run at all, as it just wrecks my knees and shins. I can sprint a bit, if playing football with xelA, which, ironically seems to hurt less. I presume it's a gait or weight distribution thing. I don't know quite how fast I used to be when I ran regularly as a teenager* and in my 20s. Quicker than average, without being anything outstanding. It's a bit depressing thinking back, though.

* you forgot how fit teenagers can be, and how big the decline is for some of us. My mum was a keen jogger in the mid 80s -- when she was in her mid 30s -- and used to sometimes run for a club. Just a local jogging/running club, nothing "elite". One time I was going for a train and heading the same way she was. She was running at full speed in running kit, and I was wearing baseball boots, jeans, and a heavy leather jacket. I was able to keep up without even getting the tiniest bit of a sweat on. I was pretty quick, but not as quick as a couple of mates who were serious rugby players.

He has two kids in the stroller. Both his? Without DNA testing, who's to say?

Try to cut them in half.

75.2: Grass/dirt compared to pavement makes a huge difference for me.

It's kind of nice having been a completely sedentary teen that way. I don't have any memories of being casually athletic that I've declined from -- at 16 I was a skinny kid who got winded running for a bus.

The entire Trump era has been terrible for my mental and physical health. At one point I rapidly lost 20 pounds, most of it muscle (and I wasn't strong to begin with), and then gained it back as fat during the pandemic. I'm trying to use the upcoming period of political violence as motivation to at least regain some cardio.

There's some of 80.last in 67.

re: 78

That's definitely part of it, too, yeah. Also, I think sprinting, I don't heel strike as much. Plus, it's just a lot less actual running than jogging for a few miles.

re: 79

I was terrible at any sports that required much coordination. I was a middling volleyball player, I suppose. I played for the school team, but I was the worst player on the squad, and if there'd been much competition I wouldn't have made the squad. I was rubbish at football and rugby.

On the other hand, I did grow up literally running everywhere, and wasn't at all sedentary. Almost every day, we used to jog a couple of miles to pick up a friend, jog another couple of miles to meet another friend, and then play football (really really badly) for a couple of hours. We'd think nothing of cycling 15 miles one way to walk up a "mountain" and then cycling back.** So when we started doing cross country running and 800-1500 metres at school, I was comfortably in the top 10% or so of kids, maybe a bit better even. But quite a way short of the kids who were into competitive athletics.

** Ochils, so not really mountains by any real standard.

Ironically, I'm much better coordinated now than I was then. Just with the accompanying middle-aged spread and joint pain.

I can shamble round 5k on foot in about 40 minutes, which is possibly dreadful but makes me quite proud. On the other hand, I can now ride 90km without dying and have realistic plans for a 110 mile ride over two days to my sister's. If I dare dream I might make the whole distance back in one day. I'm old and overweight, but I do find bicycling a really satisfying form of exercise.

I don't know quite how fast I used to be when I ran regularly as a teenager* and in my 20s.

The best shape I've been in my life was in my early 20s when I had a solid bike commute (about 5mi each way with some significant hills -- nothing extreme, but significant exercise every day). It didn't feel remarkable at the time, but I'm much less fit now . . .

Because of back issues, I can't run at all, or walk more than a couple of miles. I can ride a bike though. And should maybe take the afternoon off and go for a ride.

Because of back issues, I can't run at all, or walk more than a couple of miles. I can ride a bike though. And should maybe take the afternoon off and go for a ride.

I hate running. I've been walking 2.5 miles most mornings and playing a lot of tennis and played our first half-round of golf last weekend with no cart or club dolly. I've still gained a lot of weight because I'm not biking to work and can't/won't play my main exercise sport, hockey. I've been offered a slot at a couple of drill sessions that I declined, but thanks to intense lobbying and people being irresponsible (traveling to play in other states that are more lenient) our state has agreed to allow hockey leagues again. I won't play myself but we keep going back and forth on letting the kid play. She has been asking me every day if we can rent some ice to just go skate, or if we can use sticks and a ball in the yard, so she really wants to. The rules they've published are impossible to follow- masks on the bench and during faceoffs (what, you pull it down during play after the puck drops?) 6' apart on the bench with max team sizes of 12 (but benches aren't always long enough for that math to work). If recirculating AC is the big risk factor then a hockey rink seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

(I did a 4 mile walk in Glacier on Sunday. And felt like 3.5 would have been a better idea.)

Fucking hell. I have just spent three days working on a story for a Murdoch paper - I need the money - and after rewriting the first draft completely, and then dealing with lawyerly queries all morning at three in the afternoon got a question that made it quite clear some editor higher up the chain had completely misunderstood the whole thing. It was then rewritten by a third party, chopped in half, which I don't mind: that's all in the game, but also with a stupid controversy ginned up from a misunderstanding in the middle of it.

So I email back to say take my name off this: I have to work with the people I write about and they have to believe I understand their problems to talk about them honestly.

Panicked phone call from unhappy sub. How can we change it so we keep your name on? Which I have just done, to produce something which is not actually going to make me look like an ignorant fool; just a slightly better informed one. If it gets through.

But, fuck, the process on tabloid papers is horrible to undergo.

I tend to get up, get my son breakfast, catch up on a few work messages with a coffee, and then go for a quick walk before a conference call that happens every day at 10am. Usually I either walk around the local nature reserve, or I walk to a local supermarket and buy something for lunch later and walk back.

I just checked the supermarket distance, and it's about 2 miles (round trip) by the shortest possible route. I usually do that in about 30 minutes, including time spent in the shop, so I probably walk a 5km in about 40 min at my usual not-sweaty pace. I couldn't run it at all, though. I do a similar walk (different route) most evenings, so, going by my Fitbit and GPS, I get about 5.5 miles of walking a day, but I have days when it's quite a lot more.

I fucking hate academics. Another day of being fucked around by a lying, cheating shit.

this is one of those days where I just have a giant rock of dread weighing down on my chest. It seems to be 1-2x/week roughly. I have to admit that the "homeschool" thread is giving me big sad feeings.

Why sad feelings, heebie? (I can think of a couple of reasons but don't want to assume.)

The one (only?) good thing about my breakup is that I've diligently been running and doing yoga every day. I'm more fit than I have been in years. However, 79 was basically me,* so that's not saying too much.

*Except that I did a ton of dance, so had muscle strength in my legs as a teenager even if no real endurance.

Frowner, I'm thinking about you too. Sir K, how goes it with you? Do I remember correctly that you were experimenting with genetic testing to try to identify the right new medication?

Heh.

88 last aren't hockey rinks huge, though? Large volume of air for dillution, AC keeping air moving, sounds very different from being packed into a small space.

-l

I was in a hockey arena once. I saw the Wiggles.

94: I'm not sure. Everyone hacking their own solution makes me feel huge anxiety for the kids who are falling behind. I am such a bundle of nerves about the impending semester that basically all conversations about school get contorted and freak me out. I'm worried that all these school outbreak stories are going to stay on the level of anecdata, and that there's no convincing evidence that could be assembled that could turn the tide. I just can't get my head around what we're embarked on as a society, and I'm also freaked out for myself and my own ability to do my job and get my kids through the year and keep us safe.

Linda Manz died and I'm upset about it. That's my check-in.

I mean maybe some of it is displaced woe about the post office. I don't know. Trying to figure out the actual source of stress these days is such a carnival game.

101 oh fuck no

Jon Ossoff called me again today so I gave him some money.

Great little interview with Linda Manx here, with a bonus recipe for her clam bread https://www.villagevoice.com/2011/06/01/calling-linda-manz/

Manz, stupid autocorrect

About to go to my second Korean archery lesson.

I have all the stuff, except the loaf of French bread.

I was going to make dip, but someone ate the chips first.

100 is me, too. I am always a terrible procrastinator about the start of the semester, but this year instead of taking secret joy in being last to make syllabi and knowing I can pull it off, instead of sneaking off into nature or whatever for fun, I feel like I need a psychiatrist. I just can't face the semester and it starts in 5 days. And the kids' high school a week after that. Nothing seems real. I really don't want to get COVID 19. But we just bumble onward and what can one family do to stop it? I'm pissed my kids were inside all summer and neither could get jobs (we didn't let them and the older one's possibility of a return to last year's summer job got cancelled anyway). The general fucked-upness of the US competes with my immediate personal and family dilemmas.

So, basically, pessimism has the upper hand.

The one thing that gave me a touch of sanity was when a fellow teacher joked in an email a week before the semester started "I can't wait for this semester to be over." Yes! This too will pass.

100 is me, too. I am always a terrible procrastinator about the start of the semester, but this year instead of taking secret joy in being last to make syllabi and knowing I can pull it off, instead of sneaking off into nature or whatever for fun, I feel like I need a psychiatrist. I just can't face the semester and it starts in 5 days. And the kids' high school a week after that. Nothing seems real. I really don't want to get COVID 19. But we just bumble onward and what can one family do to stop it? I'm pissed my kids were inside all summer and neither could get jobs (we didn't let them and the older one's possibility of a return to last year's summer job got cancelled anyway). The general fucked-upness of the US competes with my immediate personal and family dilemmas.

So, basically, pessimism has the upper hand.

The one thing that gave me a touch of sanity was when a fellow teacher joked in an email a week before the semester started "I can't wait for this semester to be over." Yes! This too will pass.

I told my chair I have the usual November burnout in July and he was completely sympathetic.

26 - Chris I recommend Ben Aaronovich's mate Andrew Cartmel -theVinyl Detective. He also helps plot the Rivers of London comics.

Pebbles' surgery went fine yesterday but with emergence delirium, where she was mostly coherent except for the panicked screaming that she couldn't calm down. Rebooted her with a fentanyl dose, after which she fell asleep, woke up, and said "My arm hurts. I'm really hungry. And I want this [the IV] out."

A moment of delight prior to the surgery when the surgeon breezes in and tells her he won't give her any owies or boo-boos and she looks at me like who is this mental simpleton who is going to do surgery which involves fixing my bone while I'm asleep which I already understand.

Sir K, how goes it with you? Do I remember correctly that you were experimenting with genetic testing to try to identify the right new medication?

Yeah, I did have the test done and it showed...a bunch of stuff that maybe means something and maybe doesn't. They loosely group drugs as "green" (use as directed), "yellow," or "red," supposedly indicating whether a drug is likely to work as indicated, whether I might need a different dosage than standard, whether there might be high risk of side effects, etc. ("Red" doesn't equate to "danger.") There are a lot of drugs in the yellow and red categories. So I've started on something new from the green list, but it takes 6 weeks before you can tell if it's working. My psychiatrist has also brought up ketamine, but actually getting it is a pain in the ass, and transcranial magnetic stimulation, which sounds like such total quackery, though there does seem to be some decent research on it.

I have found out (through trial, not testing) that stimulants (ritalin, adderall) don't work on me. Like I can take a maximum dose and there is zero effect, which is also true of caffeine.

TL;DR I still feel sort of shitty most of the time unless I'm distracted and have very low motivation.

However! We're getting out of town for the first time since the Beforetimes a few days at the beach, to which I am very much looking forward.

114 is awesome.

115: My psychiatrist who does therapy as well, so is somewhat biased, does use meds but thinks trans cranial magnetic stimulation is mostly old news and hype. I mean if your severely, severely, severely depressed I'd look into ECT which does seem to work.

Binge reading Ben Aaronovitch and Philip Kerr.

Try the series that starts with A Famine of Horses. P. F. Chisholm. There's lots of the series, if you like it.

I've been doing Couch-to-5K for the zillionth time and my "running" pace is barely lower than my walking pace. (I do walk fast, but still.) My whole neighborhood is hilly, and running down a steep hill doesn't seem much faster than running up a steep hill, but I'm still a bit disappointed, and wondering if I'm doing it wrong.

Oh well, keep doing it, though not tomorrow when our heatwave hits.

113, 118. Thanks, I will try them.

Running down hills is bad for me. Kills the ankles if I don't deliberately slow down.

121 I'm running up that hill...

Right. Better cardio and because the hill is rising with you, less pressure on joints.

I can remember in junior high how kids were whispering that "She Bop" was really about masterbation but it was hidden so that no one would pick up on it. It was just on the radio and it's really not hidden in the least.

O.P.P., now that's a bit subtle.

I'm sorry you're still in the trial-and-error period, but glad you have possibilities in the "try" column, Sir K. Enjoy your beach time!

I really need to stop Twitter. Between Joyce Carol Oates foot picture, facts and rumors about the Post Office, and my impatience to see if Trump lost his brother to Covid or not, it's been a day of mental unease.

Trump's brother did die.

115: I did transcranial magnetic stimulation, and it did nothing. Genomic testing indicated that most SSRIs were not likely to help me, but didn't give a great incidation of what would. Atypical antipsychotics really fucked me up, and I'm never trying those again. Right now I'm on Pristiq, a low dose of lithium (despite the fact that we don't think I'm bipolar), and liothyronine, which is supposed to help activate the lithium or something like that. I'm really hoping that by the next time I have a bad depressive episode, ketamine will be covered by insurance, because my psychiatrist told me we don't have a lot of tools left in the box apart from ECT.

I will note that stimulants like adderal and Ritalin don't have any effect whatsoever on me, but Dexedrine (which is always out of stock, so I had to quit) and Vyvanse seem to work.

128: Yes, but from what?

Probably from looking at Joyce Carol Oates's foot.

A ketamine infusion center opened near my work about eight months ago. They advertise ketamine and an "oxygen bar." I think ketamine therapy seems totally legit, but this place, with its massages, oxygen menu, and oh yeah, ketamine infusions does not! Also, there are many more offices than I'd have guessed in Michigan - guess it's a thing?

https://askp.org/directory/

I regret that the "In the News" section isn't called "The K Hole."

Re: the dead brother, news sources are reporting a bedside hospital visit, so probably not something contagious . . . But that horrible man lies as easily as he breathes, so who knows?

There's an office in the same building where I used to visit my therapist (we had switched to video chat well before the pandemic, which was super convenient in that sense) that does TMS and ketamine; they have a medical-ish veneer, not oxygen bar vibe. The impression I get is that TMS is less great (and so many more visits!) but is FDA-approved and thus covered by insurance; ketamine seems like it's better but you have to pay real money.

TMS was a ton of visits, but at least they were short. It's not painful, per se, but it's deeply uncomfortable. I was really hoping it would work, but not so much.

You have to limit Twitter to about 45 minutes a day or less. Mobes. I don't know what more benign compulsive thing you can do... maybe a game besides Pokemon Go? Fantasy stonks? Design a game where (original, novel joke ahead) you actually play go with (off-brand) Pokemon?

Best of luck with the atypical depressions, everyone.

Muting words on Twitter can be very helpful. Not just the obvious--names and handles of various political figures, but also tiresome phrases like "I don't know who needs to hear this" and so on. Muting the word "thread" was a revelation.

Turning off retweets isn't perfect--it doesn't save you from people who quote tweet the same shit and it can mean missing occasional good things in an even more indiscriminate fashion than some muting choices. It makes Twitter a bit like Ned Flander's satellite dish ("Over two hundred and thirty channels locked out!"), but it does reduce the amount of screaming on one's timeline like nothing else. One might then ask what's the point of Twitter, but Flanders was happy with his tv.

I would have thought the more benign compulsive thing you could do was read Unfogged comments.

BoycottSandals is trending on Twitter, and I was sure it had something to do with Joyce Carol Oates' foot.

138.3:. That used to work, but there are rarely enough of them these days to crowd out other less benign compulsions.

140: I've noticed that as I've been lurking again this summer, a shocking decline in productivity

I'm on vacation this week and totally unplugging from twitter and news sites. If Trump dies of a heart attack someone here let me know. Please don't say anything Trump related about masturbation.

That reminds me, I need a good book and I can't find the previous threads with recs. Something fiction, maybe scifi or fantasy. I liked the recommendations for Wheel of the Infinite, The Power, Jemesin's Broken Earth. I forget where I left off with Bujold.

"Space Opera" is fun. The Cixin Liu three-body trilogy is good, but not fun.

135: FDA approved but it usually requires a lot of prior authorizations. I saw a presentation on i5 for family day for schizophrenia at MGH, and they were talking about its potential. I mentioned this to my psychiatrist who said it was not the greatest thing for depression and was not going to revolutionize schizophrenia care either. (He spends 50% of his time treating people with psychotic illnesses in a public clinic.)

What's i5?
142: There's a decent chance Trump killed another one of his brothers.

My sleepy little town had a Proud Boys rally and corresponding counter-protest yesterday:
https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2020/08/rally-turns-violent-as-proud-boys-met-by-counter-protesters-in-downtown-kalamazoo.html

(Me)

I think I have read all of Bujold, almost always with enjoyment. Her fantasy Wild West series is great fun.
I know there was someone here who did not like The Half Made World as much as I did, but they were wrong.
Richard Powers' The Overstory, if you want serious American literary fiction that is not actually bad.
Station 11, now that we know the virus is not that deadly.

Me, I am in the middle of Jane Eyre. No spoilers, please.

Thanks, those look interesting. Maybe I'll try Overstory.
144- you mean the space opera genre or is there a specific book called that? And by good but not fun you mean a depressing plot?
I read all the Steven Brust books as of a few years ago but he must have churned out a couple more since then. The problem is that the chronology of his main series is so random I can't remember which part of the sequence I'm at.

"Reader, I married him. Or did I?"

Fucking fuck. I was so fucking angry with Murdoch minions this morning that I knocked 8 minutes - say 10% - off my record time for cycling to the unseen university. Shit I was angry. But I felt a bit better at the end. Even to write this makes me want to swear uncontrollably. And I doubt I will beat an hour and 20 minutes for a long time.

Thanks, J, Robot. That's helpful info, though I'm sorry you're not having good luck either. Pristiq is what I just started on, in addition to the bupropion I've been forever.

+on

I haven't been doing much yet today, but my basement no longer has a load-bearing package of toilet paper.

149, 150: I liked The Overstory well enough, but thought the individual set up stories were stronger than the concluding narrative.

Half-Made World is indeed a great read. The followup (not really a sequel, but set later in the same world) is pretty good but not very memorable (and I am in fact forgetting the title).

Was this all meant to be in ogged's thread?

Calling people is still stressful, but it doesn't feel weird anymore. I think because I have memories of having to call bunches of people back before email.

I might go a few calls over my quota because I've heard Biden is a socialist and I know socialists like their Stakhanovites.

It cut me off at the quota. Maybe he's not a socialist?

I've surely said this before, but spending the summer in Furnace Creek, Death Valley in 1998 has forever confounded my sense of what counts as an anomalously hot temperature. (It hit 129 F in mid-July; I can't remember if that was one of the days when the A/C crapped out at the resort for a few hours, but let's assume it was.) I have no trouble at all believing that it finally hit 130.

(Decided to be presidential because, on reflection, this is probably my single most identifying life story, but I'm sure it's obvious who I am. It was weird enough being there during Clinton's impeachment; I wonder what it's like to ride out this truly apocalyptic year in that heat, creeping around Zabriskie Point at night and seeing almost no tourists by day.)

156.2: "The Rise of Ransom City".

153: Thankfully, I'm actually doing just fine right now (with that specific combo of medication, and seeing a better therapist, and having more stability in my career). It's just at this point it's pretty much guaranteed that I'll have additional depressive episodes in the future, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that research (and insurance authorizations) keep up.