Saturday Links, and Doing My Part

[pshaw_raven]

This morning I headed out for a short, easy run - 40 minutes. The water has drained off in a lot of places, but we still have both standing puddles and places where water is still flowing. A few bad washouts on Villa Neuva but nothing we haven't seen before. Once I got back I showered up quickly and we headed out to get more paneling and stuff to redo the doors for the trash can shed, and we got our flu and covid shots at Publix. I got both of mine in the same arm because YOLO. And because I'd like to have use of one arm instead of walking around like a T-rex.

I've already gotten my blood test back, and I should probably not have gone on that run the day before because my ALT was "high." If I'm reading things correctly, that's the one that indicates muscle damage. High being 42. My hematocrit and hemoglobin were also "high," by fractions of a percent, but I'm sure my GP will comment on them. Everything else is fine - glucose was 87, which makes going without coffee all morning worth it. The draw itself wasn't fun. She stuck me in the arm but then couldn't get any blood, so she wiggled the needle around and then gave up. She did a second stick in the back of my hand, which hurt way more, but blood actually came out, so mission accomplished. I'm tired of being the target in a game of medical lawn darts this week.

The house is open, the air is cool, life is good. I've bought myself a copy of the Kurzgesagt Human Era calendar I rather like having an 'old school' print calendar, even though I use my Google Calendar a lot.

We Are Here On Earth To Fart Around, wise words from Kurt Vonnegut.

The Life-Changing Magic of Japanese Clutter I know I'm not immune to the image of Japan as a paragon of sparse Zen minimalism and visual quiet, but after actually visiting Tokyo, the average Japanese person is no more or less organized than any other human on Earth. To a certain extent, the ideas of minimalism have helped me rid myself of a lot of stuff that I didn't need, wasn't using, and had no reason to keep, but carrying minimalism too far will make you feel bad about any and all new acquisitions, even if it's something obviously useful.

Comments

[onlyknownothing]

Thank you for introducing me to Aeon via your links! I'm definitely going to be following their RSS feed from now on. 🙂

[pshaw_raven]

Hope you enjoy it - I like having long, in depth reads.

[cdayzee]

Ugh, I dislike when phlebotomists go fishing for blood! Then the back of the hand!! Yes, painful!

I've taken to massively hydrating the day before a blood draw so my vein can be easily tapped. Evidently, I have 'baby veins' that challenge most techs. They keep targeting the squiggly worm one in the crook of my elbow thinking it's their best bet but it doesn't like to be stuck at all & has a whole mind of its own as it shifts completely out of the way regardless of them trying to stab it. Naturally, it blows & gives me a painful bruise that travels all over that takes weeks to resolve. Fun times. Whenever I try to warn them in advance not to use it, I get The Look, thinking they know best & they target it anyway.

[pshaw_raven]

I probably was dehydrated to a certain extent, but I've felt like I'm constantly dehydrated lately. I'm drinking a lot of water, so I have no idea why, unless my electrolytes are off. This lady at the lab is usually quite good, and she was really apologetic, but I guess it is what it is.

[zefyr]

The Human Era is an interesting idea. In the past, I had some interest calendars and time-keeping, but in regards to the years, it's a tricky thing. I believe most of our history is fake, and how long we've actually been around and what happened when I don't think we'll ever really know. Perhaps some people in high places know, but whether they'll ever share such knowledge with us is a mystery. I mean, doesn't it seem strange that so much happened in ancient history but pretty much nothing happened for like a thousand years until what we call modern times? Around the 1800s, pretty much everything happened. Suddenly human beings became geniuses and started creating all kinds of things. Electricity just came out of nowhere. What even is energy? A strange world we live in, and how we all got to be here is just one of so many things that I believe have been obfuscated to us for some reason.