drained (from fb - 20200420)

(this is a post I originally made on facebook, copied here and backdated so I can look back on it later)

Guys, I'm exhausted. Mentally, emotionally...I'm drained. These are crazy times, and I was doing all right when I thought we were coming together, when it seemed like we understood that this is our battle to win, that we could all count on each other to get through this.

It's overwhelming. Almost 40,000 Americans dead, with the number doubling every week and a half. 40,000 dead in a few months. On February 26th, a public official said there were "15 people" dead. We've gone from that number to nearly FORTY THOUSAND in less than two months. And if things don't change, there will be *another* 40,000 dead in less than two weeks. And that's just in the US...the rest of the world has been staggered by this. The loss of life is hard to fathom.

But now I'm boggled and saddened and disappointed at what I'm seeing. There are people unironically demanding to be allowed to do what they want, while saying we should be locking up and quarantining the at-risk population so they themselves can be free. There are people demanding the right to do what they want with their own bodies, while denying others the same right. People who are screaming to be allowed to work, but don't want to take the jobs that so desperately need doing.

People who are shouting that because it hasn't affected them, they should be free to do as they please, ignoring the thousands of healthcare workers who are risking all to keep this from affecting more people. People who have decided that because they don't think they are at risk, that makes it okay to put others at risk.

People who are demanding things for themselves, for their own lives, but are not using that voice to push for better healthcare or better economic solutions or funding for research. People who demand the right to go where they want, to shop where they want, eat where they want, with no regard for the danger and risk that brings to the essential workers who are manning the stores, the gas stations, the offices, restaurants, the packing plants, the shipping centers.

People who have decided that because they haven't seen firsthand the devastating effects of this virus, it must mean it's all exaggerated. Even a bit of research would show that this is affecting EVERYONE. Grocery store workers. Nurses, doctors. Janitors, cleaning staff. People shipping our products, people bringing us our food. There are many painful accounts of what medical personnel are dealing with, the death and pain and helplessness they are seeing.

JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T BEEN DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY THIS DOESN'T MEAN IT ISN'T HAPPENING. I hope your luck continues. I hope you never have to have someone in your circle sick or dying from this. I hope you have the luxury of it never hitting you.

Because it *is* hitting someone right now, and their loved ones are dealing with the consequences. Tens of thousands of Americans have died in an amazingly short time, hundreds of thousands of *humans* have died. Millions have been infected, and yes, there are many who have recovered. But there are many who haven't or are still fighting, hoping to be one of the lucky ones.

These are shit times and it's hitting a lot of people hard, economically and mentally and physically, and there is no easy answer. That is why we need to help each other...because this thing doesn't care, doesn't give a shit if you want your football back or want your roots done or want to go fishing or miss hanging out with your buddies on a Friday night.

This thing doesn't care...so we have to.

doing their part (from fb - 20200403)

(this is a post I originally made on facebook, copied here and backdated so I can look back on it later)

Doing their part to protect others. You do yours when you go out, please. ❤️

masks (from fb - 20200401)

(this is a post I originally made on facebook, copied here and backdated so I can look back on it later)

There is a lot of confusing messaging around wearing masks right now, so I thought I'd try to clarify for myself. NOTE: I am just a layman, this isn’t anything official or in-depth, and the situation keeps evolving, but this is what I’m going by right now.

* If you are a healthcare worker, essential worker, or one of the at-risk or currently ill population, then N95+ masks and gloves are recommended and in many cases required. These are primarily to protect *you* from others (though they can also help protect you _when worn properly_).

* For everyone else, please strongly consider wearing some form of face covering if/when you have to go out. This is to protect *others* from you. Many people may be carriers but asymptomatic, so even a 30-50% reduction in the spread of droplets can be significant when we all pitch in. A scarf, bandanna, t-shirt, or a homemade mask (lots of good suggestions and patterns on the internet)...anything will help.

And as always, use care, be smart. Wash your hands often, don't touch your face, and stay home. To repeat a quote I've been seeing around: "The virus doesn’t move, people move it. We stop moving, the virus stops moving, the virus dies. It’s that simple."

this thing doesn't care (from fb - 20200328)

(this is a post I originally made on facebook, copied here and backdated so I can look back on it later)

This thing doesn't care. It doesn't care if your area is red or blue, wealthy or poor. It doesn't care which candidate you support or which you despise. It doesn't care if a politician wants everything to go back to normal by Easter. It doesn't care if you think it's "just" a flu, it doesn't care that you take your vitamins, it doesn't care that you "never get sick". It doesn't care if you think you feel fine, it doesn't care if you think you are invulnerable.

It doesn't care if you are young, old, healthy, ill, strong, or weak. But it does hit the weakest, the oldest, the sickest, the most vulnerable the hardest, so your actions ripple out and have consequences even more than they normally do. Every single one of us is only a few degrees of separation at the most from being affected, with many of us already suffering.

Now is the time to trust doctors and health officials, to listen to the people who have spent their lives studying and working with situations like this. It's time to realize that this is bigger than you, bigger than your personal wants and needs, bigger than demographics and borders and biases and colors and creeds. Now is the time to remember that those lines on the charts and numbers in the reports are *people*, with lives and loves and hopes and dreams.

Now is the time to realize that in spite of the necessary physical isolation, we are not alone. We can get through this, and we will see the other side.

We can do this.

listen to the experts (from fb - 20200323)

(this is a post I originally made on facebook, copied here and backdated so I can look back on it later)

Please do not let politicians and economists sway you during this health crisis. Listen to the doctors, the medical experts. These are hard times, but we *need* to think beyond ourselves right now.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. Be safe.

24.9

For the first time in about eleven years, my BMI is in the "healthy" range (yeah, I know BMI isn't a great metric to use because of how generic and "one size fits all" it is, but it's a good rough guideline).

Not going to lie, it's embarrassing that I gained so much weight. Oh sure, I can explain why: mom dying, family drama, dad killing himself, family drama, job drama, health issues, broken ankle, life changes, five years (and counting) of nerve damage fun. And it sneaks up on you...less than a pound a month over years adds up to more than you would like to think. But ultimately it's on me to own it and make the effort.

About eight months ago, I started to change things. It started out really small: ten minutes a day of walking around the outside of the house. Flip flops and pajama pants, a big floppy hat. Just something, anything to get moving. Will joined in, so I had a walking partner to make the time pass a bit quicker.

I used a Garmin watch to track steps and started at about 4000 steps a day. Used the "move alert" feature to remind me to get up and walk around every hour. Starting ramping up the daily steps as the weeks went on, adding more minutes or more sessions to the daily walks.

A few months in, I got some good walking shoes and started using MyFitnessPal to keep an eye on calories. (One cool feature of the app: It estimates what your weight would be in five weeks if every day were like the current one. A good motivator.)

It became a daily routine: Get up, get changed, walk. Garmin kept track of streaks and totals, which helped keep me motivated (we humans are easy to manipulate, just show us a high score and we try to beat it).

The calorie watching was the biggest factor in the weight loss, far more than the exercise. Not a diet...I've been saying "if you go on a diet, you'll go off a diet". Instead, we simply tracked what we ate and got a better idea of just how many calories and macronutrients were in everything. I still eat mostly the same things, just a bit less of them. Still have Taco Bell and pizza, still snack and graze. But now I am a lot more aware of how those seemingly small things add up.

---

Fast forward to today. I'm now regularly doing 15,000+ steps a day and walking about 3.5 miles each morning. I'm down over 80 pounds (and would still like to lose a few more). I've got a streak going of over 250 days of hitting my daily step goal; with luck, I will get to a full year.

According to Garmin, I've logged nearly 4 million steps and over 1700 miles in the past eight months. I take more steps than 99% of their other users of any age range. I now compete regularly in online "step challenges" against other Garmin users, and I've placed in the top three multiple times (including some first places, woot).

I'm definitely seeing a change in my breathing, my stamina, and my endurance. Gone down a few clothing sizes, donated boxes of old clothes, and now have a full section of my closet dedicated to fitness clothes (which cracks me up).

Will has been an awesome partner through all of it. He's also lost weight and slimmed down, and we keep each other motivated. I've got good friends who are also cheering me on and helping me see the changes that I can't. 

The most important part for me was making sure it was sustainable. I needed this to be something I could do wherever I was, whatever I was doing, for as long as I was able. I didn't want to completely restrict what I ate; I still wanted to have fun and eat tasty foods. So far, it seems to be working...I still have a bit more to go, but so far, so good. <crosses fingers>

And now some pics for my future motivation (and a reminder to not let it get out of hand again):

 

(You can tell I started to actively track my calorie intake
right around the beginning of August.)

 

 

Left: March 2017 - Right: March 2020
(Isn't the drooping eyelid lovely? One of the presents the
shingles/neuralgia left behind. Ugh.)

Left: May 2019 - Right: March 2020
(and that lovely drooping eyelid)

thinking beyond ourselves (from fb - 20200315)

(this is a post I originally made on facebook, copied here and backdated so I can look back on it later)

I have a cousin who is extremely pregnant, I have a friend who is extremely pregnant. I have friends who are at severe risk because of cancer and other illnesses, friends with kids who are immunocompromised because of leukemia. I have older friends, sick friends, young friends, healthy friends...all are at risk.

I'm guessing that most people have someone in their lives who is in danger because of this virus. Even if you are healthy, if you are not showing any symptoms, you could unknowingly spread it.

We need to make sure our emergency facilities and hospitals can handle what is coming. This means slowing down the spread, "flattening the curve" of people needing emergency help, slowing down the spikes of need. People will still get sick, they may still die, but we need to do all we can to make sure that our hospitals and emergency personnel aren't overwhelmed and helpless.

Please please please think beyond yourself right now. Skip the party, avoid the festival, don't go to the bar, give each other space. Everything we can do now could save lives in the coming days.

Don't panic. But do think, and empathize, and realize that this is a *global* issue, and only by thinking beyond ourselves can we get things under control.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center

a gg evening (and a quick catch-up)

A familiar refrain: A drive to the city, a bouncingsingingpunkrocking night at Slim's, and the Gimmes.

The full band name is Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, but it looks like they are using "GG" as their identifier now...the banners on the stage and Spike's jacket had "G G" in gold on them, no "M F" to be found. It was a typical Gimmes show (I think I've seen them 5 or 6 times now, if not more), with a lot of "SAN FRANCISCO!!!" thrown in for the hometown crowd, plus some Christmas songs and decorations for the season.

(I looked it up last night, and the Gimmes have been going strong since 1995. I stumbled into them right near their start, back in the mid-90s. Damn, I'm old.)

Still love Slim's as a venue. It's just a smidgeon above "dive bar", and it's a great place to see bands. Intimate, big bar, a kitchen, easy parking (though the Costco doesn't open up for non-customer parking until 8:30p, which means a trip back out between openers to pay), and pretty easy to get to for an SF location. It's a hell of a drive from the south end of the valley, though, but good company and good tunes (and a bit of patience) make the drive less painful.

I'd deliberately been buying fewer concert tickets this past year (health (my stupid face) and money-saving reasons), but I don't think that will last another year, heh. We've got a big one coming up in 2020, the Hella Mega Tour with Green Day, Fall Out Boy, and Weezer. Tickets are long-since purchased, got the superduper VIP package for three of us and killer seats right at front center. Should be a blast.

Lots of other stuff has been going on: Heavy rains (finally). Still dealing with the nerve damage. Been doing a lot of exercising and been eating better. Darwin is old (almost sixteen) and has laryngeal paralysis, a liver issue, heart troubles, and just got over a bacterial gut thing (poor old man). Will is kicking ass, though he just had to get his first pair of glasses (as someone who has had to have correction since the fifth grade, it's amazing to me that someone can go so long without needing it. :^) )

Lots of flying, including a trip to Disneyland, random flights with friends, and a fun and random day for Will's birthday (he flew a couple of us to Santa Barbara for brunch, then we spur-of-the-moment decided to hit up Disneyland for churros and Dole Whips ). I can't ride motorcycles much anymore (can't wear a helmet because of the neuralgia), so that's a bummer. We got some electric kick scooters to zoom around on; they fit in the plane, so we can take them with us for sightseeing on some tripes.

So basically life keeps on keeping on. The pain is still an issue, and the extra exercise activity is making it rough. Some days are harder than others, but that could be said about life in general, really. I'm lucky to have good people around me, things to distract, and time to indulge in both...doesn't line up that way very often, so enjoying it while I can.

an unexpected connection

The universe can be weird sometimes.

I was browsing my favorite "weird surplus crap" site (American Science & Surplus, so much awesomeness and randomness) and saw a "Pocket Beating Heart Toy".

It reminded me of a teddy bear my mom had for years...it had a "heart" that made a thumpthump you could feel and hear when you hugged it, and she had that thing for decades, right up to the end. I bought one of the hearts for nostalgia's sake, and it turns out it is the *actual* model used in the bear, same brand, same sound, same thumpthump.

Trippy.

So next I went to eBay, out of curiosity more than anything. Boom, there it was: an original "Heart to Heart Bear", at a great price because it didn't have its own heart (poor thing). No problem, I've got a donor heart all ready to transplant. 💓💓

Now, randomly and unexpectedly, I have a new connection to my past and to my mother, ten years after losing her.

The universe can be weird sometimes.

eBay listing photo,
courtesy of davesstuff0100

(posted here for posterity, originally posted to facebook)

ten years

Ten years since that awful Friday the 13th when I didn't make it home in time. Getting the call while I was still on a connecting flight. Some sweet random woman quietly handing me a tissue as I listened to the voicemail from my sister telling me Mom was gone. The rest of the flights and airports a hazy blur that I don't really remember. Trying to keep Dad going, not wanting to lose him too, not this soon. The next days and months just a vague blob of grey.

I miss you, Mom.