mdlbear | Done Since 2020-09-27 (Reply)

Apart from some welcome schadenfreude, it hasn't been a particularly good week.

Mom... I think I've mentioned that she has colon cancer. I spoke to her yesterday, after a call from my brother. I feel bad about not calling often enough; it's way too easy for this phone-phobic bear to let that slip. But she's not doing well. Her 100th birthday is December 28th, and she's not likely to live that long. We're all glad that she decided to have her big party last year.

There were only two days during the week when I got less than seven hours of sleep, and only one of those was under six; that's a lot more than my usual amount of sleep, and I'm not sure whether that's good or bad. A change in sleep patterns could be a sign of depression, but I'm not sure that applies when chronic depression is one's baseline. It feels like I've been more lethargic than usual lately. I spent most of Thursday afternoon and evening thinking it was Friday, and was rather surprised Friday morning when Colleen's caregiver came in around 11.

Colleen's exercises are making her noticeably stronger, and her skin problems are improving. But she's not in "good" health by any means.

(Also) on the plus side, I've done a bit more programming than usual (it's not hard to do more than nothing), an upgrade (on Raven, to Ubuntu 20.04.1, and a keyboard replacement (on Cygnus). Tried to do a little writing, but it's hard to find motivation. Not nearly enough music. See motivation.

There are quite a few good links on Friday, some with pretty extensive quotes. A mixed bag; "I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There" by Indi Samarajiva is... yeah. That. As discouraging as the "Message from Members of the UK and Irish Publishing Community" in support of trans rights is encouraging.

Notes & links:

0927Su
& awake 3:15; shower
/ cleanup shortly before that
* up 8:30ish; S=8:07;
@ How Do Children Fight Off the Coronavirus? - The New York Times
* singing: For Amy (11:30am)
/ cleanup; 1200ml in bag
% Tears at "Following in Valentina's Footsteps" (Filkcontinental final concert)
* checked DH payment method status, prompted by a domain renewal notice
-> AX, already updated
% 3ish I think I'm probably hungry, but nothing looks like something I want to eat
-> settled on PB+C on a rice cake, which is at least fast
% 5:30 applying some heat to my upper back and shoulders. R. shoulder in particular.
Also, sleepy. And/or headache. Also, restless. Attention span of a mayfly.
% 8:30ish jaw pain from clenching. Stressed much?
/ 600ml in bag; 2.5l? in

0928Mo
& awake 00:50;
/ C woke me up but did not need cleanup; weird
* up 5:05; S=5:46;
@ The Strongman Con: How to stop worrying about Trump stealing the election (minoanmiss et.al.)
/ 9:45ish (HH nurse)Orlanda; skin much improved
/ (minor, at least from my POV) cleanup just before; 1200ml in bag
@ Everything You Need to Vote - Vote.org <--
/ 24oz liquid while out buying plants with V
* Made some changes to `pull-all` that I'd been thinking about for a while. It now no
longer needs the top-level vv/sync -- it recurses into directories that have a
pull-all but no repo.
* set up printers on Sable.
* upgrade Raven to 20.04.1 -> not enough space. 3.7G left on / Needs 350-odd MB
-> removed google-chrome -> that was enough. -> success AFAICT

0929Tu
& Awake 2:15ish; % indigestion: feeling slightly bloated and vaguely ill -> tums
@ How Signal Grew From Privacy App to Tech Powerhouse | Time
/ 2l in bag. I don't think she emptied it last night
* up 9:20; S=8:07;
@ These Magical One-Pot Pasta Recipes Only Need 5 Ingredients and a Glance
* a little more work on formatting the output of pull-all
* finished ws-terminal in Honu/dotfiles/=xmonad.
/ 1200ml in bag

0930We
* up 5:30; S=6:08;
% Desti in my lap for about half an hour
* upgrades in slurp, move to vv/prj
/ 1600ml in bag
* 10:30-11 Chris (and Blake) from CPI Plumbing - inspection.
<- back bathroom leak -> replace ring, supply line
* replaced Cygnus's keyboard, with S watching. Went pretty smoothly, would have been
a little smoother if I'd glanced at the service manual, but I didn't really need it.
* try to cancel Sigma Xi member directory, ordered 2019-11-13 Conf#1429453
Member ID#: 690670203 -> sent via website
% 6:20 _really_ kind of out of it. Blunted affect (I think maybe?), difficulty thinking
@ When you browse Instagram and find former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's
passport number a boarding pass and last name are all you need to log in on the
airline's website. And there's a lot of random info that doesn't get displayed, but
can easily be seen with Inspect Element.
@ Billions of devices vulnerable to new 'BLESA' Bluetooth security flaw | ZDNet
BLE = Bluetooth Low Energy. Spoofing during reconnection.
% 8pm restless. generic distress. Eyelids still itching like heck. (I've come close
to injuring myself rubbing my eyes, several times today. Been itching for weeks.)
@ Exaggerated risk of transmission of COVID-19 by fomites - The Lancet (siderea)
" In my opinion, the chance of transmission through inanimate surfaces is very small,
and only in instances where an infected person coughs or sneezes on the surface, and
someone else touches that surface soon after the cough or sneeze (within 1–2 h). I
do not disagree with erring on the side of caution, but this can go to extremes not
justified by the data. Although periodically disinfecting surfaces and use of gloves
are reasonable precautions especially in hospitals, I believe that fomites that have
not been in contact with an infected carrier for many hours do not pose a measurable
risk of transmission in non-hospital settings. "

1001Th
& awake 2:30;
% 2:40 ibuprofen. Rather wobbly/unsteady on my feet
: CPI plumbing follow-up call, followed by call from Orlanda. Time to get up anyway
* up 9:20; S=7:18;
% still wobbly; a little worrying.
/ 1800ml in bag (not emptied last night); an actual turd this time
* 11ish Orlanda
* C make appointment with Dr. Rochier -> Dixon
* check with RiteAid to refill C's bupropion
* */1 CPAP: change nosepiece */1
* */1,15 CPAP: change paper filter, wash tub */{1,15}
~ extremely frustrating time trying to get into my delta dental account to check my
payment method details. Managed to get my ID, by calling, but apparently my account
is locked. None of the usual userids work, and I can't recover them.
% I DO NOT LIKE the way I sound when I'm aswering questions or talking to people right
now. Very quiet; subdued; defeated; monotone; ??? Started near end of ^^ phone call
% apathy. I've done nothing all evening (now 9:12)
/ 1l in bag

1002Fr
& awake 2:45;
% over an hour before getting out of bed, say between 6 and 8:30, in some state that
might be lucid dreaming but probably isn't. Not particularly refreshed.
* up 8:35; S=7:50;
/ 1800ml in bag
@ Trump, first lady positive for virus; he has 'mild symptoms'
The Latest: Trump going to hospital on advice of doctors
@ I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There. | by Indi Samarajiva (Eftychia: QOTD)
" Collapse is just a series of ordinary days in between extraordinary bullshit, most
of it happening to someone else. That's all it is. "
@ ‘I Feel Sorry for Americans’: A Baffled World Watches the U.S. - NYT
@ K: The Overlooked Variable That's Driving the Pandemic - The Atlantic clustering
" Because of overdispersion, most people will have been infected by someone who also
infected other people, because only a small percentage of people infect many at a
time, whereas most infect zero or maybe one person. [...] if we can use
retrospective contact tracing to find the person who infected our patient, and then
trace the forward contacts of the infecting person, we are generally going to find a
lot more cases compared with forward-tracing contacts of the infected patient, "
@ Friendship paradox
" is the phenomenon first observed by the sociologist Scott L. Feld in 1991 that most
people have fewer friends than their friends have, on average. "
@ A Message from Members of the UK and Irish Publishing Community
" We stand in support of trans and non-binary people and their rights.
This is a message of love and solidarity for the trans and non-binary
community. Culture is, and should always be, at the forefront of societal change,
and as writers, editors, agents, journalists, and publishing professionals, we
recognise the vital role our industry has in advancing and supporting the wellbeing
and rights of trans and non-binary people. We stand with you, we hear you, we see
you, we accept you, we love you. The world is better for having you in it.
Non-binary lives are valid, trans women are women, trans men are men, trans rights
are human rights. " <- full text
% 11:15 I've been going along all day thinking it was Saturday; surprised when V arrived
It clearly started yesterday; I remember thinking it was Friday when deciding how to
send money to R yesterday. And during my call to Delta Dental. WTF?
* try to get into account at https://deltadentalins.com/aarp
-> had to add a digit to usename. Why my usual username didn't work is ???
-> Wouldn't let me set up AX for autopay, but it _did_ let me _save_ it for autopay
while in the process of paying directly. WTAF?
-> Actually, I think I know: AX probably requires the CVV code to be verified at time
of entry. Do they _store_ it for Visa, MC, and Discover? shudder.
* curbside pickup C's bupropion (V)
@ thisfinecrew | "What to do if groups of armed individuals are near a polling place or
voter registration drive" -> State Fact Sheets | Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection
@ The Art of Wrath
translations of the Iliad by Green and Powell (from NY Review of Books in 2017)
/ 10:24 C vomiting; ~600ml in bag

1003Sa
% actually woke up 7ish; took off mask and drifted for an hour or so.
* up 8am; S=7:55;
% not sure whether this much sleep is good or bad
@ Loggerhead turtle's journey tracked 37,000km from Cape Town in South Africa to
Australia - ABC News
@ WYAE - Live Streaming HowTo
: very weird. The desitin I ordered came in a Walmart box along with a bottle of
Vitamin D, which is one of my subscription items but is shown as already having been
delivered Thursday, and 4 quarts of H2O2 which I have no record of having ordered.
& 4:30ish call from Al; call to Mom; calls to the kids. She doesn't have much longer to
live. Said that if there's an afterlife she'll see me there some time; that's the
first time she ever said anything like that. But she's clearly still skeptical.
% feel bad for not having called earlier
% Not really okay; hard to be more specific. Hard to concentrate.
/ 700ml in bag; cleanup (pasty)
% meloxicam 11ish