August 2025 – Julie Fredrickson

Day 1675 and Running to Stand Still

The accelerationist types must be feeling smug as the disorientation caused by so much of the world speeding up is a persistent feature of life now.

I’m trying to organize a fairly elaborate vacation that I should have nailed down the details on at least a month ago. I am alas doing it what is functionally last minute and I’m panting at the effort of coordinating preferences, availability, timing and the thousand other logistical details.

We have a range of preferences to accommodate and it’s driving me a little bit nuts and I have no one but myself to blame. I cant manage more than three hours in a sitting position in a car or airplane without hurting. Standing helps but it’s really laying down and relaxing my spine that helps.

The other preferences are more of the one person likes fine dining and Michelin caliber restaurants and another likes delivery and Netflix.

We have to balance intensive activities in hot weather like hiking and sightseeing against the desire to lay out in the sun near a body of water. Really all the classics of different strokes for different folks.

I don’t want to be too ambitious about any of this as I am really just barely out of the woods from July. And I’m being vague about when and where, as I’ll like pretend like we have some amount of operational security. Writing is all about the specific but the best I can do is say it will involve driving and water.

Day 1674 and Venturing Out

I had a very indoor July which I was not expecting. One of the joys of Montana in the summer is relatively temperate conditions until you hit the end of July and into August.

Obviously freak heat waves come when they come (a lot more than I expected these days) but generally you enjoy low humidity comfortable sixties and seventies temperatures with full sun and the occasional afternoon thunderstorm.

We enjoyed some cabin camping in June but because of my absolutely out of left field emergency surgery for a deep tissue infection I’ve been an indoor cat for the remainder of the summer.

No sweating, no swimming, no excessive movement and lots of rest. Some classes of antibiotics come with very specific warnings for sun exposure as well.

I was meant to be in bed resting and frankly work was almost impossible during some of the worst of the antibiotic transitions as the pain from systemic stress was hard. Which is atypical as I’m almost always able to work through pain.

But as I am almost finished with the last round of antibiotics and I’m seeing good progress on the wound I went outside today and even broke a little bit of a sweat.

I didn’t do anything crazy just some groceries and errands but I walked two miles in the process and I’m doing pretty well. I was feeling so optimistic I bought a sun hat. We’ve got some much needed vacation activities planned and I’d like nothing more than being outside in the shade with my family.