Categories
Culture

Day 1596 and Dangersous Professional Voice

I am a pretty informal person. I don’t hold any institutional authority. The interests I represent are my own. I speak for myself.

Obviously I care a great deal about my family and my friends and want to reflect well on them but I can only speak for myself. This is a given in an age where big institutions often find themselves frustrating the interests of normal people. And people take a stand.

So when I find myself haggling with medical insurance or trying to wrap my head around a set of requests from someone claiming to be a representative of a large power, I think back to a viral tweet by Patrick McKenzie (@patio11), about the efficacy of the dangerous professional voice.

The “Dangerous Professional Voice” is less about aggression and more about clarity, formality, and signaling that you understand the system and expect to be taken serious.

What are my options?’”

McKenzie suggests this phrase, calmly and professionally delivered, often prompts the other party to reveal escalation paths or alternatives that might not otherwise be offered.

The voice suggests it solving it is a given. Getting down to business and showing you mean business. Even if you are an informal person sometimes you may want to use this dangerous professional voice as you go about your day. Share if it works. Patrick says he enjoys hearing about use in the wild.

Categories
Chronic Disease

Day 1594 and The Creek Don’t Rise

I’m not sure where my mother picked up the slang “God willing and the creek don’t rise” but I had it regularly to suggest a thing shall come to pass a “if nature and God” are willing.

It’s it’s got a hint of Appalachia in its origin story and then tumbles over into a Johnny Cash cover of a Jerry Reed country tune (probably where my mother learned it as she loves Cash) before settling into a Spike Lee documentary about the water engineering challenges that have brought such misery to New Orleans.

It’s been pouring in Gallatin County all day. Our already high rivers are looking like they may cause troubles. Friends who fish were concerned the muddy headwaters weeks ago when I was caught in other unexpected spring showers in Colorado.

I am afraid the moisture is kicking up mold in our house. We’ve spent months remediating the problem so it weighs on me to consider the possibility. I woke up covered in hives and eczema.

I took antibiotics and Benadryl and it kept getting worse. I showered with nothing but unscented Castile soap hoping to mitigate the outbreak. That did more.

I have an event I’d like to attend this evening along with a houseguest who I very enjoy much enjoy so it frustrates me when the creek sees fit to rise against the banks that contain the river of my life.

Categories
Chronic Disease Emotional Work

Day 1589 and Disagreeable

I am in a lot of physical pain and I have been cranky about it all day. I just did not have the energy to self censor my discomfort either. I spent a lot of the day in bed popping off.

Because people are polite I only ever get rewarded for being spicy. I’m sure people harbor all kinds of uncharitable opinions about people who are mouthy, especially women. But I mostly find you can say quite a lot. Especially with your ingroup.

In fact being disagreeable is tolerated, and even celebrated, in almost all public forums. Hard truths, straight acts, unpleasant realities tend to be celebrated. Truth telling can become someone’s persona even when nothing is wrong.

But watch out for that dark path. If you care too much about broader opinions of yourself you can easily become what is called audience captured in which your persona gets adapted to what gets a response. Modeling your life as get it can go very wrong for people.

I felt for comedian John Mulaney who got typecast as the affable guy and absolutely hated being the bad guy for his various addictions and personal life complications.

In his special “Baby J,” Mulaney reflects on the burden of his public persona: “Likeability is jaaaaaaaail,” summary via Perplexity of a much better substack piece

In some ways, playing to type is just cognitively easier for everyone. A social contract if you will. Being able to show more than one side of yourself shouldn’t be shrugged off as people pleasing nor is being disagreeable always a sign of bad temperament. Humans contain multitudes even if everyone plays to type.

Categories
Biohacking Travel

Day 1587 and Wellderly

My husband’s expert testimony before Congress yesterday was a particularly exciting day even by my standards. I felt so drained today.

My bar for excitement was set pretty high this spring. It has so far included impromptu drives to Istanbul, seeing our right to compute bill get signed into law, watching a founder we backed unveil a nuclear reactor design and discussing futurism at my hometown’s university.

When I list it out I almost forget how much during this time I was battling side effects from a mold infestation and working through changing my medication for my autoimmune condition. I got my right eyelid slit open twice!

When Alex made it home to Montana after midnight I felt like I could finally sleep. I never sleep well alone and much as I tried to sleep as he was flying back I could not. I’m exhausted today and needed a nap to stave off a migraine.

As we get older I am sure we will continue to be called upon to show up. So much of my energy is drawn into improving my health so I can participate in civic and economic life.

I want to improve my health so I can continue to discuss, learn, advocate and invest for this very confusing transition to our future.

I can scoff at catchy neologisms like “wellderly” as marketing campaigns for famous doctors in an especially challenging era for medical trust. But I am also concerned about sleeping better, gaining muscle mass, and improving my meager health. A man has many concerns but a sick man has only one remains true.

Categories
Chronicle Preparedness Travel

Day 1584 and Sunday Chores

I missed spring cleaning due to some unexpected travels. Part of that was by design, as a gnarly mold issue required mediation that we decided was best missed by my annoyingly fragile immune system.

You wouldn’t think galavanting across Alexander’s Empire by car would be a reasonable way to avoid mycotoxins and you’d be right but I also like to learn what’s happening in the markets in a visceral manner.

No finer way to come to grips with the breakdown of trade and empire than racing across a continent to understand a supply chain amirite?

In January we began the process of acquiring a hyperbaric chamber for personal use and a medical spa. We figured we were well ahead of the process and like many folks who buy products made in other countries we figured better to get it done before another trade was kicks off.

And then the tariffs came. Whenever you were ordering or transiting goods you were scrambling. I’m scrambling now at home to make sure the household is set up for whatever empty shelves and shortages are ahead but it’s hard to predict.

And so I spend my day planning and cleaning and running errands and generally cleaning up. I hope the mold issue managed as I’m certainly being exposed now. As you might imagine I’m trying to keep windows open and as dry as possible.

Categories
Finance Politics Preparedness

Day 1583 and The Last Tariff Free Shopping Spree

I remember the weeks before Covid-19 lockdowns hit vividly. My father went on international cruise, my husband was traveling domestically right up to the last week, and I got yelled at on the internet for discussing buying masks, toilet paper, and disinfectant.

My father got stuck in a Latin American port as borders closed, Alex made it back with mere days to spare before New York locked down and I had a well stocked pantry & dry goods cabinet. I was a prepper long before it became the default of normie Americans after Hurricane Sandy.

So naturally I’m trying to get ahead of the impacts of the tariff war as the last container loads of goods ordered before “Liberation Day” are sold through by American retailers.

Items Most Likely to Experience Shortages if the Drop in Container Cargo from China Persists
If the current sharp decline in container cargo from China to the United States continues, Americans are likely to see shortages-and significant price increases-across several key product categories. This is due to a combination of record-high tariffs (up to 145%) and a dramatic reduction in shipping volumes, with estimates suggesting a 60% to 80% drop in imports from China

Via Perplexity

Clothing basics, footwear, and cosmetics are at at the top of the list of potential shortage areas so I stocked up on underwear, socks, Aquaphor and hit “order” on the two pairs of athletic shoes I’ve had languishing my cart for months.

Amazon must be having a great couple of weeks.

I also decided to treat myself to a few Landmark classics including Julius Caesar and Alexander’s Campaigns. If the empire is falling I may as well revisit some of my schooling.

Plus I just returned from a run through Alexander’s empire so perhaps this is a moment to ground myself on the rise and fall of empires. I never did much care for Rome though but I didn’t expect to be born in a late republic.

I don’t know how this particular supply shock will play out and I feel lucky to be able to spend on thing’s frivolous and essential. Dry feet and military history are as good as any a thing to have on hand. I imagine we will have more serious inventory to do but it’s better to take the first steps.

Categories
Aesthetics Emotional Work

Day 1582 and High Budget Androgny

One aspect of my personality that seems to most confuse other people is my appearance and my identity don’t meet their expectations.

Sasha Chapin (whose writing I’ve found useful many times) had an interesting Tweet today that made me consider how this contrast has potentially worked in my favor

So I have a theory that for most people, men and women, peak attractiveness in a hetero context involves high-budget androgyny

Low-budget androgyny: not inhabiting either gendered energy


High-budget androgyny: inhabiting your own fully, and a bit of the other

I’ve generally presented myself in a normative feminine manner. I’ve leaned into long hair, skincare and cosmetics. Yet all of my interests are masculine coded. I like economics, technology, and science fiction.

Sascha confirms that this would fall into his high budget androgyny conception. I am inhabiting an embodied aesthetic that is fully within the feminine while my intellectual interests code me into “other” lightly.

Categories
Chronicle

Day 1579 and Marking The Days

Everyone has their own zero day for something. I’ve been writing for one thousand five hundred and seventy nine days in a row. It is 2025 Anno Domini aka the year of our Lord. It has been 100 days since Trump was sworn back into office as President.

I’m sure someone is celebrating 100 days of sobriety. I’m sure there is a couple celebrating 10 years of marriage today. A totally ordinary day in the spring likely had any number of events big and small being noted today.

We seem to like marking the passage of time quite a bit. For Aristotle fans memory is key to the cultivation of techne. We mark events in order to remember them so that they may be handed down to the next generation. We repeat so we remember.

Categories
Preparedness

Day 1578 and Dark Start

On April 16 Spain hit its first weekday of 100% renewable power on the national grid. Spain’s grid operator Red Eléctrica was celebrated for this milestone. Today Spain and Portugal went dark as the grid collapsed after a massive dip in demand.

“We have never had a complete collapse of the system,” Sánchez said, before detailing that at 12:33 p.m. on Monday Spain’s power grid lost 15 gigawatts, the equivalent of 60% of its national demand, in a matter of five seconds. Via AP Newswire

Via Andi Alb

As was lucky enough to finally meet Lynne Kiesling in person at Renegade Futurisms last week energy grid security and market coordination was top of my mind as I learned of the disaster in Spain

Lynne is an economist who studies transactive energy models. She is a fantastic Twitter mutual for any scholar of market dynamics so naturally she was the first person I thought to ask about untangling what may have happened.

She points out that oscillations are an issue in all power systems which means it will take some analysis to tease apart the combination of atmospheric conditions, system inertia and other factors which caused so much demand to drop off at such speed.

If you are interested in a perspective of a white hat hacker of power grids on the problem of synchronization this thread is worth a read.

A drop caused automatic failsafes to kick in and disconnect things. It takes so long to restart after these failsafe crashes because we haven’t engineered it to be easy to restart the grid aka a “black start” as power plants require power from the grid to operate themselves.

But it’s alas not really much of a question that grids need reworking for managing our energy mix. I found this tweet to be both humorous and helpful in understanding why.

Me: What if the renewables underperform more than modeled, and spare capacity can’t keep up?

Founder: You have emergency load shedding.

What’s that?

Cascading blackouts.

AGM on Twitter

Cascading blackouts may be the better outcome. What Spain experienced today was what happens after the fail safe of cascading blackouts occur.

Javier Blas has an excellent opinion piece in Bloomberg about the need for electricity realism as our future demands we overcome the culture wars of the last decades of energy transition.

It’s clear electricity security issues are on the rise. On March 20th Heathrow Airport was shutdown after a single transformer at an old substation caught fire. That looks minor in comparison to an entire country going dark. Imagine what could happen as we head into summer and experience the grid pressure of a hot summer day.

Categories
Travel

Day 1577 and Losing My Shit

I had an incredible long weekend in Boulder as a speaker at CU’s Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization’s conference Renegade Futurism. It was an exceptional group of people and I felt privileged to learn from them.

Alas the universe must have needed to even out this wonderful high with a few lows. My husband and I’s trip back home to Montana was quite bumpy.

After a late evening of socializing, we left packing for the morning. We are both teetoholers but when you are old enough just staying out later than average can deliver a hangover.

We quickly packed up, skipped showering (drought flow shower heads take too long to get you adequately clean) and I quickly inhaled a coffee and bagel to take with my antibiotics.

I knew we were in trouble as soon as we stepped into the Uber. It smelled intensely of body odor. The stank of unwashed upholstery, swampy body pits and a poor suspension combined poorly with exhaustion and an ersatz hangover. I began to feel car sick.

I tried a nausea medicine called Zofran. It wasn’t enough. I attempted to express that I needed us to pull over so I could throw up. I opened the window and begged for a disposable baggie. The driver was tuned out. Alex rushed to find anything that would do.

He found a foldable nylon pocket bag from a Japanese airline he keeps on hand in his luggage for emergencies. Alas I needed it three times. The car drove on even as I kept evacuating my stomach into this reusable bag.

We arrived at Denver International Airport and Alex rushed out to throw out the treasured Nippon Airways pocket bag lest the smell further exacerbate the issue. A loss but better than getting vomit all over the Uber. Not that the driver was paying attention. Oddly.

After unloading we checked multiple bags. We’d both come from long trips and figured it was a safe simple single flight. The United fancy status counter gave us trouble about being five pounds over on one bag. The label needed re-printing as the confused newly hired counter service agent struggled with the overrides for frequent fliers.

It’s an hour and a half from Denver to Bozeman so we felt safe checking all of our bags. And indeed our normal carry-on bags made it home with us without issue as checked luggage. They got off the airplane quicker than we did.

But as you probably guessed the 5lb overweight bag that took so much time to get labeled correctly. Yeah, it was never even put on our airplane. It was still in Denver. We have a tracker in the bag so we knew where it was. United asked us to report as lost as part of their procedure for getting it to us.

I’d list my shit twice now in one day. Hopefully the bag it makes it onto the next flight as it has quite a number of irreplaceable items.

And because things happen in threes, as I unpacked what luggage I did have I discovered that my eye medication was missing. I last remember seeing it in our hotel’s nightstand cubby. I may have packed it in the liquids bag in the lost luggage so there is a chance. But I don’t recall packing it. It’s Turkish so I’m not even sure if I can replace it.

I lost a lot of shit today. Hopefully I get it all back. Well except for the stomach problem in the car. I hope that never happens again. That is shit I’m happy to have lost.