When the weather begins a shift to wet, cold or otherwise stormy, I feel it like some poor grandmother in a folktale.
My joints begin to ache, I feel swelling across my fascia and my ankylosis pain intensifies. Why do joints hurt when a storm system moves in? We’ve got a couple plausible explanations for all too common phenomena.
Barometric Pressure Changes: Before a rainstorm, barometric pressure (the weight of the air) typically drops. This decrease in external pressure can allow tissues surrounding the joints to expand.
Humidity and Inflammation: Rainy weather often brings high humidity, which may worsen inflammation in joints, particularly for those with conditions like arthritis.
Thanks to Perplexity the bone deep discomfort of a storm front becomes much easier to understand.
Cold conditions can stiffen joints by thickening the synovial fluid that lubricates them. Reduced blood circulation may also contribute. Changes in weather can make nerves more sensitive which amplifying pain signals.
The remedies for these changes are pretty basic. Stay warm, get your blood flowing with some light exercise, stay hydrated, stretch and take anti-inflammatory medications like NSAIDs to mitigate discomfort.
I asked Grok to draw me as a cyborg granny out in front of a storm
Prompted Grok to draw me as an arthritic cyborg granny in a rocking chair waiting and watching as a storm comes in.
A quibble I have with modern industrial living is the prevalence of overhead lighting. I know we have to tolerate the bright lights in public and institutional spaces for reasons of cost, efficiency and clarity but why on earth have we found it to be acceptable in the home?
I’m grateful our divas bring their significant cultural gravitas to this debate. Bless Mariah Carey for leading the charge on this assault on the senses. I’ll let her not terribly articulate quote from a podcast speak the truth.
”I can’t with the overhead lighting. Why do they do it to us?,” Carey, 55, said. “But overhead lighting I don’t think so honey. Please stop it!…Everywhere I go, shut the lights! I don’t want to see them no more. Overhead lighting, it makes me sick.”
However it is relatively challenging to do cool focused lighting well. Yes it possible to do overhead track lighting in ways that bring focus and don’t overwhelm your senses. But it’s harder to do right.
You’d probably have to literally light Mariah Carey for a living to do it in a way that’s comfortable for someone with sensory issues. I developed migraines in my thirties and combined with my spectrum level sensitivity to noise, sound, taste and light I don’t need to push my luck. .
Given that us mere mortals without expert lighting design have to live comfortably, I fully stand by my preference for lamps and multiple light sources in my private spaces. It’s just going to be less of a headache. Literally.
If you light from overhead with bright cool tones bulbs so you can see the details I get it. I can’t fathom why I’d want that for anything but cooking, cleaning or sewing.
When the it’s time to relax and interact you are damn right I want a nice warm lamp. Now I’ve got double the lighting. No wonder the topic gives so many of us headaches.
I’m running on fumes and would really like to say “fuck it” to both the year and my daily habits but as that’s not an option I’ll kvetch about it instead.
As optimistic as I am about 2025 (I know this isn’t a widely held view), I’ve never felt like I needed a break more than I do now.
Clearly I’m not alone. Germany’s Chancellor Scholz lost a no confidence vote setting the stage for snap elections. Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland stepped down today further weakening Justin Trudeau’s government.
And that’s just today’s news. The world’s institutions are in a state of transition and regular people like me could use just a few weeks to catch our breath.
Remember when we had “two weeks to stop the spread?” Maybe we need that for whatever the heck is going on now. Two weeks to calm your tits?
There are plenty of people screaming for a pause in artificial intelligence but I think they have it all backwards. I’d like a pause in all the politics of the world and press on towards a future where we have more insight into the world. Accelerate the future but please let me have a break from the current moment just for a bit.
I woke up at 4am with my racing heart. I looked at my Whoop biometrics and my resting heart rate was abnormally high. I’m talking 110bpm at the peak of my REM cycle. I obviously has a nightmare.
I figured that nothing could be that scary so I took my temperature. Sure enough I was running a light fever.
The last few days have been a particularly gruesome one the internet. Rapid change, institutional distrust, and chaos have led us to blood. And instead of sorrow it’s all cheers and memes.
I hope it passes quickly. Both my own fever and the one gripping the timelines. I feel in need of some time off from the world. It’s been an intense year. I pray for more introspection through advent.
The fog that surrounds violence leads to reactivity and it’s very easy to get things wrong. And the narratives surrounding this young man are both surprising and yet easily spun to cater to a number of simple biases.
One of those biases that I suspect will be warped across the news cycles is so easy to believe it’s making me suspicious.
The young man has easily accessible social media accounts some of which were still up when the news broke. I followed him on Twitter myself to see. What I found made me a little suspicious.
A centrist Penn shredded HuberBro Thiel tweeting TPOT moots futurism policy aesthetic gearporn guy adding maximum anarchy into the system as the UHC murderer does not feel right.
His GoodReads account shows a man who read a lot of health optimizations literature including quite a bit on back pain and psychedelics. His follows on Twitter were almost uncomfortably midwit thoughtfluencer types but hardly any outside the Overton window.
The Twitter profile of the suspect.
Frankly if I wanted to make make a narrative about disgruntled dangers of TechBro philosophy I’d be trying to steer this conversation into an Uncle Ted speed run to reinforce hostility towards these ideas. It’s easy to see the dark side of the agency discourse & “just do things” set of values if someone kills.
If I found medical system skepticism and Silicon Valley threatening to my interests I’d be latching onto this story as fast as I could to explain why it’s dangerous craziness and the world view should be pitchforked.
There are also very already easy narrative explanations for how an attractive man with an elite institution set of credentials could have snapped. The suspect is so normie in background and so bleak in worldview and he had back surgery and took shrooms. An iconic tweet from Landshark about ayahuasca seems prescient
I’ve been running around keeping a busy schedule while I’m on the road for a few weeks on the west coast.
I had a number of things I wanted to do today but I’m so tuckered out I have been slowly passing on everything.
My stomach is upset, I’ve got a migraine that isn’t quitting and everything hurts. So pardon me for the interruption in my regularly scheduled posting but I am going to attempt one of those sixteen hours of sleep nights in the hope that any issues can be fixed with rest.
In 2024 I’m still optimistic (albeit cautiously) as I have the similar amounts of health and acceptance keeping me above the waterline of our chaotic reality.
I am thankful the incredible amount of progress I’ve made in my work this year. We’ve done so well with our first fund at chaotic I have little fear that we will continue building it even as the markets remain a challenge.
I’m thankful for our founders who made it possible for me to make a go of investing in weirdos.
I’m thankful for my marriage. Alex and I have made it to our second decade together. I highly recommend marriage if you get the chance.
I’m grateful for so much this year that listing it out seems a bit overwhelming at 8pm at the end of the day.
But if you have the chance to be grateful in writing it’s worth doing. Looking backwards on your gratitude enables you to look forward with optimism.
An offensive “joke” I learned from my favorite trainer when I was a powerlifter contains a simple truth.
You should only ask a former fatty for exercise and nutrition advice.
The reasoning is simple. The naturally slim and athletic never had to work for it and as such don’t understand the struggles of the average person.
As someone who has metabolic challenges I feel reasonably strongly this is correct. Struggle that leads to success has useful lessons that ease and natural talents doesn’t always pass along
It’s with this in mind that I sometimes hesitate to give cosmetic advice despite my professional experience. I had some teenage acne and an enormous struggle with eczema on my body. But everything from the neck up has been a breeze.
My face has been clean, clear and even at 40 largely wrinkle free. My hair grows down my back like a hippie. I can get past an optimal place with relatively little work.
I say this not to gas myself up, just that I don’t fully understand the struggle of problem skin or hair. So if you really struggle I’m not your girl.
And yet I get asked a lot about cosmetics as people presume I got my results from hard work. Thats only partly true. Some of it is just good genetics. I’ve got plenty of other genetic dings so I’ll take the good luck.
I do however maintain a very consistent routine and understand the inputs that lead to my desired outputs.
Getting yourself to a Pareto optimal place doesn’t require anything terribly elaborate or even expensive. Women’s magazines and Sephora may make it look impossible but heed the words of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde.
The rules of haircare are simple and finite. Any Cosmo girl would have known
There are basic rules for skin and haircare that you can follow diligently and at relatively low cost. If you give some basic inputs about your skin (is it dry or oily) and give me a budget I can get you 80% of the way there if you simply follow some basic steps everyday.
Marcia Kilgore of Bliss and Beautypie fame has a terrific memetic device I repeat to everyone.
ABC + SPF.
Vitamin A (retinol) plus Niacinamide (Vitamin B) and Vitamin C is all you need along with a sunscreen. The optimal order is a retinol moisturizer at night with a day moisturizer that contains B & C vitamins along with a SPF.
Now you can gussy that up a lot with dosing, adding in more acids if you have oily skin or ceramides and peptides (which I do as I have dry skin). I myself take a collagen and biotin supplement for some additional help. My expensive piss post offers some additional supplement options that are worth it if your nutrition isn’t perfect. Obviously you need to sleep and drink water.
Beyond a night cream with retinol and a day cream with SPF you can get more elaborate. There are manual processes for microdermabrasion, red light devices, Botox (I just started at 40 with about 15 units while the average is more like 70) as well massaging techniques and needling techniques. I think it’s overkill mostly especially if you don’t have good habits in the first place. Check your foundation before doing renovations.
If you just do the basics morning and night consistently (which can be fit in one or two products) you don’t shouldn’t to go hard until nailing the basics.
Unless looking good is a professional obligation it’s wasted time and money. Just do the basics. If you need product recommendations I can do that at any price point from drugstore to the luxury houses. It’s obviously a lot of fun if you are into it and I am so just hit me up.
As no cultural heritage must remain uncommercialized, you can find many pop culture best sellers on Swedish “lagom” philosophy.
“Not too little, not too much. Just right”
I’d actually never heard of it until today despite being the daughter of a Swedish American man. I am not one for balance though I actually do live a life of simple routines.
Consistent with their Lutheran heritage, the Nordic countries are united in their embrace of curbed aspirations for the best possible life.
This mentality is famously captured in the Law of Jante—a set of commandments believed to capture something essential about the Nordic disposition to personal success:
“You’re not to think you are anything special; you’re not to imagine yourself better than we are; you’re not to think you are good at anything”
I did not think I was anything special as a child. I’d laugh listening to Garrison Keillor describe the Lake Wobegon residents who were all above average. Those jokes landed with Minnesotans because who would be so foolish as to set unrealistic expectations?
I went through most of my life with the presumption that I was totally normal. I liked ketchup didn’t I? I wasn’t out of the ordinary and didn’t think I was especially intelligent or attractive relative to my peers.
As it turns out this was a real lack of self knowledge on my part. But it set me up for happiness. Every win feels fantastic because in my head I’m just a normal girl from a normal family who will achieve normal things.
None of that ended up being true. And I’ve been pleased to find myself actually quite a bit above average. They say expectations are premeditated resentments. And I have precious few of those.
Maybe I have achieved lagom. I’ve got just the right amount of expectations for my life. Set it low and your achievements will always be great.
It’s a nice number for today’s post. A strange countdown inside one day. A little spooky. Maybe also some good luck. Fourteen. Thirteen.
I am tabulating much more than my days of writing in a row or any particular numerical significance that this position of numerals might show. I’m adding up our position and deciding how to play our hand.
There is simply so much to consider. I feel it in my joints. Maybe that is evidence of acceleration. All I see and hear is speeding up. Are you accelerating anon? Maybe that’s the pressure in my joints and it’s arthritis at all.
I have felt a bit sick to my stomach and I’d prefer to blame it on delicate lady things. It could also be nausea from the spin cycle of all that “much to consider” of the moment.
I’m glad I’m ensconced in my winter farmhouse. The numbers go up. The game’s whirlwind spins. There is much to consider.
It really ruins your appetite this whirling. The ride up the rollercoaster. No wonder Alice in Wonderland commercialized into whirling teacups at Disneyland. Can’t have it be the symbolism of opinion and fuzzy opinions.
So there is much to consider as we whirl like dervishes into the next moment.
