The relief I felt at the election being settled decisively has turned into a hard knot of unprocessed emotions about the way forward m. Maybe more of us will learn that liberal guilt isn’t terribly useful to anyone but it’s hard to hear lamentations when there is nothing you can do to help.
Many of the decisions we made as a family over the last four years are being rewarded. The revealed preferences we telegraphed loudly now show our commitment to running ahead of consensus.
I don’t just feel as if we are on the mark with our peers. I feel as if we are running ahead and have the freedom and space like never before. I won’t let myself be knocked off balance by life happening. We’ve been compounding our plans for years.
I’m not quite sure how I got a bug but I seem to be running a fever. It’s possible it’s passing and I’m on the mend but I still feel a little “delulu” as the kids says.
I was taking a constitutional walk Saturday after eating and my heart rate spiked to 180bpm. I wasn’t exerting myself in a way that would normally bring it above 90.
I have a habit of walking after meals as I feel it aids digesting. Nothing intense as it’s more of a habit than exercise. So I was surprised to find myself getting faint. I found myself on the ground.
I don’t take it particularly seriously. I blamed PMS and the stress of the last two weeks. But then I got a terrible night of sleep and my Whoop score matched how I felt.
I spent Sunday faffing about on the internet as watching reality television. I was definitely sick. What else was there to do but shitpoast and watch the price of Bitcoin go up.
Now that felt like a fever dream. If you are a crypto true believer you have experienced more than a few boom and bust cycles. Holding on tight is part of the game.
I suspect that we are in for more of a ride and I was not one to get too ahead in other bull runs. But I did let myself buy a bunch of cosmetics so I’d look for a recovery in LVMH stock if there are enough women who hold Bitcoin.
Running red light for 2-3 hours before bedtime may help lower cortisol levels and increase melatonin production. Plus it gives your bedroom a fun boudoir vibe so we thought why not try it?
Philips Hue 60W Bulbs
We bought a set of Philip Hue bulbs for the three lamps in our bedroom. They sell their own automation systems to manage your thoughts but we already use Home Assistant from the Open Home Foundation for automation because it allows us to run basically everything entirely locally with no cloud dependence or internet access.
For our existing lighting we use a combo of Lutron Caseta (for built in lighting) and Philips Hue bulbs (for plug in lamps). For the purposes of the red light experiment in the bedroom, we are using all plug in lamps.
For the Hue bulbs, instead of using the Hue Bridge and the Hue App, we use the built in Zigbee radios to pair directly to Home Assistant.
Phillips should be commended for using open protocols and enabling users to use these non-proprietary standards. Interoperability is good.
To achieve the light color changes we wanted, there is a plugin called “adaptive lighting” that automatically color and brightness shifts the bulbs through the day (subject to plenty of configuration options).
In our case, Alex set them to go very red (1000K) while also limiting the sunrise to no later than 6am and the sunset locked to 630p in order to fit into our routine and preferred bed timings.
iPhones have an automatic white balance on their cameras but it is actually quite red at night
The lights mostly work automatically but for when manually control is wanted, there are Zigbee remotes on each side of the bed as well as Home Assistant bridged to Apple HomeKit so everything can be controlled via the Apple Home app or through Siri.
It may sound complicated but there are plenty of tutorials in the open source community to help guide you. As we get more data from our own biometric tracking I’ll be sure to discuss it here and on Twitter.
I’m sure many a doctoral thesis has been written on the obsession with bodily purity and eternal search to rid oneself of toxins.
I’m not an academic but I was on the original Goop team in the far distant past when I worked for legendary adman Peter Arnell. So I’ve had a lot of exposure to particular purity culture that is modern consumer culture detoxing.
While I had hippie experiences with detoxification and also real ones like mercury chelation (which is a fun story), nothing is as intense as rich white women detoxing. From herbals to enemas to fasts you have a lot of choice.
I am all for the woo woo. The aspiration that if one just exercised enough control over oneself that all ailments could be cured is alluring. It’s also fucked up. Bodies are notoriously difficult to control and medicine is littered with mysterious ailments afflicting saints and sinners.
Alas I’m still tempted by this philosophy. I spent four days in Miami and I feel like a bunch of expensive detoxification treatments would be just the ticket. I’ll probably just sleep it off though.
I’m in Miami for the week to attend a gathering. October is as fine a time as any to visit what is otherwise a very humid and hot climate. I’d prefer midwinter but I’ll manage with late fall.
I went to eat lunch at a friend’s home. Even with fans and very breezy weather I could still feel the humidity doing battle with my body. Ancient trees covered in moss kept off the sun as best as they could.
Welcome to the jungle
And still even a little bit of movement is enough to trigger sweating in such a climate. Which just leads to itching and inflammation so I’m being careful to not get myself into much trouble. I’ve got my hats and sunglasses and sunscreen and I move slowly.
I understand why the whole town has a hospitality aesthetic that the done up in whites. Anything to keep the sun from overheating you and let the breezes flow.
Whites on white in our room
If you are in Miami let Alex or myself know. We have a conference that you may be attending as well so we’d love to overlap. I’ve proud some amusing outfits and all kinds of cosmetics I hope I have time to apply and enjoy.
Velvets, pinks, and prints for the adventurousness
I am aching from doing too much packing in one day. Somehow a flight didn’t make it into my calendar and I thought I was flying Monday and not Sunday.
I usually take multiple days to pack things not because I’m unsure of my choices or dawdle over it but because the bending and picking up of things is hard on my spine.
I try to do these kinds of activities in 15-20 minute increments with an hour or more of laying down flat to recover.
Presume that packing for women requires extra effort when there is formal wear and cosmetics involved and I need a few hours to dedicate to the effort.
Chop it up into increments and well you can see how it becomes a thing I need to split up over a few days. I don’t think of myself as disabled but requiring breaks to rest my spine probably suggests it.
Alas the work and rest cycle wasn’t possible today as I had to get it all done in one go as my flight is at dawn. I am sure I’ll pay for the strain tomorrow. Which isn’t ideal for flying which is stressful enough without additional pain.
Thankfully it’s done. Now that this is all squared away I am in bed at 6pm and planning to go to sleep as soon as I can dampen the pain. Since I’ve got to be up at 5am a nice long sleep from 7pm seems perfect. And I’ll be adjusted to my new time zone.
I’m so happy to be home in Montana. While winter is my favorite season here, the Rockies have such beautiful sun filled falls.
Being a bit further north means we have such long days in the summer that our sunny summers can actually be a little too much. I
Perhaps ’m in the minority in this view but daylight till 11pm does make for a bit of midsommer madness.
But in October we are past the fall equinox. Our days are getting shorter. You appreciate sunrises more when sunsets are early enough for you to get a full night of sleep. Night having an edge on day means you appreciate the beauty of the light when you have it.
The temporal pressures aren’t all gratitude journal bliss. There are a host of chores to be done before the first snowfall. We’ve been lucky this year it’s so late but temperatures should be below freezing soon. Alex and a few buddies redid the chicken coop’s roofing this morning. Keeping the hens warm and dry.
Life has been on a wonderful trajectory for me over the last four years. The pandemic marked breaks in everyone’s lives and the chances we were afforded to shape our lives was a privilege in a disruptive and challenging time.
Others took similar leaps of faith into new ways of living. So as I celebrate my birthday today I feel such gratitude. I couldn’t ask for a better turn around the sun.
We had a life changing exit and a series of investments go our way, I made my way into inception & pre-seed investing with our pre-seed fund chaotic.capital, and we moved to Montana. It’s all amazing especially as it’s had its struggles with my health.
I am being offered a season of life where I feel like I can really contribute my skills in professional ways that could be impactful. Everything I’ve built towards and all of my interests and hobbies are tying together in amazing and exciting directions. A happy birthday to me for sure.
If you are in New York City I’ll be flying in this weekend for a week in the city. I’d love to meet founders, other investors, and startup folks in general. Also if any weird Dimes Square reactionaries want to meet up I offer parlay.
On Friday the allergic and autoimmune symptoms were so bad I took 5mg prednisone. On Saturday they were no better and I upped the dose by 2.5mg to 7.5mg. I moved forward my absurdly expensive biologic injection by a day. I haven’t been able to convince my health insurance to get them more frequently so it’s a risk.
I’m doing better today. My pain is abated to an almost unnoticeable level at a 2. That’s rare for me. And it makes me want to rush into as much work, chores and activity as possible just to enjoy it.
I’m typically working with a 5-6 level of pain on any given day but I can work (with medication) up to a 7 within reason. Past 8 I’m in bed and struggling.
The downside is of course that prednisone just sucks. It messes up your appetite. You balloon up almost instantly with side effects like moon face. And your body develops a dependency quite rapidly.
Titration off of steroids like prednisone require a steady and slow discipline so you don’t get “blow back” as it can make your symptoms even worse.
I’ll have titration for a few days ahead of me. But maybe I’ll get to enjoy the lack of pain. Already I’ve cleaned for an hour, done laundry, checked off a number of small “to do” list items and I am blessedly free of the exhaustion that comes from working with moderate to severe pain that is my normal daily experience.
One woman and two men with severe autoimmune conditions have gone into remission after being treated with bioengineered and CRISPR-modified immune cells1. The three individuals from China are the first people with autoimmune disorders to be treated with engineered immune cells created from donor cells, rather than ones collected from their own bodies. Nature
The frustrating part of living with human limitations is that it doesn’t really matter to anyone but you and your family. Life goes on no matter what is going on in your body or personal context.
The constant barrage of anarcho-tyranny across the globe will build up reactive low trust feelings in anyone.
Harden your hearts and open your mind. Find the facts of your situation. The accommodations of your particular circumstances won’t matter if you can find a way to contribute by acting on the world. You need to bring something to the table even if it’s simple as a good attitude.
The current cultural battles of responsibility seem to hinge largely on who has responsibility and at what stage of abstraction and remove (our city, our regional government, our national state apparatus). We are caught in the same system as anyone else to some extent.
What are the ethical ways of being with each other? How do we show up with trust when so little is trustworthy. What do we owe each other knowing not all are good faith?
I think some of this is simple and no amount of effort or obfuscation gets over the fact that you must contribute some good to the whole. You must be high trust to get back high trust.
Humans are on the whole less transactional than we imagine in our fears. I’ve always found reason to be hopeful. You can act in the face of uncertainty. You can act in an awful world.
