I regret to say that after yesterday’s various excitements through my continued ill health; did not leave me with anything for today.
I crawled out of bed for a coffee far too late. Was greeted by marginally better biometrics such I think my Whoop took pity on me by giving me a green.
The trouble with context and personalization? It was only barely better than the reds of the worst that continued into a week of yellows where my resting heart rate and heart rate variability went in the wrong direction.
I largely spent today sleeping because I could t get enough last night. I hope you don’t mind if I go back to my nap as waking up was a challenge.
We have been in the middle of a massive windstorm since some time late last night in South west Montana.
We are lucky in Gallatin Valley too. Further northwest communities like Glacier and high country passes can expect white out blizzards.
Meanwhile, here outside Bozeman, we have the unnerving, unsettling, intermittent howl of unexpected and inconsistent gusts of wind. And they are strong.
Just about 50 miles east of us a sheriff pulled over to help a tipped over semi on I-90 only to have another truck tip onto his car. Thankfully everyone is OK.
The winds have been roaring across the valley in the bright blue high-altitude daylight. Blinding and deafening in equal measure. You almost pray for the clouds to come in. Which they do, quickly and with little warning before they are swept away.
All morning it has been bright and loud and my animal hindbrain hated it. It reminds me of the conditions before the prairie fire that burned 3000 homes to the ground in Boulder Colorado. The fear of fire in dry landscapes has become a permanent feature of the west.
Our snowpack is poor this year in the Rockies, so it’s a whistling screeching horror racing through patches of bare brown grasses. Only the mountains serve as wind breakers. It makes you feel exposed as barren aspens and cottonwoods trees do little to slow the wind down.
We aren’t quite in the main area of concern and yet our winds are gusting past 40mph
I have on noise canceling headphones to cut down on the howl to focus. Your mind can’t train itself to adapt to this type of wind as white noise. The gusts are too unpredictable.
We secured what we could, but items are flying around with ease. Our chickens haven’t left their hen house all day. It’s unsettling.
We’ve done our preparations. This afternoon we gassed up and got groceries. Dishes are washed and the laundry is done. I wish I was in a little less pain, as a shower is part of my usual storm routine but I’ve been in a migraine pattern. At least the clouds are coming in to cut down on the light.
Cars with extra gas cans and spare tires
We aren’t the only ones thinking ahead. When we got gas in town, the van next to us had multiple cans to fill. A wise precaution. If you are up north stay safe and be prepared. If you don’t need to travel consider staying put. There is no reason to put yourself in harm’s way. If it’s ripping the lights off barns, just think might else it might do.
Security cameras are on but a flood light got ripped clear off
The weather forecast for western Montana for the next several days is gusty high winds and five feet of snow in the high country so I suspect I’ll have some good down time simply because there’s a chance I won’t even be able to go outside.
I have a dentist’s appointment tomorrow morning, first thing, which I am a little nervous about as I’m not accustomed to having issues with my teeth.
The work I got done a week ago kicked up quite a bit of dust, if you will, and now I am struggling with a high heart rate and a very low heart rate variability. I can’t seem to improve upon the numbers.
If the dentist doesn’t spot anything wrong, then hopefully I can simply get a prescription for fluoride toothpaste and head to my family doctor as long as the weather holds.
I wish I had more to say but the energy I had budgeted for the day has been all used up. I’m not even confident I have the strength to focus on television with a plot line. It is a challenging prospect for me to stay upbeat when I get beaten down by my own body but it’s all I can do and I’ll have to accept it.
Yesterday I went from the bright blustery Pacific surf beaches of San Diego to the fault block ridges of the Bridger Range in Montana’s Rocky Mountains. Going from one climate to another in the span of a few hours remains a wonder for me.
While I enjoyed the nervous system soothing peace that comes with watching the waves, I did feel a sense of relief coming over the snow capped peaks into the Gallatin Valley.
It’s been a dry winter with very little snow pack, ans the accumulation is much needed. It’s odd for Montana to have had so little snow this winter. I missed much of it but in truth I’ve seen more real winter in the mountains of Sarajevo and Greece than Montana.
I’ve been at sea level for long enough that I am nervous about my adjustment to altitude. After unpacking and restocking groceries, I went for a mile and a half loop that is my usual leg stretching route.
My V02 max remained identical to the scoring from the day before at sea level. My other biometrics are in a difficult place with my resting heart rate high and my heart volatility quite low
Twenty mile an hour gusts wiped across the valley which encouraged me to move a little faster than usual and breath deeply when I could. It was a stark contrast from the slow ambling cross sandy beaches that made up my recent exercise. The stress of altitude isn’t just the oxygen and exposure to the sun but the generally more challenging conditions.
While the mountains have enjoyed some fresh snow, the valley is brown and dry. It’s bizarrely warm at 58 degrees as we spring forward. The record high for March 8th is 62 in 2004 but we are meant to see an inch of snow and a drop back into the lower 30s.
We shall see how I adapt but I need some rest as the rate of change for everything is as jarring as waking up on the beach and falling asleep up in the mountains in the space of one day.
I had such a lovely day touching grass (and sand) yesterday. I slowly worked through a 36-48 hours of of talking, walking, strategizing and occasionally reapplying sunscreen (I still got burned a little on my shoulders) with a friend who is preparing for big life and company changes.
These are the activities of normal life that I cherish, but my body seems hardly able to manage the strain this week. Now perhaps these activities are stressful on the mind and soul, but should they really be so physiologically taxing for me?
My Whoop is showing high strain
Now yes I am recovering from some dental work and on antibiotics but shouldn’t I be able to have a calm day that most would consider restorative? The serene peace of sitting on sandy shores should surely outweigh any areas from consequential questions of power, compute, realism and human purpose right?
I have barely been able to get out of bed today and the ten minutes of squats and planks I did to test my capacity spiked my heart rate into the stratosphere.
Which is odd as I woke up with my RHR in the 60s which is much better than usual. I only get into the 60s or 70s consistently when I am on heavy antibiotics.
The two weeks I was on Cipro recovering from surgery this summer my RHR was in the mid sixties so clearly I’ve got something going on with low grade infections.
I struggled mightily to organize my thoughts enough to write even this post. I feel I might even have it in me to go for a walk. Which is encouraging as I missed the sunset. The sunsets are obviously an event when you have a beach or far off horizon to enjoy with then.
The tension that has gripped geopolitics since the America build up began in the Middle East in late January, came to a dramatic head today.
A kerfuffle over the department of war’s contract to use the current best in class AI deployed on hyperscaler approved sandbox clouds naturally took up a lot of the energy the night before the real story got going. Great distraction work.
Iran launched large salvos of ballistic missiles and drones targeting U.S. bases across the Gulf and against the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain as part of a wider regional response.
The airspace being closed across the region, a lot of moving pieces at play means one can only pray for those in harm’s way. And that cooler heads can convince old generals not to use their youth for death.
I don’t feel all that well myself. I am glad to be far from the region. I have inflammatory symptoms popping up after my dental work but I hope it is soothed by antibiotics and now a dose of steroids.
I am itchier than seems sensible. I don’t know why but maybe general stress likes to compound itself with irruption.
I’d like to enjoy fair weather and beautiful sunsets before things change for the worse. I’ll do my best to work for things to go better but it’s a big job and we all must work towards it as best we can.
I am a stricken by the malaise that comes with minor injuries. Yesterday I had some dental work done (with a laser) and today is all wretched inflammation.
An affliction that requires recuperation gets me down as I can’t say I’m really miserable or in much. I live with worse pain whenever I flare with my ankyloysis. I just feel pretty shitty and my brain is slugging slowly through the muddy waters of stress toxins.
It’s m the mixture of stress, antibiotics (doctor recommended prophylactic course given my soft tissue infection risks of my biological injection) and the tide going out in the cortisol. Being flooded with cortisol is not just a meme.
And so I don’t recommend being this in this state, but you also need to do proper care and maintenance of things like healthcare. And your teeth are a core part of this. After a certain age you can’t just ignore problems. And so I’ll be on Twitter as I can’t concentrate well enough to do much useful today. And my husband will kill me if I do any more cosmetic shopping.
Yesterday I wrote that I had no gas in the tank. Today is not much better. I am barely keeping my head above the proverbial water line. I finished a major purchase which I thought would give me respite for a few days.
Alas changes in destination, an emergency dental appointment for a family member, and the promise of rest was more like a promise of fretful semi-consciousness.
After days of rushing around seem to have swept me off my feet and into bed I still am not quite rested.
I thought I was mended yesterday but it seems as if I’m on the second day of exaggerated sleeping patterns with long arcs of sleep in the wrong places and times. Add in a bit of overheating on top of it and something feels off.
It’s not unusual for me to absorb major changes and shifts throughout their unfolding via some migraine induced osmotic pressure. I feel the animal spirits and global vibes push in past my physical limits and I shut down. I hope I’ll reboot soon.
As a woo child of the New Age 90’s era of music, I love listening to Enya in the bathtub. Pure Moods and a hippie mother set a tone for bathing for the remainder of my life.
Alas in Montana we do not have a bathtub in any of our bathrooms. We have a hot tub but the chemicals bother my skin so I only get to enjoy a bathtub when I’m traveling.
And you better believe I have Enya downloaded on Spotify for those occasions even though I’m certain at some point we probably owned all of her music on tape and CD.
While I love the classics (who doesn’t want to sail away?) I had Wild Child come up as I was soaking up magnesium yesterday. Which is not a bad checklist for becoming present in the moment.
Ever close your eyes Ever stop and listen Ever feel alive And you’ve nothing missing You don’t need a reason Let the day go on and on
Let the rain fall down Everywhere around you Give into it now Let the day surround you You don’t need a reason Let the rain go on and on
What a day What a day to take to What a way What a way To make it through What a day What a day to take to A wild child – Enya
I’m no wild child but I don’t need a reason to enjoy a bath or a day. Rest up and rejuvenate.
I am trying to imagine my life being very different. If I step away from some of the areas where I have visibility what changes. I am imagining a phase change of assumptions about not only my own life but life as it goes forward.
It’s the topic we’ve all been dancing around for years and years, with crescendos coming all the more frequent. The science fiction I love so very much has different ways of portraying a jump in material conditions.
The Expanse called it The Churn. William Gibson called it The Jackpot. I wonder what we will call this period in a hundred years.
I have so much curiosity. Maybe too much. an almost childish sense of imagination has never left me even as I go about very adult life. The wonder and “what if” sensibility haven’t been crushed under cynicism even if it would be rational.
I don’t know if I feel equipped to manage what’s coming. How much of the difference will be the choices I make to life my life and how much will be forced on me. It’s a twitchy and terrifying prospect to consider just how much freedom we have against a backdrop of limited information. Only action will illuminate.
