Tag: Safety

Categories
Internet Culture

Day 669 and Nudging

It’s a nice day to be blogging today and I appreciate the nudge to be reminded of one of the Internet’s most sacred numbers by my terminally online brain worms.

Where you spend a lot of time clearly affects your social norms. As I am a citizen of the internet numbers like 69 and 420 will forever and always be titillating. Twitter in particular has a fondness for our sex and our weed. But Twitter has lots of other social norms and not all of them are so friendly and fun.

If the new management at Twitter could fix one element of the platform, my choice would be their nudging “your reply is hostile” prompts. I am, as Spock once said of Captain Kirk, prone to colorful metaphors. I swear. A lot. And the Twitter “be friendly” screen is a constant companion of mine.

Twitter sending me a warning that “Most people don’t post replies like this”

I was goofing around in a thread about ham radios that we should become ungovernable to our HOAs. Sure some Karens might take offense at me lobbing f bombs at the authority of your home owners associations, but most people wouldn’t. I’m not going to train Twitter’s algorithm to recognize this social nicety though. T

Now I could comply with the screen and edit my tweet. I could comply and say actually no I’m not being hostile I’m making a joke. But freaky they should let me say fuck HOAs if I want to even if it’s not a joke. And I’m not going to conform to this social grace. If anything the screens little nudging hand encouraging me to be nice makes me want to push back even harder.

I’d love to see the metrics on if this improves behavior or not as human nature suggests it might make it worse. I know it makes me more hostile. I double down on my responses just because inhumane algorithms are coded as “the man” in most media. I will not comply. And like my response I am become ungovernable, destroyer of Twitter norms. Oppenheimer got it right.

Categories
Preparedness

Day 665 and Solar

One of the projects we’ve been prioritizing for our Montana homestead is installing a solar array and a battery back up system. Having secondary power systems in case of an emergency seems sensible. As electricity and gas prices rise, and power grids look less stable, solar becomes less of a nice-to-have and more of a must-have for a resilient home.

I will admit I’ve got little technical talent and even less enthusiasm for gadgets and tinkering, so this project has been entirely directed by my husband Alex. But I thought it was worth documenting here even if I can take little credit for the project beyond insisting it get done immediately.

Digging a trench in our pasture to connect the future solar array to the house.

We had considered panels for our roof but we have a front pasture with more sunlight year round so Alex opted for a 13.92 Kw ground mount array made of 32 panels. They are bifacial panels so they pick up the solar radiation that bounces off the ground (eg from snow) on a tiltable grid so we can optimize the angle based on time of year – from 20 degrees in the summer to 60-70 in the winter.

Alex in the hole being dug for the wrest.

The array is expected to generate about 21 Mwh/year and fully offset our electricity usage. We will also be adding 20-30kwh of battery storage soon since you can’t expect it to be sunny every day.

Putting in wires and protecting bits & bobs

We’ve got a ways to go but I will say I have been extremely impressed with how quickly we were able to find a solar vendor and get the process going. We’ve got advantages in that we don’t need any permitting as we are in the country. We’ve got to think of the aesthetics for our neighbors (we will be hiding the array from road view with an aspen copse) but in general we can do what we like within reason. If you’ve been considering solar for environmental or preparedness reasons I’d get on it as soon as is feasible.

Categories
Chronic Disease Politics

Day 658 and Time Perception

I don’t know about you, but my sense of time has never really recovered from the pandemic. Time got distended and warped in ways that were hard to appreciate at the time. I struggle to tell if I’m making progress or if I’m standing still.

If I’m really honest with myself, I started losing the thread on time when Trump got elected. I was one of those people for whom that fractured my reality a little. Not because I couldn’t conceive of him winning but because I could. That was my first moment where I felt like I was beginning to split from shared reality as I was so sure he would win and so desperately wanted him to lose.

Somewhere midway through Trump’s term, my health got fucked up. My sense of reality fracturing combined with my first taste of time being distended was when my health went sideways. As I stopped working somewhere in 2018 but it’s hazy. As I spent more and more time in hospitals, doctors offices and in bed, and less time at the office, the usual ways I used to tell time degraded further. Reality had already shattered so no reason not to let time shard too.

So I can’t entirely blame my sense of displacement from time on the pandemic. My sense of instability absolutely predates it by several years. By now much I couldn’t exactly tell you. Between my health and Trump I ended up a step or two off of consensus reality.

This did end up being lucky. As the pandemic was inbound I was prepared before it hit. I had tied myself so effectively into the immune system of the information environment I knew it was coming in December.

But I wasn’t entirely prepared for how much I’d up end my life as the second order effects of the pandemic kicked in. We did the first few months in an apartment, the first summer in a vacation house on the Hudson River and then decamped for my home state of Colorado.

It’s only just as we’ve decided to commit to Montana that my sense of unreality is easing a bit. We’ve got a home that we own and a set of preparations that makes it stable through some gnarly potential futures. So why isn’t the time dilation is easing? Why does it always feel like there is never enough time and also far too much time all at once? If anyone has the answer I am listening.

Categories
Medical Politics

Day 656 and Genetic Material Storage

What feels like a lifetime ago, my husband and I pursued fertility treatments. I didn’t have any known issues but we wanted to freeze eggs and embryos while I was still young. At the time we didn’t feel stable or wealthy enough to predict when having children would be feasible. It seemed like the responsible choice to have a backup plan. Everyone we knew was doing it too.

I remember a gynecologist telling me off for considering freezing eggs as she managed medical school with a toddler so surely an easier career like startup CEO would have no trouble with resources for becoming a mother. I never saw her again after that incident. But knowing me the shame I felt from her judgement simply cemented my decision to free my eggs.

But I was equally poorly served by the fancy fertility clinic that glossed over risks and side effects. In hindsight I wish I’d been more concerned about ramifications. I also which I’d listened to my gut which was screaming that this felt more like a luxury shopping experience than a major life decision. The ease with which I was being sold a life where I could buy an insurance policy about a decision that I was ambivalent is almost shocking.

Now I’m faced with another choice. The genetic material needs to be moved to a safe state. In the wake of Roe v Wade being overturned, there is concern that fertilized eggs (embryos) might not be fully under our control as red states pursue stricter and stricter control policies. No one is quite sure how embryos will be treated. And frankly no one wants to find out.

Embryos that were stored in states like Texas and Florida are on the move. Clinics and storage facilities cannot guarantee their safety and usage as too much is still uncertain. Of the storage options we have, only two are in safe states unlikely to be impacted. Minnesota and Connecticut.

We picked Connecticut. Even if Republicans take it over we are banking they will be of the WASPy moderate types who see value in family planning for nice white married couples. Our privilege is at maximum there and that’s worth a premium.

I am so conflicted on even addressing the issue of what we are supposed to do with our generic material. Is this the moment we give up and admit it’s not a life path that we want? The chances of Alex and I have children together are getting slimmer. It’s not impossible but it’s also not looking likely.

My health is stable but I use several pharmaceuticals that shouldn’t be used during a pregnancy. I’d need to be on bed rest and dosed off everything to proceed with a pregnancy. I’ve been warned I could lose my progress on controlling my autoimmune disorder, the worst case scenario is I’d have to repeat the last four years of stabilizing treatment. I would be in a lot pain that couldn’t be treated for the duration.

Needless to say I’d not be able to work during the pregnancy and possibly for an extended time after. It feels perilously close to a choice between living my life and organizing my entire life and healthcare for a child I don’t even know if I want. It might be a permanent off ramp from work as the recovery would be significant. Everyone says you will regret not having children but I’ve only ever met people who regret having children.

At which point I have to admit to myself I don’t want children so badly that I am willing to be physically debilitated for another five years. I am so excited to be living a semi-normal life where I can pursue my personal and professional goals. The last few were hard. Perhaps we could pursue surrogacy but that suggests a level of wanting children that I just don’t think either Alex or I have. Because neither one of us strongly desires children this additional effort and cost simply to preserve our own genetic material isn’t under consideration. If later on in life we find our preferences changed we are both comfortable adopting or raising children not related to us genetically.

Perhaps the problem was that we never strongly wanted children in the first place. Maybe that shitty gynecologist was right. If we’d wanted kids we would have found a way. Instead we bought an insurance policy. And now that insurance policy is a scary liability with an uncertain political future.

With the way America is headed if we don’t move the embryos to a safe state now it’s entirely possible the government will decide we actually already have children. Unborn children. Who might have more right to life than I do. To be honest that’s an ethical question I don’t have an answer to. All I know is that I am absolutely not willing to let the government decide if it is my life or the embryos. That’s between Alex, myself and God.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 653 and Flat Lay

I am “enjoying” the monthly gift of a horrific migraine pattern courtesy of my Aunt Flo. It appears to be one of those all day twenty four hour beasts. I am laid out flat from it.

My suspicion is I made the symptoms modestly worse by barreling through the past two weeks in my enthusiasm for my life. Life is good and that presents some challenges for me in over doing things.

The world may be unraveling but the personal realm of Julie Fredrickson has rarely been better than it is now. As it turns out, moving to Montana was an inspired long term investment right from the get-go. So naturally I want to share this good fortune with my most beloved. We’ve had an influx of friends and family.

One of the spiritual guardians of the the homestead is Elle Morrill. She was with us when we found the farm and made an offer on it. As we built out our guest rooms, Elle’s Room, has been name that stuck. As you can imagine, I was beyond excited to have her come visit for my birthday.

It is a beautiful thing to feel loved and cared for on one’s birthday. This whole week has been a rush of joy and support, running the gambit from being fed and nourished by Elle to being welcomed and aided by wider the startup community with my fundraise for chaotic.capital.

I can feel myself expanding and reaching for new competence and new horizons through the efforts of my friends. Elle made a Coq au Vin. Is there anything that says a love language quite like feeding someone? My love language might be writing but I think this gesture is easy to translate.

Coq au Vin or Chicken in Win with rice pilaf.

But nothing sweet can be enjoyed fully without a hint of bitterness for contrast. Light is only illuminating against the presence of the dark. A painting without shadows is flat. And so the flat lay photographs of sumptuous gourmet meals made with love and care by someone I love perhaps has to be contrasted by being laid out flat with a migraine.

So as I lay flat in bed yearning for the energy to be with Elle, with my work, and with my life, I must remind myself that the work of art that is my life needs the shadows too.

Categories
Biohacking

Day 652 and Startled Awake

There are few things more disorienting than waking up without realizing where, or even when, you’ve fallen asleep.

The first few moments of regaining consciousness are the stuff of genuine terror. As your senses do their best to bring their data to your brain, there are a few agonizingly slow beats where you genuinely have no idea what the fuck is going on.

I imagine this phenomenon is where our vocabulary of phrases like “startled awake” get their origin. Perhaps you weren’t awoken by anything surprising, or particularly startling, but the small gap in processing between sense and mind is such a chasm in that singular moment that it all feels startling.

I had lay down to wait for a Midol to kick in to ease my first day of menstruation cramps at around 1:30pm. I remember asking my husband if he could find a heating blanket. I don’t remember much past that except a few hazy details of wrapping my entire lower torso with a heating blanket.

I had not turned off any lights. Nor had I thought to put on a sleeping mask. I thought I was simply waiting for the sweet relief of caffeine, Tylenol and diuretics. I had even told my girlfriend Ellie who had been expecting me to come up upstairs to hang out that I just needed a quick lie down. Turns out the lie part was true. It was not quick however. Which is some fun wordplay.

When I regained consciousness I had no sense of how much time had passed. As I fumbled about for my cell phone I swear I felt my neurons firing off rapidly in an attempt to gain data points for my poor addled mind to do some damned interpreting.

I was wrapped in something hot with a cord. Did that mean I wasn’t in my own bed? I didn’t generally sleep with anything electronic. I briefly panicked as I felt trapped in what was previously providing my body with comfort. I’d forgotten about the electric heating blanket, leaving the cord with no other function but to panic my hind brain with a fear of being strangled.

As all my lights were on, the various lamps were washing out any indication of the hour. I could hear noises above me so perhaps someone was awake. Did that mean it was the afternoon? What was with all the stomping above. It felt like it must be day.

I simply wasn’t getting enough orientation information from my initial position and I couldn’t seem to find my phone. I doubt more than a second or two has passed as I went through my startled awake process.

As I attempted to make sense of all these inputs I finally realized that I had passed out on top of my phone and I’d let it slip under my pillow. It was a bit past 3pm. I texted Ellie to let her know I’d accidentally passed out. The brief pumping of adrenaline and cortisol was easing back. I was at home in bed quite safe and a bit overly warm. But I certainly felt a new appreciation for the limits and frailty of my human mind.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 635 and Wide Horizons

I am absolutely wiped at the moment as I rode a wave of enthusiasm all day. I felt focused, energetic and free of self doubt. I felt like my life was open to possibility.

Perhaps it’s the regular reminders of personal responsibility I get in therapy. Perhaps it’s it’s the sense of accomplishment I got from completing my wilderness medical incident certification last week. The case of the Yips that I felt a few days ago is swiftly resolving.

The strength in my marriage with Alex has always been our commitment to working through our emotional journeys together. He was able to be reassuring my through slow climb back from the depths of my health challenges. He helped me turn it into a source of strength. Next year will be ten years together and Alex really got the “in sickness” portion of the vows a little earlier than anticipated.

This is the first time in both of our lives we’ve ever truly been stable. And that’s a strange thought. That our lives have been so chaotic for so long. We finally have money and a home we own and good health and it’s all at the same time. All of the instability of startups and limited resources and bad health are over. And only really in the last six or seven weeks has that been true. As we just finally bought our first home. We moved to Montana in August.

We climbed through the aftermath of the Great Recession together, made our first angel investments together, raised venture capital together, and now finally thanks to the pandemic we’ve been able to secure a place to live and a wide horizon to plan how to use our resources and time. I am responsible for talking this blessing and letting it provide the foundation for our long term goals. Millennials might just accelerate in middle age just yet! I know it feels like I am.

Categories
Aesthetics Travel

Day 633 and Hospitality

One of the things my husband Alex and I were most excited by when we bought our homestead in Montana is inviting our friends and family to stay with us. We have an entire floor of the house dedicated to guests and have plans to turn part of our barn into a separate guest house as well.

We’ve begun the process of designing and furnishing our guest floor. We have two rooms, a bathroom and a separate living room. The furniture is slowing turning up. Which means it is time to work on the details of making it as comfortable and hospitable as possible. Naturally we asked Twitter to weigh in on what makes people feel at home in someone else’s house. And you did not disappoint.

Toiletries

Traveling with full toiletries and skincare can be a challenge especially when flying. Here is a list of the most requested grooming items and toiletries

  • Hairdryer
  • Roundbrush & Styling Tools
  • Shampoo & Conditioner & Body Wash
  • Lotion & Body Moisturizer
  • Skincare Basics (SPF, Face Creams)
  • Skincare single use masks for face & under eye bags
  • Dental Care (Brush, Paste, Floss)
  • Small Individually Wrapped Soap
  • Q-Tips & Cotton Rounds
  • Tampons & Pads
  • Tissues
  • Bandaids & Pimple Patches
  • First Aid Items (Headache, Allergy)

Bathroom Comfort

Grooming items isn’t the only thing that you need in the bathroom. Personal hygiene requires some thought.

  • Trash Bin
  • Dark Towel for Makeup Removal
  • Plenty of Extra Bath Towels
  • Wash Cloths
  • Hair Towel & Turban
  • Extra Towel Hooks
  • Plunger & Brush
  • Bidet and Squatty Potty
  • Septic Care Sign
  • Cleaning Items
  • Extra Toilet Paper
  • Tissues
  • Poo-pouri or matches to mask smells

Organization

Keeping your personal items from overflowing can help make a guest room feel more comfortable. Remember power strips & plugs! Some of the most requested items include:

  • Pens & Notepad & Scissors
  • Desk Power Station
  • Bedside Power and USB
  • Hangers (including pant & skirt)
  • Trays/Landing Zones for small items
  • Coat Hook
  • Dresser & Closet Space
  • Full Length Mirror

Bedding and Sleeping

Getting a good night sleep in a new place can be very challenging. Providing for your guest’s sleep and relaxing needs was a top request.

  • Extra Pillows
  • Hypoallergenic Options
  • Duvet Cover
  • Robes & Slippers
  • Dirty Clothing Bins & Laundry
  • Dimmer & Good Bedroom Lighting (not too bright, preferably lamps)
  • Books & Reading Materials
  • Nightstand Space (w/ power & USB strips)
  • Eye Masks & Earplugs (ideally also blackout curtains)
  • Water Glasses & Jugs
  • Wifi QR Codes
  • Speakers or White Noise Machine

Other requests including desks and working areas. Our current plans are to have adjustable standing desks and ergonomic work chairs in each bedroom. Plenty of landing spaces and areas to keep your items visible but not cluttered (including luggage stands) is also commonly requested. Separate sitting, sleeping and working areas is best. Also a surprisingly large number of people suggested a white board. So clearly our friends like to brainstorm on the road. External monitors and keyboard were also mentioned.

We have plans to write a basic FAQ document that includes things how the house works. We will include details on water filtration (we have an expensive filtering system so you can drink from any tap in the house), where food is kept and expectations on hours and interaction. Also details on things like heating and cooling are crucial for comfort. People should be able to maintain their ideal temperatures for sleeping and working.

We are also planning to outfit the guest common areas (private to guests and separate from the house common areas) with a mini-fridge stocked with favorite beverages and snacks. Having a coffee maker and tea service was a popular request as well. We are also considering extra boots and outdoor gear for city guests that do not have country gear or simply cannot travel with Wellingtons and barn coats.

Another huge area of interest was maintaining health and fitness. We have a full gym including squat rack, pull up bar, treadmill and a Pilates reformer along with mats for stretching and yoga. We’ve got a Theragun, medicine balls & foam rollers. I am also keen to have supplements for basics to keep your immune system happy like Vitamin D, C and Zinc. We also have a hot tub and have plans for an infrared sauna (might even include a cold plunge).

If you’ve got hospitality suggestions we’d love to hear them. And of course if you are one of our many virtual friends we’d be delighted if you’d consider becoming an “IRL” or in-real-life friend by coming to visit us. We are booked through October but would be thrilled to have you come for ski season!

Categories
Medical Preparedness

Day 630 and Sympathetic Nervous Response

One of the downsides of having any kind of medical bullshit is having to keep an eye on yourself. If you over do shit you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.

I’ve been doing a wilderness medical incident first responder course this week. I initially went into it slightly concerned with my ability to physically keep up given my ankylosis. I was easily the odd duck out in a group of former military folks, paramedics and wild land firefighters. If I’m honest I didn’t want to embarrass myself by showing too much frailty. I was already the only woman in the class. I didn’t need to be the cripple on top of that.

But over four days I’ve managed just fine. I did wound packing and splints. I did a number of incident scenario responses ranging from anaphylactic shock to heart attacks. I even did multiple mass casualty response drills. Today I managed one as a triage incident deputy and comported myself quite well.

I was feeling pretty cocky about how well I’d managed through the week. I was enjoying that sense of accomplishment right up until 5pm or so today when we had our last assignment of the day. We’d just finished up a drill with five patients who had been caught in a tornado. It was an hour of field work and triage outside. I was thinking alright maybe I’m getting the hang of thing. But no I was about to embarrass myself on one of the easiest tasks in the course.

It was time to pack up our own medical kits. We got a big baggie with all the supplies we could possibly need for our our first aid kits and dumped it out on the desk. Our instructor began going over all the items and how to pack them up into the bright orange brick that serves as your kit bag. I was doing my best to follow along but my brain was just not having it. I kept trying to figure out what items went where and how it was meant to go. And I was not remotely keeping up with the class or the instructions.

I’m starting to feel overheated and I’m struggling to concentrate. And it’s then I realize “oh shit I’m in a bunch of pain” and I realize I haven’t taken my pain medication for hours and it is starting to show. I just ran around in a big field doing triage for an hour. So I think to myself well I’m having a sympathetic nervous system spazz out. The pain and fatigue is sending me into fight or flight and I’m losing decent coordination and fine motor skills. I am becoming one of my own patients.

I didn’t finish packing out my kit. I had to excuse myself. I briefly considered if it would be funny to have a medical incident in a first responder course. But I was fully capable of treating my own acute stress response. I was getting worked up by an inflammatory response from my ankylosis and low and behold the pain in my spine was going to spike.

The end of the story is that I’m in bed and the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have kicked in. My pulse and respiration are fine. I’m no longer in fight or flight. And yes I’m a little embarrassed that packing a bag is what did me in. But on the other hand, that’s a very “Julie” way to learn a lesson.

Categories
Medical Preparedness

Day 629 and Working in Chaos

If you have been following along for the past couple of days you may have noticed I’m at a wilderness medical first responder course. I’ve been soaking up an inordinate amount of information. Part of the reason I am here is personal enrichment, but equally I am here because I’m working to understand chaos driven industries and the opportunities they present.

And the class is not disappointing. As we’ve have absorbed more skills and are moving further into the course, the chaos factor is being ramped up. The particularly enjoyable aspect of the specific course I am doing is that it is not just imparting book smarts. It’s designed to be much more hands on.

If it were a business school class they would probably refer to the methodology as case studies. But instead of ruminating on what you would do if you were management you are reacting as if you were the actual first responder on the scene. And the cases are getting more and more complex.

We started out with with the basics. We were deducing issues and imparting stabilizing treatments. But as we got more comfortable with figuring diagnostics and rendering basic aid the complexity ranked up. At the end of the day today we were presented with a car accident and four patients.

As we ran (literally) onto the scene we had to not only unravel what had happened but also treat several patients in varying degrees of distress. One of our patients didn’t make it. There was nothing we could have done. But we didn’t know that going into the scene. When we arrived we had no idea what happened and had to untangle the triage ourselves.

I was surprised at how challenging it was to leap into action. As the chaos of the accident presented itself our group of first responders had to decide on organizing ourselves and our resources. But the instinct is to simply begin rendering aid.

And that tension between acting and organizing in a crisis never goes away. You just get better trained at how to approach it. Working in the chaos is the job. I honestly thought I’d be better at it. Taking charge and working in uncertainty is something I enjoy. But as with any new skill, it takes work and practice. A certain amount of pressure is the only thing that teaches you how to work in chaos. And I’ve still got a long way to go.