Tag: Stream of Consciousnesses

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 1535 and Telogen Effluvium

In what has become a real persistent mood this winter, I have another dumb problem. I am losing my hair. Literally.

As it turns out stress can trigger hair into mistakenly going into what is called a rest phase. Perplexity tells me this is a temporary condition where significant stress pushes large numbers of hair follicles into a resting phase, causing shedding within weeks to months.

I have a lot of hair so it’s only really noticeable to me but I am tired of unexpected problems this winter. Obviously I have been under some stress and it feels like punishment.

Thankfully virtually all people diagnosed with it recover once the underlying stress has passed. It’s commonly associated with giving birth but it seems any significant or stressful event can trigger it.

Hair regrowth typically begins within 3–6 months. In most cases, up to 95% of acute TE resolves completely without long-term effects on hair density.

My vanity is pleased this temporary. I can certainly take it easy and pull back from unnecessary stress. Plus it’s a great reason to overspend at Sephora on new haircare. There is a bright side to everything.

Categories
Startups

Day 1534 and Certitude

I’ve been busy with a founder who is running an astonishingly competitive seed round. Let’s just say I’m glad I wrote the first check.

I back founders long before it’s possible to have any certainty. I have accumulated enough signal and taste over twenty years to feel like I know when someone has what it takes to try their hand at a startup. It doesn’t mean it will work but I always believe in their capacity to do the work required.

Proving that out is probably the work of millions of pages of business school papers. No wonder we are complaining about the lack of builders. Wouldn’t it be better if we just put those resources into starting actual businesses instead of theorizing?

I’m a huge fan of always being a bit entrepreneurial. The much maligned “side hustle” that millenials and zoomers maintain out of necessity has its upside.

I like all scales and all kinds of business. Alex and started dating thanks to a swap on an Airbnb rent arbitrage. I’d let someone book dates for my apartment when I was supposed to be out of town. Trip dates change. Alex offered his apartment up if we split the profit. We’ve been in business ever since.

I’m working through a new local business plan we think will have community benefit (both in terms of job creation and service offering). Am I certain it will work?

Actually more certain than you’d expect this small scale that we can boot something up. Startups are much harder to judge than an existing business model with a new offering.

Incidentally if you are in Montana and looking for a medical grade hyperbaric chamber oxygen treatment we should have ours in a month or so.

Categories
Culture Politics

Day 1533 and the Long View

One of the oddities of America’s tax system is how much it comparatively penalizes those who make a high salary over those who earn by investment gains.

I’m sure some neoliberal could give a polished argument about about marginal tax brackets but we absolutely hose high W2 earners relative to capital.

Maybe Americans aren’t so sophisticated about what this means but it seems folks got the gist of it. Older generations owning the S&P and their home found that to be a better investment than just working for a living.

The message seems to be if you have a salary at least try to be a partner in the company yeah? Thats how bankers, lawyers, and other professionals did it.

This is a very boom boom when it works and gets very ugly when it doesn’t.

I find it odious that we tax high earning labor. It stifles social mobility by keeping wealth out of reach of the professional class. The government decides how their money is invested. That makes it much harder to take the long view. Clearly the generation above us didn’t always do so.

Categories
Community

Day 1532 and Friendly Service

Much of our winter has revolved around various maladies that require the help of professional from doctors to industrial hygienists.

Alex and I (let’s be honest mostly Alex) have been scheduling a lot of consultations and procedures. While I’ll certainly caveat that selling a service does generally mean being friendly to the customer. But it really feels like like we’ve got friendlier people in Montana.

Even our government is friendly. We’ve has cause to call the county and it’s just so pleasant to engage with a kind, present and helpful fellow human.

We’ve really run the gamut. Our trash needed replacing after a hard winter and the company who does our pickup sent us a new one the next day. A recycling service for mattresses excitedly told us about community programs. The eye clinic got us in the day we called. And on the follow up let us add in an eye exam since we were already there.

We are all accustomed to the frustrations that come from indifferent corporations with private equity minders. Healthcare is by far the worst offender here.

So it’s nice to be reminded in a vulnerable world that American towns are filled with everyday people like you and me. And that genuinely makes me happier. We are all in this together and being friendly makes everything for everyone.

Categories
Medical

Day 1531 and Dumb Novel Problems

I personally find I’ve got an adequate number of problems in my life. I’d rather not go searching for new ones. And yet they keep cropping up no matter one’s hopes.

I’m at the eye clinic at the hospital for a two week checkup on an infection that felt like it literally ballooned my right eyelid. It was either a cyst or a chalazion, the doctor was like eh treatment is the same.

Not to upset those with weak stomachs but the treat is slice open your eyelid and squeeze out the pus, blood and scar tissue. It isn’t as painful as it sounds.

After two weeks of diligent hot washcloths, antibiotic eye drops and doxycycline my eye has reduce the lump to a small pea or large lentil. My body was trying to move it out but it needed a bit more help.

So she sliced it open again seeing if we could get anything else out. Alas the tissue scaring was most of the volume so there was less ooze to be pushed out.

She said I could wait it out but it takes months to move it naturally or we can do a steroid injection and reduce the swelling so it clears more easily.

I’m not a big fan of prednisone when I’m taking it internally but a little localized dexamethasone shot into the eyelid seemed like a good plan to me.

I’ll say that it’s a bit scary trying to stay perfectly still while someone holds a scalpel to your eyelid. Having someone inject a needful of steroids is much worse from a base animal terror perspective for me.

I’m safely through it though now my eye is all puffy again. I’m likely to have a black eye for a bit so I’m excited for all the jokes Alex and I will make about how he hit me. Nothing more awkward than a wife with a black eye.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 1530 and Pandemic Anniversary

March 11 2020 was the day the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 to be a pandemic. It’s been five years since we had our once in a century pandemic that changed everything. Honestly it feels like it just happened.

You can quibble a bit on the start (right there in the name alluding to its discovery in 2019) but this second of March the week where America finally started changing behaviors. Within two weeks we’d have the infamous “flatten the curve” discussion. What a shitshow those early days were.

The pandemic changed a lot of people’s lives. The New York Times has a feature with 30 charts about how the world is different that I found interesting.

My life changed in a lot of ways that are probably recognizable to other Americans. My already digital life became how business was done. I moved back home. I rethought my relationship with institutional trust.

We lived in New York when we were locked down. Alex and I didn’t leave our one bedroom apartment for three months except to go to the CVS.

Coincidentally we’d been in the middle of our landlord trying to evict us for filing a complaint with the department of buildings over broken elevators. That got stopped. As soon as it seemed safe to leave city we rented an Airbnb in the Hudson Valley. The next week protests broke out. We had lived above City Hall so we got very lucky.

Figuring out where to land and the shape of our lives was a process. The Airbnb phase felt stressful as the summer ended and the urge for permanency felt overwhelming. We signed a lease site unseen for a townhouse in my hometown of Boulder Colorado.

Much of the rest of these past five years have been subsequently documented here on this blog. We found our way to Montana. A lot happened in those intervening years. None of it felt like it happened very fast. And yet here we are.

Categories
Emotional Work Medical

Day 1528 and The Days Go By

My family has had a really difficult winter. In November I felt so much optimism heading into the darker months. As we spring ahead for Daylight Savings I honestly have no idea how we survived.

My husband and I have both had a run of awful luck with our health. Somehow we both got pneumonia in the last year. I hesitate to blame Covid but neither one of us have ever had pneumonia in our lives and now random respiratory illnesses seem to balloon into significant problems.

Now this could have been exacerbated by discovering we have a mold problem in our bedroom. We are so lucky we have another floor in the house to move into but we are looking at the type of mitigation work that evokes “eh fuck it full remodel” in the hearts of men.

Bright side by 2026 we may have a bathtub in the house. Oddly despite living in 4 bedroom 3 bath house we only have showers. Renovated farmhouses have their quirks.

The only thing keeping me from giving into the constant parade of maladies is working with my portfolio companies. Not having been blessed with children I pour my nurturing into my founders. Investing into the future comes in many forms and I try to trust that this is where I’m meant to be.

Categories
Aesthetics Media

Day 1527 and Wayback Machine

I just finished watching the 8th season of Netflix’s mega reality TV hit Love is Blind.

It feels as if they produce a new America version every quarter but if that’s not enough content for you there are spinoffs in Sweden, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom and Argentina.

They shoot them roughly a year ahead of time. Which, in any other era in my lifetime, would have been fast turn around time. You could figure basic values would hold from year to year. But culture changes very rapidly now.

So reality tv that was shot even a year ago now makes for some very odd viewing as America’s politics and “current thing” are in constant flux.

February and March of 2024 did not have the vibe shift we are in now. I won’t spoiler it should you be considering the show but I will say it’s fascinating to see how much politics played into the women’s decisions.

Now maybe it’s because it’s the Minnesota season they felt they had to address certain topics in race relations after the summer of 2020.

But they also went to places on queer issues, religion and national politics that did absolutely nothing to make any situation better.

Looking back on one’s previous view of the world is not always pleasant. That we have a way back thanks to media makes for a strange continuity of views that probably do little to do with stuff of a happy love filled life. Perhaps a good reminder to not look too much to the past to decide your future. Or a reminder to focus on what never changes.

Categories
Medical Preparedness

Day 1525 and Turbulence

I am doing what I can to hold steady in the turbulence of the moment. Deals are still getting done, founders move companies forward, I do my small part to contribute in the strange dance of rounds coming together.

It has not been easy with both my husband and I seemingly rotating between one health issue to another. It would be nice to have us both healthy at the same time.

Because it is the winter of our discontent I’ve spent more time on Deep Research projects this past month than seems sensible but the urge to find solutions is strong when your health needs mending.

Plus it saves a ton of time when the alternative is calling a bunch of different experts and making progress at best every two weeks with appointments. Scheduling health care of any kind is a mess.

I remember realizing so vividly during Hurricane Sandy that no matter the catastrophe the rest of life went on. Everything will feel turbulent in our new high variance age and all we can do is live through it.

Categories
Culture Politics

Day 1523 and Do Not Disturb

It is in the nature of dysfunction to misuse resources. Something goes wrong and a system that once grew or self sustained finds itself in decline.

What to do? One can apply palliative care certainly. But you can go to the root of a problem and hope systems can be righted by bitter medicine.

I’ve had some degree of measured doom about topics like debt and monetary policy my whole life. I grew up with concerns of peak oil which turned to climate change. There is always a new crisis anytime we find ways to be resource constrained.

But we are resource constrained. That’s just a variable to be accounted for in the engineering of a solution. I care about energy. I mean it in the abstract as in fuel. But I also mean the energy I control.

I don’t have to expend expensive attention for all problems. Maybe becoming “do not disturb” is a scarcity mindset. But sometimes the poison is in the dose. And I want to keep pushing for better.