Bryce Moore's Blog, page 71

Braces Strike Back

Tomas got his braces off a few months ago. Not like anyone outside the family would know that, because we’ve all got masks on all the time when we’re out of the house. (Though maybe people can see it in Zoom?) But after years of orthodontic work, he was finally freed, and there was much rejoicing.

But what’s the point in just not making a 45 minute drive to Augusta once a month? Daniela wanted to make sure we didn’t miss out on that opportunity, so she bravely volunteered as the next tribute to Orthodontia the Fearsome. The good news is that if you had to get braces during your life, having them come when you’ve always got a mask on is probably about as ideal timing as you can get. Then again, if you had to have uncomfortable medical procedures done on your mouth over the course of two years, I can think of better times to do that, as well. It all depends on how you look at it, I suppose.

Also: these things aren’t cheap. I didn’t really appreciate that side of things when I was getting my own teeth done back in high school, but it’s something I’m all too aware of now. True, we have dental insurance, which covers $1,000 of work for each child, but . . . that’s only a fraction of the total cost. The good news for Daniela is that her jawline is in pretty good shape, so she’ll be missing out on some of the worst parts of the process Tomas went through.

Sometimes I wonder if the reason I have such a hangup about dentists is that I didn’t go through all the bad dental experiences as a child. I didn’t have cavities until past high school. I never got my wisdom teeth out. Even for orthodontics, I only needed braces on the front part of my bottom teeth, and a retainer for the top. So I just haven’t had a lot of experience when it comes to dental work. Denisa’s an old pro. Tomas has had to face a root canal already. Daniela had two wisdom teeth out before she was a teenager. The worst I’ve still had to deal with has been cavities. I’m not complaining, but at the same time, even going in for a cavity filling is super stressful to me.

Oh well. Water under the bridge at this point. For today, send some good thoughts Daniela’s way. It’ll be a long two years, no doubt . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

First Vaccine: Check!

Like I assume all of you, I’ve been watching the vaccine rollout closely. This is the best/only path toward something like normalcy anytime soon, and it’s been encouraging to see those numbers in America slowly bump up. That said, as a healthy man in his 40s, I didn’t really think I’d be able to get a vaccine myself for another month or two at least. Maine just announced Friday that starting in mid-April, anyone could get a vaccine. That was encouraging, but I assumed as soon as that date arrived, the floodgates would open, and it would be very tricky to actually make an appointment.

So, basically, I was paying attention to the big picture of vaccines, but I wasn’t really doing anything to look into what I’d need to do personally to get one yet. I didn’t want to think too much about it, because I thought that would just make me more impatient. When President Biden announced he wanted all educators to have access to the vaccine right away, I was hopeful for a little bit that might include Denisa and me, since we’re both university employees. Reading the fine print (in multiple places), it was limited to K-12 educators. Which was fine. I’ve been working in person since August, and I haven’t felt really at risk, so I was content to wait my turn.

Imagine my surprise when Friday afternoon, I got an email from a friend at the university indicating Walmart was letting university employees get vaccinated. It went against everything I’d read (and I’d read a lot), and so I was really unwilling to believe it. “Let me know how that goes,” I believe I said, or something to that effect. If they were successful in getting it at Walmart, then maybe I’d start to think about it. But we had some more back and forth discussion about it, and a Walmart 40 minutes away had vaccine appointments available for the very next day. The more I thought about it, the more I thought it was at least worth a short trip on a Saturday. I called the Walmart pharmacy, spoke with them in person, double checked I’d qualify, and then made my appointment.

Honestly, I still was thinking I’d get to Skowhegan only to find out that it had all been a misunderstanding. (What can I say? I put a lot of faith in my research skills, and what I was hearing went against everything I’d researched.) Also, I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to be let down again. But Saturday morning, my friend texted to say they’d gotten the vaccine, and sure enough, Denisa and I got it five hours later. It was about the same as getting my annual flu shot. There was no line; the appointments we made lined up right with when we came, and it was a very easy process. (It felt surreally American, to be getting the vaccine in a Walmart, but I’m not complaining.) My arm has hurt since I got it, much more than with a flu shot, but it’s down to an almost imperceptible ache now, two days later. I did feel a bit dizzy Saturday night, but felt 100% fine the next day and haven’t had any other side effects.

We’ll be getting out second dose in mid-April, and then about two weeks after that the full immunity should kick in. It’s a big relief that we’re already this far along in the process, especially because it means I’m starting to actually make plans again. Not huge plans, but plans nonetheless. Plans like:

Denisa and I taking a vacation for our 20th anniversary. We’re looking at Puerto Rico. It’s about as international as I’m willing to bet at the moment. It’s not Aruba like we had planned last year, but I think it’ll still be great.Seeing my parents again. (My dad will be coming out from Utah at the beginning of May. We’ll drive down to see my mom and step-dad as soon as we can.)Camping with friends in JulySeeing my cousin in Boston in JuneMaybe a trip to Cape Cod?

I do realize that vaccination doesn’t necessarily mean total immunity to the disease. It’s still possible to catch it and spread it, though they’re doing more studies around that, and I hope they have more solid information around that in the coming weeks. And we’re not planning at the moment anything too extravagant. (This would typically be our year to go to Europe. I don’t think that’s going to happen, sadly. Both just from a “looking at the European case rate” standpoint and an “even if we could get there, what in the world would we be able to do?” mindset.)

But as I wrote last week, once I’m vaccinated, my willingness to go and do things is going to much, much greater. I will still happily where a face mask wherever I’m asked. To me, that’s such a low bar. It’s like being asked to wear a shirt or pants. If me doing that can help others, then why would I even hesitate to agree to it? I will also test if and when asked to, though again, I’m hoping they do away with testing requirements for vaccinated people soon. I look forward to more guidelines coming out. I definitely don’t want to do anything to endanger anyone, but I anticipate primarily interacting more and more with vaccinated people, both at work and personally.

You know life is improving when I start looking at rewards points again and begin to wonder where they might take me . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Weekly Weight Check In

Hard to believe it’s Friday again already. This week was pretty static in terms of the whole weight loss goal. Not that I wasn’t following my plan. I did that almost perfectly. The one exception I made was yesterday. For Denisa’s birthday I had a small slice of pie instead of my evening shake. I think that one “cheat” was actually less calories than I usually eat, though. (It’s a big shake.) Other than that, I didn’t eat anything different the whole week. (Same meals every day.)

Honestly. it’s hardest when Denisa makes dinner and I’m here to be around it. As long as it stays on the level of “I’m hungry, so I’m going to eat, and what I eat doesn’t really matter,” then I’m fine. It’s when I smell chili or spring rolls or pizza that I remember what a normal diet tastes like. That makes it trickier. But with a plan to follow, I’m pretty good to go.

What makes it worse is when the effects of that plan aren’t immediately apparent. I was 185.6 last Friday. I dropped to 184,.4 on Saturday, then stayed that weight on Sunday. Monday I went up to 184.8, Tuesday I was still there, Wednesday I was down to 184.6, and then Thursday I was back to 184.4. So up until then it felt like I’d had one successful day of dieting and then a whole lot of nothing for the week. It can be easy to feel discouraged when you’ve stuck to the plan and aren’t seeing any significant movement. But I know from experience that’s how this goes with calorie control. You have to forget the day to day battle and focus on the weekly weigh-ins. You’ll usually see changes week to week.

Sure enough, this morning I was down to 183.6, meaning I’m down 2 pounds since last Friday. That’s honestly a little faster than I expect it to go, so I’m reminding myself this week I likely won’t see as much weight loss. Still, I’ve made it through Denisa’s birthday (family celebrations are hard). The next thing to get through is Easter. That might be a stretch . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Happy Birthday, Denisa! We’ve Come a Long Way

What a difference a year makes. A year ago was the first day that I worked from home. The day before we’d announced my library would be closing to the public and to the university community. A year ago today was also Denisa’s birthday. The kids were also transitioning to a “short break” that was planned to be over at the end of April. The goal at the time, as I recall, was to do a deep clean of the school and then go back to normal.

In so many ways, the past year feels like a complete wash. I keep telling people that I have a hard time figuring out time when it comes to pre-COVID and COVID. Some days I marvel that it’s really only been a year since the shutdown started. Other days I marvel that it’s already been a year, if that makes sense. The past year feels both far too long and far too short at the same time.

When I took a bit of time to go back over the emails from back then and check on my schedule, it’s amazing how much has happened. How up in the air everything was back then. We’ve ironed out so many of the kinks in the ensuing year, clawing back some semblance of what life used to be like as we try to compromise with what it’s like now. My weekly Zoom presence is down to a mere 15-20 hours per week on average, so that’s something.

If you’d told me back then that we’d still be in the middle of all this a year late, there’s no way I would have believed you. (I mean, I bought tickets for a Thanksgiving trip, which got canceled along with everything else.) I also think I would have had a much, much harder time facing the year ahead. This is definitely one instance where not knowing how long it would last worked to my advantage, because I got to tackle problems as they came, instead of feeling overwhelmed right from the beginning.

What will things feel like a year from now? A decade? Will this year (or more?) of pandemic living all be one big blur? Will I look back with some sort of strange nostalgia for how it was? How simple everything became for a while? It’s easy to forget just how upsetting it all was while we were going through it, and in many ways, I think it’s easy to forget how upsetting it is now. We might have become numb to the experience of living this way, but I think once it’s truly over, it’ll be a huge relief. (Though I don’t think it’s going to be over in the blink of an eye. The shutdown happened all at once. The return will be a trickle over a long period of time. Something that’s already started.)

But this wasn’t supposed to be about the pandemic. It was supposed to be about Denisa’s birthday! Last year, it got lost in the shuffle of everything else that was going on. I’m afraid it’s largely getting lost in the shuffle this year as well. Small celebrations. No big parties. Family-centered. Still, it’s a reminder that (at least for now) we’ve made it through the pandemic quite well, all things considered. We’re all still healthy. We’re all still employed. The kids have been back in school in person part of the time since September. There are many, many people who have been really badly hit by the pandemic. We’ve had a couple of close calls, but we’re still pushing forward and hoping for the best.

It’s been a tough year. Lots of pressure beyond just the pandemic, and that’ll strain any number of relationships. I’m really grateful Denisa and I have come through it as well as we have. Has it all be sunshine and roses? Nope. But we’re still here for each other and supporting each other as best we can. I’m definitely hoping this coming year is a much brighter one than the one we just left. I’d say it wouldn’t be hard, but I still remember how much people complained about 2019, so . . .

In any case, happy birthday, Denisa!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Assessing Risk as We Approach Post-Pandemic

One aspect of the pandemic that’s been frustrating to me is the continued inability for us to assess risk. What’s really dangerous for us to do, and what isn’t? Part of this came (for a long time) from the fact that we just didn’t understand that much about the virus. We assumed it was like other viruses, and so the emphasis at first was on washing hands and cleaning surfaces. Masks were dismissed as overkill. However, as time has gone by, the studies have continually identified that surface transmission just isn’t that likely. One of the few studies that actually tried to estimate it put it at less than 5 in 10,000.

But here’s the thing: I have no idea what that actually translates into when it comes to real world applications. 5 in 10,000. Does that mean if there are 10,000 interactions with a person touching a contaminated surface, then 5 of those will result in a new COVID case? Is that high? Is that low? I have no clue. Lab studies have been done to try and identify how long the virus lives on different surfaces, but those studies were almost all done in lab conditions, starting with a ton of the virus, and then checking to see how long that high concentration of the virus would live. They didn’t check to see what it was like when all sorts of variables are introduced.

But because scientists can’t guarantee the virus doesn’t get passed from person to person via infected surfaces, they’re not comfortable telling people they don’t need to worry about cleaning surfaces as vigorously. And so we live in a world where libraries continue to quarantine books for 3 days before they’re put back on the shelves. (Some libraries are quarantining for a week. I’ve heard others say they have no plans to ever stop quarantining books, since it “just makes sense” from a health perspective.) When I go to church, the pulpit is disinfected between every speaker. The pews are all wiped down after each meeting, even though there won’t be anyone else in there for another week. And that’s here in the hinterlands of Maine. (Well, hinterlands by most people’s standards. By Mainer standards, I’m just a bit of a ways off. Nowhere near hinterland status.)

I understand some of it. You want to feel safe, and so it’s important to feel like you’re doing something to make yourself safe. But the science has more and more indicated that air is much, much more dangerous than surfaces. Masks and ventilation are where to put the focus, and even when it comes to masks, it’s almost all on indoor mask usage. Outdoor transmission just really doesn’t happen. But my kids’ nordic teams have all been skiing all winter with masks on.

Then again, which is more important? That you ingrain in people the need to wear masks to be protected, so that they can remember to wear them indoors where it’s important, or a general loose approach to masks, which might lead to them being ignored indoors?

So much of dealing with the pandemic has come down (in my opinion) to a difficulty in assessing risk. As a relatively young, healthy person with none of the mitigating health factors to make my risk for serious COVID spike, my personal risk all along has been quite low, I’ve felt. I’d have to contract the disease (not a sure thing) and even if I did, the odds were strongly in my favor for coming through it just fine. Likewise, all my immediate family here in Maine also falls into the same low risk category. If my only concern were for protecting my family, I pretty much could have ignored the whole pandemic, gone about my regular life, and almost definitely been fine at the end of it. (This is, naturally, ignoring the restrictions placed on me by my work and my government, which I wouldn’t have done. But this is a thought experiment, folks. Work with me.)

I only took one philosophy class in college, but it was a good one, and I still remember Kant’s categorical imperative. Basically, it’s the thought that you should only act in a way that you would be comfortable with if it were made the universal law. How I’ve always understood it is that if what you did as an individual caused little relative harm, but if it were done by all people would cause a great deal of harm, you shouldn’t do that thing. COVID has been a perfect example of that, for me. Yes, I could have ignored it, but by doing so, if everyone else ignored it as well, a huge portion of the country would suffer. We’ve seen this played out time and time again across the world. It’s why I haven’t eaten in a restaurant in a year and a half. It’s why I haven’t gone on a vacation in the same time frame.

Except now we’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and my thoughts are shifting away from how we needed to be acting to preserve everyone’s health. There’s all this discussion about what you can and can’t do once you’re vaccinated. And as I hear much of it, it seems to me the goal has shifted from “flatten the curve” to “make sure no one dies from COVID” and now to “make sure no one gets sick with COVID.”

It’s true that there are aspects to this disease that we still don’t understand, and I do worry that some of them may have longterm implications, especially long COVID. But one thing the vaccines do well is reduce the severity of the disease to the point that (as I understand it) no one gets a bad version of the disease after they’ve been properly vaccinated. If that’s true, then once I’m vaccinated, I’m really no longer concerned with getting the disease at all. Though I’m still uncertain what the odds are for unvaccinated children catching the disease, and how at risk they are. From what I’ve read, it’s very very low risk, but I’d love to have some concrete advice out there by doctors outlining what’s recommended.

But I don’t think the advice should be centered around “no one gets COVID.” If having COVID is no longer nearly as dangerous, I’d like to focus on reducing risk to an acceptable level. (You could say that’s what this has been about all along, with people having different views on what an “acceptable level of risk” is.)

In the end, I want guidelines that are more like “wear a mask” as opposed to “wash all surfaces.” I don’t need busywork to keep me feeling like I’m doing something, even when I’m doing nothing. There’s a whole lot of health theater happening right now. I realize some of it might be necessary, but that doesn’t mean I don’t roll my eyes a bit at it. (For the record, my library is still quarantining books for 3 days, mainly because it’s been an agreed upon standard for all libraries in the state, and I definitely want people feeling safe around our library books. I believe they are safe, but if it takes a 3 day quarantine to prove that to people, so be it.)

I don’t know. Today’s post has been all over the place, and I don’t have the time to go back and edit it down. If you want some further reading on the topic, I recommend this article in Nature that was pointed out to me today. I know the CDC’s supposed to be coming out with more recommendations on what vaccinated people can safely do. I hope that includes children in the mix somehow, because that’s an area I feel has really been ignored. If any of you have any good resources or articles you’ve come across that intersect this topic, please pass them my way. I’d love to check them out.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Big Problems, No Solutions: How Daylight Savings Time Embodies America’s Current Inability to Address Problems

Every year, it’s the same routine. I see a slew of complaints on Facebook and hear them from my friends and family, all focused on what a pain it is to lose an hour to Daylight Savings Time. Yes, many talk about how they’re excited to get more daylight in the evening, but the actual process itself is a real pain in the keister. And every single year, I wonder why in the world we’re still doing this. It’s 2021. The time change seems like one area where there’s almost universal consensus that we’d be better off without. So why can’t we just fix it? Easy problem. Easy solution.

Except it isn’t, clearly, for a number of reasons.

Yesterday I read this article on CNN that highlighted some of the issues that come up around this topic. Some points stood out to me. First off, when asked if they’d like to keep Daylight Savings Time year round, keep Standard Time year round, or keep the current system of switching between DST and ST, 28% of Americans said they wanted to keep it like it is. 28% is a much higher number than I anticipated. In all my years of complaining about the time change, I have never once had someone tell me they like the time change, and they’d be sad if it went away.

Now, some of those 28% probably say they want to keep it because they just don’t feel like it’s a big enough problem to bother with. Some must (somehow) like the time changes, true, but a chunk of those aren’t wedded to the idea. They just don’t have strong enough feelings around it one way or the other. However, if 28% want it to stay, that means 72% (give or take) want it to go. So the vast majority of Americans want the thing gone. But of those, 31% want to keep DST year round, and 40% want to keep standard time.

And so here we are, stuck with a thing only 28% of the country is satisfied with (to one extent or another) because the majority can’t agree on a solution.

I bring it up today not really just to complain about how I don’t like the time switch each year. More just to highlight how hard it is to fight against the status quo. This is a very simple problem. It doesn’t involve religion or political biases (that I’m aware of? Maybe there’s some sort of lobby out there for keeping the time change?) I don’t remember a single time I’ve gotten in a heated argument online or in-person over the issue. But here we are, stuck with doing the same thing every year, even though we don’t want to do it.

What’s the solution? What if we somehow went with a ranked choice vote on the matter and committed to the results? I think a majority of Americans would choose either going to DST all year or staying with standard time all year. So at least we’d be with the majority’s first or second choice, instead of the minority’s first.

But beyond the simple issue of solving this first world problem lies the bigger one. If we can’t come together to solve easy things, how in the world can we ever be expected to solve big things like our disaster of a healthcare system?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

March Madness: Name a Character in My Next Book

I’ve done the March Madness challenge for many years. And I’ve named numerous characters after different people over the years. However, I’m sad to say many of those characters are still trapped in drafts that haven’t seen publication, so it’s no doubt a frustrating experience for their winners.

This year, on the other hand, my current writing project is THE AXEMAN, a book that’s already under contract, with the outline I’m working on having been green lit by my editor. Which means that the odds of this book coming out on time are pretty darn good. In other words, if there’s a year you want to win the contest, this is the year. As I’ve done in the past, I’ll let you name a character in the book. It can’t be something too crazy (this is set in 1918 New Orleans, after all, so it needs to be historically accurate), but I’m sure we can work something out between us. If I can swing it, I’ll do my best to have it be a character who actually gets a role as well.

Last year, losing out on March Madness right when the whole pandemic really took off was a real blow. I was stuck at home, and it felt like everything was in flux. It’s a big relief to have it back this year. I know that might sound silly, but I’m just calling it like I see it. I’m a creature of habit, and I’ve loved March Madness for decades. Its return is another sign that we’re on the road to recovery.

With that out of the way, there’s nothing else to really say except I hope to see you in the challenge! Click to join the group. It’s name is Bryce’s Ramblings, and the password is vodnik. You have until the games start on Friday to get your entry in. Let me know if you have any questions.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Once More to the Dieting Breach

Look. When you’ve been blogging every weekday for as long as I have, you’re forced to face certain realities about yourself. One such reality is that I have a hard time sticking to a long-term healthy approach to eating. True, some of this is complicated by the whole pandemic thing that’s been going on, along with all the trappings 2020 brought with it. I eat more when I’m stressed, and I’m sure I’m not the only one to fall into that category. It’s also true that while my weight isn’t where I’d like it to be now, a good chunk of that is because I shifted my goalposts a while ago.

At peak Bryce Weight, I was over 240. I brought that down to the 215 range, and it bounced around there for a good five or seven years until 2016, when I decided to get serious about bringing it down. At that point, I focused on healthy eating and more exercise, and I brought my weight more to the 190 range, which was 5 pounds under the official “overweight” mark for my height. A couple years later, I made another push, and I got down to 175 for a little bit. Since then, it’s bounced around between 180 and 190. If I’d told 240 pound me that I was 185.6 this morning, he’d be ecstatic and very proud of me.

What I mean to say is that I’m now at a weight that I’m comfortable with, but at the same time, I’m not satisfied with it either. The pandemic hit and I went up to over 190, getting dangerously close to 195 at times. So I focused on it again and brought it back to around 182. Since then, it’s crept back up again. During the pandemic, it’s like if I’m not paying enough attention to it, I just revert back to eating in a way I don’t want to eat, longterm.

Which is why I’m focusing on it once again, and doing so publicly. I’ve found the best way for me to commit to something is to make a big deal of it. To shout it from the rooftops and set up a system of public accountability for myself. If I tell you all that I’m going to be checking in each week with an update on how the process is going, then I’m much, much likelier to actually make progress on this than if I sit back and make a private determination.

On a big scale, I’ve been successful with my weight management. I’ve kept it to a level that’s below “overweight” consistently for years now, and I’ve been able to generally keep a handle on it during the pandemic as well. This new push is really about resetting back down to a better level for me, paying particular attention to the fact that as I get older, keeping the weight off will only become more difficult. My hope is that I can get to the point where I’m bouncing between 175 and 180 instead of 185 and 190. It’s not a huge difference, but it would give me some extra wiggle room for things like holiday dinners . . .

In any case, I’ll be chiming in with weekly Friday updates again for the next while. We’ll see how it goes. I started on Sunday at 188.6 (after having a really big meal Saturday). This morning I was down to 185.6. I don’t expect it to continue to go that quickly (the first little bit of the diet is always the easiest), but I do hope it won’t take forever. For the record, I’m going with my strengths: eating the same thing every day for every meal. That way I know exactly how many calories I’m eating, and I don’t have to think about it at all. For now, I’m going to be at around 1800 calories a day. I might go a bit lower, depending on how things progress.

Wish me luck, and thanks for your support.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

$1.9 Trillion: Too Much Help?

I am not an economist. This post isn’t going to be about the nuts and bolts about how government money should or shouldn’t be spent. I’d be out of my league, and there are many other places you could go to get information on that. Of course, the places you choose to go will in all likelihood simply confirm the pre-existing opinion you have on the subject. If you think government spending is out of control and this is just the latest sign of that, I’ve already read plenty of articles that agree with you. If you think we’re in the worst economic, social, and health crisis our nation has seen in decades (at least) and that necessitates extreme measures, then again, I’ve already read plenty of articles that agree with you.

Some people like to point out that the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill is popular, and they’re baffled why no Republicans supported it. Republicans like to point out that just because something’s popular doesn’t make it right, and it’s pretty easy to be popular if you’re handing out money. They express concern that this extreme spending will in turn cause extreme problems for the country in the future. They might be right. As I said: I am not an economist, and I’m not qualified to pass judgement on those sort of things.

No, in the end I’m just a librarian, and so by profession, I’m much more likely to end up on the side of the people trying to help out the general populace than the ones trying to hold onto the purse strings. I have a fair number of opinions about this whole mess we’re in, and they’ve been stewing in my head for a while. I wanted to see if I couldn’t get some of them out of me so I could make more sense of it all.

First, America is a wealthy, wealthy country. The 11th wealthiest country in the world, and the ones ahead of us are much, much smaller. (So it’s easier for the averages of the country to be tipped by a relatively few number of wealthy individuals.) There’s no way to argue we’re a poor country, and I don’t think anyone realistically would. What have other wealthy countries been doing to address the COVID crisis? Is the American response grossly out of line with what other nations have been doing? There are reports that have compiled this sort of information. Let’s break it down for 10 of the top wealthiest countries with significant populations:

NationCOVID Stimulus (in Trillions)GDP (in Trillions)% of GDPUSA$5.6$21.4326%China$1.4* $14.3410%Japan$2.1$5.0841%Germany$1.0**$3.8626%India$0.1$2.873%United Kingdom$0.6***$2.8321%France$0.3**$2.7211%Italy$0.5**$2.0025%Brazil$0.1$1.845%Canada$0.2$1.7411%*China hasn’t really been forthcoming with exactly what it’s done, so this number is hard to pin down.
**The EU passed a $450 billion dollar COVID relief measure in addition to these separate efforts by countries
***The UK passed several other measures that weren’t immediately clear as to how much they cost

One thing to note is that in the process of trying to fill out this chart, I realized just how difficult it was to compare things across the board. This is my best 5 minute math estimate. Actual economists would no doubt have a better, more reliable number for you. Also, if you take away the lates $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that just went through, then the US’s % of GDP would have dropped to 17%.

Looking at this back-of-the-napkin math, there appears to be a fairly large range of approaches to handling COVID and the fallout from the pandemic. Much has also been done through monetary policy and not just fiscal spending. However, it appears to me that American hasn’t exactly broken the piggybank when it comes to dealing with this crisis. Yes, you could delve into the intricacies of the relief measures, but you could no doubt do that with any of the other countries up there on that list.

Is it a lot of money? Yes. But it’s also a singular problem our nation is facing. The Republican hand-wringing around the subject loses a fair bit of credence for me when I see them now arguing we need to do away with the estate tax and when you keep in mind the Trump tax cuts that skewed heavily to the wealthy. Income inequality is only getting worse in America, but it feels to me like the Republicans have at this point abdicated all hope of actually being any sort of a party that represents people other than strict conservatives and rich people. A large part of my perception is no doubt influenced by the fact that I’m around a slew of college-aged students every day. I talk with them. I’m friends with them. I hear about what they’re worried about and what they hope to accomplish. And then I’m the parent of three school kids. So when I read about pundits and people dismissing these students as snowflakes or uninformed or manipulated, it just doesn’t carry any weight with me.

I’m impressed with the youth of today. I think they’re genuinely interested in making the world a better place, and all they’re looking for in return is a chance at having the sort of life their parents (or grandparents) had. They see real problems with the way minorities are treated in this country, and they’re much more willing to be compassionate and understanding with people who aren’t like them. They’re a generation that has grown up seeing a ton of hypocrisy, and they’re very good at spotting it. Gun violence, income inequality, LGBTQ rights, racial injustice, and more. These are all issues they’re passionate about, because they’re issues that affect them.

This is a generation that has been affected by not one, not two, but three separate national crises. Between 9/11, the great recession, and now COVID, that’s a 20 year span of living under extreme measures. It’s going to skew anyone’s perception, but for people who grew up in it, they don’t know any different. The world we live in now is a very different one than the world I grew up in, and yet so many Republicans seem to want to insist that it hasn’t changed, and that our responses to what’s happening don’t need to change.

Is $1.9 trillion too much money? You could argue it is. Maine will be seeing much more coming from the government than it lost in its budget over the past year, to the point that lawmakers are wondering what to do with it all. I have worked steadily throughout the pandemic, and I’ve seen 100% of every stimulus check that’s been available. I know I’m not alone in that. Though at the same time, my position could easily have been much worse. There are universities and colleges that have folded in the last year, after all.

In the end, it’s hard for me to get behind the argument that we don’t have the money to spend, when we spend so much money on things like our military or tax cuts. If we have enough money to fund drone strikes abroad, how can we justify the inequality we have here at home? I realize that as soon as I say that, I risk having a number of Republican friends roll their eyes at my bleeding heart and begin to debate whether it’s worth it to write a comment explaining to me The Way Things Are. And that’s how it comes across when they do it. Like they’re the only reasonable person in the room, and it’s on them to explain why we can’t buy All the Things, but we still have to buy the things they happen to believe we need to buy. Each time this dynamic plays out, I believe there are fewer Republicans at the end of the conversation, as more and more people throw their hands up at the whole thing and start looking into joining a commune.

Speaking from experience at the small university where I work, there are a ton of hard working people who do the best they can with what they’ve been given in terms of a budget. I see the same story played out in libraries across the state and the Northeast and even the country, in my conversations with other librarians in the field. And these are individuals who consistently see their budgets cut (in libraries specifically and higher education for my part of Maine) because they’re deemed non-essential. And yet I also see the first generation students who come here and have their lives changed for the better because of what they experience here. I see the children in public libraries who grow to love reading. I see the community members who can’t afford internet access who are able to suddenly do so much more because of what libraries offer.

And I see that a small slice of the $1.9 trillion is going to libraries. More money than libraries have received from the federal government in years. And I see a chunk of the money going to higher education, a sector that’s been really negatively affected by COVID. This money is desperately needed. The same applies to my local school. And to think that for once, those institutions will be looking at more money than they’ve gotten recently doesn’t make me shake my head and wonder why in the world we’re wasting that money on those places. It makes me excited to think of what they’ll be able to do with it.

If that’s the case with the small piece of the COVID relief bill that I’m actually somewhat qualified to opine on, I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to think it’s the case for much of the rest of it. So I’m not going to stand up and say it’s too much money. If anything, I hope it’s a change. A sign that we might start begin to offer adequate funding to the institutions we rely on as a society to look out for the underprivileged and to enable the framework that makes the American Dream possible. You can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you don’t have any bootstraps. Education, libraries, infrastructure, and the ability to avoid crippling debt are, in my mind, a basic bootstrap component.

I’m out of time for today. There’s more I’d like to say, but it’ll have to wait for the comments section or a future post. But for today, I’ll just go on the record that I’m grateful the COVID bill passed and leave it at that.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

How Much Credence Do You Give to Personality Tests?

Last night Denisa and I watched Persona, a new documentary out on HBOmax. It focused on the development and rise of personality tests, spending the most time on the Myers-Briggs. It was an interesting look into the history and controversy surrounding them, and I’ll admit I had never really spent that much time thinking about the impact those tests have had and potentially can have in the future. The more I thought about this, the more I realized this is likely in large part due to the fact that I’ve got a personality type and a “profile” that wouldn’t cause any problems for me in my life. The documentary does a fair job illustrating why that might not be the case for everyone.

My experience with Myers-Briggs has always been more on “gee whiz” level of curiosity than anything that I might decide to base my life around. If you’re not immediately familiar with the test, it’s the one that asks you a series of questions of how you’d act in various social situations, and then it gives you a four letter “code” to define what sort of personality type you have. Are you an introvert (I) or an extrovert (E)? Are you thinking (T) or feeling (F)? That sort of thing. I know I’ve taken these tests in the past, but I never really paid that much attention to where I ended up on them. Why would I? I knew there were people who placed more stock in them, but it seemed like an irrelevant thing to me.

I never realized that a growing number of businesses require job applicants to take these tests as part of the application process, however. Then they use the results of these tests to weed out people they feel wouldn’t be a good fit for the position. On the surface, I suppose I can see the logic behind the argument. If they get 500 people who apply for one opening, then if there’s a way to quickly sift through those for the best applications, then why not use it?

Except the tests in question are problematic for many, many reasons. First, they weren’t designed for use in the job application process. They were more designed for use in self-discovery. Second, they were designed based around a limited number of people: mainly educated white men. This places people outside that demographic at risk of having their results misinterpreted. And third . . . they’re personality tests, for crying out loud! I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be to be told I wasn’t being considered for a job I really wanted because they thought based on this random test that I’d do poorly in the position. Especially if I have a track record of success in those types of positions.

As the documentary points out: if you have a biased person somewhere in a hiring process, that person can impact maybe a hundred different position searches over the course of their tenure. But if you have a biased automatic algorithm that’s baked into the hiring process, then it can impact every single search it touches across the entire company for years to come. And it’s sometimes very hard to recognize when a fundamental process like that is biased.

This struck me even harder because of some thoughts I’ve been having ever since the pandemic started. I had always considered myself to be an introvert. It’s a label I voluntarily applied to myself, and I think I used that label as a crutch or excuse for why I did certain things. If I didn’t want to go somewhere or interact with a group of people, I’d just do a mental shrug and remind myself I was in introvert, and give myself a pass. But when the pandemic hit and I was cut off from so many other people, I realized I was much more extroverted than I gave myself credit for. I relied on those other interactions to keep myself going.

So was I an extrovert all along? To me, it wasn’t that simple. I dislike the idea that there’s this either/or setting for introvert or extrovert. I think it’s misleading. In some instances, I may be feeling introverted. In others, I may be a total extrovert. I haven’t thought about it enough to figure out which situations call for which response. (I may be self-analytical, but I’m not that self analytical.)

The more I thought about it, the more curious it was to me that I was so willing to apply a label to myself when, generally speaking, I dislike labels. I feel they’re reductive, and they almost never do a good job of explaining why people do what they do. It’s a step away from explaining everything by astrological signs, and maybe it’s even not that big of a step. And yet people willingly buy into these theories and then start framing their life decisions around them.

In the end, if I don’t want to go to a party, I should just not go to the party. I don’t need a label of introvert as an excuse. And if someone wants a job, they should have the chance to apply and interview for the job fair and square, without some whackadoo computer program telling them they’re a bad fit. Am I being overly reductive here? I don’t think so, but of course I’m open to other thoughts on the matter. I recognize my amount of research into this consists of one potentially biased documentary and a lifetime of idle Google searches into the topic . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.