Tyler Weaver's Blog, page 22

Not a Case of the Mondays But

I want to believe that my systems are becoming calibrated with those algorithmic ones of the CGM but I don't think they are. Last night, a possible hypoglycemic moment: according to the glucometer, Tabitha, I was at 64; according to The Tick (my name for the Libre), 110. Didn't feel right but... just weird. That said, I don't seem start feeling wonky until I dip below 60. Mad scientist experiment: do I force myself into a low blood sugar to see which one is right? (Not without adult supervision, no.)

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Weekend revisitations: TERMINATOR 2 and OFFICE SPACE, one right after the other. Fun thought experiment: It wasn't actually Cyberndyne / Skynet that caused Judgement Day, but Initech / Initrode / Penetrode, Michael and Samir the true unwitting Adam and Eve of the AI yet to be... thus the failure of team Connor to avert the AIpocalypse.

(I'm sure Milton was involved somehow.)

A side note: I need to start watching things I haven't seen yet – but there's very little that interests me (though the upcoming Disney+ might help since I haven't seen ENDGAME or CAPTAIN MARVEL) in the streaming offerings at present. Far happier to scrounge the Blu Ray bargain bin for physical treasures to be possessed, not accessed.

Another side note: SCHITT'S CREEK's David and Patrick are the best couple in presently-airing serialized narrative, bar none. I'll miss that show when it's gone.

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Will try tonight to work in the evenings; President Obama was correct in saying that the world just seems smaller at night. Maybe that smallness is what I need – why the early morning / pre-dawn hours work so well for me; why they're so anchoring. Maybe instead of falling to the guilt of taking an afternoon on a selfish project I can clear off my to-do desk throughout the day and, facing an empty desk in the evening, get back to work. That's the theory anyhow.

And that's all I've got. Happy Monday.

T1D-Borg, Day Two

Second full day with the Freestyle Libre sensor and I can report that, other than now knowing how a pair of jeans feels with an anti-theft tag attached to them, I'm not impressed.

Maddened, perhaps, might be the correct word. T1D is a disease about decisions: is that extra bit of banana worth the insulin- ransom? is the stress worth the insulin-ransom? … Though advertised by my endo as a way to hone my disease management skills and by Abbot as a way to free myself from the tyranny of fingersticking and blood sacrifice, The Libre is doing little more than adding – no, multiplying – decisions and stress as the only thing it’s consistent in is providing a reading 60-118 off the blood sacrifice – and yes, I know the Libre calculates blood glucose based on a different sample – interstitial tissue fluid rather than sweet, sweet blood – and that there will be a difference, but this is fucking ridiculous...

(Might be a defective sensor? Might be the placement on my arm? Might be that it hasn't gotten acclimated to my body or that my body hasn't gotten acclimated to having a needle jammed in it for 14 day cycles for the rest of my cyborg-natural life? Might be? Might? )

A meagre hope that our systems will soon calibrate though my capacity for hope isn't strong these days. Worth noting that the last time my A1C was above 7, I brought it down with the same ten dollar meter and ten dollar strips that I've been using since day one of this fucking disease (TFD) sans any device implantation – a process similar to affixing those stick-on toilet bowl cleaners – as an investment in silence.

Until calibration, then, I'll do more math to stay alive, calculating an average difference that changes with each fucking meal – the same fucking breakfast and the same fucking lunch for the last three years – until ... oh hell. I'm just pissed off and weary of all of this. There'll probably be dog pictures over at my MicroBlog today.

Happy Saturday, then. Regular ramblings return on Monday; maybe by then I'll be calibrated – or locked in a department store because I set off their anti-theft barricade and they think my wife stole me.

Being Social: MicroBlog, Day One

A week runneth over with upendings, with new things and new systems (in-law doctor appointments; the wanton demolition of writing and exercise and reading routines; an endocrinologist appointment and my investment in silence of a new continuous glucose monitor that's consistently 100-150 points off) is drawing to a close but has clearly taken its toll. But, alas, the only way out is through so here I am.

Using the opportunity of routine implosion to carve out a new one and try new paths. To wit:

You might note a new navigation button above: MicroBlog. After a few years of considering it (ok, a couple: the service has only been around since 2017), I'm finally, after deciding that backing up the veracity of my conviction of self-hosting my original content – be it long-form daily rambles like this, or picayune observations / music / dog pictures / links etc etc – is worth $5.99 a month, giving it a go: a self-hosted mini-companion to this site, the Renfield to (PR)'s Dracula, Eye-gor to Frankenshteen.

Report so far: I dig it. That I've already found a fellow fan of The Necks at Micro is reason enough to celebrate.

So what's going to live there? All of the stuff that would've either been attempted as tags here (EarBliss / Listening / Reading / Life/Etc / DogPicture / Status / LinkExhaust) or sent to Twitter will first be sent to my MicroBlog – crossposting to Twitter incoming. A self-hosted vehicle for interstitial content – which will hopefully be of more value than the interstitial glucouse readings of the CGM but I'm just in a shitty mood over the quasi-cyborg anti-theft deterrent device presently nailed into my bicep and spewing out ridiculous numbers...

... but, yes, Micro: It'll take some effort to acclimate myself but for now, the value in hewing to an ideal of all original content originating from a site of my own is worth the acclimation period. Going to give it a fair shake, see where it takes me. Time will tell.

As for the CGM, I might write more about that in Sunday's newsletter. So far, I'm not a fan (of the CGM; I like my newsletter).. But like I said, it's been a long week of shaking things up, so maybe the anchors and variables of my life and my day are still shaking about, as the dice in TROUBLE would bound about in their plastic bubble. Maybe they’ll settle – maybe.

Overthinking About What I Want This Site to Be and Other (Mis)Adventures in Mental Drainage

A cold rain is about to fall. Had hoped to get my running routine back to normal today but it looks like that's not going to happen: elliptical and PEAKY BLINDERS series five and yoga it shall be – I wany my blood sugar back to normal but not at the cost of pneumonia. But hey, I fixed a pair of K's broken reading glasses: househusband powers – activate.

Back and forth and back and forth from just posting here and ignoring the media social, to finding some point to the whole thing. Goldilocksing: tried out self-hosted options like Micro.Blog – which I love, in concept, but can't quite wrap my head around in personal utility (that it's billed as NOT a silo might be the problem; I think that's what I need more than anything) – or just posting smaller pieces throughout the day. Or, do I stick to just these daily pieces and the weekly newsletter?

(For instance: would yesterday's 280-character tweet about The Jorkie been better served as a tiny post here and then syndicated out to the networks?)

The question, then: do I want to be online more, less, or more (or less) selectively? I don't particularly care enough to actively avoid social media nor do I have some idealistic viewpoint of it (I loathe Facebook and all of its properties not just because it's a corrosive shopvac for big data, but because it's such a shitty platform for self-expression); it's a tool, and that's it. Problem is, I'm just not – at present – sure what it's a tool for. Random spewings? (see note above) Sharing links? (Mem: how to integrate Pinboard and my Impeachment Scrapbook here? Is there a way to automate?) Dog Pictures? ... If the intent of Twitter et al is to be a blank slate for self-expression, maybe I just currently lack the blankness to express myself on any slate – except in this little reclusive garden...

Further: best way to share music I enjoy? Dog pictures? Maybe best just to save all of those great things for the newsletter or for a morning piece. Or maybe, since I'm working in the evenings now and using a half hour in the middle of the two-hour block to write other stuff, I can start backlog of content to be syndicated here?

Incidentally, some great music: LIVING SPACE, by ELEH; NO HOME RECORD, by Kim Gordon; SLEEPMOSS, by Meemo Comma; and Michael Kiwanuka's latest, KIWANUKA.

While I've no interest in being dogmatic about the whole thing, the notion of all of my self-created online content living here before being syndicated out to the social tubes, is intriguing. Just have to create a platform or a workflow of multiple platforms that satisfies both my predilections of ownership and of flexiblity.

But, hell, I don't know; I'm just talking to myself about the whole thing. Time to read; the dogs are waiting, sorta patiently.

Power-Saving Mode

I write here to talk about the things I want to talk about because I'm most able to effectively communicate them to myself in this space; if I'm unable to express myself in conversation in a manner that inspires movement towards change of external situation, then the only expression of use is one of self-exploration here.

Amid the madness of the past month or year – dogs' months, years, maybe – a growing fear that I'm losing more of myself, that I'm allowing my values to fall prey to others, again; that selfsame pattern of acquiesence, of compromise. Note: this isn't to say that compromise isn't a good thing – it is; I'm talking about my repeated crossing of the line from compromising to BEING compromised.

It's in doing The Work that I find myself, that I feel mostly at ease with myself, no matter if I manage a word or a thousand. It's the act of doing, of building, something that's mine that carries all meaning for me. To feel that under threat from external forces – and my allowance of those external forces to threaten it – is triggering defense mechanisms and internal cries of battle, of wars needing to be waged, to pull myself back to myself and hold firm to some scintilla of myself before it is subsumed into the quicksand.

I have compromised The Work – and the other value of managing my T1D (I should mention here that yesterday's endocrinologist appointment didn't go that well and I was advised to "watch my stress levels" and to take care of myself... and to get a CGM – again –, which I'm slowly convincing myself isn't a terrible idea, despite insurance not covering it) and thus feel compromised.

Hence, Power-Saving Mode. I've gone into it a few times before, most recently about 10 years ago in an instance of which my closest friend at the time would later remark that he thought I was having a stroke.

But no, it's not a stroke; it's just the turning off of a switch – a switch that, admittedly, has gotten a little rusty over the decade. It's a conscious decision to not let these externals, these unecessary things – family / in-laws, T1D, etc etc, bother me. To simply do what must be done silenty, quietly, and to completion, without rumination or complaint or feeling as though I must be someone I’m not in order to make other people feel better. To simply do my work when I can do my work and to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.

Come to think: maybe I should just be in this mode all the time. Writing it out makes it appear to be a lot more pleasant than the current clusterfuckstatusquo of the invading hoardes taking pitchforks to my brain and my body. Maybe I left the power on for too long and illuminated the wrong things? Mem., then: when returning to regular operation, shift the light somewhere else. Focus it on things more worthy of illumination...

P.S. This power-saving mode doesn't mean I'm going to stop posting here. I'm most comfortable sharing here, remember, so I'll see you – even if it's just myself – tomorrow.

EndocrineDay Scattershot

(Trying to get this in before the rural internet goes all wonky...)

Endo appointment and a long, podcast-fueled drive lie ahead (Mem: where's that little speaker?), the manual transmission pancreas, T1D, A1C etc etc, taking prescedence in mind. Also, for the next two days, a truncated exercise/run schedule amid attempts to ameliorate that feeling of rush, of must, of should, of have to… hopefully this is just one of those transitional things. I'll tell myself that it is.

SHINSEKAI INTO THE DEPTHS (Apple Arcade) is a beautiful game. Can see where the controller would be of benefit, though: playing Twister with my fingers not as enjoyable as it sounds.

(VOTE.)

Recalibration / BURN AFTER READING

I'd written something else in my pre-breakfast middle block but it ended up becoming obsolete in the post-breakfast processing, so... here I am, with something new, for better or for worse.

A long week ahead. Have to do all I can to keep up the illusion of competence if only for myself – to rebalance, to recalibrate... a persistent illusion of constancy; have to learn to be selfish, to balance the selfish with the dutiful other. Hang in there, as my grandfather tells me – hang in there. My true calling.

Rewatched BURN AFTER READING this weekend: its prescience astounds. JK Simmons's brief appearance remains the highlight of the film, particularly the final exchange: "What did we learn, Palmer?" / "I don't know, sir." / "I don't fuckin' know either. I guess we learned not to do it again." / "Yes, sir."

I am, indeed, worried about "the security... of (my) shit."

KaijuDesk, Winter Edition – In Progress

Watch troubles and the second cold and frosty morning, etc. etc... cue the Oasis song; I think I've got the lyrics right. Or an approximation thereof.

Learning to work in the arctic morning chill, still, of my back room / former paint shop office / Sanctum. Space heater, one of those faux fireplace things, which gives off a good amount of heat in a narrow focus but just barely edges out the chill. And, befitting my stubborn desire to not waste electricity to stay warm or fend off pneumonia, I had – among other things – considered taking a saw to KaijuDesk and moving it upstairs to my former, no-less chilly, office.

Recognizing that this was, most likely, unrealistic, and, in a bid to make my paint shop Sanctum even more of a cocoon and ensure heat distribution beyond the borders of my neuropathy-in-waiting feet, a notion to make KaijuDesk even larger, transforming it from an L to a U; jam that warmth in the cocoon, in the cave, like a bear... after a false start with an antique Shaker writing desk, the U was finally crafted by Frankensteining my old desk, a footboard unearthed in the attic and retrofitted with IKEA legs, with KaijuDesk. With this amalgamation of Sanctums former and present, a realization: my desire to move back upstairs wasn't because I missed the space but because I missed my old desk.

And now, reunion, the coffee rings of old formed over eight years of projects and thinking and moving and shifting to the coffee rings of new, a faux fireplace underneath... because of course I'm writing this grotesque at the kitchen table; I don't want to turn the heater back on.

The day’s run awaits. Happy Saturday; regular ramblings return on Monday.

Hamster Wheel / Spontaneously Combustible Engine

The wind is fading, the masked ghouls are back in human form, and winter is knocking: welcome, November. Might learn today that my car is dead, spontaneously combustible engine and the noxious fumes emanating from within; the car guys will know all, will reveal all. Or not. Might be nothing – but I'm pretty sure it's something.

One of those mornings, one of those weeks, maybe, where I wonder if this whole writing thing is nothing but a byproduct of my wanderings through Fantasyland (thoughts on Andersen’s book percolating – for now will have to settle on periodic examinations of my own potential/likely forays into the bullshitiverse), one big joke on the hamster running in place on that proverbial wheel who hopped on the wheel because he thought he could actually do sweet loop-de-loops like the Hot Wheels cars he played with as a kid without falling flat on his back, little hamster wind knocked out of him, little hamster feet flailing in the air.

Then again, this wondering might be nothing but a result of a week (or a month, fuck if I know) spent inhaling the aformentioned noxious engine fumes. That might be it. I'll go with that. Little hamster feet flailing.

Happy Friday.

To Read / Tsundoku

The stacks, the stacks, they multiply. Yesterday's new acquisitions: THE WORLD IN A GRAIN, by Vince Beiser; BARON WENCKHEIM'S HOMECOMING, by László Krasznahorkai; FLOW, by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi; and CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE: WHISTLEBLOWING IN AN AGE OF FRAUD, by Tom Mueller.