A new fibro feature: the wall of noise

So we had people over. My daughter’s home and we had family and friends over, The first floor of our townhome has tiled floor–a single room that acts as kitchen, living room, and dining room.

I’ve always had a little noise sensitivity. When my wife is talking on the phone, I’ll ask her to use her indoor voice. As you might imagine, it’s super popular when say that. Sometimes at church, the music is a little overwhelming. But I get through it without more than just a bit of discomfort.

Today, the noise was just too much.

No one was screaming or jumping on the table. It was just ten people talking in a place where there wasn’t much to absorb the sound.

First I got up and did dishes to get a little distance, then finally, I just had to go upstairs. I couldn’t manage the noise.

If I weren’t me, I’d be inclined to shake my head, to figure the I who went upstairs was being a prima donna. It’s just noise, dude, and you’ve experienced that before. (When my daughter was a baby, she cried loud enough that her wails could split diamonds. Seriously, she broke my wife’s engagement ring.)

Just this morning while I was running, I jacked up Devil with the Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly by Mitch Ryder because…well, because that’s what you do when Mitch Ryder comes on.

But that was outside. There was a place for the noise to go to dissipate. It wasn’t this tidal wave of discordant noise that seemed like it might swallow me.

That’s the first time I’ve had to retreat because of the Fibro. It was a little soul-crushing. I wanted to be there. But I couldn’t.

I forgave myself, because that, also, is what you do.

If I didn’t have it happen to me, I wouldn’t believe it. Now I have something new to think about.

So if someone does something like that, maybe they are a prima donna. Maybe they just want the attention. But there’s at least an equal chance, they’re doing the best they can and they’re not thrilled at their retreat.

It’s 2021. We get to be angry. But we also need to see beyond that anger.

If you go by the mountain of condoms usually given to athletes, the Olympic games is a party for the athletes who aren’t currently competing. It’s a chance to get out, meet people, and see a part of the world you might not otherwise see.

Except for this year.

This year, they were confined to something that runs somewhere between a Holiday Inn and a college dorm (something to consider in assessing Simone Biles’ mental state).

My house is very nice. It’s a relatively new townhome in a nice community with more space than we really need. It’s got new appliances, a backsplash and granite countertops. We have a TV roughly the size of Montana. A guilded cage is still a cage.

When I worked from home every day for more than a year, it felt similar to 2015 when I was sick most of the year. To this day, that was the hardest year ever. But being shut in still brings back unsettling feelings.

The latest CDC guidance says that vaccinated people can carry the Delta variant just as well as unvaccinated. They have data to back it up. If you’re vaccinated, you tend not to get very sick with the Covid. If you choose not to be vaccinated, I hear the ICU is lovely this time of year. (If you can’t be vaccinated…that demands more space than a single sentence here.)

Here we go again.

We’re all carrying marks from the last year and a half. If you deny this fact, you aren’t being honest with yourself. It was lonely and terrifying not knowing how it would turn out. Speaking from experience, you can’t expect to emerge from that kind of stress unscathed. The fall of 2015 was a very angry time for me.

So, quite frankly, I’m not afraid about the Delta variant.

I’m angry.

I’m angry at the people who could get vaccinated but would rather believe that the vaccine is evil. That it’s a mark of government control. That it sheds and can be toxic to the people who haven’t received it. That the information on some poorly written website no one’s ever heard of is more reliable than what actual scientists say.

As previously documented, I’m also angry at the people who would still have the country on total lockdown so they feel better about things. Whose prediction to every loosening of the rules was doom and a demand that everyone be as afraid as they are. And at their near glee as they beat their chests in triumph over being right this time (after a year of being almost completely wrong).

I shouldn’t be angry. If you want to yell I told you so, you frigging heartless moron, the Constitution guarantees you that right. I guess you have the right to not get vaccinated and beat your chest about not living in fear, too. (Denial…that”s another thing.)

But I am angry. I’m angry because it’s been a hard year and a half. I’m angry because I did this once already. I followed the damn rules and (1) got yelled at by the true believers for not being pure of heart and mind and (2) get to do it again because others get their scientific information from bobsbigassconspiracysite.com.

(Incidentally, I’m also angry because the WordPress editor seems buggy and as irrational as I am.)

Mostly I’m angry because my logic is weak where feeling like it’s 2015 again is concerned.

I’ll do what’s required. I will (and have) go back to masking. I will probably start staying in again and start only eating outside in Florida during summer, because that’s fun. If travel shutdowns start being a thing again–and I’m guessing they will–I’ll honor them.

Being in Florida, a place where Covid roams the streets like a gang of derelict 17-year-old boys, I’m wondering if it’s morally acceptable to leave the state. (I have to for a work trip next week, but beyond that…)

But I get to be pissed off about it. We all do.

The problem is, we’re really good at being pissed off and not so good at understanding why the other guy is pissed.

The Covid’s ruining my party.

But it’s ruining your party, too. I need to consider that before bitching about my own party.

Maybe you do, too.

If you want people to follow CDC mask guidance, maybe less is more.

Yesterday, Las Vegas (Clark County, specifically) joined the growing list of jurisdictions mandating masks inside for everyone, whether vaccinated or not. I have an upcoming business trip to Vegas. I intend to comply with the mandate.

Lost in all the hype about the rise of the Delta variant (noted virologist Jim Cramer said we’d have 100 million sick people in 9 weeks; he also performs heart surgery while not hosting his CNBC show), are two pieces of data:

• The CDC says data shows that vaccinated people can pass the Delta variant to others.
• Infection rates and hospitalizations are sharply increasing throughout the country, though death rates are staying steady.

Noted scientist Jim Cramer’s Covid response as translated by the disco group Chic.

That’s enough for me to fully, reluctantly commit to wearing a mask again inside and in crowded situations, in spite of the fact that this remains a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

Early on in this pandemic, when it was all new, I asked myself If the worst happens, to I want to spend the rest of my life wondering if I was the one who caused it? The answer was, and remains, no. No sane person would want that.

I’m pretty safe. the odds of my becoming hospitalized with the Covid are 200-to-1. I’ll take those odds. But I won’t take the chance that I’m the instrument of death for another person, even if that person failed to take basic precautions. Not when the cost is wearing a mask.

My masking will include only what the CDC judges is appropriate, because that’s what the science and the data support. Unlike political opportunists and concern trolls, I don’t abandon a source I thought was viable because my gut feeling (which has multiple doctorates in virology and epidemiology) tells me something different.

And if we move beyond masking, which I’m willing to do, to shutdowns and safer at home orders, my opinion might change.

There is no science that indicates the vaccinated should mask outside, stay home, or otherwise pretend it’s last April again. And in spite of what several new Facebook fans say, no one has a moral obligation to mask beyond the CDC recommendations, especially if the driving factor is making other people comfortable.

Asking vaccinated people to mask because they pose a risk is reasonable and appropriate. Asking them to do anything “to make everyone feel more comfortable” or because “it’s simply the polite thing to do” (as one preening pretentious meme and its supporters said) isn’t just horsecrap, it’s likely to turn off more people than it convinces.

Even Tina Fey is annoyed. Tina Fey!

If you’re those people, no one wants to hear that you knew this was going to happen, that you predicted it all along, and that, by damn, you were right. You also knew we’d face giant surges when airline travel resumed, when sports resumed in a bubble, when kids went back to school, and two weeks after Memorial Day weekend parties (to name a few). You were pretty sure that we’d just be done now with all the funerals from the mass Super Bowl Super Spreader event. None of that happened.

Raymond James Stadium, filled with the bodies from the Super Bowl surge that you knew was going to happen.

Yes, suggest it would be a good idea to wear masks. Point out the mandates where they exist. Point to the data and the science. But stop with the moralizing and the demonization of people who don’t do what your gut feeling says would make people feel good.

I got taken to task for not masking up when I go running. Outside. At 4:30 in the morning. If you took all the science and data in the world and got rid of it, what’s left is still more than what justifies such a stance. It’s an extreme version of virtue signaling and it’s as harmful as the people who shame you for putting a mask on.

If dealing with pressure is part of the gig, then give athletes better coaching

Think back for a minute to when you were 24 years old.

I was about that age when I worked for a guy who called himself old school. That meant if things didn’t turn out the way he thought they should, he hadn’t yelled loud enough for long enough. I didn’t sleep two nights in a row once because of the stress. I left that job pretty soon after and moved on.

And I was never sexually assaulted by someone who worked for the same organization.

Simone Biles is 24. She’s one of hundreds of girls and young women who were sexually assaulted by Larry Nassar, the Team USA gymnastics team doctor. She’s also the greatest female gymnast in history. And after a poor (for her) performance at the Olympics, she stepped away, citing mental health.

Simone Biles

She’s not the only young athlete to struggle with mental health issues that are directly related to their job of being a young world-class athlete. The list is long. Former Chargers quarterback Ryan Leaf comes to mind. He self-destructed and became the epitome of NFL draft bust. California Angels pitcher Donnie Moore gave up the home run that cost the California Angels the AL pennant in 1986. A couple years later, unable to shake what happened, he killed himself.

If you say learning how to manage high-stress situations is as much a part of the gig as sticking the landing or mastering a curveball, you’re right. Ideally, Simone Biles should be able to manage that stress. So should Leaf and Moore. In an era where a lot of athletes make unimaginable amounts of money, it’s not ridiculous to expect them to manage pressure.

But stress management is a skill. If teams have technical coaches, they should have coaches to help handle the other things required for their athletes to perform to their best level. And not just an EAP program buried someplace on the employee website. Instead, real, available, active training to help manage pressure.

If you’re expecting stellar performances and cashing the checks–and let’s not pretend that the athletes are the only ones getting paid–you have an obligation to treat the folks you make you the money as something other than replaceable cogs.

For all the money they make, their earning window is short and unsure. For every athlete who cashes that nine-figure check, there are a dozen who could’ve, if not for that injury. Or made money for a year or two, then flamed out. The guardians of the sport have no such window. They cash the checks as long as there are athletes to perform and people to watch.

It’s not wrong to say that high-pressure situations are something the athlete needs to prepare for.

But for every inch in which Simone Biles–who’s won 31 medals for country and team–has failed, USA gymnastics has failed a mile.

Strength doesn’t entail invincibility. If the were the case, we’re all simpering little cowards. Strength comes from recognizing where you aren’t strong and seeking the help required. If your organization purports to coach people and you aren’t, it’s not the athlete who’s not doing the job.

Freedom doesn’t mean you threaten to kill someone who says you have to wear a mask

A restaurant near Atlanta is getting death threats after a nicely worded Instagram post saying that you need to be vaccinated if you want to eat there. The Argosy Gastropub has a sign that says, “Until you have vaccinated, please do not enter our establishment. If you are vaccinated, welcome! We are excited to hang out with you.”

Sign at Argosy Gastro Pub.

The restaurant’s co-owner, Armando Celentano, said the adopted the new policy after they were forced to close when staff members tested positive, adding that they can’t afford to keep closing.

Celentano said, “We aren’t setting out to offend anyone. We aren’t by any stretch promoting mandatory vaccinations…It’s something that public health science shows lowers our chances of contracting and spreading the coronavirus.”

And yet, still the death threats.

There used to be a time when conservatives believed in the rights of owners to run their businesses the way they saw fit. If they didn’t want to make cakes for gay weddings, God bless them. If they want to protect their staff, their patrons, and there business’s viability by limiting risk, then some conservatives think it’s time to help them see God.

Those who would make excuses for the threats would probably take about freedom and having someone else’s beliefs shoved down their throats. They’d talk about how they can’t be discriminated against and about their rights. Some would even compare this to the civil rights movements.

Except, back then conservatives were the ones who opposed violence in support of civil rights. They didn’t like organizations like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Weathermen. They touted law and order.

There’s nothing lawful and orderly about threatening the lives of a small businessman, his employees, and his patrons.

Civil rights tend to apply to attributes you don’t have control over, like skin color and who looks good to you in skin-tight pants. Vaccination status is entirely in your control.

Finally, you don’t have the right to patronize every business in this country. If a business chooses not to serve you, they get to do that. If they choose to require masks or vaccinations, they get to do that.

To threaten them with death has nothing to do with freedom. It has to do with fear, bullying, and intimidation. If you don’t condemn it, then you believe in a society in which the person with the biggest gun gets all the freedoms. Congratulations, Hitler, Stalin, and any number of warlords believe the same thing.

These threats are the opposite of patriotic. And anyone who makes them deserves to lose a lot of freedoms.

They don’t deserve to thump their chest as an American patriot.

Female athletes should get to dress appropriately for the sport (sigh)

For the record, as a heterosexual guy with working eyes, I like the female body. I have since the first time I saw Yeoman Rand on Star Trek all those years ago.

Janice Rand. First crush for many hetero dudes of my approximate age.

I also happen to be friends with a number of women athletes and I would never dream of asking–let alone requiring–them to go on a run with their butt cheeks hanging out for the world to see.

And yet, if you’re a woman who plays beach handball, that’s what’s required. The picture below is the 2017 Norway women’s beach handball team.

I didn’t know we got the naughty chann…wait, this is the Olympics?

The uniform code for beach handball allows men to wear shorts at least four inches above the knee, as long as they aren’t too baggy. The women have to wear bikini bottoms “with a close fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg.” Functionally, they wear butt floss.

It’s possible some of the teams don’t mind this. Norway’s team does, and they decided to wear shorts. And then they were fined about $150 a piece (paid by their team).

These are athletes who’ve worked hard to get where they are. They’re most likely in better shape than you or I will ever be in. They should be able to wear appropriate uniforms for what they’re doing. The men can.

When female athletes are dressed like that, it demeans their efforts. It objectifies them. And yes, that happens with guys, too–a lot of women like the way Tom Brady’s ass looks in tight football pants. But his ass checks aren’t out there flapping in the wind while Aaron Donald chases him all over the football field.

And nowhere are guys forced to wear Speedos while pursuing sporting excellence. (Does anyone really want to see that?)

Women superheroes get the same treatment. While the mail heroes are fully clothed and (with the exception of Brandon Routh*) not leading with their sex parts, women superheroes wield cleavage as if it were the magical oracle of death, allowing them to viciously motorboat evildoers into oblivion. (*– Legend says Brandon Routh’s nether region had to be digitally reduced, otherwise it would need its own SAG card and would have to appear in the credits as Lil Brandon.)

In the director’s cut, you’ll get to see Superman as he really is…

Little girls watch this stuff. They see women accomplish things and they’re inspired to follow suit.

They should be allowed to wear uniforms appropriate for the occasion, whether they’re doing whatever one does in beach team handball or saving the universe from certain doom.

If I post this on Facebook they’ll throw me in Facebook jail

So I was at Publix this afternoon and this guy got in front of me going, literally, 2 miles an hour. And I mean literally, literally. My speedometer read 2. And not just for a second. That was how fast he was going.

So I got out, walked up to his car, and shot him right in the temple.

Of course the cops showed up and the lead cop says to me, what the hell? Why did you shoot this guy right in the temple.

I said that he was going two miles an hour.

The cop shrugged and said okay, I was free to go.

How was your Sunday?

I was part of a (minor) social media mob

In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a big deal.

A guy was complaining about something on our neighborhood Facebook group, as people do on such groups. After all, there are ridiculous things posted. One time, a lady posted that she didn’t see the need for people to be out super early jogging. There was no reason for it and people should just jog during the daytime. (In the summer. In Florida.)

Whatever.

Actual picture of July weather in Florida

The guy’s post wasn’t that egregious. Someone wasn’t following the rules and it horked him off.

And the masses did what masses do on social media–ridiculed him. Though he would probably disagree, at some point it stopped being about him and started being about trying to one-up each other. People wanted to join the party and have some fun.

I joined in.

It took me a day to think about it. I mean, I hadn’t done anything everyone else hadn’t already done and I was really kind of just joking around, you know…like I do?

That’s the power of groups.

It’s why people are so successful rallying Twitter mobs to right the great wrong done by some poor schmuck who said the wrong thing, or maybe even said the right thing in the wrong way.

It’s what happened to Justine Sacco who made a poor joke on Twitter then got on a plane to Africa. She had 140 followers at the time, but that didn’t matter. By the time she got off the plane, everyone had let it be known that her joke was unacceptable. And by extension, so was she.

To be clear, I was wrong. I did the easy thing. I fell in with the crowd. It’s definitely not what Jesus would’ve done.

Everything is big right now. It’s like we’re living in a daytime soap opera during sweeps month. As soon as one life-altering crisis is averted, one of the others lingering in the background steps forward. It makes us afraid. It makes us seek the comfort of a group.

Even when that group maybe beats someone up for a minor misstep or takes a little too much glee in ridiculing something silly that got said.

It’s the same dynamic that, left unchecked, leads to things like January 6.

I’m not saying there’s a direct line from ridiculing someone on a community Facebook group to trying to overthrow the government. But the dynamic is there and it’s pervasive.

I ran ten miles this morning. Here’s why that’s important. (Fibro post)

I stopped for water a little after nine miles and I was a gassed.

If I were a pitcher, the manager would’ve said, “Can you finish the inning?” and I’d have said yes. And then he would’ve looked at the catcher who probably would’ve shaken his head.

With all respect, get your ass back in the dugout, Skip.

For the record, my tenth mile was my fastest mile, about 40 seconds faster than the average for the whole run.

This is important because I have a mild case of fibromyalgia–something I’ve written about several times. I’ve written about how blessed I am to have found out quickly and that my case is very mild. If I stay away from aspartame and pay moderate attention to my diet, I get by fine most days, though you can usually stick a fork in me after dinner.

This week was a bit hard, though.

It’s not just a physical ordeal. Fibro is there every single day. Some days it’s better, some days it’s worse. Some days it’s horrible. But every day it reminds you that it’ll be part of you for as long as you breathe.

Every day, it’ll assert a level of ownership.

There’s emerging science that fibro might be an immune system issue, which is a potential breakthrough with promise for everyone. It also comes in the middle of a pandemic that preys on people with compromised immune systems.

Wearing a mask everywhere may not be storming the beach at Normandy (as the smug, snarky meme proclaims), but it feels like a setback. It feels like staying inside while the other kids get to go out.

But all the other kids are outside.

Sometimes fibro doesn’t come alone, either. It’s not uncommon for fibro to invite friends over to screw with your body.

You can reach the point where you feel like a human pin cushion in the hands of a sadistic seamstress, with no choice but to lie still while one needle after another is inserted, as she goes on with her work blithely, not even considering what’s happening to you.

Like Annie Wilkes, but with a sewing machine.

When I got to about nine and a quarter miles, I wanted to stop. I was tired. It was hot and miserably humid. Though I started just before sunrise, the sun was out and felt like a slowly approaching furnace.

At this point, the catcher would’ve told the manager I was done and I would’ve told the catcher something most people don’t say in front of their grandmother.

You can’t say that in front of me, I’m your grandma!

It’s pretentious to say that I ran for people with fibro, but part of me did. Hard things are possible, but you have to take care of yourself. You may not be able to do ten miles. You can decide to not give up.

Giving up is something I seriously considered yesterday.

And I finished for me. I could’ve hung it up at 9.5 or 9.75. They’re functionally the same as 10. You can almost count the steps of the difference.

When my watch jingled to let me know I was done, I stopped and turned it off. And groaned inwardly because I still had the better part of a mile to walk home.

Ten miles was important. It was my goal this morning, in spite of the fact that I hadn’t run more than eight in a year or so.

Fibro and its friends will kick me in the crotch. They might do it really hard some time. Every day I run could be the last day.

I could view that as the Sword of Damocles hanging over me. I could go to bed figuring the Dread Pirate Roberts will most likely kill me in the morning.

Or I can kick my illness in the crotch because today, I’ve been blessed with the ability to do that.

Today I kicked it damn hard.

Please get vaccinated if you haven’t already.

This post isn’t about politics. It’s not about trolling Donald Trump or his followers. It’s not about trying to impose a Big Government solution on people. It’s not about taking away personal freedom.

Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic is an expert on vaccines. The Mayo Clinic isn’t a Democratic Party-aligned organization. It’s a well-respected medical organization that people sometimes wait years to get access to.

With regard to the Covid Delta variant, Dr. Poland put it very simply, “This virus will find everybody who is not immune.”

In the last two weeks, the infection rate has increased almost linearly, to a 7-day average of more than 41 thousand. Almost everyone who’s seriously affected is unvaccinated. That’s not propaganda. It’s not a sanctimonious brow-beating. It’s not hysteria.

That’s what the data says.

If you want to go political, Donald Trump and Operation Warp Speed are part of the reason we have the vaccines now, instead of 2-4 years from now. Last fall, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent said we should just socially distance and wear masks for the time it normally takes to get a vaccine to market–even it takes years.

There’s a reason we got the vaccines first and ours work better than others. It’s a true American triumph, which would be impossible without private enterprise. Getting the vaccines in place is no less an watershed moment than the first successful Apollo mission.

If you compare the numbers through the early summer to the winter numbers, it’s an amazing victory.

I’ve been incredibly lucky in that only one person I know has died from the Covid–a close friend in high school I was looking forward to maybe seeing this summer for the first time in nearly 40 years. His death was a kick in the crotch.

The means exist to prevent anyone else from getting kicked in the crotch. It’s free and very easy for almost anyone in this country.

Please get a shot in your arm.

Because no one likes getting kicked in the balls.