Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

  • Tarted Up

    I am anticipating the launch tomorrow, but I have to say my heart sinks when I see what they did to the booster rockets.

    I mean, why? I can kind of see NASA wanting their worm logo on there. Make it clear this is a government expedition and not a billionaire expedition.

    But why the Bicentennial Plus logo? (I’m sure there’s a word for 250, but I’m not looking it up.) I remember the Bicentennial, they didn’t put a logo on every damn thing.

    It looks like a Nascar vehicle. That’s the obvious comparison. Perhaps … perhaps there was a deal. Maybe Trump wanted his janky scribble on a rocket and this is what they negotiated instead.

    Screenshot
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  • How the new drug works: in practice, not in theory

    In the past, I have made lists of things I want to accomplish over the weekend or vacation. I actually finish 50% of them.

    These last few months I haven’t even made lists. I’ve been in my room, reading, watching mindless things on YouTube, but mostly too tired to do anything but stare at the ceiling. The weekend ticks past, wasted.

    And now I’m on this new medicine. Did it lift the fatigue? Of course it did. It really did. This weekend I made a to-do list of 12 things and did ten of them. And some of the things were exhausting, like gardening.

    Placebo effect? Maybe. I was livelier on Saturday than on Sunday. I did sack out all of Sunday morning. And to be fair, Gary put some of the groceries away Saturday because I was overly tired. But, 10 things done out of 12 opposed to 0 out of 0: that’s statistically significant.

    Plus, this is supposed to improve my concentration, too. Perhaps I’ll just kill it at work on Monday. That would be nice.

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  • TWIL: How the new drug works

    I love knowing how drugs work. For example, MS eats myelin, the outer layer of your nerves, so one of my MS meds was a syringe of decoy myelin. I mean, I have no idea how they made it, maybe it was hamster myelin, but whatever. I know the general plan of attack.

    This Modafinil/Provigil stimulant does not have one general plan. It has four little plans to keep you awake and alert. I feel like a committee had four wakefulness drug proposals, couldn’t decide, figured make the drug out of all of it. So this drug is a hodge-podge of the four schemes below. Just a hint of each. Not getting addicted.

    1. It is the opposite of an antihistamine. Antihistamine makes you stop swelling or itching, but makes you sleepy. So this is a prohistamine. Maybe it’s a mirror molecule of Benadryl.
    2. It’s the opposite of Gabapentin, which slows the synapses of seizure-having people. (More proof that Gary’s brain is too fast and my brain is too slow. Zombie Goldilocks would give the brains in our house a poor review.)
    3. It tickles particular nerves in the hypothalamus that keep people awake. It’s astonishing to me that they mapped the brain enough that they know the tiny spot where the “awake” switch is.
    4. It regulates your dopamine so you feel a slow but steady supply of the hormone that answers the question, “Why bother?”

    I don’t know which of the four mechanisms is working or if it’s just the placebo effect, but I’ve got small plans for this weekend and big plans for cooking and gardening on Easter break.

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  • Symphony

    There were four pieces presented at the symphony Friday, and all the composers spoke to the audience, except Beethoven, because he is [SPOILER] dead.

    I think the two composers both used the word “Motif” and pronounced it closer to “motive” than “moh-teef.” This has shaken me to my core. Have I been saying it incorrectly all my life? Or is this a word like “Barcelona” or “Van Gogh” where only artists know the special secret pronunciation?

    The two modern pieces were gorgeous in parts and there were parts where it sounded like the orchestra was being murdered. They had the misfortune of following Beethoven, because he wrote the first and last pieces. (The maestro called it a “Beethoven sandwich.”)

    The best part of all was the pianist (from Finland!) who played the Beethoven Emperor Concerto. He had a lot to play, but there were sections in which the orchestra did all the work. It was amazing to watch him during that downtime.

    He shook out his right hand as if it needed loosening.

    He crossed his arms and clutched his elbows as if giving himself a hug of glee.

    During a particularly good orchestral part he lowered his chin and peeked at the audience as if to say “Can you hear how good this is?”

    Lots of love for him at the end. Two encores in which we got Ave Maria and a lively Finnish piece that finished (ha) abruptly.

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  • Health Summer 2026

    We cut my MS medication in half a few months ago because my immune system was plummeting. It held steady at 0.20 for … what … almost 20 years on the immunosuppressants? And then 0.18, 0.16 … and you can’t have that.

    So with that medication tweak, the house of cards started slipping and an MS symptom crept in. I felt fatigue.

    It wasn’t the overwhelming fatigue where you lie on the floor with your hands turned up because it takes too much effort to have your hands face down. But I did spend entire weekends in bed, and you can’t have that either.

    So I started Provigil/modafinil, even though the new insurance refused to pay for it. (An aside, it costs $1,000 a month, but if you get a coupon off the Internet it costs $30? Is our economy built on that nonsense? Concerning.) Anyway, I was out in the garden a week later. I don’t know how it works. Not caffiene, not uppers, so what is it? What is the mechanism?

    There will be other effects of cutting the MS meds in half, I’m sure. I blew past .20 lymphocytes and went up to .26 (normal is .80).

    I’m getting my Covid booster shot soon. I wonder if I’ll feel those post-vaccine symptoms normal people do. I certainly don’t want to catch the new “Cicada” variant. (And when did we start giving scary names to variants? Concerning.)

    I would worry about new lesions, but I have an MRI scheduled for August, so we’ll catch them then. That is if we still have MRIs, evidently the war in Iran is affecting the helium that MRIs need to function. Again, say it with me, concerning.

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  • Weekly Paint Progress: 3/26/2026

    So this is the previous …

    This is the progress …

    And this is the goal.

    D45CE5FA-2C6B-42E6-8576-34A7FC25443B

    Things got too dark, so I need to take it back to light in spots.

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  • Washer Dryer deflection

    Our twenty-year-old washer works fine. Our twenty-year-old dryer works fine. They don’t work perfectly: the washer makes noise and the dryer will not dry if you have a towel in it.

    Gary has decided we need a new washer and a new dryer.

    He did the research, analyzed, measured, compared, asked me if I wanted a steam setting for when a shirt is wrinkled, and finally we were ready to look at those stackable little ones, but set side-by-side.

    I don’t want a new washer OR dryer. I went with Mom to pick my current ones out, and she was worried I would be in a wheelchair before they were replaced again. So I want to see which lasts longer: my legs or the appliances.

    I haven’t told Gary that. So there we were, washers and dryers in front of us, salespeople to the back of us, and I spied one of those combo washers and dryers that I thought were legends.

    “WHY AREN’T WE BUYING THAT?” I demanded. He hadn’t even researched them.

    So we did not buy a washer, or a dryer, but I have bought myself time.

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  • What qualifies as an argument

    A Vignette.

    I had a lovely time watching Bugonia with Gary. Afterward, he said:

    ”Emma Stone lost a lot of weight for that movie.”

    I said, “Really? She looks the same as always.”

    ”Oh no. When she went to the award shows people were shocked at how thin she was.” Then, contemptuously, “Can’t you tell?”

    I said, “Really, I don’t see it.”

    Gary then clutched his head, doubled over, and said loudly, “WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO ARGUE? STOP DISAGREEING WITH ME.”

    So. What makes an argument? I think that if I give an opinion in response that isn’t an argument. If I debated with a fact that might be an argument. Gary says I seemed dismissive of his views.

    So, I think this is an argument:

    Gary: ”Emma Stone lost a lot of weight for that movie.”

    Me: ”YOU LIE!” or “Prove it” or “Are you saying I’m fat?”

    That’s an argument. All I said was my eyes didn’t see what his eyes saw. How is that arguing?

    I wonder how many “arguments” he has going in behind the scenes, on Facebook, with the neighbors, that I don’t know about. What’s up with him? Why does he need me to be blindly on his side?

    This is an easy fix, of course. Just a day or so of saying the sun is the moon, in faith, it is the blessed moon, but it’s … wearing.

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  • Mom’s letters: the summary

    It’s remarkable to me how consumed I have been by Mom’s letters. It’s helped me plot the jumble of my childhood. I know the date Jerry broke his collarbone and made us touch his scalp stitches. (Same day Mom flew me to Saint Louis.) But then why was David in the car with us? (Because he was seven.)

    The most notable thing is that during the divorce drama there are hundreds of letters. Carbons from Mom, responses from friends and family, and in all those letters, only one person mentions the kids. Specifically, Marilyn Ferguson, friend of Deepak Chopra, wrote of how poor David had no friends and his only playmate was Jerry, and “think what a divorce would do to David (not to mention Ellen).”

    And really, speaking in my capacity as a parenthetical phrase there, she’s right. The divorce just gutted Dave. I was with Mom in St. Louis all summer, adjusting, but Dave kept living with Jerry while Mom was in St. Louis. Then she swept back to Texas, signed the papers, and left with Dave over the course of a week.

    And would I have done the same? Absolutely. Just maybe … not so fast.

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  • TWIL: Britain celebrated Mother’s Day last week

    Britain’s version of Mother’s Day was on March 15, just a week ago. My British podcasts made reference to the past holiday and I freaked out. I learn this every few years.

    No matter that it’s been almost 20 years since Mom died, I still panic in March if I think I’ve missed Mother’s Day.

    It doesn’t help that the months March and May both start with “Ma” either.

    Sure, Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October. That’s as confusing, but missing Turkey Day isn’t the high crime that missing Mother’s Day is.

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