A few of the highlights from SPUN's newsletter, which I get in my inbox a few times a year:
4 minute video (has captions) of the history of the relationship between plants and fungi, which I enjoyed. Then a brief pitch at the end for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks.
A paper I haven't read because it isn't on SciHub:
"Abstract
Ethical practices in human microbiome research have failed to keep pace with scientific advances in the field. Researchers seeking to ‘preserve’ microbial species associated with Indigenous groups, but absent from industrialized populations, have largely failed to include Indigenous people in knowledge co-production or benefit, perpetuating a legacy of intellectual and material extraction. We propose a framework centred on relationality among Indigenous peoples, researchers and microbes, to guide ethical microbiome research. Our framework centres accountability to flatten historical power imbalances that favour researcher perspectives and interests to provide space for Indigenous worldviews in pursuit of Indigenous research sovereignty. Ethical inclusion of Indigenous communities in microbiome research can provide health benefits for all populations and reinforce mutually beneficial partnerships between researchers and the public."
A few of the highlights from SPUN's newsletter, which I get in my inbox a few times a year:
4 minutes of the history of the relationship between plants and fungi, which I enjoyed. Then a brief pitch at the end for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks.
A paper I haven't read because it isn't on SciHub:
"Abstract
Ethical practices in human microbiome research have failed to keep pace with scientific advances in the field. Researchers seeking to ‘preserve’ microbial species associated with Indigenous groups, but absent from industrialized populations, have largely failed to include Indigenous people in knowledge co-production or benefit, perpetuating a legacy of intellectual and material extraction. We propose a framework centred on relationality among Indigenous peoples, researchers and microbes, to guide ethical microbiome research. Our framework centres accountability to flatten historical power imbalances that favour researcher perspectives and interests to provide space for Indigenous worldviews in pursuit of Indigenous research sovereignty. Ethical inclusion of Indigenous communities in microbiome research can provide health benefits for all populations and reinforce mutually beneficial partnerships between researchers and the public."
You know how with plants and funguses you have to learn to recognize look-alikes? This happens with transportation, too!
Do not buy a walmart bike (also known as "department store bike" or "bicycle-shaped object") if you intend to ride it for more than 40 hours ever, and if you intend to take it to a bike mechanic when it breaks down.
They look super cute in the aisles! I know because I went to visit them once!
But that's what they're best at. Is getting out of the store, where they promptly fall apart, and then the bike mechanic is like, "you're sending good money after bad if you want me to fix this thing, this thing is unfixable, btw they assembled it wrong"
If you can live with a bike that is literally designed to have a 40 hour lifespan and that's somehow your only option, go for it.
Otherwise, find something used in the same price range. Ask a bike friend for advice. If you don't have a bike friend, find a friendly bike shop to be your friend (careful, some of them are commission-based and new bike shop bikes can be pricey). Craigslist is what I know, but there's probably other places online these days, too.
After an ongoing saga in which my medical records were deleted from the online database never to return, and in which I contacted my clinic to ask for these records multiple times per month in various ways, and in full violation of #HIPAA , I finally got a paper copy of my medical records in the mail.
So I'm reviewing this paper copy of my medical records that I finally got a little while back. And it is much more detailed than the information I had access to through the online portal.
It is riddled with errors. I say one thing. They expect to hear another. They write it down. It's now in my permanent record and I have to just live with records that are wrong or spend hours and lots of emotions trying to get it fixed.
Is angry the emotion I'm having? I don't know. I don't know what emotion it is, but every time I try to think about interfacing with the health clinic, it's just awful. I think I don't need a health clinic, I need like a personal professionally trained health nerd.
Most people: hi doc, I've got symptoms A, B, C.
Doctor: let's test your thyroid. (test) Great! Here, take this pill for the rest of your life.
Most people: ok, doc! Thanks! All better now!
Me: hey doc, can you test my thyroid?
doctor: whyyy?
me: I was reading about it and I think it might be off
doctor: sure ok (test) great! take this pill for the rest of your life!
me: wtf no don't you need to do more tests? make sure there isn't a root cause? I read a book for health professionals on nutrition and thyroid
doctor: (test). how about now? now will you take the pill for the rest of your life? we'll start you on a low dose, we promise.
me: how about I try to fix those nutrition results that were off
doctor: sure, we'll retest in a few months
doctor: crickets
me: hey you forgot about me
doctor: (test) ok look if you don't want to take the pill don't take the pill
me: i am fine with taking the pill if that's the thing that makes the most sense
also me: don't you need to make sure that pill isn't going to cause trouble for me per the instructions in its packaging?
doctor: this is not my expertise, go talk to the homeopathic doctor (test) (abandon patient)
Pharmaceutical companies, pandemic, insurance industry, the way doctors are trained, and software troubles is my figuring. I figure it takes someone who really cares to subject themselves to training for and working in the US medical system.
I ask about root causes. doctors (in my personal experiences) are trained to solve everything with pills. my doctor tries to meet me where I am and gives bad nutritional advice.
technically they're "integrative health" but they have literally tried to prescribe me placebo before (for a tendon thing, not for thyroid) so I call them the homeopathic doctors
the instructions for synthroid say to (this is from memory, i don't remember what the actual wording) not use it if there's adrenal issues. "Adrenal" is a magic word for "you just got categorized as preferring woo" from what little I know of it. But it was literally on the "do not take if" section of the packaging so imo the doctor has a responsibility to make sure i don't qualify as a "do not take if" person before prescribing
Note: I think there's useful bits in many healthcare paradigms. but i'm more likely to trust western medicine for acute problems than systemic issues.
i just want a simple editor, like a word editor, like a google doc or something, that will spit out a basic accessible static html page or two for me, ptooey!
I can read html/css but not spit it out in my sleep
I've been through something similar, so maybe sharing my story will help.
Oh man, now I have big feelings, too! I just feel this so much!
Ooh, I know how to fix that! Maybe helping them solve their problem will make them feel better.
My favorite thing always calms me down, so maybe it'll help them too. I'll ask them to do it with me.
[all of the above are] misinterpreted as "making it all about you"
I'm not sure how to help, so I'll leave it to that person who looks like they do.
If I get involved, I'm gonna become overwhelmed myself, and that will take attention away from them, so it's best just to stay out of it.
When I'm upset or overwhelmed, I prefer to be left alone, so I'll bet they would like the same.
I'm not sure how to help, and I usually make it worse when I try but get it wrong, so it'll be better for everyone if I just do nothing.
[all of the above in this second section are] misinterpreted as cold and uncaring
Just because we don't show it the same doesn't mean we don't feel it.
the job i had wanted since i was a kid was the wrong job for me.
i have no career now and i'm also unemployable.
you know, i never developed a social life and i never started a family. it wasn't important to me at 20 or 30 but now, at 40, it feels like something's missing.
i'm an adult now and i'm no longer very interested in the hobbies i had at 20. there's nothing to do now.
i have a drinking problem.
why could i never do housework properly? oh, right, the #AuDHD...
i have nothing to lose, so i guess i'll try to ask the government to help me.
practical home assistance granted. admitted to back-to-work programme. applied for a social support contact today, to give myself more to do.
i'm nothing at the moment. i was broken down and now i have to build a new me, from scratch.
I made this besom out of birch, ash, and willow, all gathered from my land with permission and offerings in return. It's not for actual sweeping, but for directing energy- part of a home threshold spell I'm working on.
During the holiday season, a lot more people are coming through the front door, so I'll be using the waxing moon energy this weekend to add another layer of protection and hospitality for my guests.
As somebody who was fairly recently late realized autistic, I'm finding myself combing back over memories and patterns within memories with the lens of autism in mind, I'm discovering a very curious pattern that has followed me for much of my life in regards to situations in which there are groups of people in a social settings.
Throughout much of my life, I have seemed to have narrowly escaped the social ostracization that a lot of autistic people face when they come off as too weird in a group of mostly allistic people. However, I often found myself in a position in group settings where I was placed as the social buffer between the likely allistic majority and the people who did not fit in with them.
It was a common experience for me to feel like I was getting cornered by the person who's social skills were a little bit different who decided to choose me for their new best friend and then by association, partially isolated by the rest of the group, less because of a dislike of me per se, but more because they were relieved that I was engaging with the awkward person and becoming a buffer between them and the rest of the group.
Very often whatever the socially awkward person is doing to get themselves ostracized also annoys me just as much as everyone else, so often I understood where the wider group was coming from, but if I was constantly engaging with the socially awkward person and being their friend, I noticed it would relax the group as a whole which was less uncomfortable for me than watching one person get ostrasized completely for being too weird and having a whole room full of tense people.
I see this pattern throughout my life EVERYWHERE. It happened when I was in school as a kid. It happened when I had jobs. It happened at conferences. It happened at music festivals. Anytime I've been in a gathering of people and there's somebody who's more awkward than the rest, they're going to end up being my buddy for the duration of the event whether I want them to be or not.
It's a dynamic I find completely irresistible but utterly draining and overwhelming when it occurs, and is partially why I'm not super fond of groups of people. I find myself often resenting of everybody I'm around because of it.... I'm not sure what to do about it or if there is anything I can do about it.
In a related dynamic, I've noticed that people who end up being my more durable friends aren't typically the ones who won me over with charisma but don't actually want to get close, they're more likely to be the awkward ones. Once I figured this out, I actually found it quite useful because it means I know not to waste so much time with people who are just being courteous and can move right to the awkward folks who are more likely to be a good match in the long run.
I remember working as a host in a large, busy restaurant that was expensive enough I never ate there, but in a middle class treat sort of way. It was a lot of fun and I was great at it. Once I learned how.
That's always been the problem with jobs, and it's why I'm chronically under-employed. I've learned how much everyone hates showing me the ropes. Explaining what seems to them to be the same thing, three different times.
Subtract the upper class thing, I have a life goal to not do work that caters to the rich (and there is a lot of it!), and that's the sort of environment I would thrive in and be excel at. Once I knew what I was doing.
Yet I always always rule out "fast-paced environment" because at this point I know from experience that they'll rule me out, or hate working with me while I get up to speed.
We have a really lightweight down blanket. I keep that above my head and pull it over my eyes at night to stop the always-on street lights from outdoors when the moon is empty and the sky should be dark.