I learned something today

10 months in

2011-10-24T21:50:00.002-07:00

Today I thought about it, and I realized that the very recent tendonitis/inflammation in my foot could be coming from having surgery two weeks ago, during mold and pollen season, and then going to my first bar since probably college, on a Saturday night, while I was in the middle of a hormone reaction.

In retrospect, maybe it wasn't the greatest move, but those high heels I wore were cute.

early six month update

2011-06-12T19:59:00.002-07:00

Since I haven't been updating reliably, and now there's too much to say, here's a list of stuff:

bisphenol A lingers in your system
styrene will kill you
I had major gut surgery in the beginning of June, and it went great. I've been healing faster than the doctor is used to, so all those years of learning to recuperate must have been good for something.
Pain triggers my fight-or-flight reflex, so it's still a little out-of whack, but I just need more practice keeping it settled down.
I practiced almost exclusively in the sauna over the last few months, so I feel great in there. If I don't get in there for a few days, like after surgery, things are not as good, so I need to practice on the couch. Also standing at the sink doing dishes.
I'm still sensitive to moderate-range air quality problems, but mid-moderate instead of almost-good moderate.

So now I'm contemplating a different, minor surgery that I'd been putting off, but that can wait another few months. How many EIs do you meet who have a couple of surgeries saved up who actually want to go through with the second one? Getting your lumps and bumps taken out so they don't hurt anymore is really beyond description.

four month update, really late

2011-05-15T19:01:00.002-07:00

I have this problem where stuff that happens as a result of my 'staging a miraculous recovery' sounds too weird to post, so I put off posting it. It's time to erase it or throw it out there, so here is what I wrote at the end of April, in all its weirdness:

Instead of learning anything today, I'm going to report on how things are going four months after I gained control of my fight-or-flight reflex.

This is the first year you haven't heard about pollen season, and we're right in the middle of it. I still sometimes wake up with heart palpitations around 4:30 am, but I can usually make them go away. Not without a struggle, but they go away. The first few days something new starts blooming I can't always get myself settled down, but after that the 'switch' just requires a little extra vigilance, like when I first started this whole thing.

This improvement is balanced by the fact that I have been having an increasingly hard time tolerating other EIs. Anyone who is detoxing anything makes me sick fast, and if I don't leave fast enough, I even feel it the next day. At first I thought it was just EIs who'd gotten into mold, in which case I could blame it on my immune system, which, freed from reacting to any old thing, started really going to town on anything mold-related. Now it looks like it's not that specific, because now I react to mail from EIs, some of whom I am pretty sure don't have any mold problems at all. I don't seem to have trouble with other mail, like bills, beyond the annoyance factor of having to pay them.

I have decided to lay the blame on a sebaceous cyst that's going away. (I didn't know they did that.) My doctor said cysts like that are places your body parks stuff it can't detoxify right away, and it looks like my body, in the spirit of working through the backlog, has decided to start in on the cyst. I imagine there are all kinds of detox products in there since it grew while I was really ill, so now I'm detoxing my detox products. Thus, my system is not prepared to deal with anyone else's detox products.

So that's my theory, and if it sounds made up, that's because it is.

more things that'll kill you

2011-04-20T21:38:00.003-07:00

I'd tell you what I learned today, but I can't think of it right now, so here's what actually stuck from recent events.

A week ago I went to a meeting of the local sick people group, and we had a speaker on how the FCC and smartmeters are trying to kill us.

The FCC: maintaining the switched network phone system is getting burdensome for phone companies, so they want the FCC to stop making them maintain it. Conventional wisdom is that all of us can just use cell phones or VOIP, which ignores the fact that people with EHS (that's electromagnetic hypersensitivity) have a terrible time with cell phones (that's obvious -- normies worry about those) and computers. Computers come with things like power supplies and fans, which are just electrically noisy or create magnetic fields. Plus, you haven't seen a tri-field meter max out until you've put it near a computer monitor. The EHS community is pulling out all the stops for this. They have enough trouble without having to give up phones and switch back to US mail, which, when you need to ask a store a question, is just not going to cut it these days.

The problem arises when they rope in other people. Apparently you get more protesters if you use some fear tactics, like explaining that people can listen in on your cell phone conversations, which hasn't been true for something like ten years. The most annoying argument they're using is that people with Alzheimer's will not be able to figure out how to make a phone call over the computer. I want to say, "You know how I know you don't know anything about VOIP?" but they don't. They can't use computers without frying themselves.

I really wish people would wise up and recognize EHS in its own right, so then they wouldn't have to say stupid stuff to get attention. (Also, it's electrical noise, not 'dirty electricity,' but whatever, said the nerd. And the nerd just said EHS is real because it is, and I'm a physicist, so I learned critical thinking, thank you.)
On smartmeters: Apparently the EHS community is not worried about power companies transmitting information over power lines. You can get plug-in filters that take the noise off your household wires, and then you're all set. This solution will still not make ARRL happy, since their antennas are outside.

In other news, bisphenol A will still kill you, but at least it comes out of your system pretty fast when you stop ingesting it.

what is wrong with the air now?

2011-04-16T10:07:00.002-07:00

For the record, this is what's going on in air quality around here according to the EPA:

...Several questions from around Arizona have come in concerning the unusual haziness across the Phoenix forecast area. There haven't been any major winds in the past several days and it's been less than a week since our last "major" rain. So what's going on? A deeper look into the situation uncovers a possible phenomenon that occurs every now and then known as an Asian Dust event. Every so often a large dust storm rolls off the coast of China, most often originating in the Mongolian Desert. This dust cloud is transported across the Pacific Ocean and sweeps through the western U.S. This particular event made landfall Thursday in Baja, Mexico and southern California (http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/DATA/SMOKE/2011D150314.html). Friday's report has this haze spreading as far east as New Mexico and western Texas.... According [to] the current monitored air quality levels, there are no health concerns at the surface associated to this upper-level dust event....

So EIs definitely feel this kind of event, and husband wondered yesterday if normies felt it, too, but didn't know any better. He had some errands to run and observed that people in general seemed kind of cranky and preoccupied.

snake accidents, post-breast-cancer fatigue, and death in a bag of sugar

2011-04-14T17:28:00.000-07:00

Today I learned that if you watch a 4' snake crawl along the top of a cinderblock wall, wobbling a little, the snake could screw up and fall off. It makes a louder-than-expected thump when it hits the ground, even accounting for it landing on an aloe plant. (The snake was fine -- it didn't even look embarrassed while I laughed my ass off as it slithered away.)

In other news, about a third of breast cancer survivors have lasting fatigue such that their norepinephrine (a stress hormone) levels rise more than expected when given a somewhat stressful task. Initially the fatigue comes from chemotherapy, but the lasting fatigue appears to come from the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems being out of balance. The sympathetic nervous system, the thing in charge of stress hormones and your fight-or-flight reflex, is an energy hog, and it makes people tired. The researchers mentioned they had another study going looking into whether yoga could help straighten these people out.

As someone who had to gain voluntary control over my fight-or-flight reflex, I can tell them now that yoga won't fix it. Lying on the floor doing relaxation exercises won't fix it. Exercise, something they're looking into, helps, but won't fix it either, particularly if you're fatigued enough that you can't do things like ride your bike for four hours at a time.

I was telling an EI about my experience with fight-or-flight the other day, and he said it must have been hard to be fearful all the time. I wasn't. I was depressed and sometimes anxious, and didn't process information or chemicals quickly.

Exposure to chemicals, even voluntary ones like chemotherapy, ramps up your fight-or-flight reflex gradually (if it does at all). You don't see it coming. If you constantly tried to fight or run, people might figure out that there was a problem with your fight-or-flight reflex. They don't. It's not obvious, and yoga isn't going to uncondition somebody's sympathetic nervous system unless there's something going on there that I haven't heard about.

Also, sugar and high fructose corn syrup will kill you. Sucrose is half glucose, which your whole body processes, and half fructose, which your liver handles. If you get too much fructose at once, your liver turns it straight into fat, which leads to a fatty liver, a key part of metabolic syndrome, which will totally kill you because then you'll get type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The trick is figuring out how much is too much, and no one wants to put a number on it. The best number I came up with was the amount of sugar the FDA thought typical Americans ate in 1986, back when we, as a nation, were not so wide. They said 40 lbs/year/person, which is 200 calories of added sugar per day. The USDA, considered much more reliable, said 75 lbs/year/person.

So I was going to figure that 200 calories of sugar per day is a reasonable upper limit -- that's like a quarter of a batch of cookies, which, after my initial 'I can eat cookies again' phase, is not something that will ever again occur here on a daily basis -- but then, toward the end of the article, it starts talking about cancer. Trying to handle all that insulin makes your cells go nuts and sometimes turn cancerous. Cancer started rising way before 1986, so we're unsafe at any speed.

things you can't do even if you're feeling much better

2011-04-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I learned that doing homeless EIs' laundry is a good way to contaminate your dryer and not just one, but both washers.

Here's how you do it: you wash a bunch of new t-shirts in your auxiliary washer for one of the homeless ladies, mostly following her directions. Then she comes over and sniffs (and touches) the shirts, each one, probably more than once, and also touches the giant glass jars they were in. She still reacts to the shirts, and you're reacting to her at this point, so you say you'll keep washing them until they're ok.

So you go inside, and since you washed the jars just an hour ago, you put them over near the washer and dryer, and without examining the situation, you put your own stuff from the good washer into the dryer.

At this point, you suck whatever the heck is coming out of the homeless lady and getting onto everything she touches into your dryer, contaminating it and your clothes. Plus you put her stuff back into the auxiliary washer, liberally coating the inside of that with whatever it is. When you take your stuff out of the dryer, you get a surprise, so you try to wash it out in the good washer, which just doesn't work on this stuff. Ta da!

So now both washers and the dryer have been scrubbed to within an inch of their lives, which probably only took about six hours this time, and I learned my lesson.

lousy food and frying electric company customers

2011-03-29T19:43:00.003-07:00

This evening I learned that it's not worth buying Chinese food even if you tolerate it because it's so salty that it just tastes like salt. I have that at home.

In other news, I got curious about smart meters because there's such an uproar about them in the electromagnetically-sensitive (ES) subset of the EI community, and last I heard, PG&E (in the SF Bay Area) wanted to charge people something like $20/mo to opt out and have a dumb meter. I was, before I got sick, a radio frequency (RF) engineer, so I thought maybe there would be some thing you could do to filter out frequencies entering the house or cut down on electrical noise. We'll get to that, but here's what I learned:

You can have a one-way or two-way RF network connecting the utility company to people's houses. With one-way, meters throw out information at some interval to a local collector, which then sends the information to the utility over the phone or the internet. Two-way communication lets the utility do things like send meter upgrades or turn on or off service. Either way, that's like having a small, intermittent radio station or cell tower (depending on implementation) on the side of your house.
Another data collection arrangement is where all the local meters play telephone with their information, passing it down the line and going around any obstacles, like broken meters. That takes more power because more data gets shuffled around, and that would only make things worse on the side of your house.
Worst case scenario, your electric company decides to use power-line communication (PLC), where they send an RF signal over the local power lines, seeing as they own them and all. This kind of thing really, really upsets the ham radio guys (ARRL) because it makes a lot of interference, and I cannot imagine something like that going over at all well with people with electromagnetic sensitivities.

So what's the solution? A mediocre solution would be to put the transmitter out on the end of a wire as far as possible from the house, and then you'd need to put a bunch of chokes or something in there to keep it from acting like an antenna and bringing the signal right back to the house. A really lousy solution would be to build a nice Faraday cage in your house to hide in, but then you'd be caged, which sucks. A better solution, which I'm sure they would have thought of and must have rejected for some reason, probably expense, is to have meters call in using the household phone line every night at 2 am or something. Sure, it's not data at 5 minute intervals, but you don't have to send somebody out to peer at a dumb meter.

Seriously, if PG&E is expecting about 150,000 households to opt out, it seems likely that, given economies of scale, someone could come up with a phone-home meter for a semi-reasonable price.

cell phones and math skills

2011-03-28T10:11:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that cell phones cause bone density decreases. At least it will have in your hip if you're a man who has carried your phone on your hip for at least a year.

Also, all those math skills I was working to resurrect last year just work now. Just thinking about it, it appears that there's some quantum mechanics floating around in my head, too, but if I someday get to be an engineer again, I don't think I'll need that.

first sentence = EI bragging

2011-03-09T11:16:00.004-07:00

I may not tolerate vinyl, greatly complicating my attempts at setting up gut surgery, but I tolerate Alka Seltzer Plus Cold Sparkling Original. Hopefully this won't go like the Halloween candy thing, where the second exposure didn't go so well.

In similar news, if you blow your nose on paper towels when you have the worst cold in human history, you don't get a clown nose. We did an unplanned study at our house, and my husband looks like a normal human, but I look like Bozo with a pink Hitler mustache.

things you can do with water bottle sleeves

2011-03-01T21:47:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that you can get stainless steel water bottles at Ross Dress for Less for $3. Also, I have a waist pack for hiking that takes some finagling to securely hold a stainless steel water bottle, and today my husband figured out that this one kind of large beer bottle fits in the same way.

In getting-less-sick news, that thing where your body is supposed to handle bad stuff you inhale, and then you excrete it? My body is handling it now, but the end result is something I'm going to call garbage gut and leave it at that. My armpits hurt less now, so there's that.

not funny, but at least informative

2011-02-23T17:58:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that an EI friend of mine has been able to replicate my results with the fight-or-flight reflex. She has chronic Lyme and electromagnetic sensitivities on top of mold exposure, but she's detoxing hard, just like I am. She was able to talk on the phone with me longer than she expected to, so as I expected, it appears to work on ES, too.

She called before, about a week or so ago, asking about Annie Hopper's workshop, thinking I had attended. I told her I hadn't, but I sent her specifically to the article on 'naming the feeling.' I know I said that getting the feeling named correctly was key for me, but she said that separating thought and feeling for her really helped. There's something to it no matter what you take away from it, and I am really, really pleased that it's working for someone else.

Now I have higher hopes for the really, really sick lady. She has something that if it isn't chronic Lyme, is darned similar, and really bad ES. I just gotta keep working on her.

Something else I learned is that the really successful bloggers share their pain, but they have more common kinds of pain, so I bet it's easier for other people to relate. But in the spirit of sharing the pain, stuff is coming out of my system fast enough that if I don't sweat it out in time, my armpits ache, and then they start to sting and ache. To avoid that, I exercise and sauna, which sends irritants out through your skin and out into your excretory system, which sometimes makes my guts hurt until I can get the stuff all the way out. I weigh an extra three pounds, some of which could be new muscle mass. I'm losing pudge consistently, and I was not all that pudgy to start with.

things that'll kill you

2011-02-15T07:22:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that a common insecticide will make your children stupid. But since diet soda and energy drinks will kill them off when they get to be teenagers, it probably won't be a problem. In the unlikely event they survive to adulthood, they'll probably end up on a commute train at some point, which will definitely finish them off.

Another thing that could kill you? A husband who rode on an airplane. His bag smells better than he does, and it didn't even take a shower.

working on the backlog

2011-02-13T20:41:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that I can tolerate the infrared backrest thingies in the sauna again, so I'm assuming that means I'm getting somewhere on the backlog of stuff I didn't detox when I should have. And I know that sentence won't make any sense to the people who visit this blog looking for information on shoplifting tools*, but I'm busy detoxing stuff, so I'm tired.

In related news, two nights ago I reacted to fireplace smoke again at 3:30 am. It took a while to figure that out -- I was worried that I'd gotten in trouble with the 10-day-old latex mattress part we added to the bed. Even after I figured out the problem, I didn't want to tempt fate, so I finished the night on the couch.

Last night, I reacted at 2:45, but I knew it was smoke, so I turned off the reaction and went back to sleep. I ended up sleeping lightly because I had to keep turning it off, but I know I'll learn to do it totally unconsciously if it keeps up. I learned to tuck in my dog in my sleep, so I don't see how untensing could be harder.

*I still get more hits from that than anything else, despite the fact I never did report anything useful.

switch flipping and complications of surgery

2011-02-08T19:04:00.002-07:00

Today I learned that other people besides the ones I mentioned can flip people's brain switches. In particular, there's a -- and to mainstream America this sounds doubly awful -- French shaman who comes to town sometimes who can do it. He's done it for two people I know, and the reason I hadn't heard about it before is that one had moved out of town beforehand, and the grapevine was having a really hard time processing what the other one was saying. I'm sure the 'French shaman' thing was a big part of it, but also the grapevine is (rightly) extremely skeptical when it comes to miracle cures.

The post I wrote on Dec. 29 got into the southern Arizona sick-people newsletter (which has a much wider audience than my little blog), so I got a call directly from the local lady who saw the shaman. She acknowledged that it had taken pretty direct arm-twisting by someone she knew to get her to see the shaman initially, and that when she went, with a 'what the heck' attitude, she had no expectation of getting better. She said it was a bunch of 'woo-woo' stuff, but now she is very hopeful that since I described a mechanism for the switch, the grapevine will get past the 'French shaman' part, and maybe some other people can feel better.

I don't actually expect very many people to try it because people have a knack for knowing what's going to work for them. Sometimes they're just pessimistic and paranoid, but I knew the Christian-faith-based approach -- which is horribly controversial, and sometimes really fixes people up -- wouldn't work for me. In that approach, you have to get right with God by forgiving everybody and yourself for everything, then God forgives you, and you're healed. Which sounds suspiciously like you get God to flip your switch, so it's the same thing.

I'd bet I get hate mail over this, but not very many people read it. Moving on to the surgery part.

I have to have abdominal surgery if I want one part of my anatomy to stop pushing on another part, and there's a kidney involved, so all the doctors agree that I should have surgery. I found the right doctor, I scheduled the surgery, I called the hospital to bug the anesthesiologists to talk to me, but they didn't call back before my pre-op appointment.

Today I had my pre-op testing appointment, where they expect to draw blood, ask some easy questions, and send you on your way. The coordinating nurse ended up calling in not only a stray anesthesiologist, but also the pharmacy director because at the start, it looked like it would be impossible to get glass bottles for the IVs, even though I had the name and number of a pharmacy that provides them. (I got to sniff an IV bottle. It was very, very obviously vinyl, and pretty death-defying.) So tomorrow the pharmacy guy is going to call my doctor, the God of EIs, in Dallas and the pharmacy with the glass bottles. I, too, will be talking to my doctor to find out if an OR stocked almost entirely with PVC stuff is the best I can do, or if I have to go to Dallas and have surgery there, which will cost a freaking s***load because you have to rent a room you may or may not tolerate.

The poor anesthesiologist thought that vinyl was stable, so he wasn't clear on how anyone could have a problem with it. I've been sick long enough that I was a little surprised, and I said that I got heart palpitations if I inhaled near it, very likely in a tone of voice that implied that I didn't care if he thought vinyl was stable. He seemed ok with that.

Genghis Khan and rhodium

2011-01-24T20:23:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that Genghis Khan et al. killed 40 million people, which comes out to about a tenth of the world's population. I say 'about' because the world population dropped from an estimated 450 million people before the plague (1348-1350) to 350 or 375 million afterward.

In other news, rhodium is the world's rarest precious metal, and if you're a terribly smart investor, you can buy a little vial of rhodium powder to sell to your friends, or you could name it 'the precious,' and clutch it to your chest, preferably while muttering something moderately unintelligible.

things we already know, with bad news

2011-01-21T20:38:00.004-07:00

Today I confirmed that stress improves your eyesight. My one-person study of me had already concluded that I might need glasses again, having not worn them since I got sick. This is the only downside to not being all screwed up.

In other news, researchers have confirmed that using HEPA filters in your house if you live in a smoky area improves your health. [Bad news alert] Which only reminds me that the EI community in Tucson lost somebody over the holidays, and we don't know exactly why yet, but I do know the person in question was highly sensitive to air quality, and we liked her. [End bad news]

ears can breathe a sigh of relief

2011-01-20T22:57:00.002-07:00

Tonight I noticed that I'm way more flexible than I was a month ago. I'm still not back where I was before I got sick, but playing the fiddle in tune is so much easier because my arm does that twisty thing again that you have to do. Playing out of tune had been sucking all the fun out of it.

still working on it

2011-01-19T21:32:00.003-07:00

Today around 5 am I learned that I can turn off that grinding pain under my ribs on the right side that I get every time I have a hormone reaction. It has something to do with serotonin, and I don't remember what, but I can turn it off. Over and over again, because internal reactions are harder for me to deal with than the usual temporary inhalant-type reactions. The thing is that I eventually got to go back to sleep, which was much better than my old approach of just getting up and feeling a grinding pain under my ribs all day.

In honor of only mostly having that reaction under control*, we ended up at the mall again. This time we went to the dead mall, which has three anchor stores, and that's all. All the other stores are more recent and live in the parking lot, like a fairy ring. The halls were empty, so they were easy. Then it turned out that the JCPenney didn't have a perfume counter, so I got to go wander around a department store.

So now the trick is going to be going in a store in the newer mall, but I'm not going to try that for a while.

* Not really. Really, we're just not that bright sometimes.

things I forgot to mention

2011-01-14T21:43:00.003-07:00

It has come to my attention that I was writing to the newsletter editor when I mentioned the other brain retraining website, so here is Gupta Amygdala Retraining™. The explanation part is pretty helpful, but you will be extremely aware that Mr. Gupta got a real medical paper published in 2002. In a real journal. In 2002.

Which could be a red flag for fakery, but he has a money-back guarantee, plus he sent out his dvds to well known people in the chronic fatigue community, no strings attached, and got what look like good reviews.

Also, gun ranges smell like smoke, which can get a little old after a while, even outdoors.

this is about armpits

2011-01-13T22:38:00.004-07:00

Today we went on a probably-ill-advised, spontaneous experimental quick mosey through the mall, where we got dosed with so much perfume that I had to put our clothes in a plastic bag when we got home. I think the problem was inside the cell phone store, but you could smell the Abercrombie & Fitch store outdoors for a lot longer than you could the perfume store next to it, which I guess is not too surprising since I understand they spray their smell out the door.

In news of why the trip to the mall was probably extra stupid, I've been detoxing something to the extent that it made the lymph nodes under my arms sore. (I read in the testimonials part of one of the brain retraining websites I've been talking about that somebody else got sore lymph nodes, too, so it's not just me.) This morning I had to get in the sauna to sweat the whatever out because I realized my general crankiness could easily have been attributable to the stinging in my armpits. Whatever it is wants out, and I can't get it out fast enough.

And I have always tolerated using the infrared backrest thingy in the sauna on at least low; today I got heart palpitations on any setting other than 'off,' and no amount of attempting to settle down my fight-or-flight reflex changed it at all. I'm hoping the whatever it is leaves soon.

fastest air-out in the west

2011-01-07T20:58:00.005-07:00

Yesterday I got a brand new book, something I haven't tolerated in years. I didn't tolerate it, so last night I put it in a plastic bag. I had to open the bag to turn the pages, but that's the way it goes.

Tonight, the bag seemed kind of annoying, so I took the barely-offgased book out and have been reading it without any trouble. This getting better thing is excellent.

In the spirit of 'naming the feeling,' I feel happy.

still making progress

2011-01-06T21:58:00.003-07:00

I suffered a bit a of setback the last couple of days. My husband had an old toe injury that was getting really bothersome, so yesterday he had toe surgery. Toe surgery sounds funny, but it is still stressful, and not just for the guy with the toe injury. I keep practicing being fine in different situations, but husband surgery was a little out of my league.

In my league: buying a little calendar/notebook at Office Depot all by myself. Definitely out of my league: an alarm clock going off at 1:30 am so husband can take his precautionary antibiotic. I don't think I came down off the ceiling for a good half hour after that.

keeping notes on the weirdness

2011-01-03T23:03:00.003-07:00

Today I got to go hang out with the really, really sick lady for hours, something I couldn't do two weeks ago. When I got home, I felt myself relax when I hadn't actually done it on purpose. Now, about six hours later, the lymph nodes under my arms hurt. I expect I'm detoxing something, but I could just be getting sick.

Also, I like doing my taxes. Part of it is that I was too sick to work for about half of last year, so I'm getting back a decent amount of the estimated taxes I paid early on. The other part is that I love numbers so much I will even love them if the government orders me to fiddle with them.

I wrote this on Dec 29, and it's time to post it, so here you go

2011-01-03T22:48:00.000-07:00

Today I learned that now I can go running in the national park when the air quality is worse than it was two weeks ago, when I was stuck at home with heart palpitations.

So how exactly did this come about? You may recall that a little over a week ago, my friend called and said she was doing a whole lot better having attended a Dynamic Neural Retraining System™ seminar. I thought it sounded like something that would probably help me, too, so I looked into it, by which I mean, read the entire website.

What I took away from that was that when your body sustains some kind of injury, physical or mental, when you start healing, your brain might or might not come back out of fight-or-flight mode. Given a long-term injury, like living in a house with stachybotrys inside the kitchen ceiling for two years, your body could easily have forgotten what calm is. There was a bunch of stuff about what that does to your limbic system, and what I remember it saying was that when you're geared for a fight, you don't bother absorbing nutrients from your food, or sometimes even digesting it very well, your hormones get screwed up, you can't think straight, and you don't do anything with your own personal garbage, e.g. chemicals you inhale. So for the last five years, I've been taking nutritional supplements, and sometimes one to help me digest food, my hormones have been screwed up, I've definitely had 'brain fog' (my best example: I got lost in a drugstore in the summer of 2004), and I have chemical sensitivities.

It sounds like I got stuck in fight-or-flight. So I take a look at the seminar schedule, and there's one in April. Ok, so I need some money for that, but conceivably I could be seriously better by, say, June. Maybe able-to-go-to-the-mall-for-three-hours better.

That kind of revelation is enough to maybe make you relax a little. The 'articles' part of the website also talked about verbalizing how you're feeling because that helps you relax, too. Thus I found that I've been clenching something in my back for probably the last five years, because it kind of hurt when I unclenched it.

It probably didn't hurt that I was going to visit my parents the next day, either, which sounds fun instead of stressful (in my family, anyway), and I really wanted to be enough better that I could tolerate their house, with its kitchen-sink mold and a decorated fir tree in the living room.

So I got in the car at 6:30 am on Tuesday morning with my mask on, and my husband got us across town, and when we got just north of town, it was my turn to drive. Counting the snack break, which isn't technically driving, but I'm taking everything I can get, I drove for six hours. For the last five years, I have been uncomfortable driving, except going from my house to the really, really sick lady's house, which is a grand total of 1.8 miles on lightly-traveled roads. When we got to my parents' house, with a few minor modifications, our room was fine, and so was the kitchen sink. The tree didn't seem to bother me at all, and for the first time, the leather furniture wasn't a problem. I didn't try out the mall or anything challenging, and the worst thing that happened was that at the end of Christmas day, I was pretty worn out. The pie I was stressing over (!) almost didn't even last four hours in a house that usually takes a couple of days to finish a pie. We had to make another one the next day.

The drive home didn't go as well. We wanted to do the drive all in one day again since it worked really well on the way out, but I-5 freaked me out, and I wasn't even driving. There was a lot of traffic and sudden slowing, and by the time we got out the other side of the Los Angeles basin, where it was my turn to drive, it was getting dark, and I was fried. I drove for almost three hours anyway, but it sucked.

Now that we've been home for a few days, I've learned a few more things. My back stopped hurting when I relaxed it after about a week, and I started noticing a spot behind my forehead felt like it was relaxing somehow, too. I can make that happen on demand, but where the website talks about flipping a switch, I end up having to hold the switch. It flips right back to 'tense' if I let go of it, but today I was able to go in a bunch of stores and still hold onto it.

I suppose the ability to let go of the switch and have it stay where you want it to be is something you'd learn at the seminar.

if only I needed one

2010-12-28T14:02:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that you can get a 4000 square foot, 5 bedroom house just miles from Arizona State for $172,000. I knew prices had fallen in Phoenix, but an actual example really drives it home.

Update: The house is actually in Maricopa, which isn't near anything. Now I understand the price, and I'm kinda sorry I brought the whole thing up.

banking and getting better

2010-12-22T21:42:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that a dying banker has some investment advice for us, but I don't quite feel good enough to figure out exactly what he said. It's probably ok since I don't have any money to invest -- being a sick lady doesn't pay well -- but someday I hope to have a real job.

I hope that because a friend of mine is doing quite a lot better after going to one of these seminars, and it sounds like a pretty reasonable approach. She's now able to go in Home Depot without a mask and not shower immediately upon returning home. I can sort of get away with not showering immediately after going in Safeway, but that's completely different. And she can go to the mall now without the mask, too.

She was the one who, years ago, said that when you start feeling better, and you think you might be able to go to the mall, the mall will put you in your place. It sounds like it doesn't anymore.

I like being able to report on people who are doing better, but you notice it's something different for everybody.

how to open clamshell packaging

2010-12-20T06:08:00.003-07:00

This morning I was astounded to learn that you can open clamshell packaging with a can opener.

only tv is interesting

2010-12-18T20:44:00.000-07:00

Today I was going to talk about vigilantes taking out a town bully in the early 1980s, exercising before breakfast, nuclear fallout, and how when the economy tanks, companies dump less stuff into the air, but we're going to talk about the season finale of Burn Notice, a show about a spy who got fired because he was framed for a bunch of bad-spy stuff.

[Sort of Spoiler Alert] At the end of the episode, the hero ends up someplace cold. He's given a coat and sent out of a car onto a street, complete with snow on the sidewalks and lawns. He pulls his coat closer around him, and a man approaches. They proceed to have a conversation, but you can't follow it because you are too busy watching the ridiculous, cartoony-smoke vapor trails they emit when they speak. I suspect that someone told the intern to cook up some breath, said intern had never been skiing or anything and grew up somewhere warm, and suddenly it was too late to fix it. So, note to Burn Notice writers: if you have to keep up with effects like that, you'd really better step up the dialog.

death in a can and big cats

2010-12-14T21:49:00.001-07:00

Today I learned that tuna will kill you, in that Consumer Reports recently measured a higher mercury content in cans and pouches of tuna than the FDA did between 2002 and 2004, so it's definitely coming to get us. (I'm not very concerned about it because I stopped tolerating canned tuna five years ago, so it doesn't really look like food anymore.)

Also, there are a couple of bobcats who live around here, and since we moved the couch relative to one window, we've finally seen one -- or today we saw two -- while the neighbors have been seeing at least one bobcat around here for years. So couch position is more important than you would expect in wildlife viewing. Also, bobcats here are thinner than I was used to seeing in pictures; they look like big, elongated house cats.

let's focus on the really loud cricket

2010-12-13T22:21:00.004-07:00

Today I learned that this year the Gem & Mineral Show runs from Jan. 29 to Feb. 13. This information means something to gem, mineral, and fossil enthusiasts, but it also means something to people affected by traffic congestion. Enough said.

In other news, the way to keep a cricket from squeaking all night long in your bedroom is to risk waking up your husband with the vacuum cleaner. The vacuum cleaner solves the problem really quickly, whereas the dilute molasses solution with a little lemon juice in a bowl just makes the whole house smell like molasses.

all about pressurizers, old news, and funny old news

2010-12-12T23:08:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I believe I was complaining about the MERV 15 filter we had in the house pressurizer. I think I called it 'substandard.' The MERV 16 filter came in ten days ago, and things got somewhat better. This weekend, I wasn't having any luck with that, either, so now we have a full-on HEPA-equipped air cleaner outside on the patio blowing cleaned air in. Things are going better, but the filters on that thing aren't cheap, so this weather pattern better clear up one of these days.

In closely related news, the air cleaner with the HEPA filter has half the carbon the regular pressurizer has, but I don't know dwell times (how long the air is exposed to carbon on its way through the machine), so I can't really compare accurately other than to say that I could use the 'new' pressurizer this afternoon until about 7 pm, which is as far as I got with the regular pressurizer on a weekday -- it never made it off 'recirculate' today.

In things that'll kill you, I heard from the environmentally injured community in 2005 that stain-resistant clothing had formaldehyde in it, and the New York Times learned about it last week.

In stuff that's entertaining, when he was younger, the Dirty Jobs guy got fired from QVC.

the all air quality, all the time channel continues

2010-12-09T23:08:00.001-07:00

Today I learned that ACARS probably stands for Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System, and I guess airplanes get temperature data or something so we can figure out where inversion tops and mixing depths are. This is like that year I learned to speak geologist by copy editing a geology journal -- I may or may not actually know what's going on, but you'll never know better. Also, it looks like anyone can have ACARS data that is older than 48 hours old, but I haven't figured out how to read it yet.

In related news, we aren't supposed to completely die this weekend because a highly amplified ridge is approaching (but keep in mind this forecast is for Phoenix) (and check me out, feeling enough better I can edit some stuff out):

Forecast Discussion: ...This mornings Sky Harbor Airport ACARS sounding data indicates that a strong (7-8 deg C) surface-based radiation inversion formed overnight that extends to 2200+. The calculated best mixing depth is near 3K and dispersion will be POOR to MARGINAL.... A warm low-amplitude ridge aloft will be over AZ the next few days and on Saturday a massive and highly-amplified ridge will approach the state from the west. Low-level gradients will be weak over the Phoenix metro area thru this forecast period and no significant winds are expected. A mostly light wind regime, unfavorable dispersion, and strong inversion potential will contribute to high hourly PM-10 levels on Friday but with lower concentrations expected during the weekend.... -Reith

So as a physicist, I think of amplifying things with some kind of resonance chamber or, say, an amplifier, but if you can amplify pressure waves in the atmosphere, that's ok with me as long as the air quality improves.

The other things I learned are that this same weather pattern happened last year and let up on Dec. 16, and that trick I pulled on Monday when a low-amplitude (I think) trough came through, and I went for a walk wearing HEPA filters, didn't work at all today. I didn't make it across the parking lot to the trailhead, and my filters were contaminated when I needed them for going running in my house like somebody's hyper unwalked dog.

crummy air and cheap lab tests

2010-12-08T18:25:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that it feels like particulates well south of town, where I expected the air to be fine. Either the subdivision we visited has stagnant smoke, but in a lesser concentration than town, or there is something else going on in the world. Town smells like pollution, which by definition has particulates in it. I would be interested to know what it's like west of town, but I doubt I'll get over there now because while I feel ok in my house, I don't so much in the car.

In newspaper news, money has bisphenol A on it from all those thermal-paper receipts, and you can get lab tests for Medicare prices, which really are a pittance, if you pay first through a website.

In other pollution news, the forecaster for Phoenix said this:

Forecast Discussion: This mornings Sky Harbor Airport ACARS sounding data indicates that a strong (7-8 deg C) surface-based radiation inversion formed overnight that extends to 2700+. The calculated best mixing depth is near 4K and dispersion will be MARGINAL to FAIR. There were a host of high hourly PM-10 (coarse particle) and a few high PM-2.5 (fine particle) concentrations this a.m. and this continues the trend that began last week. The combination of no recent rainfall, a stagnant air mass, and accumulating PM emissions have contributed to this situation. The strong ridge aloft currently over AZ will weaken the next few days as weak disturbances move east thru the flow; a return to warming aloft will begin on Saturday as another even stronger ridge arrives from the Pacific. Since smoke from wood-burning fireplaces usually increases as the weekend approaches this time of year, a series of PM-2.5 Health Watches are possible beginning on Friday. -Reith

Call me lazy, but they don't archive this stuff, and I'm too tired to remember it.

car exhaust and butter that won't burn

2010-12-07T21:53:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that pollution sensors (see PM2.5 at Geronimo) detect car accident congestion and food sometimes gets flame retardants in it from its packaging, so butter will kill you, but only some of the time.

walk timing and party time, plus some bookkeeping

2010-12-06T22:49:00.000-07:00

Today I learned that it only takes me 65 minutes to walk home from the nearest trailhead at the national park, and the part that goes up the east side of the local ridge has the best air. The flat part of the park was worse, but not nearly as bad as the top of the local ridge, which is unfortunately pretty close to where I live. I also learned that the more exercise you get, the better you tolerate bad air, but the air has to be good enough that you can get started. So, if you're me, and you start at the park, wander around for an hour or so, and then head home, you're decently equipped to make it through that last mile along the ridge, even if it smells kind of funny through the HEPA filters strapped to your face.

In news that is related in that it occurred at the same time I was going for a walk, the really, really sick lady's husband and my husband installed a water heater today. These men look after some pretty sick ladies, and for that they deserve much more than an occasional beer. I was informed that they had three beers, but only after they were sure the water connections were solid.

And here's the bookkeeping:
Because I keep track of this kind of thing, people have started calling me asking what's wrong with the air. What I know is that a strong inversion has been trapping pollution and wood smoke for two weeks now with no end in sight. Inversions turn over with a nice breeze, and we haven't had a wind much over 7 mph, and one isn't predicted next week, either. 24-hour-averaged PM2.5 levels have been on the border between good and moderate, and clearly that is the limit of tolerance for more than one local EI. Dispersion improves in the late afternoon, but fireplace use is high between Thanksgiving and New Year's, so what little improvement may occur is promptly swamped when everybody lights their fires for the evening.

So pray for a decent cold front -- with a good breeze -- to come through and clean out the air.

do-it-yourself underwear

2010-12-04T22:20:00.001-07:00

Today I learned to make bras because I contaminated my nice bras, which took months to decontaminate in the first place, and my remaining crappy bras suck beyond all possible belief. The first one I made took the afternoon, but the second one took a whole hour. An hour.

Here's the way it works:

I was working with stretch fabric, so I had to cut up a cotton stretch bra to get the parts shaped right. Stretchy stuff is forgiving, so approximate worked fine, and I say that because I started with a bra that was the wrong size. (I've been known to shop quickly and forget to return things, but see? It still came in handy.)
In terms of materials, the internets indicate that you need to buy 'strap elastic,' which is stronger than regular elastic. The fabric store didn't have any, so I used the nicest feeling stuff from the rolls at the store. For one bra, I used about 2 yds of 3/8" and less than 1 yd of 3/4" elastic at $.66/yd. The fabric yardage was minimal, like I think I had a half yard, and I could probably make five or six bras out of it. I used nylon with lycra in it that I bought to make bike shorts, which didn't happen.
I didn't cover the elastic or anything, so no self-respecting store would sell what I made, but they still turned out cute. These are probably the first cute bras I've ever owned.

So bra manufacturers take note: reduce prices and use decontaminable fabrics if you ever want to see this customer again.

Two more things:

Why the heck is it that when I make something cute -- and I mean adorable -- it has to be underwear, so I can't show it off?
Bras are way easier than tents.

bake sales are terrible fundraisers

2010-12-04T11:35:00.001-07:00

Dear Sarah Palin,

While bake sales do raise money for schools and bring a sense of community, they are unfortunately an outdated tradition. Unlike when food could be displayed openly, with the packaging and labeling required today, the food costs more to produce than it can possibly bring in.

Bake sales are a tradition, so parents can be excused for not realizing that their ingredient money could be directly handed over without loss of value. But elementary school children can do the math, and it's time to find a more cost-effective method to raise money for schools.

Sincerely,
A citizen against inefficient spending

nobody look, it's all boring air quality stuff again

2010-12-02T22:36:00.002-07:00

Today I learned that you can't easily find a typical Tucson winter inversion top height online. I just want to know roughly how high I have to go up Mt. Lemmon to get out of the smoke this weekend, but what I'm doing isn't working. I mean, 3500 ft? 6000 ft? I'm not going to know how to dress or what campground to try, although with any luck, the bedroom will still be safe enough that I won't have to camp out.

In other news, I'm feeling ok now because I'm high on chocolate, so here's how my new tent is progressing:

If you are screwed up on smoke and cut a perfectly good tent part in half (seriously), that joining stitch they showed you when you bought the sewing machine really can attach the two pieces together with a minimum of puckering.
Synthetic zippers stink. So far, I've washed them in the sink with All five times (or maybe seven, I lost track), let them sit for a couple of months, and boiled them for probably six or eight hours, and they still smell like some kind of petroleum product. I'm trying the overnight soak with ridiculous quantities of baking soda, but then I'm going to give up and try never to sleep with my nose near the door of the tent. Or maybe a lot of alcohol. On the zippers, I mean.

And I wore my particulate filters running this afternoon, but I still got a huge calf cramp. The carbon/particulate filters are too heavy to run with, but I bet I can see over them on a bike.

I think that because I was out trying to ride my bike with just the particulate filters at 5:05 pm, when it was 72 ^oF outside. I smelled smoke at 5:08.

Update 12/12: a couple of trips around the washing machine with ammonia removed a lot of the remaining smell from the zippers, so I have a tent now.

the super mask, fish sauce, books, and nutmeg

2010-11-30T22:25:00.000-07:00

Today I learned that I can go out with a hepa filter strapped to my face and trim trees for three hours in otherwise unbreathable air, and afterward, the world is a much better place. My husband used to take me out of town for the day when the air was bad, and even after I got home I would feel much better. Apparently getting out of stuff for a while is a thing, and I'm sure the exercise didn't hurt.

In other news,

Thai fish sauce is made of anchovies and salt and fermented for a year or a year and a half. I don't think I need to try to make that at home.
Simon & Shuster will ship books for a flat rate of $5, but their Groupon coupon is not good for mass market paperbacks, and I'm too cheap to buy hardbacks for more than the price of a paperback even with a coupon.
Kids these days are trying to get high on nutmeg. Commenters on Fark tried getting high on nutmeg back in the '80s, and they report that that is not a good way to get high. If only there were some medium through which teenagers could learn things from candidly speaking adults.

Also, that blanket we picked up as a souvenir in Tijuana is no longer allowed in the house because even my husband can detect it. It had been sitting folded up with the other blankets waiting to be tolerated, which it now clearly never will be. I am stunned that it didn't kill us years ago.

fire, fire everywhere

2010-11-29T20:48:00.003-07:00

Today at 3 am I learned that people in the crummy part of town aren't burning wood because they're cold; they're burning it for entertainment value, just like their richer counterparts. I was prepared to be a little understanding when it was suggested to me that they were cold (even though we didn't turn on our heat until yesterday), but when I was awakened by residual laundry contaminant last night instead of smoke, I wasn't inclined to be forgiving. I haven't been sleeping well, and seriously, the PM2.5 peak last night was a third of Saturday's, and it's getting colder.

how to make an oil pie crust, but maybe only if you're me

2010-11-25T22:40:00.001-07:00

Today I learned that for me, trying to use a regular solid-fat-based pie crust recipe works as well as using a store-bought sewing pattern, which is to say, I should just throw such attempts in the garbage/trash before I start to save time.

So that I don't have to remember how to do this again next year, here is the proper way to make a single pie crust (no top):

1. Put about 1 1/3 cups of flour in a bowl. Add a little salt if you remember.
2. Put in 2 or 3 soup-spoonfuls of oil (canola, safflower, whatever) and stir.
3. Did it make pea-size globs in most of the flour? If not, add more oil.
4. Add about 1/4 cup of water. Stir just a little. If you can't pack the dough into a messy, almost-too-dry-to-stick ball, add a little more water until you can. If it makes a ball really easily, it's too wet and you should start over.

Then smear some oil on your rolling pin and flour it, throw some flour on the counter, and the rest is obvious. No butter, no remembering to put butter in the freezer in little pieces, no hydrogenated fats, no waxed paper, no food processor to wash. Seriously, this takes about four minutes, and it turned out nicely.

smoke blows

2010-11-23T21:01:00.005-07:00

Today I learned that a house fire overnight drove the PM2.5 reading up to something like 70 µg/m³ at just one monitor station overnight, and 20 µg/m³ is enough for me. I don't know what time the fire was, but the smoke got over here by about 4:30 am.

In closely related news, I mentioned that we have a little problem here with the pressurizer filter -- it's not quite up to pre-Thanksgiving smoke concentrations. Tonight it's just recirculating house air, and we've taped the doors and windows like it's Christmas Eve, the smokiest day of the year excluding forest fires.

It feels like a cross between a blizzard and a holiday, both of which require desserts, so it's probably a very good thing I haven't made any pies yet.

fire trucks and eggshells

2010-11-22T21:21:00.000-07:00

Today I learned from our neighbors that there was a fire truck parked outside our house on Saturday. The neighbors were worried about us, but they figured if there were firemen involved, we probably didn't need any neighborly hovering. Since this information was clearly news to me, we started wondering what my husband and I could possibly have been doing that we would have missed something like that.

It turns out this all happened at five minutes to six in the morning, so I know exactly what I doing. I was getting rested up to sleep through my alarm at 7:30, just like I do every morning.

In house-related news, I learned that our sliding glass door has two pairs of wheels under it, and that as of this morning, three of the four didn't turn if you put any pressure on them, so the impression we had that the whole works was dragging was 75% correct. The wheels aren't hard to replace, and somehow the door looks much better now, much like a just-paid-off car suddenly drives better.

In similar news, while my husband was off buying wheels, I unclogged the kitchen sink all by myself without even spilling any water when I took out the trap, which was filled with eggshells. Eggshells: the most well-known breakable on the planet, something this disposal has never had trouble with before, and exactly what it should be walking on if it wants to see 2011.

dollar coins and rolling pins

2010-11-20T16:49:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that you can get free cash advances on your credit card in increments of $250 if you're willing to wait two weeks for the US mint to send you dollar coins through the mail. Whether or not you would ever remember to carry such coins is another matter.

In unrelated news, new rolling pins are free. It was recently pointed out to me that both the available replacements were better colors than my existing rolling pin, and I'm leaning toward blue:

Now that I've looked a little closer, I'm leaning toward a set of rolling pins. Do wine bottles come in yellow?

mistakes were made

2010-11-19T22:25:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that the PM2.5 peak in the middle of the night is from fireplace smoke. The smaller peak around rush hour is from rush hour. Then I learned that we forgot to order new MERV 16 filters for the pressurizer when we contaminated the last one during that whatever it was in April and May. Those filters aren't that easy to get, so I'm going to pray for rain and hot weather.

So happy Friday before Thanksgiving.

this totally sounds like an ad for something, but there's more

2010-11-18T22:15:00.006-07:00

Today I learned that a friend of mine who has CFIDs is walking around like it never happened. Granted, she's the only person I ever heard of whose CFIDs would go into remission sometimes, but as she's gotten older (she's in her early 70s), she got totally knocked out. She didn't move around much or make any sense for a couple of years, but today she looked great, and she attributes it to thymic protein A. Plus some boswellia, which is apparently frankincense.

From what I found online, thymic protein A regulates the immune system -- up or down, depending on what you need. I am not really clear on that, and I don't really know what it really does for people who aren't sick, who appear to be snarfing the stuff in the hopes that they'll live forever. I'm not even sure it's supposed to make CFIDs patients wander around looking terrific; that could just be my friend. But the thing is that it's not that expensive as supplements go, and it's supposedly a highly-purified protein, so it probably wouldn't be that hard to tolerate.

This is probably as close as I'll ever get to trying a miracle pill -- writing about it -- but now it's written down so maybe sometime I'll ask the local naturopath about it.

In other news, if the PM2.5 reading gets above about 20 µg/m³, I get major heart palpitations. It spiked last night at a monitoring station across town from me about 2 hours before I woke up from a nightmare about being in a flood in the 1940s, except the flood turned into annoying people. I had to put the pressurizer on recirculate until mid-morning, and then the problem recurred around 6 pm, which is about when that monitoring station got above 20 µg/m³ again. It's below that now, and I'm fine, and hopefully I'll get to sleep through the night without any any people (particulates) coming in under a door (through the pressurizer).

And this story about moving part-way across the country with a couple of dogs is hilarious.

UPDATE: My doctor said that thymic protein A is good for shoring up immune systems. There is evidence that chronic fatigue is caused by a virus, so then an immune boost would be a good thing, and maybe that's what's going on for my friend. If your problem is a straight chemical injury, a more powerful immune system will just make you react to more stuff, so that wouldn't be any fun. There was a time when I was reacting to so much stuff that my immune system got overwhelmed, and maybe that protein thing would have helped back then, but now I don't think I need to react harder to anything.

scanners, strains, and cookies

2010-11-14T17:05:00.001-07:00

Today I learned that if your scanner breaks, you can just take pictures of your documents with a point-and-shoot digital camera. I supported the camera between two short pieces of baseboard across a couple of plastic tubs and put the papers on the floor, thereby saving us a trip to the store to buy something we didn't want. At least on this side of Tucson, the only way to get a flat-bed scanner that is reasonably compatible with your stuff is to order one online, which doesn't help if you want to send something today.

In other news, I'm up to learning things again because after almost two weeks to the day, I'm mostly recovered from my pollen-and-mold-induced "cold." I've had two-week pollen problems before, but this one was the kind of thing that makes you forget that you ever felt good before or could again. Unfortunately, the mold part is not as gone as the pollen, and I get a calf cramp from this kind of outdoor mold. (Don't ask me why, but it's consistent.) I got away with running in the national park yesterday, and I would have gotten away with running in the wash behind the subdivision today if it hadn't been for Laundry Fest (every Sunday, all day, and if somebody didn't finish, it starts again on Monday morning about 6 am.) The cramp turned swiftly into probably a low-level strain, so it was a very short run.

So I'm sitting on the couch with ice on my calf looking at recipes for granola bars and girl scout cookies, which I will not make because then I'd eat them, and if I can't run, that would make me fat and hyper.

borax and real coats

2010-11-09T19:11:00.004-07:00

Today I learned that borax takes out that hard water/vinegar/detergent residue laundry contaminant I was complaining about. And as soon as I get the borax washed out, I will already have back-up underwear for the next laundry contamination episode. After five years, I will finally be ahead of the laundry situation.

In weather news, the highs here lately have been around 80. I learned about an hour before my doctor's appointment today that the high today was going to be 65. 65 doesn't sound that cold, but if you're used to 80, and every time you have a doctor's appointment, you have to stand around outside for an hour, you should wear a real coat.

this boring post is really just bookkeeping

2010-11-06T17:42:00.006-07:00

Today I learned that if you're going to have to communicate by typing instead of talking, it's better to use a word processor program instead of the text editor because you can resize the text for myopic audiences. Also, this homemade cough medicine recipe didn't do anything for my cough, but I had to use lime juice instead of apple cider vinegar. It wasn't a total loss, though -- it tastes interesting.

For the record, this started when Mr. Brokenphysicist and I noticed a spike in the pollen outside. I may have gotten a cold that started at the same time, but I detect unfiltered outdoor air as an airway irritant, and exercise knocks me flat, which never happened in the old days. So, a heck of a hay fever reaction or that plus a cold.

desert broom

2010-10-31T21:28:00.004-07:00

Today I learned that if the desert broom starts blooming in town, and you feel like you suddenly have the worst cold you've ever had, you should not go for a walk at the national park, even though it is outside town. It is not far enough outside, and your terrible cold-like symptoms can morph into terrible flu-like symptoms. The only good thing here is that (for me) reactions don't last nearly as long as actual colds or flu.

stuff that'll kill you plus a lesson in writing legislation

2010-10-28T20:13:00.001-07:00

Today I learned that you can bring home the contaminant over at my friends' house in your car. And yes, I should stop trying to go over there, but the wind changed directions and it sounded really promising. Apparently, the new wind direction makes an eddy in their area, so the new unfinished house, with its porta-john, is still upwind.

Everything else I learned so far today I learned on Fark:

Bisphenol A exposure in Chinese workers directly correlates with men's sperm quality, so now we have an actual BPA study done on humans, and the results were not good news. I have to admit that due to some hormonal weirdness while eating unusual levels of canned chicken broth while I was on vacation, I had my suspicions that BPA was worse for you that people thought. I was in a moldier outdoor environment than I usually am, too, so my personal anecdotal evidence is not compelling, but I'm done with canned anything now.
A private prison company cooked up Arizona's SB 1070. Their business model involves locking people up, and according to NPR, they wrote the danged thing in December of last year, and it passed in April of this year practically untouched.

What really annoys me is that the prison people came up with a very clever way to make more money, but locking people up should not be in anyone's financial interest.

important stuff makes the news

2010-10-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

Today I learned that people putting mothballs in their yards to repel snakes made the news, in that it's illegal and the Arizona Department of Agriculture will come visit you and make you clean up your mothballs so you don't kill (or at least make really sick) pets and small children. The article only says that the incident happened up in the northwest part of the state, but I can report here that the EI grapevine knows whose neighbors did it and in what town.

In other news, EIs use vodka (contains ethanol) to decontaminate things with alcohol-soluble contaminants because rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) reeks. I'm not really clear why other people would use it, but here's a whole article in slideshow format about what all vodka is good for besides drinking.

And here are some cosmetic ingredients that'll kill you, and THIS JUST IN: if your husband forgets to tell the barber to spray his hair only with plain water, he can bring home a stage 5 perfume emergency.

new construction, laundry, and politics

2010-10-24T18:38:00.001-07:00

Today I learned that the problem over at my friends' house can at least partially be blamed on a new house that is upwind and about a 1/4 mile away. That place, which now has stucco and windows, appears to be a major source of death-defying air quality. I don't know why it's still so evil if it has stucco and windows, but I have high hopes that it will get better soon.

In other news, if you know a homeless EI, and I think most EIs do, and you somehow become the only one who can handle some of her laundry, then you, too, can learn all about how microscopic loads of laundry (separated to prevent cross-contamination) form little cloth logs in the dryer that fall from one fin to another, not tumbling and making little thump sounds roughly a half second apart. You can run the dryer for an hour, sucking pollen into your house the whole time, and those things will never, ever dry. She doesn't tolerate the air outside my house or inside my house, so it's a wonder the dryer helps at all anyway.

In political news, I mentioned before that I'm expecting a major shift in political parties in 2012, and I think we're on track for Tea Party vs. Democrats, but it would be really fun if the Democrats get unpopular enough to be overthrown by, say, Transformers. I would miss nap time for Tea Party vs. Transformers.

blogs are in (who knew?)

2010-10-23T08:40:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that blogging is still alive and well and more popular than ever now that you don't really have to write words and, y'know, stuff. You can just post pictures and links to articles and call yourself a blogger, which is essentially what I thought I was doing here back in the day.

So to rejoin the story here, in case anyone still reads anonymous blogs, we're in the middle of a vacation-induced laundry sensitivity involving hard water, vinegar, and All detergent residue. My only ammunition is baking soda or ammonia, and I can't say that they work as well as vinegar and All did, not that I ever really tolerated All. You use the vinegar to wash the All out, but somehow really hard water messed up the process.

In other news, a friend of ours got a new heat pump while we were on vacation and tried valiantly to offgas it before we got back. I can spend roughly two minutes a time at their place now, and I miss my friends. I know it'll probably offgas all the way by February, but I don't get out much.

muffins

2010-07-31T20:21:00.000-07:00

Today I solidified my strawberry or mango muffin recipe, and I'll lose it on paper, so here it is:

1 tablespoon ground flax seed in 3 tablespoons water, cooked enough to make it thick like an egg
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup water
roughly 5 oz of fruit, and cut it up instead of being lazy and putting whole strawberries is there (around a cup?)

If you have a giant muffin pan, it makes 6 giant muffins in about 25 minutes at 375 F. If you used mango chunks instead of cut up strawberries, the muffins are good with lime juice dribbled on them.

In extremely related news, I tend to use 1/2 white flour and 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour. I liked the one bag of that new King Arthur white whole wheat flour that I got in California -- it made great cookies -- but the next couple of bags, bought locally at Safeway, were bitter and made nasty tortillas. I'm not buying any more King Arthur flour, and I shouldn't have bought it in the first place because I couldn't find the organic version anyway.

miracle clothing

2010-07-29T08:50:00.004-07:00

Today I went looking for some un-floppy nylon running shorts online, and here is what I learned about spandex shorts:

Why Compression? Spandex shorts increase blood circulation which oxidizes the muscles during exercise. More oxygen will reduce the build up of lactic acid which can be painful. Compression from our bike shorts also supports muscles to reduce movement. The excessive movement of flesh during exercise can be tiring. These compression shorts can also help reduce delayed onset soreness from exercise by compressing muscles to increase the blood flow to heal muscles after workouts.

I'm not sure I can afford such awesomeness all in one pair of shorts.

things that'll kill other people, me, or idiots

2010-06-25T21:11:00.003-07:00

Recently I learned that I should probably see Gasland, which describes how people's wells get polluted when you blast a lot of water into the ground in an effort to break up the shale and free natural gas. I saw a clip that showed a man lighting his tap water on fire.

In similar news, the oil dispersant BP is using made the news for giving people TILT, which is just another name for environmental injury/illness or MCS.

Locally, there's a proscribed burn going on, and the best updates are on the national park website. They do a much better job on updates than the national forest.

And in other local news, by watching the video about the guy who died after stealing beer from a convenience store, I learned that 'beer runs' occur three of four times a day in Tucson. I guess I knew convenience stores were prone to getting knocked over, but I had no idea shoplifting multiple cases of beer was so common.

on second thought

2010-05-25T16:43:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I learned that the siege isn't entirely over -- the other lady who had to leave town reports that at least it's much better, in that it won't actually kill her now. I'll be dragging my feet returning to town, but I'll get around to it sometime soon.

In other news, I sat in a hot bath for a while on Saturday, which is one way to detox by sweating, and by Sunday I had a rash on my back. Yesterday it spread to the front of my shoulder, and today I finally recognized it. It very strongly resembles the tiny rash I had on that same part of my shoulder in about the second week of the siege. I think detoxing Tucson's air quality problem is going to be a bit more uncomfortable than I expected.

Since that's not a lot of fun, have a picture from last summer's road trip:

Those of you who have seen Cars will recognize the Fabulous Hudson Hornet, which resides in real life at the Darlington Raceway Museum in South Carolina.

siege broken, probably, plus venting

2010-05-23T15:57:00.000-07:00

Recently I learned from the helpful PDEQ guy that the base doesn't have an incinerator; it has something like six generators, for which it has permits, and if the fuels for those have changed, I'd be pretty surprised. It would have been nice if someone had told me this information before now, but, for reasons I'll get to in a minute, the base doesn't appear to have anything to do with anything anyway.

In extremely related news, I can't say definitively, but I expect the air quality problem is over. The woman who had been the squeakiest wheel about the whole thing has not been detecting it since about Monday, day 56. Those of us who have had to leave town will be trickling back carefully.

Very carefully, because squeaky wheel has been feeding us highly suspect information this whole time, and I fell for it off and on, and I'm pretty pissed at myself. I actually do believe that she's not reacting to whatever it was right now, so it's probably safe to come home. However, she has concluded that the base is the source and PDEQ was in cahoots with them based on the principle of whoever you screamed at most recently before the air cleared was responsible for the problem. Now I feel like a jerk for believing anything she said, and my current attitude could lead to a screaming phone call, and oh my God, I could be the next great polluter of Tucson.

siege day 56

2010-05-17T22:02:00.005-07:00

Today I heard that the air quality problem in Tucson has been turned over to the solver of tough problems at PDEQ, and he's determined to get to the bottom of it. That would be easier than me getting to the bottom of it, and it'll probably take less time.

But until I get to talk to the man myself, we'll have to settle for some pictures of some wildflowers, so here you go:

Those were up at Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve (up on top of the peninsula) on Wednesday. On Friday I learned that poison oak makes green berries this time of year, which maybe I knew once but had certainly forgotten.

For good measure, here's a picture I kept meaning to share of a grey fox (I think was, anyway) in the most natural environment the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum could cook up. Apparently pink towels are natural enough.

This last one is what happens when there's a botany prof in the house, and one of the other profs needs some female ginkgo branches. Branches on the kitchen floor are par for the course around here -- when my husband brought me here, we were warned not to eat the poison mushrooms in the refrigerator that would be going off to school soon to be shown off to students.

And because I haven't announced anything will kill you for a long, long time, pesticides on food will give your kids ADHD, and the mushrooms in the refrigerator will kill you.

siege day 46

2010-05-07T23:07:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that the reason we have some uneducated-sounding nutjobs in the Arizona legislature is because a few years back, Arizona leveled the playing field, financially, for candidates, so anyone who could raise 220 donations bigger than $5 could go for it. That apparently made it too easy for the uneducated-sounding nutjobs to look legit and make it into office.

In other news, Chevron's technical question guy was really, really helpful. He reminded me of the engineers I used to call in grad school, looking for some weird answer, and they'd happily chat your ear off. Apparently there are standards, and your gas has to fit into a very narrow window, contents-wise, so once you get it organized, it takes a lot of work to change it even a little bit. There are variations between batches, but it wouldn't be enough to cause a city-wide death cloud. This year's summer blend is the same as last year's, so we're good to go with blaming the Air Force base.

I got the FOIA request written, so hopefully in about a month (maybe less) we'll have actual evidence. But, it's the base. I just need them to understand what the problem is so they can tell me when they'll be done so I can come home.

siege day 45

2010-05-06T23:34:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that President Nixon declared war on cancer, and this year is the first year the annual cancer report to the President said that we need to reduce environmental causes of cancer. They specifically mentioned things like formaldehyde and pesticides.

I need to call the EPA and see if they can do anything more than PDEQ and ADEQ about the stuff I can't pin down but is most likely from the base. Tomorrow I'll finish the FOIA request, but I don't expect gasoline companies to tell me anything, ever.

I appear to be working at a standard EI glacial pace on the FOIA request, but I walked 10 miles yesterday, and today I sorted the greater part of an extensive paperback book collection and babysat for 3 hours, so Aunt Molly is tired.

siege day 43

2010-05-04T22:25:00.002-07:00

Today, on a suggestion from the PDEQ lady, I started looking into car exhaust. It appears that Tucson switches from the oxygenated winter blend gasoline to the summer blend on April 1, and most stations start a little before then, so the timing is right for the pollutant that's killing us EIs. So far I learned that gasoline comes to Tucson from El Paso (pdf), and we take some (the rest goes to Phoenix) and put it in the 'tank farm,' which is right next to the west edge of the Air Force base and consists of a whole bunch of storage tanks you use to fill gasoline trucks. Then when the gas is in the truck, you add whichever additive you need to make it a specific brand, and off it goes to the stations. Thus I learned that Circle Ks are Conoco stations, we don't have any BPs, and we have twice as many Shell stations as Chevron stations.

I would call Conoco, Chevron, and Shell to see if they changed anything, but it's way after 5 pm, plus now the grapevine has reported that the whole problem is that the base is burning its used degreasers along with some hydraulic fluid or cleaner (I forgot which). I can't really believe the base would burn hazardous waste or store it for four years before burning it, but stranger things have happened, so the FOIA request is half written. You can't just ask a simple question with one of those -- you have to request records, so I'm trying to be specific but not too specific, and we'll just have to see what happens. They have 20 days to get to your request after they receive it, so the answer should be in plenty of time for me to tell the newsletter editor something before the next edition.

siege day 40

2010-05-01T20:01:00.000-07:00

Today I learned that even if you did ok at the outlet mall a few days ago, that doesn't mean you can go to the regular mall. My husband trusted me to get myself out when I needed to, but I didn't get my normal cardiac stuff, I just got weird. I remember feeling cranky, but I attributed it to going into a mall on a Saturday, which I can't believe I tried.

In other news, pizza sauce, while yummy, can be replaced with a layer of olive oil with basil leaves on it. I'm not even sure you need the basil leaves as long as you have enough other toppings, and I didn't even put cheese on mine.

******************************

Last night I learned that the other lady who had to leave town and I have made similar amounts of progress in the last week on Tucson's air quality problem, which is to say that we've both been working on our current living spaces and haven't done a blessed thing. I have to admit to taking an eight-mile walk one day instead of making phone calls, but I have a month's worth of exercise to catch up on, too.

I don't know if anyone else has had to leave town besides just us two. I know all the EIs on my side of town are suffering, but what kind of fancy club do you have to belong to such that you need to leave town? I didn't think I was that sick anymore, but I guess I thought I could go into a mall on a Saturday and get myself out before I got really messed up, too.

siege day 36

2010-04-27T20:46:00.004-07:00

Today I learned that sea lions sleep under the wharf in Santa Cruz, and there are big square viewing holes in the wharf that say on their rails to not feed the sea lions. Also, Corning/Corelle outlets definitively do not carry glass lids for their discontinued 1 liter pots.

siege day 34

2010-04-25T14:59:00.000-07:00

Today I learned that even though blogs are very last decade, if you're not going to go all full-on facebook, you should probably say something now and then, or your friends might wonder what's going on with you.

So what's going on is that the designation 'siege' is not really applicable because we had to abandon the fort on Wednesday. It makes it hard to work and shop for your friends when you're gone, but I couldn't do those things from inside my house anyway, and here I can go in stores and make it to family birthday parties.

Here I can make myself sore walking on level sidewalks for 25 minutes, but two days later, I'm in enough better shape that I got to walk for an hour and a half in the hills where there are lots of wildflowers. This thing where you can go outside for as long as you want is almost indescribable.

I expected that indescribable feeling to arrive almost immediately upon leaving town, but I didn't. It didn't until we stopped in Phoenix to buy another air cleaner, and I got to pay for it. I paid for dinner, too, even though it's the same money no matter which of us pays for things. Apparently being able to buy stuff is the definition of freedom.

*****************************************

We still don't know what's causing the air quality problem in Tucson, but now that I'm feeling better, I can resume making phone calls and maybe cook up one o' them FOIA requests to the base. Or maybe the Air National Guard, which works out of the regular airport. After driving immediately downwind of a little airport in Phoenix during the exodus, I'm thinking my biggest problem is airplane exhaust, so I'll have to call the regular airport, too.

That one lady who is so sure the problem is coming from the base says it feels like spraying or something that goes on during specific hours of the evening, and when it ends around 11 pm, she can go back into town and be fine until the next evening. No one else can get close enough to even pretend to pinpoint the source, so we'll have to just keep calling people until somebody figures something out.

siege day 18

2010-04-10T21:17:00.000-07:00

Today I learned that the main ingredient in pvc glue is tetrahydrofuran. We've been thinking the stuff coming from the base was one of the aromatic hydrocarbons, but for all we know, it could be a whatever tetrahydofuran is. For that matter, they could just be painting with enamel paint on a large scale, and I haven't bothered to figure out what solvent goes in enamel paint.

Whatever's going on, the base isn't saying, and I haven't figured out how to word a Freedom of Information Act request yet. If we can pin down what the base is doing differently, maybe we can find out when it's going to stop.

The only upside here is that since I mostly can't go to work, I have lots of time to figure out the FOIA request.

how to secure a house against poison gas

2010-04-08T22:00:00.002-07:00

Tonight I learned that if you're going to tape your house shut, you should follow through and not just tape the windows facing the prevailing winds. You should tape the whole damn thing shut. You know how Homeland Security told us all to have plastic and duct tape on hand? That's essentially what we've got going over here, but we use Tu Tuff and blue tape because Tu Tuff doesn't stink and blue tape won't pull the paint off your walls. The only thing is that Tu Tuff is white, so now we can't see out to know if the Air Force base is actually sneaking over here to kill us in person or just staying where it is and sending over EI-killing jet-cleaner chemicals.

The other thing I learned is that the rules say that unless an environmental problem is affecting a 'substantial' part of the population, the rest of us have to put up with it. Is 15% substantial? I think I need a lawyer.

the sick leading the blind

2010-04-04T21:11:00.003-07:00

Today I didn't learn whether or not I have to leave town. There's something horrible outside, and it started showing up March 22nd. It blew away when we had an east wind, but now we haven't had one for a week or so. It is ok in my house most of the time, but sometimes it's not, and sometimes it's my fault for fiddling with the air handling system.

One woman here in town is absolutely 100% confident that it's coming from the Air Force base, but no one knows how to get anything straight out of them. The air quality department does the very best it knows how, but from an EI's perspective, putting non-EIs in charge of that is like putting a bunch of visually impaired people in charge of an art gallery full of paintings. They know there are paintings, but they can only figure out what they are by reading the descriptions, assuming somebody put Braille on there. (Which is not to imply I know what chemical this is, but PDEQ is in no position to even confirm there is a chemical.)

On top of the whatever, there is now a very exciting pollen season going on, so if I want to get out of the whatever, I have to contend with the pollen. Last week all I had to do was get a little outside of town over some hills, but now if I want to leave the house, it'll be a long drive.

spring in Arizona

2010-03-16T09:07:00.002-07:00

Today I got the recipe for surviving mornings in pollen season at my house. At night, you have to leave the recirculating fan for the furnace on, but turn the pressurizer down to the lowest setting, and close the bedroom door. Then, when you wake up with heart palpitations at 5 am, you get up and turn off the recirculating fan and take your respirator back to the bedroom. When you wake up because you're rested instead of sick, you put the respirator on and go turn on the recirculating fan again. Then after about half an hour, you can probably eat breakfast and keep it down.

no party for you

2009-12-23T09:01:00.002-07:00

Today I read part of a Jehovah's Witness handout and learned that God's Word is unfavorable in regards to birthday parties, but "wholesome gatherings of friends and family at other times to eat, drink, and rejoice" are ok.

The handout says that birthday parties are rife with idolatrous worship.

So now I'm wondering:

Nobody ever worshipped me at my party. Am I doing it wrong?
If not the person, are we supposed to be worshipping the cake or the presents?
Maybe it's Chuck E. Cheese. I hear they have fights at Chuck E. Cheese.

But for all we know, there really could be something to those clown phobias.

theoretically, all you have to do is touch it

2009-12-02T16:54:00.002-07:00

Today I learned that the hardest part of the the local community college's writing assessment test is the touch screen you have to use to sign in. The kid behind me in line could make it do anything, but it wouldn't respond to me in any way until I used the end of my pen on it, and it seemed to like that fine.

I want to take an online class, and before you sign up, they want to make sure you have the ability to write things that won't make your professors tear their hair out. I may be sick, and I may be a physicist, but it was a multiple-choice copy editing test, and the lady sounded all impressed that I finished it so quickly.

We sick ladies take our ego boosts where we can get them.

road trip

2009-12-01T22:30:00.003-07:00

Recently I learned that I should absolutely believe the other EIs who have always said to avoid California's Central Valley. We'd always tried it via I-5 in summer, when for me, the worst problem (not counting Barstow and Bakersfield pollution) was the traffic speed oscillations driving my husband nuts. This time, it was traffic oscillations combined with a frightening brownish haze that could have come straight from an apocalyptic science fiction movie. We bailed for 101 in short order.

Also learned on our recent trip:

If you hit LA around 1 or 1:30 and are out the other side by 3, you don't get stuck in traffic.
Joshua Tree National Park is gorgeous, but they aren't kidding about air quality problems from Los Angeles leaking into the park.
Joshua trees are a funny kind of yucca.

slow but measurable progress

2009-11-23T15:45:00.003-07:00

I finally tolerate that 17th Century Suds chocolate-flavored lip balm a friend of mine gave me something like two years ago. (Yes, I saved it. I guess I'd know if lip balm went bad, right?) Also, I can't say I tolerate it in Joann Fabrics, but during my last trip there, I noticed that I didn't have to fight the urge to leave the entire time. So, progress.

why burgers will kill you

2009-11-21T11:05:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that they really do feed cows moldy food, and that if you're making your cows sick, you should feed them less mold. Also, if you want to feed your cows leftovers from the ethanol distillation plant, distillation triples the mycotoxin content of resultant food substance, and, if you've been paying attention, you are well aware that excess toxic stuff like mycotoxins is stored in fat. It seems reasonable to assume that the storage of things like mycotoxins is probably why cow fat is bad for you.

I'd rather eat no cow at all, but this is why I won't eat conventional cow. Well, that and the fact that it doesn't taste like much unless you put an awful lot of salt on it, and then it just tastes like salt.

reversible brain damage

2009-11-14T09:07:00.001-07:00

Recently I learned that I like reading graduate-level mathematical physics textbooks, and they're better with loud classical music in the background. So far I recognize lots of equations and things, but trying to do the problems at the end of the first chapter feels like touch typing on a keyboard where someone has moved only some of the keys. I'll be chugging along ok until I can't remember something really basic and have to move on to something else, and then two hours later I'll be chatting with the really, really sick lady, and she'll get to hear about it when the missing equation pops into my head. (She, like many people, really has no use for stray physics equations, but she's very nice about it.)

I had to start with math books because I tried starting on a signal processing book so riddled with errors that I spent all my time re-deriving things and then doubting my results, even though they at least had the right coefficients in them, as opposed to the ones in the book. (Note to Ashfaq A. Khan -- you had an editor, but you needed a nerdy editor who would call it when you used N and K interchangeably or had a's where you should have had b's, or had nothing at all. I'd help, but I understand no one budgets for nerdy editors.)

So it's been like learning to walk after five years of broken legs, and this person who's stumbling around appears to like playing the fiddle (also stumblingly), and classical music. I attribute this improvement in my health to two things: some new supplements, and something a friend passed along ("God doesn't want us to be sick"), which helped me let some things go, and the less anxious you are, the better you feel. The only downside here is that now I feel like I woke up with some amnesia after five years of some nice-enough imposter (also me) holding down the fort, and it's kind of upsetting.

real time, baby

2009-10-28T19:59:00.002-07:00

My husband is right now talking to someone from craigslist trying to help the guy figure out what kind of car he has for sale. I'm betting it's hard to sell a generic 4-door car with instructions to 'cakk' for information.

But onward to what I learned recently:

A serious wind storm can still mess me up, but it mostly just makes me tired.
I forgot which kind of submarine (it starts with a 't') takes 40 minutes to turn around, but in 70 degree water, 40 minutes is long enough to develop a serious case of hypothermia, so they take their man-overboard drills pretty seriously.
From what I'm hearing on the phone, the guy selling the generic car wants something like ten times what it is worth.

things to see

2009-10-24T21:15:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that I forgot to check my blog email long enough that my account got deactivated. It's back under control now, and I guess even if you mostly get spam, it's at least good to look at.

Speaking of things to look at, here is a short video on how to launch an anvil 100 feet into the air.

pretty tired

2009-10-21T18:09:00.000-07:00

Today I cleaned a new-to-us washing machine motor with hydrogen peroxide and a Q-tip. Yesterday I soaked new-to-a-friend seat belts in dilute vinegar, and the water turned all yellowish-brown. I am ready to not need to do these things.

Also I learned that I tolerate the paint that used to be Glidden 2000, but I can't remember the new name now. It's something like Duralast Somethingmaster 9300 -- something that sounds like a battery-powered exercycle.

voodoo

2009-10-19T21:08:00.004-07:00

Today I learned that the placebo effect is getting stronger. Also, something invisible and odorless on the used washing machine motor we put in our older washing machine gives me major heart palpitations. That would have been a great example of the nocebo effect, except that no one told me to expect that a barely-used, eight-year-old washing machine motor would kill me. Also, I didn't eat it.

generalizations and exceptions

2009-10-16T23:41:00.003-07:00

I'm used to dire-looking circumstances turning into months or years of horror, so I'm pleased to report that today I learned that some EIs can, with a little help, pull themselves out of some fairly dire-looking circumstances in just a matter of days. This time it took a reasonably experienced EI and people with a very similar injury to provide support, but the situation turned around nicely, and we made a friend. And I will add that despite the fact that my very best friends in the world right now are almost exactly the same age as my parents, it's nice to have some friends your own age.

Here's a gross generalization, as long as I'm thinking about it: almost all of the EIs I know who are my age got in trouble with mold, and most of them are men. I know a lot more people who are older than I, and of that mostly-female crowd, only one or two of them got sick from mold. They seem to be a pesticide/building materials/other stuff group.

chronic fatigue and car crap

2009-10-12T23:13:00.002-07:00

Several days ago I learned that people with chronic fatigue tend test positive for a virus that researchers expect causes the illness, a finding which, even if the virus is a side-effect instead of the cause, makes the people who thought chronic fatigue was a mental problem look like a bunch of jerks.

In other news, you can power wash car seat cushions. All you have to do is remove the seats and carpet from the car and then spray the crap out of them. You have to make sure that the pressure washer is clean enough to use first, which can be a challenge if you bought one new. We had to run a bottle of dish soap through the soap container first, and if that voids the warranty, this is still a mostly anonymous blog, and I didn't buy it anyway.

perfume penetration of common building materials

2009-10-05T22:13:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that spilled perfume can soak through wallboard and still be easily detectable on the far side more than five years later. I know this because it was time to make the master bedroom closet usable, and we tried painting over the previous occupant's mishap (six coats of various sealers and paint), and it didn't work. Taking out the shelf didn't work. Cutting out the perfumy section of the board supporting the shelf didn't work. Chiseling away a layer of wallboard didn't work. All that, plus cutting a square foot hole in the wall worked.

In other news, five+ years offgased perfume didn't give me heart palpitations or anything, but I didn't exactly spend a lot of time snorting it or wearing it on my clothes.

tolerating fabrics

2009-09-08T22:05:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that I like new clothes, and it doesn't matter if the new clothes are $6 worth of socks from Target. They're generally far enough from my nose that I don't even have to decontaminate them too carefully.

I also learned that since I went away for a month (I never got around to mentioning that, but that's where the outlet shopping came in), I seem to tolerate the stuff I contaminated with smoke in the dryer last year. Apparently a year is about long enough to forget about something such that when you get it back, it seems new, despite various holes and tears and such. It's a quilt. Those are allowed to look well-loved, right?

holy cow

2009-09-05T08:21:00.002-07:00

Froot Loops are 41% sugar by weight.

human interaction with various plants

2009-08-29T18:06:00.002-07:00

Today I learned that biodiesel costs about $2 more per gallon than regular diesel, so only people with a serious commitment to the environment are likely to buy it right now. In completely unrelated news, you can keep berries in the fridge longer if you put them in scalding water first, which kills the mold.

it might not be the government

2009-08-13T07:46:00.004-07:00

Today I learned that a fiberglass manufacturer near the Air Force base has been fined by the EPA for releasing too much styrene into the air over the course of several years, and inhaling styrene is supposed to make people sick. I am not at all surprised that inhaling styrene makes people sick since I can't even drink cold water from innocuous-looking clear styrene (#6) fast-food cups, but there was this EI a few years ago who was getting into trouble near the base, and the Air Force was denying everything. Since we expect the government to lie to us, it likely never occurred to anyone she discussed the problem with that they could be telling the truth, not that we have any way of knowing who caused what at this point.

went shopping

2009-08-12T17:20:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that if I wear a mask to the outlets, I can be in there long enough to buy real clothes for ridiculously tiny amounts of money. In extremely related news:

I now understand the art of changing shirts over a half-face respirator.
I can't go shopping two days in a row, mask or no mask.
Either the fashion world really moved on these last 4 1/2 years or I dressed really conservatively before I got sick. I recognize pretty much nothing blouse-wise that isn't just as boring as my solid-color t-shirts that I didn't have to try on.

So all I got was a bunch of bras. They are very much superior to the comparably-priced bras you can get at Target without trying them on.

killing your coworkers

2009-07-31T10:18:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that 34 people had to go to the hospital after someone at the call center where they worked sprayed perfume. It started with two people feeling dizzy and short of breath, but since I guess they weren't sure at first what happened, they told everybody with any symptoms to leave the building and called the fire department. So either perfume makes a lot of people sick and they don't notice unless someone points it out (this is actually pretty common -- feeling crummy can make people incredibly clueless), or call center workers figured talking to EMTs was more fun than talking on call center phones.

I'm betting they wouldn't have actually gone to the hospital if they were just shirking. But I bet if they'd known it was perfume to start with, they'd have ignored the whole thing because everybody's pretty sure all those undisclosed ingredients in perfume are perfectly safe, and never mind that pregnant women aren't supposed to wear it.

latest round up

2009-06-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

Today I learned that the news doesn't care if it tells the truth and could fire you as a newsperson if you wanted to not lie.

Yesterday I learned that if you decide to feed ants cornmeal in the hopes that they will leave your kitchen alone, they mine it. They don't have support timbers and line things with concrete like smugglers crossing the border, but they make little holes they can actually disappear into. And also in yesterday's news, if you work out really, really, really hard for five minutes, you can make your muscle damage look like you had worked out for something like four hours. Whatever kind of muscle damage is apparently how you measure endurance, so extreme interval training could be just as good for endurance training as going out for hours. I don't see the couch potato crowd leaping off the sofa for five minutes, plus warm-up and cool down and stuff like that, and working to the point of pain three times a week, but it might help those of us who like to exercise but get stuck in the house sometimes.

And since I haven't covered anything death-worthy lately, here's an article about how long various pesticides can linger in your house, thus killing you, your kids, and your pets. Also, the crying Native American guy on those '80s littering PSAs was Sicilian.

undergarments, anti-microbials, gout, and fire

2009-06-15T08:14:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that Victoria's Secret bras will kill you, maybe with formaldehyde. At the end of the article, the Formaldehyde Council swears they didn't see anything and weren't even there, but it's possible it wasn't formaldehyde. Get an EI to sniff it, and then we'd have an answer. And in related news, Victoria's Secret thongs will take out your eye.

In other news of things that aren't there, antibiotics are the fungi-derived variety of antimicrobials, and organic meats only have to be antibiotic-free. The anti-microbials used are theoretically anti-parasite drugs, which I guess could theoretically include food-grade diatomaceous earth, which I wouldn't have a problem with, but the article doesn't say, and I don't have time to call all the companies involved. I tolerate whatever Whole Foods' suppliers are doing, so if the anti-microbials involved turn out to be just like the antibiotics we've been overusing, I'd probably just die anyway, but for the record, I wasn't there, and I didn't see anything. (What? Everybody else says it.)

And:

Sufferers of gout can end up oozing white stuff, and apparently it can be due to genetics, not gluttony.
I couldn't figure out why I got heart palpitations every time I went outside starting Friday morning until I read this article about a local wildfire. It started on Thursday and only recently became newsworthy.

how to decontaminate a dryer

2009-06-12T19:21:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for how to simply get synthetic fragrance chemicals out of your dryer, this is going to be overkill. You can probably just scrub the drum, even the fins, and potentially soak any badly affected plastic (probably the lint screen) in vinegar, so cherry pick from the following:

Today we're going to document for posterity the appropriate way to decontaminate a tumble dryer that has had bad air (smoke, for example) sucked through it.

Order new drum seals because they typically take a few days to come in, and then you have to boil them about 4 times. Maybe 'seals' isn't their official name, but I'm talking about the felt padding that the drum rides on. If you have weak contamination, maybe you can boil the contaminant out of them, but it takes a lot less boiling to get the 'new' out of new ones than it does to get the crap out of old ones. Trying to save yourself $60 by boiling the old ones for a month is not at all worth it.
Take the case apart until you can take out the drum. With the drum out, take out the screws that hold the fin-thingies in place. Find something like a plastic storage tub where you can soak the fins in vinegar for at least 24 hours. 50:50 vinegar and water works fine.
Continue disassembling the case until you can reach every surface in the air stream. You don't have to worry as hard about the air stream after it leaves the drum, but those surfaces can ooze contamination backward when the dryer is off, so at least get the ones close to the lint filter.
Throw out the heating element. You can't scrub it with Bon Ami, and you can't soak it in vinegar. We can get new ones for our machine on Ebay for about $25, or if you're excited about having it right away, you can pay something like $70 for one at the local appliance place.
Commence scrubbing all the exposed surfaces with a Bon Ami paste if the contamination is really stubborn. You can get away with a scrubby sponge and less Bon Ami on less contaminated surfaces. If you have a tube you can't get your arm in, try a brush. We extended the handle on a toilet brush using plastic water pipe. We had to cut the brush's handle at the correct diameter to fit in the pipe (allow extra length so you can taper the brush handle), but wedged in there, it's pretty solid.

Theoretically when all the boiling, soaking, and scrubbing is done, you can just put the whole works back together. Here are some things that could slow you down:

The bare metal sleeves around the heating element and on the way to the drum are some kind of metal that leaves a taste in my mouth, so you can't necessarily get those parts perfect.
The seals on my dryer very likely have wool in them. I will probably never be able to sniff those without getting heart palpitations, but I can tell the difference between a wool reaction and a dryer contaminant.

And so you aren't left wondering what might kill you next, there's a giant DDT deposit off the coast of Los Angeles.

beasties, lunch, 'do no harm,' tent prep, and mental illness

2009-06-08T23:40:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that:

The javelina around here get fed by morons frequently enough that if they come upon you, and you have food, they expect some. They're a little scary to chase off on account of those tusks they have.
Chipotle is one of the safer places to eat.
The waiting rooms at various doctors' offices can vary greatly depending on the occupants. Today I had to take two showers to get the fumes off me, and I think I still made the really, really sick lady sick when I visited this evening, a total of three showers later. That doctor has a safer office farther away that only gets used three days a month, and I will be going there.
You can cut nylon with a soldering iron.
Getting your hormones straightened out using various supplements can cause shoe purchases. I don't understand it, but now I want high heels. It feels like a mental illness.
You can get eyeliner that is just made of mica and various oxides. I'm not sure whether my current mental illness requires eyeliner or not, but it required at least looking it up.

odds and ends

2009-06-07T22:45:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that you can download sewing patterns. I'm thinking of making a dress, so I'll have to look into that after I finish sewing a couple more dome tents, for which I never found a pattern. I somehow think a dress would be easier than a dome tent, but it's been a while.

In things that'll kill you, pesticides still give you Parkinson's, and pollution will give you liver disease. Hormones just make you weird instead of killing you.

a day in the life: be a grown-up and get a mammogram

2009-06-04T13:43:00.003-07:00

Today I learned that the majority of the people at a radiology clinic are there for chest x-rays. I was wearing a mask the whole time I was exposed to them, but my husband reports that they reeked of smoke. They didn't sound so good, either.

The radiology clinic is something I learned about because I recently had the bad judgment to turn 40, and even if your hormones aren't all screwed up from a chemical injury, doctors like to start taking pictures around then. They may even glare disapprovingly when they find out you didn't get a practice mammogram back when you turned 35, despite the fact that at that age you may have been, as my grandmother says, too sick to die.

I also learned that if you bring your husband to keep an eye on you (and he definitely needed to keep an eye on me -- he had to cart me outside into fresh air in a hurry at one point), the tech will inform you that the mammography area is strictly off-limits to anyone of the male persuasion, and she will try to leave him in the waiting room. I went along with that for about 4 seconds, when I pointed out that he was my caregiver, and there should be some allowance for that. When I went as far as to suggest we preserve other patients' dignity by getting him a blindfold, she checked with her supervisor, who allowed him in. Problem solved.

We also have some new rules to go along with the obvious 'bring your own gown' and 'whatever else you may do, do not forget your mask':

However cute your hair may be down, you should wear it up in buildings filled with synthetic fragrance and smokers unless you want to wear your mask after you leave until your hair offgases.
Wear a button-up shirt to doctor visits. A t-shirt is hard to get off over a half-face respirator, and if you take the mask off, your first breath contains a bunch of carpet-cleaner chemicals.
Do not, under any circumstances, remove your mask. Failure to observe this rule may result in a quick trip to the parking lot wearing not exactly what you'd hope to be wearing in a parking lot.

giant sponges, car parts, and a tv breakthrough

2009-06-02T18:43:00.005-07:00

Today I learned that you can roll up the carpet from a 1998 Plymouth Neon and fit half of it into a standard-sized storage tub. The hard part is if the tub is filled with diluted ammonia, and then it's a b**** wrestling the soaking wet carpet onto the clothesline. In related news:

If you completely take out the interior of a Neon with a mold problem so bad it smells like a swamp from 5 feet away with the doors and windows closed, and you spray whatever you couldn't take out with 20% hydrogen peroxide, the swamp smell goes away.
Seat cushion foam parts are like giant sponges, but if you can't bend them so they're submerged in ammonia, it's hard to tell if you got the whole thing wet, thereby killing all the mold.
Wet giant sponges are really heavy.
1998 and earlier Neons had inferior head gaskets, so we might need to learn how to change a head gasket.

We have a project on our hands, but the price was right, and if we can permanently banish the swamp smell, we will have beaten some mold. That kind of thing is very good for morale around here.

In other news, the really, really sick lady's husband got a hold of a used rear-projection tv which he then spent probabably six weeks decontaminating. The upshot is that when the really, really sick lady's sister's phone line conked out, she had something else to do besides talk on the phone for the first time in eight years.

Morale is up all over.

recipes must be followed to the letter

2009-05-22T22:27:00.000-07:00

Today I learned how to make "salt rising bread." This is what the pioneer ladies used to make when they couldn't get yeast, and it has nothing to do with salt. According to the internet, the pioneer ladies liked to make a starter using cornmeal and maybe a potato or two in water, plus maybe a bunch of other stuff, and they kept their starters at exactly 110^o F (they apparently had super-accurate wood stove thermometers) for 8 to 10 hours. Then, if the starter worked, they could make some bread, but if it didn't, they threw it out and started over.

In the interests of not adding any more corn to my diet, I tried putting a starter made of only flour and water in a warm spot (the oven with the light on) for 8 to 10 hours and throwing it out when it didn't 'start.' Then I remembered that following directions when it comes to food was never my strong suit, and I made another starter that I set out on the counter until it started, dammit, and then I made bread.

Thus I will conclude that:

Patience is a virtue;
Having a high tolerance for junk on your counter can be a good thing;
Following directions is only a useful skill if you are dealing with some aspects of government or attempting to get good grades in school.

In other news, the really, really sick lady watched five minutes of the Weather Channel today after not having a tolerable tv for 8 years. She seemed kind of unimpressed, but 5 minutes of tv is a huge step forward considering her usual entertainment is watching (a) the bugs outside her window, or (b) the ceiling. Also, the lady who has lived in her car for 25 years passed her driver's license eye test, so she's good to go for another 5 years, whether or not her car is.

It's been an exciting couple of days.

rear enders, tomatoes, and how to stay in shape

2009-05-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

Today I learned that in Winnipeg, even as the cops were claiming that red-light cameras were improving driver behavior, accidents and resulting injuries went up about 60%. It appears that while the the cameras may have modified red-light running behavior, they don't do much about tailgater behavior.

In other news, by abusing tomatoes consistently for months, I finally got in trouble with them, at the height of this pollen season. I expect to get them back again by about August, just in time for mold season.

In yet other news, today I saw an ad on tv. It started out by mentioning how hard we all work to stay in shape, so I was expecting it to be for some kind of exercise equipment that made staying in shape easier. It was an ad for baked Lay's potato chips, so maybe bending your elbow is more strenuous than I thought.

fat, spam, and recycling

2009-05-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I learned that the obesity epidemic can be blamed entirely on people eating too much. The model researchers used to predict the overall fatness of the US population based on national food consumption (and waste) predicted even more obesity, so people have apparently been exercising more. They found that to combat the extra calories, you'd have to walk an average adult an extra two hours per day and an average kid two and a half hours. The kids could instead lose one "fizzy drink" (350 calories) per day, but the grown-ups have to figure out how to ditch an extra 500 calories, which the article says is equivalent to a hamburger. (I think it must be a little hamburger.) (I don't know much about the caloric content of hamburgers.)

Then I got distracted, but somewhere in there I learned that Blogger's spam detector thinks this blog is a spam blog, so I am dutifully reporting it here just like all the other bloggers whose blogs have been 'detected.' Maybe I look like a pusher of non-shampoo hair cleaning products, but, honestly, I think the majority of the people who come to this blog are looking for some variant of 'shoplifting tools,' which I mentioned once in 2007.

In other illegal news, reusing a priority mail cardboard box is illegal even if you turn it inside out and no one will know except the recipient. I do not expect this information to generate much in the way of page visits.