I'm sure there are people who can make open relationships work. I'll just say that in the 30 years I have been peripheral to the polyamorous community I have never once met one. More than that, nobody griefs quite like polys. Every anecdote I have about a bad breakup - every single one, except with the guy who is a diagnosed sociopath - involves a joint decision to fuck other people. The bitterest humans I know are the ones who tried to make open relationships work.

Quoth lil:

If monogamy is not based on the desire and joy in being together, then it’s control.

"Monogamy" can be substituted out of that sentence with no difficulty whatsoever. Polyamory, chess, bass fishing.

"I want to explore my sexuality" is a very, VERY different statement than "I want to explore my sexuality with you." Recognize that she is saying "I am offering you no commitments" and that is literally all she is saying. Recognize that she is laying the groundwork for "I owe you fuckall behaviorally speaking" and gird your loins for it. You will suck at this. I say this because I know you.

Your best move is to say "come find me when you've figured it out, because you matter to me more than I matter to you right now and I'm not going to put up with that."

Li'l story. I've known my wife since 1994. She literally gave me my dorm key. And within a week she was dating this other guy. Dated him for five years. Married him. Stayed married to him for two years. Then got sick of his shit and kicked him out. He was literally the only person she ever dated.

And we started dating, and she said a few things about having never really dated, and wanting to maybe figure out what that looked like, and I was kinda cool with it, and she had a party with a group of friends, one of whom, like me, wanted to date her earlier but couldn't, and I thought "I owe her this" and then I immediately thought "no, no I don't" and came right back to the house having left and kicked his ass out.

We'd been "dating" for two weeks at the time. That was more than twenty years ago.

A serial monogamist who was married for six years doesn't need to figure out her shit at your expense. You can be cool with it? But you won't be happy about it. And she won't respect you.

CANCEL AWAY FUCKERS

bfx, the important thing is to have fun now, to deepen your relationship now, and continue being honest and open about fears and feelings. “Now” is all that’s real.

I went through three long relationships and two (too) long marriages before I stumbled across my current partner and and for the first time didn’t want to be with anyone else.

I was sixty-fucking-three when I got it, that monogamy is just wanting to have the best time with someone you like — not externally imposed.

Prior to now in my life, monogamy was just another word for controlling. If monogamy is not based on the desire and joy in being together, then it’s control. Good for her that she’s exploring her feelings about sex and sexuality. She may want to do more exploring than you feel comfortable with - if that’s the case, figure out the roots of your discomfort- which is probably insecurity, which leads to control.

Still, time with others is time not with you.

Having a “relationship” or an imagined “future” with someone does not replace the necessity of also having to have a life.

There are a lot of emotions running deep today. The past nine years have one hell of a trip. The person I was when I signed my name on the dotted line is vastly different from the one who signed out today. I've had quite a few drinks to celebrate the end so it's a little bit difficult to truly reflect but.. man idk. I'll try and put together a small album together within the next couple days of my favorite moments. The military has allowed me to meet countless interesting people, visit 30+ countries, and develop myself to a level I would have never before thought possible. While I never posted much on hubski I would like to thank y'all for keeping me somewhat grounded-just lurking and reading has been significant. When surrounded by the echo chamber of the army this website has always been a refuge to maintain at least a little intellectual capacity.

Believe it or not, I'm sanguine bordering on ebullient... long term. Short term?

So that graph says two things without you even really needing to know what it's graphing: (1) "holy shit" (2) "that can't continue." There's an aphorism in commodities markets: "the cure for high prices is high prices." We're all in the commodities market now, bubba.

You and I have talked about this at length for several years now: automation is coming and that right soon. There's been a steady pressure to unstaff. Hey, great! They're letting you work from home! That means you're now competing against the entire goddamn world for your job. Which means if they can fob it off on a bot rancher from Bangalore to save 20%, they'll do it. And now everyone who could barely afford Silicon Valley is looking at Nowhere Gulch and dreaming of owning serfs, and he'll happily pay for the house with a check because this'll be easier if the wife and five-year-old can get settled in before school starts.

Food? You're literally asking "what happens if Democrats cut entitlements for some reason" and they ain't. They ain't ever. They learned that shit under Clinton - when you fuck with poor people you get Newt Gingrich. Which isn't to say every Republican governor out there isn't going to try on every possible variation of "fuck poor people" because it's "important to their base." Performative evil - that's where the Right is right now.

I used to say "there's opportunity in the Delta." Now I say "It's just the Churn." I was in the music industry when MP3 happened, the movie industry when Netflix happened, and tried to write a book when all the publishers sued Amazon. Before I ran off to join the circus, I interviewed with every acoustical consultancy in Seattle. When I came back, the only one still in business was the one I left.

We knew this. We saw it coming. We looked at the graphs, we looked at the lines, we looked at the empty streets and restaurants and we knew it would be seismic. Now? Now we're all trying to pretend COVID is over as if that fundamental a crash isn't going to leave some deep and lasting scars.

But look.

Michael Lewis wrote an entire book about the skeletonization of the federal government under Donald Trump. Any semi-competent bureaucrat was able to evaluate that there was no room for competence in government, so they left or retired. This was also documented by Bob Woodward in Peril - there was literally zero vaccine distribution plan by the Trump white house. None.

Trump knocked over the sand castle. Dude three-finger-saluted the entire goddamn government for us. 'cuz I tell you what: opportunistic hangers-on don't hang on after the opportunity is gone. Which left an entire ecosystem open to exploitation by pie-eyed, opportunistic Lefties driven by mission.

And now? Now every crisis is gonna be an "add moar socialism" moment.

- Student loans. The Biden administration can literally forgive all of it through executive order. They won't, but they'll definitely fuck with it. They'll wait until things are really painful, though, so that they "won't have a choice."

- Medicaid. Can be expanded aggressively to anybody who got any pandemic assistance whatsoever under emergency proclamation, which is over when Biden says it's over. I'm currently paying $2 a month for healthcare because I cashed an unemployment check. I believe that rate is good for a calendar year at least, and that's only because nobody's pushed it out further. I'm effectively on nationalized healthcare and the Republicans didn't even notice.

- Housing. They've already started murdering the flood insurance subsidies. They could come after the mortgage interest deduction, too. They could also dump money into rural broadband to improve work-from-home feasibility.

- Food. Republicans have been picking away at SNAP for decades but the pandemic gives the Democrats an excuse to expand it, keep it expanded, and nationalize its management. Every state that fucks over its poor people is a poster child for "government overreach."

Don't get me wrong. Everything - everything - is gonna get worse before it gets better. A whole lotta lives gonna get destroyed. Personally? I've already mourned them. This was evident in the data eighteen months ago. All these disruptions are going to fuck up some lives, and I say that with 700,000 dead.

The people flying the plane actually care about the passengers and have actual flight hours under their belt. It's not a state I'd want any of us to be in, but we're here, and I feel like we're looking at the least worst option.

I've been kinda shellshocked since this.

That bill? Right there? Was the first time the Republicans went "actually we don't have the juice to block socialism anymore." They fucking gave up every principle - BEFORE Trump lost! because they knew in their very bones that small government market capitalism would go up like flash paper in a national emergency. Every bill since has been small, un-speechable death-by-a-thousand-cuts socialism and they haven't had shit to say about it because the kinds of guys who really just want Trump to be president because he's Trump are going to cock their heads quizically at some Buckley National Review diatribe against the risk against innovation by subsidized broadband as if they were Jack Russell terriers hearing Their Master's Voice. it's over their heads, man. The "base" barely believe in the gospel of Number Go Up. What they know is their grandsons are doing better with Gamestop puts, whatever they are, than they are with their social security.

I think this has a happy ending. I think it has a happy ending the way Game of Thrones has a happy ending in that a lot of people are gonna die, a lot more are gonna get fucked, everyone with a short attention span is gonna be mad that they didn't see it coming but the world will be a better place and generally-good people will get a generally-good outcome but it's still a happy ending.

We just gotta be among the survivors.

I don't like it. I feel as though I should be able to remove as much as my presence as possible when I delete my account on a website. It's one thing that comments remain. Now usernames remain attached to them?

You may as well not have the delete account feature because at this point all it will do is just remove access to the account for the user in question.

Y'all can just skip the rest of my comment here, because I'm going to be talking about something that literally nobody will click on, and will forever taint everything I ever post again to Hubski with a stain of "ok, sure goobster, but you made that one post to the weekly music post, remember? So we can't really believe anything you ever say again..."

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I've been listening to a lot of Blue Oyster Cult recently. They were one of my three favorite bands as a kid (Sabbath, AC/DC, BOC), I've seen them live multiple times in multiple different decades, and I've owned a large portion of their catalog.

They are the original swords-and-sorcery bar band. Their songs are often mystical Tolkein-esque stories of magic and swords and other shit I have zero time or patience for. Their musicianship is basically the best bar band in the world; they can play like motherfuckers, but don't show off. They just execute, and produce rockin', interesting music.

So here's my BOC playlist for those who have only ever heard "Godzilla" or "Burning for You" from Saturday Night Live.

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Veteran of the Psychic Wars

This one surprised me. I know the song well. But in a COVID world, it takes on a real poignance and timeliness that the original song didn't have. It struck me.

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Black Blade

Just a great rock song... the story would be a fantastic movie. The hero just wants to be a Casanova, but he happens across a dark sword that takes over, and turns him into a hellion of murder and destruction. A fun twist of the genre that let's you look into the "bad guy" and see the world from his perspective, rather than the good guy, who needs to defeat him.

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7 Screaming Diz Busters

No, I don't know what a Diz Buster is. But this is some virtuosic 1970's lead guitar riffing that any band of the era would be proud of. Lyrics are funny as shit, too.

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The Red and the Black

What band has EVER recorded an ode to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and their ability to "always get their man"? And NOBODY has ever rocked as hard whilst doing so. (Greatest song intro, too!)

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Career of Evil

Is completely unexpected. Just read the lyrics.

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Astronomy

Finally, this is BOC's magnum opus. A Pink Floyd style wide-ranging song with an almost orchestral arrangement of parts and sections. The live version from Some Enchanted Evening is transcendent, and the definitive version of this track. Just wonderful.

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(NOTE: Blue Oyster Cult stopped writing new music in 2001, and still spends 11 months of every year on the road. It is what they do. It is who they are. They are a road band that plays live. And their catalog of good songs is so huge, they don't even have setlists anymore. They just play whatever they want to on that particular night. They sell a single piece of merchandise: a t-shirt reminiscent of their first album cover that says "Blue Oyster Cult - On Tour Forever".)

https://images.app.goo.gl/ZwWpjanNz13Pjm3u8

Today I am 43 years old. That's fucked up. When we started Hubski I was 34. So much has changed. I had no kids then. I have 3 now. I have founded a company, bought three houses, traveled to many countries, I went through the Y Combinator program, lost my grandparents, started meditating twice a day, started playing tennis, stopped playing tennis, ran a half marathon, got a hernia, bought a lot of guitars. made a TON of music. and made some podcasts too.

In my 43 years I've been in love a few times, I went to college, dropped out of college, went back to college and graduated. I have released two albums and have played on a bunch of stages. I have given talks, raised millions of dollars, I've been near bankruptcy and worth millions, but mostly I've been somewhere in between. I've kissed pretty girls, I've been in car crashes, I've done a lot of drugs, I've fasted, I've been in jail, I've been bit by a dog, I've rescued a dog, I put two dogs to sleep while their heads rested in my lap. I've taught two kids to ride a bike, to swim and to ollie. I've walked to school and ridden the bus. I've saved up and lived in a state, by myself with no family and I've known the feeling of having to move home with my parents for lack of funds. I've been hungry and I've gotten food from a community food pantry, I've donated time and money to a community food pantry. I worked as a lathe operator, a meter reader, a cashier, a line cook, a dishwasher, a salesman, a team leader, a startup founder, a pre-school teacher, a janitor and a CEO. I've stepped on a nail, I've had hot oil poured on my hand, I've sprained both ankles twice, I've scored the winning run, I've struck out in the bottom of the 9th, I've cried in movies, I've dined in the nicest restaurants in Paris and I've eaten meals over a trash can. I've written poetry, I've been close to wanting to die, I've found comfort in music, I've been fortunate in my friends and family.

I've built a lot of things in my 43 years. I'm a lucky guy.

I'm in the middle of a battle right now, professionally. I'm confident we'll pull through all of this. I'm fortunate to have ecib and mk at my side.

It's been a good run. I'm looking forward to the next 43 years. I love ya, Hubski.

Onward!

I was going to lay down that pithy Claire Wolfe quote from 30 years ago but you know what? I'll play.

Revolutions have the unfortunate tendency to replace one repressive regime with another. Russia exchanged monarchs for kleptocrats; Iran replaced an autocratic monarch with an autocratic priest; Egypt replaced one autocratic general with another. Fortunately revolutions tend to hit concentrated power much harder than diffuse power. It's easy to overthrow a general. It's a pain in the ass to overthrow a House of Commons.

Before you can overthrow a democracy you have to replace it with an autocracy. You are free to argue the Republican Party in general and the Trump administration in particular are hell-bent on this goal and I will not argue with you. Where we can dicker is how successful they're being.

Obamacare survives because McCain threw a thumbs-down into the middle of the works. That's the power of one man in our structure of government - what took a dozen years of orchestrated attack was unwound by one man who suddenly grew a conscience. I think we can both agree that there are many people within the Trump administration who are doing everything they can to unwind what we've got - Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller come immediately to mind - but ours is a structure where, broad strokes, it's every bit as hard to tear down as it is to build up.

And ours is not a centralized society. Everyone in America has gotten used to turning locally; local newscasts are experiencing a renaissance the likes of which they've never had and the argument for States' Rights has never been clearer. What I remember most clearly about the run-up to the Iraq War was the tireless efforts by the White House to shape popular opinion through manipulation of the popular press. The end result was the phrase "MSM" whereby suddenly, the default view became "if you're seeing it on NBC it's probably a lie." This is the void Putin & Co rushed into and it got them an election, just like the void got Bush and Cheney a war. But it's one of those things you can pull once.

The rantings of Fox News aren't crazy enough for who's left so we've got to huddle around weird websites for QAnon news. The President panders and pumps OAN, whose ratings are known only to OAN (which substantially impacts their advertising rates, which indicates their ratings aren't even worth discussing). There is not a major news source on the air that hasn't outlined the outright lies and mistruths promoted by the White House and no one is even pretending this stuff is normal anymore. We're progressing through the process started in 2003 when the world was forced to learn how to vet news sources and honestly, REALITY WILL WIN. It's just easier. Journalists are generally a lazy bunch and constructing a narrative out of things that happened is overwhelmingly easier than constructing a narrative out of things that didn't, particularly when anyone with a phone can query additional sources.

Politically speaking we've had a splinter faction hell-bent on tearing us apart who now have to deal with the reality that success means pulling together. Every minimum-wage slacker you've ever excoriated is now standing in front of you selling you Cheetos while you retreat to your compound. And both sides of that exchange know it. We have an entire ideology that has steadfastly rejected expertise who are now clinging to any expert they can find. And we have states shipping supplies to one another in defiance of the federal government because we're all fucking pulling together.

And what has this done to society? What has this done to work? What has this done to education? Colleges are fucked but they'd been on the ragged edge of moving online anyway. Vast swaths of the service sector are suddenly unemployed. And we're all learning that there are a whole bunch of jobs that you can do a half-assed job at without ever needing to be in the office.

Would you take a 50% paycut if you never had to come to the office? 'cuz if that means you can move from a place where rent is $1000 a month to a place where rent is $300 a month... you start sharpening your pencil. ButterflyEffect and I were chatting about a marvelous cabin he's found for $172k up the fuck and gone some place where he could never commute to work... but considering it's less than a third what properties cost where he's forced to live, "telecommute from a cabin in the woods" becomes a lot more practical for everyone.

And suddenly your deep red hinterlands are full of Bernie-voting rose-wearing DSA fuckers drinking your redneck beer, buying your redneck groceries and engaging you in fucking conversation about the school levy.

Here's what I think: I think way too many of the Republican right-wing small-government ideologues have been on tape way too many times saying exactly the wrong thing over and over and over. People have sand in their panties right now about the absence of Joe Biden without observing that right now, the race is between Trump and "not Trump" and the constructive thing is to let Trump keep going on TV during prime time and appear keenly non-presidential. 77% of respondents polled want vote-by-mail. That's an eaaaaasy state initiative. Will it happen this time? I dunno. What I do know is that we're in the middle of a census right about the time everyone's being forced to stay home and it doesn't ask about immigration status but it does give you ten different choices of hispanic.

I don't know if you could craft a better repudiation of 'boomer, conservative thought than COVID-19. I'm not thankful we're going through it, but I'm not pessimistic about what happens after. Amazon got zero subsidies for building in NYC and they did anyway and that's because at the local level, Amazon got the middle finger.

I don't think we serve up rare cuts of oligarch. I think the smart money recognizes that the prudent move is to take a lower profile and I think that the rest of the country recognizes that the way we used to do stuff is inferior to most of the choices we're about to make.

I'm your huckleberry.

Here's the way to look at it: COVID-19 is "the flu" if "the flu" were more contagious, could not be inoculated against and killed more old people. We've had the flu vaccine since 1938. Yeah, the flu shot has been optional but it's been around. You can get it at CVS. It probably costs $25 with no insurance, between $10 and $0 with.

"More contagious" "could not be inoculated against" and "killed more old people" are three statements that go right over your head. "more contagious" means "you're more likely to get it" but you've survived flu every goddamn time so what's the big deal. "could not be inoculated against" means "you're more likely to get it" but again, you've survived the flu every goddamn time. "Killed more old people" you immediately go to "but old people die" and then right on to "old people die of the flu" without pausing to consider public health considerations.

It's the public health considerations that you need to focus on.

So we deliver babies. Every hospital we talk to has a protocol for dealing with coronavirus. They all include things like "you get two companions period, no in and out privileges" which means whereas it used to be you, your wife, your doula, your mom, six cousins and your wife's best friend at the hospital, it's now you, your wife and your doula period. Okay, we can do that.

A couple of them include phrasing like "maternity patients showing symptoms of coronavirus will be isolated in a negative pressure room." Okay, makes sense.

But how many negative pressure rooms does your hospital have? And are they anywhere near the maternity ward?

In total, 31 firefighters and 3 police officers would ultimately be quarantined or isolated. As of this writing, 18 are showing symptoms.

Kirkland is down 31 firefighters from one outbreak. Best guess? That's maybe two out of five fire stations. One uncontained outbreak has taken out 40% of Kirkland's emergency response capacity.

And that's with everyone around here freaking balls, by the way. We're cancelling schools, avoiding work. Highways be empty, dawg. Let's say that we're containing it appropriately and knocking that R0 of 2.4(?) down to an R0 of 1.4(?). Our 31 firefighters are going to be 45 people in about another 3 days. Next week it's gonna be 60. Assuming everyone is self-isolating and washing their hands.

Suppose one of those firefighters has a friend who works at Domino's and they shook hands.

“Hey, you guys are supposed to be in self-quarantine,” the firefighter said.

“No, we’re not,” the nurse replied.

“Well, our chain of command talked to your management, and they say something different.”

The nurse insisted; she hadn’t heard anything, she said.

The firefighter looked down the hall and saw two caregivers in scrubs -- no mask or gown.

“What the hell?” the firefighter thought. “Who is not telling you that you have two suspected coronavirus cases?”

So okay. You're young and spry and you've fought the flu. I'm young and spry and I've fought the flu. I'm either fighting the flu or coronavirus and I hope to fuck it's coronavirus because then at least I'll have it out of the way. But I've been able to sum up the energy for light soldering and occasional shopping for about ten days now. I haven't been hit this bad by flu in maybe six years - back when I didn't do flu shots 'cuz I was lazy. My contribution to the economy since late February has been netflix and chill.

But between you, your wife and your wife's best friend? Statistically, one of you is losing a parent to this. And you're losing them to pneumonia, and you're losing them to respiratory collapse, and if your parents are lucky, they're going to the hospital but if they're not, the American Hospital Association is estimating about 1.9 million people are going to the ICU over this

And there are about 60,000 ventilators in the United States.

No, they ain't all going at once. But this is an exponential situation.

Fundamentally? More people are going to get sick, and they're going to get more sick than usual, and our healthcare system does not have the capacity for it. Which means we're going to be experiencing a more severe flu season with less medical care. And that is generally bad for the vulnerable.

Does that make sense?

exhales

Haven't shared what was going with me in a while here. I seem to mainly find time to do it when I am on holidays at home. So, out of my childhood room, I give you my last 6 months of living.

health

I was doing good, really good. Found my way back to Karate, was climbing in between, staying active as a way to manage the stress that is building up in my last year of PhD. And then it happened, I misplaced my foot during sparring, my ankle twisted, and then my knee followed. I heard it. I never thought that I would hear it. The pain was instant. Fast forward by a week of swollen joints and not knowing what is up, my ACL ripped. And that just before summer/festival season. It felt like this started a process of extreme ups and downs that went on until last wednesday. I decided to still go to the burn I wanted to do go. Twisted my unstable knee twice there, didn't care, had surgery in august. Felt like a vegetable for 3-4 weeks. Been recovering well. Twisted my knee again, worried that it ripped again, still don't know if it is fine but doctor says it feels okay, probably not ripped. I figure, either case, I need to get my muscles back, focus on physio and training my legs with the hope that all is fine.

Apart from my knee. I have had stomach troubles for a while and I couldn't quite figure it out. I still don't know exactly, but it seems to be connected with milk products. When I leave them out, reduce my meat/fat intake, eat more salad, my stomach is more happy. Maybe I should listen to my body. Chances are I became lactose intolerant with age? Wasn't sure this could happen. Heard some anecdotes from people where it happened to them during some stressful periods.

PhD

Its the last sprint, my friends. After having my last thesis advisory committee meeting I was told to wrap it up until June next year. Problem is, the main results of the thesis are just being uncovered now. Hypothesis that I have been following for the past year (and my boss believing/betting on for at least that long) are turning out to be false. I am accepting it and looking for other solutions, my boss is not. This lead to one of my hardest progress reports last week. It felt like going into cognitive war with someone who was waaaay too lucky in his career. I felt sick and even more disillusioned by scientists afterwards. How can you claim that you are doing hypothesis driven science and then no accept the results of all the experiments that have been done? Bottom line, he wants to have a look at my raw data of two years of experiments because he doesn'T understand my simple analysis of calcium signals. Funny thing is, all that happened just 30 minutes after he declared in front of the whole group that he is giving me a 1000€ bonus for all the things I do for the lab. Not exactly "carrot and stick" but it felt like it, somehow.

Anyway, it seems like its time to fire the engines up to 120% and bulldoze through the next months. I am not sure what I am going to do afterwards. I promised myself that I won't stay in science unless I am going something that I am really passionate about. So I have been looking for labs that work on the claustrum as I am still obsessed with the neuroscience of psychedelics. I have made positive contact with one PI in the UK where I have a feeling that I could learn something. There is another one in Jerusalem that I have to yet contact...

Family

On the 12.10., is my fathers birthday. On the 12.10.2019, at 10 in the morning, while frying some breakfast eggs, my father had a sudden cardiac death. Luckily, my mother and grandma were home. They heard a noise in the kitchen, found him, and my mother started to reanimate while my grandma ran out to the street to catch the ambulance that was on its way (because we don't have addresses). After 10 minutes of reanimation, a guy on a motorcycle arrived with a defibrillator kit. They introduced those mobile units because of the crazy traffic situation in Israel. The streets are always packed and people don't know how to open up a rescue alley. He gave my father a shock, got his pulse back. Lost it again, shocked him again. Went like this for another 3 times. 10 minutes after the mobile unit, the ambulance arrived and took him to the hospital. Overall, it took 45 minutes from the moment my mother called until he was at the hospital.

When my mother called, around 12 am, I was having late breakfast and planning to call my father to wish him a happy birthday. I was surprised to be called by my mother and sister at the same time, instead. I instantly felt something was wrong. I picked up and listened to my crying mother. My mind went cold and analytic. I remember asking he for the details and time it took for things to evolve. My medical studies popped up again, remembering that 3 minutes without air could already start the brain damage. In my head, I thought him dead. And then the sadness kicked in and I was in agony. She told me that they had to do two stents and put him in hypothermia to help reduce the damage. So he was in a coma, without us able to say whether he will wake up, or not.

There was only one reflex, find a flight and head back home. This is also when I realised that I am not prepared for such an emergency. Dishing out 1000€ for a flight ticket is not something my PhD finances could handle so lightly. But that is another issue. I found a flight for next day in the morning. Already at the german airport, my mom called me to tell me that he woke up. Completely confused, but seems to still have many of his normal function.

Fast forward a few hours. I am standing in his room in the hospital, in shock. My father had a memory span of 3 minutes. I had no clue what to feel in that moment. Relief that he is alive and survived? Worry for how his life will continue if this is how he states? My irrational mind was in control and it seemed to block out all the things I learned about post-operative symptoms and delirium because boy, the next week was one hell of a ride.

During the following week, he had to do another two stents (correct a previous one, and open another one). This was all too surprising to us. My father is a thin and rather healthy-looking guy. How could it be that 2/3 of his heart wasn't being perfused? Simple answer, 35 years of cigarettes. Delirium does weird things with you. You can't really sleep as you wake up every 5-10 minutes throughout the night. You forget all kinds of shit which leads to repeating all kind of stuff. You do weird things like ordering 3 skinned rabbits from 3 people at 6 A.M. which I had to drive around town to collect. Or, broadcast funny pictures of your 75-year old sister (who lost her husband a year ago) you took with your newly discovered gender swap filter on snapchat, with the purpose to find her a new husband (why did we give him his phone back???).

This was of course all also mixed with blaming us. We, my sister, my mother, and I are the reason this happened to him. Because we are not close to him and studying in Germany. Because my mother is "driving me crazy", which means, translated, she does not follow his orders. And that after her being the only reason he is still alive.

It was a hard week. And a hard month afterwards (specially for my mom). But now, just 2 months afterwards, he seems fine. He had to get another stent to open up that last missing branch. He is taking his meds. He quit smoking. He is less aggressive (seems like it at least). He hasn't been to work yet, which is good. But something changed. We are all scared that this could happen at any instant now, again.

relationship

I realise, now that I wrote that word above, that my stomach starts to hurt and I am hitting a mental roadblock in my head that is trying to stop me from writing or dealing with what happened. Do I listen to my body/mind or are the misaligned?

Anyway. In July, just before the ACL surgery and the burn, I met a cool girl. She was fun, shared many of my hobbies, is an Imogen Heap fan, liked raving, eating, and binging TV shows. I got interested. It felt nice. So things developed. And we got to know each other better. Our good corners, our weird corners. All of that in parallel to me being strapped to a bed most of the time without the ability to do much because of my leg. But it was a nice time. However, at some points past the first month or 1.5 months since we started dating, I started to get weird thoughts. I caught myself worrying about the problems the future will bring more often than enjoying the current time with her. My plans were to finish the PhD and leave. And now I am heading towards a relationship with a 34 year old woman (5 years older than me) that is feeling good but I know that if I commit full on to this, I will not be able to leave. I talked to her and told her what was in my mind. She said we should stay in the present and not worry about the future. This silenced the voices in my head for a little. But rather, it made them quieter for a while, because they came back, and started to get louder and louder.

The following two months, I caught myself constantly switching between the worry about the future and questioning the relationship and enjoying the time with her. She was caring and lowing. She showered me with love and I could feel it in everything she did. And it felt good to be loved like this. But I also realised, that I am not giving her or will probably never hive her that love back. In any form. There was a moment where I "snapped out" of it and know that I am not in love. Not in the way that she is looking at me and it made me feel very guilty. To cut a long process short, at one evening, where I was again trapped in the "being here and being there" feeling, I decided to let loose of all the thoughts I had jumbled up in my head, with the hope that some clarity will crystallise out of it. It ended up to be the night we broke up. And that was not my plan. But it was inevitable, at least in my view. This was 3 weeks ago. And it was hard. It was hard seeing her hurt. Hard letting go of someone that loved me this much. But I saw no other way. Doubt and sadness mixed with feelings of relief. Did I do the right thing? Did I just throw away something that I will regret in the future? Was I chasing something that doesn't exist?

The thing is. I know how I feel when I am madly in love. I had that same thing happen to me a year ago. Back then, the situation was switched. But I remember, that in that state of mind, nothing was impossible. Whenever I looked into the future, I saw solutions. Whether it was the "jew dating arab" problem, or, the geographical situation, or, money... Nothing was a problem. But now, I only saw the problems. Which hinted me that I am in no way close to feeling the same way I felt last year.

Even though I went a long way from being emotional popsicle that I made myself become in highschool, I am no way close to being emotionally open or understanding my emotions. And this whole story is again an example of that. Whenever I have a hand-written letter in my mailbox, it is never a nice one. This time it was also no exception. One day before my flight home, I get a looong letter from her and all I read was pain and sadness. And it hurt me a lot. It pains me to see the damage I did, again. And I wonder if there will be a time where I will not do this damage anymore...

How does obesity happen?

Pearl Harbor. Walk with me.

______________________________________________________

There are well-known and less-well-known consequences of American involvement in WWII. It's common knowledge that the eventual nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki set up the Cold War which was the ultimate battleground between capitalism and communism. Less well-known is the fact that the United States didn't ultimately win the war because of the atom bomb but because of our powers of industrial and agricultural production.

Marc Reisner argued that the Army Corps of Engineers won WWII with Grand Coulee Dam. It produced an impossible surplus of power when it was brought online; it had no customers. Then the war broke out and Americans were able to refine aluminum (an electrically-intensive process; the Intalco plant in Blaine, WA uses more electricity than Los Angeles) at a fraction of the price of anyone else in the world.

But in addition to aluminum, the impossible edge in oil refining really took off in WWII. Germany ground to a halt when we took their oil fields in North Africa. Meanwhile our fields in California and Texas turned out gasoline in quantities unmatched anywhere else in the world. And when you make gas, you can also make fertilizer. And when you've converted the Great American Desert to "the Heartland" you make food. You make food that travels. You make corn, potatoes and rice. And you feed that corn and rice to chickens, cows and pigs. And you drop food on the Russians, you drop food on the Chinese, you ship food to England and Australia, and while Germany and Japan are wracked with famine you share your American bounty around.

An interesting side note: because it was a Japanese attack, the safe thing to do, obviously, is lock up all the Japanese. Especially as they're sitting on a bunch of plum farmland on the West coast. You know, the one closest to the Japanese Empire. The one full of refugees from the Dust Bowl. Itinerant farmers from the South and the Midwest who came to California and starved because there are only so may people to pick oranges and strawberries. The ones who will thank you and vote for you and keep growing oranges and strawberries and everything else on formerly-Japanese farms they bought for pennies on the dollar when their original owners get shipped off to Manzanar.

So now Europe is in ruins and the Marshall Plan is going to make everything better. Ship that food out. Soft power! But it's got to travel. Hedgerow to Hedgerow we'll even push the Soviets around by selling it when they behave and withholding it when they don't. But it's got to travel. So corn, rice, soy and potatoes are food. We'll do anything we can to grow more food so that we can influence the behavior of the world with food. We'll subsidize the shit out of food so that everyone is growing food. Meanwhile those now-rich farmers on the West Coast who are growing carrots and olives and lettuce and spinach and oranges and apples? Yeah, they don't need any competition. They don't grow food because then those uppity black folx might go into competition with them for the high-value stuff. So they grow specialty crops. And it's assigned a fair market value.

A market value that goes up because you don't need to eat "specialty crops," not really. After all, the Irish subsisted off of potatoes and potatoes are food. And corn can be made into anything, man. It can be made into sugar - sugar that's way cheaper than cane sugar! It can be fed to cows - way cheaper than grass! It can be fed to chickens! Pigs are less likely to eat it, so pig farming largely goes away (it's come back with a vengeance because the Chinese have a preference for pork but as a foodstuff it's consumption by Americans has plummeted). But Americans eat corn, and things that eat corn, and there's so much excess corn and rice and soy when we're not shipping it all over the world to cajole our foreign policy needs through soft power that there are entire divisions of the USDA trying to figure out what to do with all the stuff.

And you know capitalism. Make more money. Finished products make more money than raw ingredients; you'll get so much more for a box of macaroni and cheese than you will for wheat and milk. Process the shit out of it and it'll keep forever. Process the shit out of it and it'll travel far. Process the shit out of it and you can turn it into whatever flavor you want it to be. Process the shit out of it and you can sell it to anyone, anywhere forever.

Somewhere around here we've got an article that argues the dominant species on earth isn't humans, it's corn. After all, we've basically given over our food production to it. A Wendy's meal, if I recall correctly, was ultimately about 80% corn (including the French fries). And against that we've got "specialty crops" that we have to refrigerate to get them across country and there are vast swaths of the US where "specialty crops" aren't even sold because it's so easy and cheap to get food. A box of Little Debbie snack cakes costs less than a head of lettuce. And a box of Little Debbie snack cakes will keep you alive if you're starving. And a box of Little Debbie snack cakes will sit on the shelf for nine months or more and nobody will be the wiser. The power goes out on that head of lettuce and it's garbage before morning.

And it's fuckin' lettuce.

Meanwhile we're all working harder for less, working longer for less, driving farther for less. The calories are easy and the nutrition is hard and that's before you recognize that we've arranged our entire food economy around food not "specialty crops." Reuters pointed out yesterday that one in three workers also has some form of job in the gig economy; even if we're working 40 hours a week (we're not, we're working 47) we're also filling our spare time with TaskRabbit, with Uber, with Mechanical Turk. And as humans, we're biologically programmed to pack on pounds when we're stressed because stress means starvation. I think it was Richard Wrangham who pointed out that there have only been about 125,000 generations since homo habilus split off from Australopithecus. Homo Sapiens is only 7500 generations. Go to Mile High Stadium, start "The Wave" and by the time it makes its way back round to you, the person next to you is a Neanderthal.

So here we are. Impossibly cheap calories, impossibly sedentary lifestyles, impossible stressors. Fight or flight doesn't care if it's a mastodon or an impending bankruptcy they'll both keep you up at night. At least if it's a mastodon you can run. We can't. So we get fat. And because we're Americans, and we've got a nice Protestant work ethic, and because we're rugged individualists, if you're fat it's a personal failing. Society hasn't let you down, the system hasn't failed you, you're a glutton and you should feel bad.

Is there any solution?

Well, I'd start with

1) Take it the fuck easier on the poor and lower middle class.

2) Prioritize nutrition over calories. Know who used to be in charge of school nutrition? The goddamn Department of Defense. Then Nixon kicked 'em out and Reagan categorized ketchup as a fruit.

3) Make healthcare a nonprofit industry again. Know what's stupid cheap? Diet, exercise and sleep. Know what's crazy expensive? The time of medical professionals. Know where you can't make any money? Diet, exercise and sleep. Know where your profit centers are? Prescription drugs.

Weight Watchers costs around $700 a month - including food. They get an extra $13 a week to tell you "atta boy! You're doing good!" Insulin costs around $500 a month. No food. Insurance pays for insulin, usually. It rarely pays for Weight Watchers. Can you imagine what our society looked like if we had, you know, nutrition?

The fundamental basis of this article is "we know how to make people healthier, but we don't give a shit." I think it's more than that. It's more than tradition. It's that in order to solve the problem, we have to break capitalism.

And nobody wants to break capitalism.

You can't just post an interesting point dataset mapped in a less cool way than I hoped and expect me to not give it a shot myself:

Full size. I assumed 15 mile visibility. ButterflyEffect.

I'll totally pretend to give you answers.

What is killing me this time - compared to all the other challenges I faced in life - is that this one; first, is not in my hand and I am simply sitting there and suffering, and second, it affects more than just myself.

know the difference between FEELING helpless and BEING helpless.

So okay. You went on a trip and met a girl and felt titillated and infatuated for the first time in a while. Happens to literally every person in a long-term relationship. I flirt recklessly. My wife knows I do. She also knows I come home to her because a lot of it is situational. Infatuation is exploring the possibilities. Love is cherishing the realities. You may not be in love with Sarah but she's also not surprising you much anymore. Novelty is a hell of a drug.

And okay. Sarah accepted that she cares more about you than you care about her, and you, for some dumb goddamn reason, decided to keep her around as a fuckbuddy until AUGUST or some shit.

This is the only thing I'm going to give you a ration of shit for. You're in a shitty place. It sucks. I'm sorry. I'ma give you some pathways I promise but for a minute, sit there and feel bad for this. Because it's a shitty thing to do to another human being. "I don't feel that we have a future together but... let's keep rubbing our genitals together for another four months because we have nothing better to do." It's one thing if you're both at "eh" in the relationship but if you're already acknowledging that she's way more into you than you are into her, keeping her on the leash is fuckin' cruel, dude. And it's going to cause things to cascade one of three ways:

(1) She's going to muster up her self-esteem and drop you like a hot rock because who the fuck are you to string her along like that after you've both acknowledged that she's got feelings you can't reciprocate.

(2) She's going to take what she can get for as long as she can get it and try to win you over to her way of thinking HONESTLY. You've given her a deadline, you've given her an ultimatum, you've given her a way forward: how to win a guy in 120 days. And, as a bonus, she gets to bump uglies.

(3) She's going to take what she can get for as long as she can get it and try to win you over to her way of thinking BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. You've given her a deadline, you've given her an ultimatum, you've given her a way forward: how to land your man in one easy step. And, as a bonus, you already had a pregnancy scare 5 weeks ago.

If I understand correctly, you have not been present at any doctor's appointments. You have her word that she's pregnant. If you believe her, that's plenty evidence enough. If you don't believe her, she wouldn't be the first person to fake a pregnancy in order to push a guy into marriage. It's happened to three of my friends, in fact. But don't focus on that. In the end it doesn't matter. Those three pathways are independent of pregnancy, real or feigned; the pregnancy is a complication but it does not affect the fundamental core of your relationship with Sarah.

Your relationship with your father is coloring your current situation way too much. Makes sense. Entirely natural. By all means analyze it, reflect on it, react to it, but then set it aside because the relationship that matters now is between you, your potential child, and the mother of that potential child. That's where a lot of the helplessness is coming from: you had no power over your father yet he still holds power over you. You have no power over this child yet this child holds power over you. Hold it up to the light, nod at it, then put it back in the drawer.

Your current reaction to Sarah has a lot to do with the fact that you thought you killed all responsibility to the relationship yet still managed to reap the benefits. Yet here she is, drowning you in responsibility and threatening to cut you off entirely from any benefits. She's making it clear that you are unnecessary to her future plans, much like you made it clear that she was unnecessary to yours. What was the word? "Paralyzed." All right. You're frozen. You can't move, you can't breathe, and you're freaking out. Hold it up to the light, nod at it, then put it back in the drawer.

NOW

You're all about abortion which leads me to believe that divorce doesn't offend your religious sensibilities. You're freaking out about your family's reaction to a kid out of wedlock. And you're fixated on this child's future alienation because you're going to have no input into their life. Yet the obvious solution - marry the girl - has been ruled out, out of hand, with no discussion whatsoever. Why is that?

Marry the girl. Now you've got a say in the kid's upbringing. Commit to not being a stranger. Get to know her family and friends. Commit to three more years in Germany, three more years of trying to see what kind of life you can build with Sarah. It's the first two years of a child's life that govern so much of their future and having two parents that love them under one roof where they feel safe and loved makes all the difference in the world.

If you're not into it within three years, part amicably. Support your child. Be a part of their life. Be anchored in her family. Be a relative that doesn't vanish. Be a father. You can be travel dad no problem. After you've front-loaded the commitment it'll be nearly impossible to shrug you off, particularly if you comport yourself like a gentleman. And fuckin' hell, you may discover that having something in common with Sarah, who is about to give over her body and time for the next two years to the life and well-being of your firstborn, makes her someone you can love more.

You might be surprised what happens when you extend the girl some trust and empathy. You might find she warms up into more of a person you want her to be. And, you might discover that she miscarries and you didn't have to blow up your life. Maybe you go through with the wedding, maybe you drop her like a hot rock and learn to never again string along a girl who likes you more than you like her.

Either way, your best move is to commit to a wedding and let it play out for better or worse. All the bullshit above aside, saying I'm going to do this means you're DOING something which breaks you free from paralysis. You're making a move, you're making a decision, you're acting towards your own future, and you're forcing the probability cascade to break down in your favor.

- You propose to the girl. She turns you down. You say you want to help. She turns you down. You try to be in the kid's life. She turns you down. You've done all you can, your father can't resent you completely, and the door is open to be a part later.

- You propose to the girl. She says yes. You get married, have a kid, stick it out as long as you can, and end up being Foreign Dad. By then you're more settled financially, you have a better idea what your future holds and you've influenced your child's future in an immeasurably positive way.

- You propose to the girl. She says yes. The pregnancy disappears. You walk away unscathed.

- You propose to the girl. She says yes. The pregnancy disappears. You find your feelings towards Sarah have changed. To be continued, for better or worse.

- You propose to the girl. She says yes. You have a family and live happily ever after.

Either way, when you've decided you no longer care for someone as much as they care for you, stop fucking them for both your sakes.

I know. And that's why I refuse to humor you.

The difference between being glum about a physiological limitation or not being glum about a physiological limitation is glumness. Worse, the worse your attitude the worse your hormonal and chemical balance. The more you act like a little bitch, the longer you will be a little bitch, the harder it will be to not be a little bitch... physiologically.

Toughen the fuck up. Not because I think less of you but because your strongest ally in this is yourself and you sell yourself short at the drop of a hat.