gratitudes, urologist, growing up in america, lichen, who runs the white house?
yesterday i was grateful for what i accomplished...
today i am looking forward to getting past my urology appointment...
i have a urology appointment today... i am going specifically to start the process of making sure my prostate is healthy, or, if not, beginning to deal with that... prostate cancer runs in my family... my father and two maternal uncles had it... one of the uncles died of complications from it... my default position is that i have or am developing it... i will be very happy if that is not the case, but that is not what i am expecting... i have no symptoms that i am aware of... early detection is the game here... i have tried not to be anxious about it... but of course i am... as you get older, the things that go bump in the dark are mostly health related... something will get you sooner or later... the goal is to make that later and to have a good quality of life until you get there...
some important off year election races... mayor of nyc... governor of nj... a redistricting proposition in california... a lot is at stake... personally i hope it is a mini blue wave on its way to being a tsunami... the federal government is sending national guard units to observe the elections in california and new jersey... hopefully observe is all they do... the fear is that they will do more than that... we may be getting a hint of what to expect in the midterms next year...
i was reading an interview with author chris kraus titled, intriguingly, to grow up in america damages people for life... that somehow fits the moment we are in... here is the full quote from the body of the article...
Chris Kraus: “To Grow Up in America Damages People for Life” | AnOther
To grow up in America damages people for life, because bullying and ostracisation is lurking around every corner.
among my biggest fears of pursuing feminine presentation was that i would be rejected... ostracized... this has not been remotely the case... it helps that i am at an age where people are less concerned by my "eccentricities"... but honestly, the support from friends and strangers has been amazing... so maybe america doesn't have to be so damaging...
another interesting quote from the kraus interview...
Chris Kraus: “To Grow Up in America Damages People for Life” | AnOther
CK: I mean, the power of it. There’s a line in the book where he is describing what happens when he starts again after a period of sobriety, and he says, “it always starts with a plan”. And as soon as the plan appears in your mind, it becomes inevitable. You could almost say that about the murder. On some level, as soon as the plan occurs, it becomes inevitable.
the idea of the inevitability of something once a plan has been formulated...
i read heather cox richardson daily... it is usually depressing and frightening... definitely skewed towards the liberal side of the story and as such, perhaps more depressing and frightening than right leaning publications, but hcr doesn't make things up...
i decided i need to make sure i read things that are uplifting or interesting in a positive way every day... one of my main sources for uplifting and interesting in a positive way is the marginalian, formerly brain pickings, by maria popover...
this morning she posted personal musings about how lichen offer adaptive strategies for humans...
Adapt to external adversities with an internal shift. When environmental conditions harshen, lichens can shut down their metabolism for extended periods, sometimes decades. This allows them to thrive in nearly every environment on Earth — from tide pools to mountaintops, from the hottest deserts to the iciest tundra. They have survived simulations of Martian conditions and even the black severity of outer space: When a team of Spanish scientists sent the common map lichen Rhizocarpon geographicum and the bright orange wonder Rusavskia elegans aboard a Russian spacecraft to be exposed to cosmic radiation for 15 days, the lichens returned to Earth unperturbed and resumed their reproductive cycles.
this one struck me because i feel the present historical moment is one of "cosmic radiation"... perhaps of a giant solar flare... i hope we can get through it without major trauma... i am pessimistic on that front... there has already been a lot of trauma... and it is hard to see how we get past this moment without significant violence...
here is another one...
Have great patience with the arc of your life. Lichens, which are among the oldest living things on Earth, grow at the tectonic pace of less than a millimeter per year. The continent I now live on and the continent on which I was born are drifting apart more than 250 times as fast. The Moon is leaving us four hundred times faster.
i have heard patience is a virtue... i have always been a pretty patient person... i find my patience running thing these days... but i work on my coping strategy daily...
i will sign off with this question from heather cox richardson...
If, among all the disinformation and repetition Trump spouted in that interview, he did not know who he was pardoning, who’s running the Oval Office?