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Let’s talk respirators!

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

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nuclearspaceheater:

brin-bellway:

What’s a respirator?

Short version: it’s like a mask, but better. *Much* better.

Let’s put the headline news up front: if you maintain an airtight seal at all times, a P100 respirator blocks 99.97% of incoming viral particles. [source]

Yeah. 99.97%. That’s a *lot*.

(Specifically, we are going to be talking about what’s called “elastomeric” respirators. These have a base unit made of plastic and silicone, with attachment points on the cheeks for swappable filters.)

—

99.97%?! What’s the catch?! There’s gotta be a catch, right?

A few catches, but generally nothing dealbreaking.

The filtered air is very dry: take frequent breaks if you can to go outside (or somewhere else with clean air) and drink some water. I work 4 – 5 hour shifts for 2 – 3 straight days a week with a respirator and no water breaks, and that’s *doable* but dehydrating.

They muffle your voice a bit more than masks do. You’ll have to speak louder and probably be more careful with enunciation than usual, and talking on the phone will be very difficult.

The 99.97% figure is for *incoming* air. An elastomeric respirator does not, by default, filter outgoing air at all. This is okay for two reasons: one, since you can’t spread a disease you don’t have, protecting yourself *is* protecting others. Two, for even more protection of others you can tape a layer of cloth over the valve on the bottom of the respirator.

They cost more up-front (about USD$30 for a base unit and USD$11 per pair of filters), but they last for such a long time (more on that later) that in the long run it’s actually very economical.

—

So why isn’t everyone using them already?

Mostly because people don’t know about them. Cloth masks were supposed to be a stopgap measure until we had a chance to manufacture more respirators, but word never got out when the respirators had caught up. They do *sometimes* go out of stock still, but they’re very often available now.

Also, the kind of respirators we’re going to be talking about here are aimed at construction workers, which means people looking for “medical” masks tend to overlook them. But a particle is a particle, and there’s no reason you can’t use construction respirators against germs. In fact, in some ways they work even *better* against germs than they do against construction fumes.

—

What do I need to know about how to wear them?

First, check the fit. Take off your glasses if you have them, then put the base unit on and adjust the straps until the seal is airtight without being painful. You won’t be able to get an airtight seal if there’s facial hair in the way: you’ll need to at *least* trim it down very far, and probably shave it.

To confirm that the seal is airtight, there are two methods depending on whether the filters are attached right now.

  • If the filters are *not* attached: cover the attachment points with your palms and try to breathe *in*. If you can’t, the seal is airtight. (Except for the attachment points themselves, of course: *those* are big gaping holes in your seal if they don’t have filters on them. But we’ll be fixing that soon.)
  • If the filters *are* attached: cover the valve at the bottom with your palm and try to breathe *out*. If you can’t, the seal is airtight.

(You’ll want to confirm the seal every time you put the respirator on.)

Next, take a pair of filters and screw them onto the attachment points. (This is much easier to do if you’re not wearing the respirator while you’re doing it.) Be sure to screw them on very tightly, otherwise they might fall off. (I didn’t screw them on tightly enough my first time, and it was pretty scary when one of them fell off in the middle of a crowded restaurant. But now that I’ve gotten them on correctly, they stay put.)

Now you can wear it. If you have glasses, take them off first, then gently rest them on top of the respirator’s nose once you’ve put it on. Check the seal as above to make sure it’s airtight.

Once a week or after every outing, whichever is less frequent, wipe down the silicone (the part that sticks to your face and forms the seal) with some mild cleaning solution to keep the skin oils from building up. You can also wipe down the outside if you are concerned about fomites, but note that of the two styles of filter (more on that later) you can *only* wipe down the plastic cartridges, *not* the pink cloth circles. Here is the official manufacturer’s guide on cleaning these respirators [link]: note that “quat” is janitorial jargon for the type of cleaning solution that Lysol wipes are dipped in.

(Bonus tip: if you’re having trouble sourcing disinfectant wipes, look for bottles of “quaternary ammonium” *next* to the barren disinfectant-wipe section at the grocery store, put it in a spray bottle diluted to the level stated on the bottle instructions, then heavily spritz a paper towel with it. Voila, a disinfectant wipe!)

According to the CDC [link], the filters last somewhere between a month and a year depending on how much you need to conserve resources and how well you can avoid getting them wet or dirty. The main limiting factor on longevity is that the filters get clogged with fumes and dust from the construction work: if you’re not *doing* construction work or similar fume-heavy activities, they can keep going for ages. If you can still breathe through it and the filter hasn’t been wet, you’re good.

—

Where can I get them?

Depends on where you live.

United States of America:

Base unit (currently USD$27.81): https://www.amazon.com/3M-Facepiece-Respirator-Respiratory-Protection/dp/B008MCUT86

Filters:

If possible, I recommend getting them from ULine: https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-20007/Reusable-Respirators/3M-7093-Hard-Shell-Particulate-Filter-P100

ULine has the water-resistant plastic-cartridge filters, is a very reputable dealer, and sells for a good per-pair price. The only trouble is that they sell 6 pairs at a time: split a pack with a group of 3 people if you can, so that each of you will have one spare set.

If you really need a smaller pack or if ULine is out of stock, you *can* get the pink-circle kind from Amazon: 3 pairs for USD$28.90 (https://www.amazon.com/3M-2091-Particulate-Filter-Pairs/dp/B00KYX8JBU), 1 pair for USD$12.80 (https://www.amazon.com/3M-50051131070009-Particulate-Filter-2091/dp/B07571LKP4).

The pink-circle filters are *not* water-resistant: try not to stay out in the rain very long or otherwise get them wet, and don’t try to disinfect them (just avoid touching them instead, and wash your hands if you do have to). Also, counterfeits occasionally slip into Amazon’s stocks: try Amazon filters on when you first get them, and if you can still smell anything through them, demand a replacement. You should *not* be able to smell anything through a true P100 filter.

Canada:

Base unit (CAD$44.19): https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B008MCUT86/

Filters:

Canada has branches of both ULine and Amazon. Read the tips I gave the Americans on filter selection: the same things apply.

ULine (6 pairs for CAD$89): https://www.uline.ca/Product/Detail/S-20007/Reusable-Respirators/3M-7093-Hard-Shell-Particulate-Filter-P100

Amazon (2 pairs for CAD$24.71): https://www.amazon.ca/Particulate-Nuisance-Organic-Release-2097PA1/dp/B007STCT00/

Amazon (1 pair for CAD$16.95): https://www.amazon.ca/3M-2097-Particulate-Filter/dp/B00328IAO0/

Other countries:

I don’t have links for these on hand. For the base unit, check your hardware and general stores for “3M model 7502 respirators”; for the filters, look for “3M bayonet-style P100 filters” and prefer the plastic cartridges over the pink circles if possible. If you can’t find any of those, try looking into other elastomeric respirators, but I don’t have any experience with other ones so you’d be on your own there. Remember that you should not be able to smell anything through an airtight P100 respirator: if you put the filters on and can still smell stuff, something’s wrong with those filters, go back to the seller and get them to either give you a better set or refund you.

—

Getting a respirator has been a life-changer for me, and I hope it can help you too. If you found this useful or know someone who would, please let people know.

Important correction: You can actually smell lots of things thru a properly working, plain P100 respirator, because many of the things that we can smell are gasses, which particulate filters do nothing against. This is fine for this purpose: SARS-CoV-2 and droplets that carry it are particles.

As I recall, I was surprised that you’d stopped smelling things when you got yours, but found out that the specific filters you were using were P100 filters with nuisance organic vapor filtering. These contain a relatively small amount of activated carbon which absorbs organic vapors at levels below occupational exposure limits that would require heavier vapor protection, as well as most of the vapors you’d smell in ordinary life, at ordinary concentrations.

Huh. That’s very good to know. I defer to your expertise.

(I’d seen multiple reviews saying that the *two* ways of detecting counterfeits were “suspiciously light” and “scent infiltration”, but since the intended audience doesn’t already have experience with these and wouldn’t know when one feels suspiciously light, I only kept the second one in.)

I would, in that case, recommend nuisance organic vapor filtering for the psychological benefits: respirator-specific anosmia is a great way to subconsciously reassure yourself that you’re not getting exposed to anything *else* in the air. (Admittedly this may be more of a me thing: since I’ve been using anti-pollen masks for years, I’m very accustomed to judging air quality by the amount of scent that gets through. (For pollen, the occasional whiff and a *bit* of background is generally fine, but if my sense of smell seems completely unimpaired I need to replace my mask.))

—

@nicdevera [link], I have occasionally tried jogging to work when I was running a bit late, and I find I can’t jog for very long in my respirator: I can’t quite get enough airflow. Biking would probably depend on how hard you’re pushing it.

(I get my exercise on a home treadmill, but I recognise that I am incredibly fortunate to have the housing space and stability for one, and also to have gotten it circa 2014 when demand was quite low and you could often pick a used one up for the price of moving it.)

—

It is becoming increasingly clear that I should have put this post under a read-more: not only is it fairly long, it’s going to need updates. @wingedcatgirl, @moral-autism, @sophia-epistemia, @drethelin: I don’t suppose y’all would be willing to go reblog the read-more version instead?

Tags:

#reply via reblog #covid19 #the more you know #oh look an update #illness tw

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Let’s talk respirators!

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

hunterstheorem:

brin-bellway:

What’s a respirator?

Short version: it’s like a mask, but better. *Much* better.

Let’s put the headline news up front: if you maintain an airtight seal at all times, a P100 respirator blocks 99.97% of incoming viral particles. [source]

Yeah. 99.97%. That’s a *lot*.

(Specifically, we are going to be talking about what’s called “elastomeric” respirators. These have a base unit made of plastic and silicone, with attachment points on the cheeks for swappable filters.)

—

99.97%?! What’s the catch?! There’s gotta be a catch, right?

A few catches, but generally nothing dealbreaking.

The filtered air is very dry: take frequent breaks if you can to go outside (or somewhere else with clean air) and drink some water. I work 4 – 5 hour shifts for 2 – 3 straight days a week with a respirator and no water breaks, and that’s *doable* but dehydrating.

They muffle your voice a bit more than masks do. You’ll have to speak louder and probably be more careful with enunciation than usual, and talking on the phone will be very difficult.

The 99.97% figure is for *incoming* air. An elastomeric respirator does not, by default, filter outgoing air at all. This is okay for two reasons: one, since you can’t spread a disease you don’t have, protecting yourself *is* protecting others. Two, for even more protection of others you can tape a layer of cloth over the valve on the bottom of the respirator.

They cost more up-front (about USD$30 for a base unit and USD$11 per pair of filters), but they last for such a long time (more on that later) that in the long run it’s actually very economical.

—

So why isn’t everyone using them already?

Mostly because people don’t know about them. Cloth masks were supposed to be a stopgap measure until we had a chance to manufacture more respirators, but word never got out when the respirators had caught up. They do *sometimes* go out of stock still, but they’re very often available now.

Also, the kind of respirators we’re going to be talking about here are aimed at construction workers, which means people looking for “medical” masks tend to overlook them. But a particle is a particle, and there’s no reason you can’t use construction respirators against germs. In fact, in some ways they work even *better* against germs than they do against construction fumes.

—

What do I need to know about how to wear them?

First, check the fit. Take off your glasses if you have them, then put the base unit on and adjust the straps until the seal is airtight without being painful. You won’t be able to get an airtight seal if there’s facial hair in the way: you’ll need to at *least* trim it down very far, and probably shave it.

To confirm that the seal is airtight, there are two methods depending on whether the filters are attached right now.

  • If the filters are *not* attached: cover the attachment points with your palms and try to breathe *in*. If you can’t, the seal is airtight. (Except for the attachment points themselves, of course: *those* are big gaping holes in your seal if they don’t have filters on them. But we’ll be fixing that soon.)
  • If the filters *are* attached: cover the valve at the bottom with your palm and try to breathe *out*. If you can’t, the seal is airtight.

(You’ll want to confirm the seal every time you put the respirator on.)

Next, take a pair of filters and screw them onto the attachment points. (This is much easier to do if you’re not wearing the respirator while you’re doing it.) Be sure to screw them on very tightly, otherwise they might fall off. (I didn’t screw them on tightly enough my first time, and it was pretty scary when one of them fell off in the middle of a crowded restaurant. But now that I’ve gotten them on correctly, they stay put.)

Now you can wear it. If you have glasses, take them off first, then gently rest them on top of the respirator’s nose once you’ve put it on. Check the seal as above to make sure it’s airtight.

Once a week or after every outing, whichever is less frequent, wipe down the silicone (the part that sticks to your face and forms the seal) with some mild cleaning solution to keep the skin oils from building up. You can also wipe down the outside if you are concerned about fomites, but note that of the two styles of filter (more on that later) you can *only* wipe down the plastic cartridges, *not* the pink cloth circles. Here is the official manufacturer’s guide on cleaning these respirators [link]: note that “quat” is janitorial jargon for the type of cleaning solution that Lysol wipes are dipped in.

(Bonus tip: if you’re having trouble sourcing disinfectant wipes, look for bottles of “quaternary ammonium” *next* to the barren disinfectant-wipe section at the grocery store, put it in a spray bottle diluted to the level stated on the bottle instructions, then heavily spritz a paper towel with it. Voila, a disinfectant wipe!)

According to the CDC [link], the filters last somewhere between a month and a year depending on how much you need to conserve resources and how well you can avoid getting them wet or dirty. The main limiting factor on longevity is that the filters get clogged with fumes and dust from the construction work: if you’re not *doing* construction work or similar fume-heavy activities, they can keep going for ages. If you can still breathe through it and the filter hasn’t been wet, you’re good.

—

Where can I get them?

Depends on where you live.

United States of America:

Base unit (currently USD$27.81): https://www.amazon.com/3M-Facepiece-Respirator-Respiratory-Protection/dp/B008MCUT86

Filters:

If possible, I recommend getting them from ULine: https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-20007/Reusable-Respirators/3M-7093-Hard-Shell-Particulate-Filter-P100

ULine has the water-resistant plastic-cartridge filters, is a very reputable dealer, and sells for a good per-pair price. The only trouble is that they sell 6 pairs at a time: split a pack with a group of 3 people if you can, so that each of you will have one spare set.

If you really need a smaller pack or if ULine is out of stock, you *can* get the pink-circle kind from Amazon: 3 pairs for USD$28.90 (https://www.amazon.com/3M-2091-Particulate-Filter-Pairs/dp/B00KYX8JBU), 1 pair for USD$12.80 (https://www.amazon.com/3M-50051131070009-Particulate-Filter-2091/dp/B07571LKP4).

The pink-circle filters are *not* water-resistant: try not to stay out in the rain very long or otherwise get them wet, and don’t try to disinfect them (just avoid touching them instead, and wash your hands if you do have to). Also, counterfeits occasionally slip into Amazon’s stocks: try Amazon filters on when you first get them, and if you can still smell anything through them, demand a replacement. You should *not* be able to smell anything through a true P100 filter.

Canada:

Base unit (CAD$44.19): https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B008MCUT86/

Filters:

Canada has branches of both ULine and Amazon. Read the tips I gave the Americans on filter selection: the same things apply.

ULine (6 pairs for CAD$89): https://www.uline.ca/Product/Detail/S-20007/Reusable-Respirators/3M-7093-Hard-Shell-Particulate-Filter-P100

Amazon (2 pairs for CAD$24.71): https://www.amazon.ca/Particulate-Nuisance-Organic-Release-2097PA1/dp/B007STCT00/

Amazon (1 pair for CAD$16.95): https://www.amazon.ca/3M-2097-Particulate-Filter/dp/B00328IAO0/

Other countries:

I don’t have links for these on hand. For the base unit, check your hardware and general stores for “3M model 7502 respirators”; for the filters, look for “3M bayonet-style P100 filters” and prefer the plastic cartridges over the pink circles if possible. If you can’t find any of those, try looking into other elastomeric respirators, but I don’t have any experience with other ones so you’d be on your own there. Remember that you should not be able to smell anything through an airtight P100 respirator: if you put the filters on and can still smell stuff, something’s wrong with those filters, go back to the seller and get them to either give you a better set or refund you.

—

Getting a respirator has been a life-changer for me, and I hope it can help you too. If you found this useful or know someone who would, please let people know.

“Normies don’t know about this ridiculous-looking, uncomfortable, and unpleasant thing” is not why people aren’t using these.

Do you really, actually believe that I’m going to reach an audience of *normies* here?

Also, one of the great things about anti-ingress protection is that if other people opt not to wear it, that is *their* problem, not yours. You don’t have to fuck around with the game theory and herd effects and a-*bit*-of-anti-ingress-as-a-consolation-prize of cloth masks: it’s just “each person who wears it is one more person protected”, full stop. If even *one* person starts using a respirator because of this post, that is a job well done.

—

P.S. To be clear: this post was inspired by people complaining about being stuck without human contact for months and (they believe) potentially years at a time, because it was that or probably end up as a COVID vector.

Uncomfortable? Unpleasant? Compared to *what*? Not to solitary confinement.

(Ridiculous-looking, I’ll grant you, and I’ll grant that that deserved a mention.)

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~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

titaniumelemental:

titaniumelemental:

The thing that’s frightened me about the COVID restrictions from the very beginning was a lack of the idea that the mental suffering from social restrictions was something worth balancing with the intended effects. Not that it necessarily does outward the benefit, just that it was at least worth considering. Instead you either got people totally dismissive of the danger of the virus, or people saying “how could you think about [need for human contact phrased to sound as frivolous as possible] when people are dying because it of it?!”

But the thing is, everyone not only accepts some level of risk for themselves, but also accepts some level of risk for other people. That amount isn’t ever zero. In 2019, I had contact with a lot of people that could have potentially spread influenza. I got my flu shot as always, I washed my hands the normal amount, but I did not become a hermit. Now you could argue that my selfish desire to see multiple friends in my apartment at the same time was increasing the possibility of other vulnerable people catching the flu. Didn’t I think about how as much as these people mattered to me I should be putting the needs of others first? But I didn’t, and in that situation no one expected me to.

We are not in that situation now. The magnitude of that risk is radically higher and that’s why I’ve continued to live a radically altered life. But I plan to someday inch back towards the old thing, and we’re all going to have to figure out how much and when. It’s going to be more complicated than treating “your actions affect other people” as a trump card that justifies any and all restrictions.

My lingering, probably paranoid fear since last spring has been: if people around me accept the precedents that anything that puts other people at any increased risk is something you shouldn’t be able to do, and that wanting to be in the same room with people you like is something trivial that no one is willing to stand up for, then what? That sounds like a system of social norms where you let scrupulousity-brain write the rules. So if people don’t actually believe those two ideas (and I don’t think many do) I’d appreciate it if more were willing to say it out loud.

And the point is that I don’t know what an acceptable level of risk to put other people in is, I don’t have numbers, and I get why no one wants to have this conversation because admitting you accept risk to be higher than zero makes you sounds like a horrible person. But we have to acknowledge it some time, or I’m afraid we’ll end up in a situation where you’re expected to feel low-level guilty about any people you interact with the way you’re supposed to about unethical consumption under capitalism or not being sufficiently critical of the problematic media you enjoy. (Which is to say, people whose brains work a certain way will feel low-level guilty about it all the time and others will let it run off their backs and appear to have no comprehension of what the other group feels when they bring it up.)

…what does *the value of other people* have to do with anything? Anti-plague measures are taken for one’s *own* sake, directly and/or to protect [people such that it would suck for you if they got hurt].

The thing that horrifies me about people going “but social interaction” isn’t their self-centredness. I’m self-centred too! But I did the egoist moral calculations and came to the conclusion that the value of in-person social interaction outside my bubble was negligible next to the risk of catching COVID-19, and if other people’s calculations are coming out differently, that means they’re either very bad at moral calculus or (more likely) have very different values. Both of those things are scary! Who knows what these people will come up with next?!

—

(I guess maybe the main thing that makes this whole discourse feel weird to me is: I have never once been coerced into taking anti-plague measures I thought were overkill. I *have* *frequently* been coerced into taking *fewer* anti-plague measures than I wanted to.)

—

>>But I plan to someday inch back towards the old thing, and we’re all going to have to figure out how much and when.

This is my plan:

When everyone in my household has been vaccinated: cease wearing a respirator. Wear a cloth mask in indoor public spaces if official (read: presumably underestimated) local caseload is above 1/200k/day, to reduce the chances of becoming a carrier and reduce the chances of spreading it if I already am (spreading disease to people who aren’t lucky enough to be vaccinated yet is bad for the society in which I live (people can generally be assumed to be doing something useful, even if indirectly), and also sets a bad precedent (I expect to live through other plagues in the future, and quite likely I will be lower in the vaccine triage list for the next plague than I am now: someday it’ll be *me* who hasn’t been vaccinated yet, and I wish to do my part to encourage a norm I would one day benefit from)). Do not *offer* private social gatherings to unvaccinated people, but seriously consider accepting unvaccinated people’s social offers. Freely offer and accept social-gathering offers with vaccinated people: to us COVID-19 is somewhat less dangerous than a cold, and only baseline anti-cold measures [link] apply.

Tags:

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oh my god i’m cleaning out my desk and i found my first phone

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

scotchtapeofficial:

tumblr_inline_oqoru7etay1rpryux_500

it was a fucking house phone that i was so stoked to have because it was mine that i kept in my own room and i cannot believe technology has progressed at the speed of FUCKING light to the point where this is a hilarious artifact to have had in like 6th grade and now theres kindergarteners with iphones

 

princess-peridot:

How did you know if you dialed the right number

 

scotchtapeofficial:

each button made a different tone so the numbers you dialed a lot became a subconscious melody in your head and if you hit the wrong button by accident it would sound like a wrong note in a song you know by heart

 

teaboot:

i can’t beleive that is a legitimate question in my lifetime

 

poipoipoi-2016:

It’s a legitimate question *now*.  

Because people don’t do this and this is terrible UX.  

Do you notice how the question says “how did you know if you dialed the right number” *full stop*, but the *answer* is specific to “numbers you dialed a lot”?

Yeah, dialing numbers you *didn’t* dial a lot–which was just about all of them if you were a kid! it’s not like kids have much reason to talk on house phones, not being in charge of coordinating any appointments and not having had much time to accumulate friends-no-longer-in-physical-proximity!–was *exactly* as anxiety-ridden as it sounds. It’s such a relief to have screens to double-check with. Even *dumbphones* like the phone at work have screens now.

(Plus phones with screens *also* make the button tones, as a second layer of defence. Do y’all not have the button tones on your smartphones? Did you turn them off?)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #history #proud citizen of The Future

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

chongoblog:

Every so often, I remember that like 80% of Tumblr (myself included) was completely enraptured by a show where the big twist was that the main character forgot his childhood friend was murdered by his sister, and for some reason only remembers his childhood friend ever existing as a dog.

 

chongoblog:

And in that same episode it’s revealed that the same sister…..like…..hypnotized (?) the main character’s arch rival into hating him by, like, staring at him for a few minutes.

 

chongoblog:

In our collective defense, this is when we all decided “hey we should probably stop watching Sherlock”

 

ninjakittenarmy:

5d01ab5457d2ef180d7887114afc57bd45c9df8d

 

bemusedlybespectacled:

#Sherlock #I only watched the first two seasons? (via @raptortooth)

god i wish that were me

 

piscine-unrelated:

Wait What?

 

bemusedlybespectacled:

series 3 of sherlock: john marries mary morstan off-camera, the show mocks all the fans who kept the hype up during a two year hiatus, mary turns out to be an assassin who shoots sherlock, during which time he has a near-death-experience dream about his dog redbeard who was put down. also there’s a weird scene where john is revealed to be attracted to danger and so he dated mary because he was subconsciously picking up the fact that she used to be an assassin. also the series ends with sherlock committing murder in front of witnesses to save john and mary.

christmas special: sherlock goes on a bender where he hallucinates a victorian-era case, the episode ends with moriarty seemingly returning via social media and mycroft making a cryptic reference to “the other one.” oh, also any consequences from sherlock committing murder are immediately negated.

series 4: HOO BOY.

episode 1: mary is killed due to her assassin past, but no one really cares since she’s only been in the show for all of four episodes. she keeps coming back as a recorded voice/hallucination.

episode 2: john goes to a new grief counseler. also he keeps hallucinating mary. sherlock is told to solve a murder by the murderer’s daughter, but it turns out that while the murderer has a daughter, it’s not the woman who gave him the case to solve! eurus, sherlock and mycroft’s sister, has simultaneously masqueraded as john’s grief counseler and the murderer’s daughter and a random woman who keeps following sherlock because she’s a master of disguise! (to be fair, this is a legitimately cool reveal and I genuinely didn’t see it coming)

episode 3: HOO. FUCKING. BOY. eurus is sherlock and mycroft’s sister who’s been in a prison for the criminally insane for decades. mycroft has withheld this knowledge from both sherlock and their parents by claiming she died in a fire she started. turns out she’s able to hypnotize people with ???? her superior intellect ???????? and so even talking to her makes people want to do things for her like commit murder ????????? and so she’s somehow able to do things like escape from her scary island prison and then take herself back, blow up baker street, kidnap multiple people, and then pull Saw-esque morality problems on Mycroft and Sherlock and John where she just murders people for funsies with no apparent motive. IT IS DURING THIS SEQUENCE THAT IT IS REVEALED THAT SHERLOCK HAD A HUMAN BEST FRIEND THAT EURUS MURDERED BUT REWROTE HIS OWN MEMORIES TO IMAGINE IT WAS A PET DOG WHO DIED.

Y’ALL. IT IS SO DUMB. IT IS SO DUMB THAT THE FANDOM GENUINELY HAD A CONSPIRACY THEORY GOING FOR A WHILE THAT THERE HAD TO BE A SECRET FOURTH EPISODE – OF A SHOW THAT ONLY EVER HAD THREE EPISODES PER SERIES – BECAUSE THERE WAS NO WAY THAT SOMETHING THAT BAD COULD BE THE FUCKING FINAL EPISODE.

 

earhartsease:

I am so grateful to this post for vindicating my decision never to watch s4

 

pedanther:

There is one thing in the final episode of Sherlock season 4 that I remember fondly: the moment where Mrs Holmes states, in front of her two sons – and in a tone of voice that suggests it’s an obvious fact – that of the two of them Sherlock has always been the grown-up one. I’m not convinced Sherlock had earned that, but Mycroft absolutely had.

(I stopped watching Sherlock after season 2, when I realised that the show I had hoped it would be and believed it had the potential to become was in no way the show its creators were interested in making, but I’ve seen the final episode of season 4 because I happened to be at a friend’s house when they were watching it. Everything about it confirmed that I’d made the right choice.)

 

maryellencarter:

…until I got to pedanther’s reblog (he is the sort of person who reliably snopeses things and points out when you are reading a satire piece, which I appreciate), I was about 90% convinced this was one of those facts-i-just-made-up types of performance art you get on tumblr dot com. what the entire fuck. i hadn’t even heard sherlock was *having* a series four, apparently because all my friends have better taste than to bother with… whatever the fuck that was.

we talk about shows jumping a shark, but i think this is the first time i have heard about one that not only jumped its own shark but jumped *every conceivable shark*. i am very glad i gave up after the orientalism episode, whichever season that was.

(let us say, the first orientalism episode, the one that opened with a girl sensually stroking a teapot. there was probably more than one orientalism episode, just based on how thoroughly moffat seems to keep showing his whole ass in the belief that it’s art.)

Watching the opening scene of BBC Sherlock 3×01 was the first time I had ever seriously wondered whether I was dreaming and had the answer turn out to be “no”.

I gave up about twenty minutes in.

(My mom kept going, and I saw some bits and pieces of that when I was in the same room; the stuff I saw corroborates the above thread.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #BBC Sherlock #death tw #murder cw #amnesia cw #this probably deserves some other warning tag but I am not sure what

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

aa49d59ecd971a3ba9bdd142e45b94af69c121f2

twitblr:

Definitely masking up post-COVID (x) {{the original link didn’t actually lead anywhere; I have replaced it with a genuine source link}}

 

juliainfinland:

Also, let’s keep having soap and disinfectant dispensers everywhere.

 

derinthescarletpescatarian:

By contrast, I’ve been getting the same number of sniffles that I do every year even though there’s no one to catch them from, which is how I learned this year that I’m not prone to minor colds; I’m prone to hayfever.

 

brin-bellway:

Huh, you’re still getting hayfever with a mask? I started wearing a mask in 2017 *specifically* to avoid pollen, and it’s been working wonderfully for me.

Have you been keeping the mask on outside, and when near front doors that people are opening a lot? Does it have a well-fitted nosepiece?

—

I also had no colds in the calendar year 2020. It used to be fairly normal for me to go entire years without getting sick (after I adjusted to my current microbial milieu, that is; I got sick a *lot* the first couple years I lived in Canada), but then I started working a customer-facing job where nobody else ever took sick leave and staff members were forbidden from wearing masks, and I went from a cold every 1 – 2 years to a cold every few months. Getting rid of that damned fast-food cold rate wasn’t worth what it’s cost, but it’s a very nice silver lining.

(for anyone who finds my rate of colds bogglingly low: I’m guessing the two big components are “trained myself out of touching my face in public when I was a pre-teen, and always wash my hands upon returning home” and “rarely travel”, in that order)

I didn’t even used to do any anti-airborne measures†, just anti-fomite. I plan to start wearing a mask in indoor public spaces from October – March or so each year and on public transit year-round, and it’ll be very interesting to see what that does to my baseline cold rate.

(also, on a broader scale, it will be interesting to see if COVID-19 vaccines grant any cross-protection against cold-type coronaviruses)

—

†Except in extreme situations like “on an airplane two seats away from a coughing dude”. Guess who didn’t get sick until an incubation period *after* the rest of her family? (unfortunately there’s only so much you can isolate from people you’re sharing a hotel room with)

 

derinthescarletpescatarian:

I very rarely wear a mask. I hardly leave the house and when I do, almost nobody wears masks here because there’s no covid in my state outside of the quarantined medi-hotels for infected international arrivals; we just sanitise, social distance, keep records of where we go and get tested any time symptoms show up so that when it does show up, we can respond before it’s got more than a couple of people. The distancing and group size limits are enough that basically nobody’s getting colds.

My probably-hayfever is very mild and isn’t debilitating at all (which is probably why it took me so long to notice); I just get a sniffly, runny nose so I haven’t bothered with any pollen precautions. They’d be more annoying than just living with it.

 

brin-bellway:

Fair enough, I suppose.

When I started wearing pollen masks, my only symptom was mild sore throats. The main problem I was having was that pollen attacks felt exactly like…well, the onset of a cold. *Physically* the sore throats per se weren’t a big deal, but I hated never being sure whether or not I was coming down with something.

I’ve started getting runny noses too now, which I found even worse in that they’re impairing in their own right. Maybe I’m just more bothered by having a runny nose than you are.

 

alarajrogers:

My allergies are for animals and dust. I have pets and am far too disorganized to dust. So yeah, I’m actually just as miserable this year as I am every year, but I definitely have noticed, no colds. Runny nose and sneezing and occasional sore throat and cough… but at my age, the biggest symptom of a cold is a draining and horrible fatigue. All my fatigue this year comes from diabetes and depression.

I do think I’m going to keep using masks during the winter every year.

 

brin-bellway:

At your age? Are you implying you *didn’t* get horrible draining fatigue from colds when you were younger?

When I saw that one of the DSM rules is that in order to qualify as having clinical depression it has to be at least two weeks, I thought “ah, of course, they’re thinking of self-limiting diseases”. The last week of December, 2017, I had a cold that *didn’t* come with a transient depressive episode, and it was amazing how much less it sucked. Turns out that while sore throats and stuffy noses and coughing fits *are* pretty annoying, *most* of the badness of colds is from direct inducement of misery.

…if there are people who *normally* don’t get depression from colds, that would explain a lot about how blase they are about disease prevention.

(…“people with enough depression at baseline that colds are just background noise” would also explain a lot but in a much more horrifying way. you indicate that in at least some cases they can be distinguished, though.)

 

brin-bellway:

@rustingbridges replied: “no, I don’t feel that way. identifying a cold mostly consists of ruling out allergies and guessing”

holy fuck

 

poipoipoi-2016:

Same really. 

At some point, I will give in and move to the desert but right now, the year is: 

* Mold/Dust season all winter
* Fading into OH GOD OH NOOOOOOO season as pollen season arrives and I more or less fall over flat on my ass for a month
* Summer is great except for the bit where it’s 97 degrees and going outside is hellish
* Into August/September where ragweed arrives and knocks me out for 3 days every year
* Into leaf season where it’s time to get bronchitis and pneumonia again just in time to redevelop a continuous hacking cough for
* Oh look at that, it’s dust season.  

I literally have a rule that I maintain 3 alarms and if I sleep straight through them, it’s a sick day because if it’s a choice between ragweed and getting hit by a truck, let’s go play in some traffic.  

Horrible draining fatigue is pretty normal, but trivially, if you can throw a depressingly expensive cocktail of OTC, prescription, and illegal meds at “Getting your nose the f*ck back open”, that basically goes away.  

Then of course, I’m increasingly certain I ended up with Long COVID, because I’ve had constant chest pains and shortness of breath since April, so I’m working on going remote so I can carefully maintain CO2 levels below 600PPM…. by opening a window to ragweed spores year-round.  

Ouch. Many sympathies for what you have to put up with.

Every year my pollen sensitivity NOS (the allergist couldn’t figure out what to make of me) gets worse: stronger symptoms, for more of the year, after less exposure. I hope I never end up in as terrible a position as yours, but I’m worried I might.

I also don’t get depression from pollen, but again worried this might change as my condition deteriorates. (The psychological problem of a pollen-induced sore throat is the fear from “I associate this feeling with *becoming* depressed a few hours later”: pollen currently doesn’t *directly* cause any brain symptoms.) For a cold, the depression hits before the nose symptoms do, so getting my nose open clearly isn’t enough.

What happens if you just…wear a mask all the time, taking it off only when you need to eat or drink or something? Maybe with one of those tabletop air purifiers too?

—

@jadagul has reported in as not experiencing cold-induced depression [link], although honestly I’m not even surprised. Like, if you’d asked me before all this “does jadagul get cold-induced depression”, I’d have said “god, probably not, *nothing* depresses that man: failing to get depressed when sick is *exactly* the kind of weird shit his brain would do”.

—

I have now written up a post describing what colds are like for me [link].

Tags:

#reply via reblog #allergies #covid19 #illness tw #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #oh look an original post

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

aa49d59ecd971a3ba9bdd142e45b94af69c121f2

twitblr:

Definitely masking up post-COVID (x) {{the original link didn’t actually lead anywhere; I have replaced it with a genuine source link}}

 

juliainfinland:

Also, let’s keep having soap and disinfectant dispensers everywhere.

 

derinthescarletpescatarian:

By contrast, I’ve been getting the same number of sniffles that I do every year even though there’s no one to catch them from, which is how I learned this year that I’m not prone to minor colds; I’m prone to hayfever.

 

brin-bellway:

Huh, you’re still getting hayfever with a mask? I started wearing a mask in 2017 *specifically* to avoid pollen, and it’s been working wonderfully for me.

Have you been keeping the mask on outside, and when near front doors that people are opening a lot? Does it have a well-fitted nosepiece?

—

I also had no colds in the calendar year 2020. It used to be fairly normal for me to go entire years without getting sick (after I adjusted to my current microbial milieu, that is; I got sick a *lot* the first couple years I lived in Canada), but then I started working a customer-facing job where nobody else ever took sick leave and staff members were forbidden from wearing masks, and I went from a cold every 1 – 2 years to a cold every few months. Getting rid of that damned fast-food cold rate wasn’t worth what it’s cost, but it’s a very nice silver lining.

(for anyone who finds my rate of colds bogglingly low: I’m guessing the two big components are “trained myself out of touching my face in public when I was a pre-teen, and always wash my hands upon returning home” and “rarely travel”, in that order)

I didn’t even used to do any anti-airborne measures†, just anti-fomite. I plan to start wearing a mask in indoor public spaces from October – March or so each year and on public transit year-round, and it’ll be very interesting to see what that does to my baseline cold rate.

(also, on a broader scale, it will be interesting to see if COVID-19 vaccines grant any cross-protection against cold-type coronaviruses)

—

†Except in extreme situations like “on an airplane two seats away from a coughing dude”. Guess who didn’t get sick until an incubation period *after* the rest of her family? (unfortunately there’s only so much you can isolate from people you’re sharing a hotel room with)

 

derinthescarletpescatarian:

I very rarely wear a mask. I hardly leave the house and when I do, almost nobody wears masks here because there’s no covid in my state outside of the quarantined medi-hotels for infected international arrivals; we just sanitise, social distance, keep records of where we go and get tested any time symptoms show up so that when it does show up, we can respond before it’s got more than a couple of people. The distancing and group size limits are enough that basically nobody’s getting colds.

My probably-hayfever is very mild and isn’t debilitating at all (which is probably why it took me so long to notice); I just get a sniffly, runny nose so I haven’t bothered with any pollen precautions. They’d be more annoying than just living with it.

 

brin-bellway:

Fair enough, I suppose.

When I started wearing pollen masks, my only symptom was mild sore throats. The main problem I was having was that pollen attacks felt exactly like…well, the onset of a cold. *Physically* the sore throats per se weren’t a big deal, but I hated never being sure whether or not I was coming down with something.

I’ve started getting runny noses too now, which I found even worse in that they’re impairing in their own right. Maybe I’m just more bothered by having a runny nose than you are.

 

alarajrogers:

My allergies are for animals and dust. I have pets and am far too disorganized to dust. So yeah, I’m actually just as miserable this year as I am every year, but I definitely have noticed, no colds. Runny nose and sneezing and occasional sore throat and cough… but at my age, the biggest symptom of a cold is a draining and horrible fatigue. All my fatigue this year comes from diabetes and depression.

I do think I’m going to keep using masks during the winter every year.

 

brin-bellway:

At your age? Are you implying you *didn’t* get horrible draining fatigue from colds when you were younger?

When I saw that one of the DSM rules is that in order to qualify as having clinical depression it has to be at least two weeks, I thought “ah, of course, they’re thinking of self-limiting diseases”. The last week of December, 2017, I had a cold that *didn’t* come with a transient depressive episode, and it was amazing how much less it sucked. Turns out that while sore throats and stuffy noses and coughing fits *are* pretty annoying, *most* of the badness of colds is from direct inducement of misery.

…if there are people who *normally* don’t get depression from colds, that would explain a lot about how blase they are about disease prevention.

(…“people with enough depression at baseline that colds are just background noise” would also explain a lot but in a much more horrifying way. you indicate that in at least some cases they can be distinguished, though.)

 

brin-bellway:

@rustingbridges replied: “no, I don’t feel that way. identifying a cold mostly consists of ruling out allergies and guessing”

holy fuck

 

alarajrogers:

I’ve suffered from depression since my 20′s, though, and yet the whole “a cold comes with terrible exhaustion” dates to… I wanna say maybe somewhere between 35-40? After I had my kids? A good bit after I was diagnosed with some unspecified fatigue disorder which turned out to be depression under a new guise?

Also, the kind of draining fatigue I’m talking about isn’t what I suffer from my depression.

A depressive episode comes with: i know I ought to do that thing but I really don’t feel like it, I have no willpower to do anything, everything seems kind of pointless, I could get up and do the thing I’m supposed to do but it’s so hard, can’t focus, nothing gives me any sense of satisfaction, no real emotions aside from a general feeling of blah unhappiness or else deep sadness

A cold comes with: going up the stairs has me out of breath, I want to do things but the physical energy is just not there, not sleepy but so tired, watching TV is exhausting, emotional state is anger because I want to do things and my body is betraying me and won’t let me, but I don’t have the energy to rage about it

They both manifest as fatigue, but different kinds of fatigue.

(see also)

That first one sounds much more like a cold to me than the second one does. I guess we’re experiencing different things after all, even now.

I…I’d kind of suspected something like this might be true ever since I had that non-depressive cold in 2017, but it’s still kind of a revelation to have people confirming they actually don’t experience this.

I wonder where the difference lies.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #illness tw #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #depression

{{next post in sequence}}

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

aa49d59ecd971a3ba9bdd142e45b94af69c121f2

twitblr:

Definitely masking up post-COVID (x) {{the original link didn’t actually lead anywhere; I have replaced it with a genuine source link}}

 

juliainfinland:

Also, let’s keep having soap and disinfectant dispensers everywhere.

 

derinthescarletpescatarian:

By contrast, I’ve been getting the same number of sniffles that I do every year even though there’s no one to catch them from, which is how I learned this year that I’m not prone to minor colds; I’m prone to hayfever.

 

brin-bellway:

Huh, you’re still getting hayfever with a mask? I started wearing a mask in 2017 *specifically* to avoid pollen, and it’s been working wonderfully for me.

Have you been keeping the mask on outside, and when near front doors that people are opening a lot? Does it have a well-fitted nosepiece?

—

I also had no colds in the calendar year 2020. It used to be fairly normal for me to go entire years without getting sick (after I adjusted to my current microbial milieu, that is; I got sick a *lot* the first couple years I lived in Canada), but then I started working a customer-facing job where nobody else ever took sick leave and staff members were forbidden from wearing masks, and I went from a cold every 1 – 2 years to a cold every few months. Getting rid of that damned fast-food cold rate wasn’t worth what it’s cost, but it’s a very nice silver lining.

(for anyone who finds my rate of colds bogglingly low: I’m guessing the two big components are “trained myself out of touching my face in public when I was a pre-teen, and always wash my hands upon returning home” and “rarely travel”, in that order)

I didn’t even used to do any anti-airborne measures†, just anti-fomite. I plan to start wearing a mask in indoor public spaces from October – March or so each year and on public transit year-round, and it’ll be very interesting to see what that does to my baseline cold rate.

(also, on a broader scale, it will be interesting to see if COVID-19 vaccines grant any cross-protection against cold-type coronaviruses)

—

†Except in extreme situations like “on an airplane two seats away from a coughing dude”. Guess who didn’t get sick until an incubation period *after* the rest of her family? (unfortunately there’s only so much you can isolate from people you’re sharing a hotel room with)

 

derinthescarletpescatarian:

I very rarely wear a mask. I hardly leave the house and when I do, almost nobody wears masks here because there’s no covid in my state outside of the quarantined medi-hotels for infected international arrivals; we just sanitise, social distance, keep records of where we go and get tested any time symptoms show up so that when it does show up, we can respond before it’s got more than a couple of people. The distancing and group size limits are enough that basically nobody’s getting colds.

My probably-hayfever is very mild and isn’t debilitating at all (which is probably why it took me so long to notice); I just get a sniffly, runny nose so I haven’t bothered with any pollen precautions. They’d be more annoying than just living with it.

 

brin-bellway:

Fair enough, I suppose.

When I started wearing pollen masks, my only symptom was mild sore throats. The main problem I was having was that pollen attacks felt exactly like…well, the onset of a cold. *Physically* the sore throats per se weren’t a big deal, but I hated never being sure whether or not I was coming down with something.

I’ve started getting runny noses too now, which I found even worse in that they’re impairing in their own right. Maybe I’m just more bothered by having a runny nose than you are.

 

alarajrogers:

My allergies are for animals and dust. I have pets and am far too disorganized to dust. So yeah, I’m actually just as miserable this year as I am every year, but I definitely have noticed, no colds. Runny nose and sneezing and occasional sore throat and cough… but at my age, the biggest symptom of a cold is a draining and horrible fatigue. All my fatigue this year comes from diabetes and depression.

I do think I’m going to keep using masks during the winter every year.

 

brin-bellway:

At your age? Are you implying you *didn’t* get horrible draining fatigue from colds when you were younger?

When I saw that one of the DSM rules is that in order to qualify as having clinical depression it has to be at least two weeks, I thought “ah, of course, they’re thinking of self-limiting diseases”. The last week of December, 2017, I had a cold that *didn’t* come with a transient depressive episode, and it was amazing how much less it sucked. Turns out that while sore throats and stuffy noses and coughing fits *are* pretty annoying, *most* of the badness of colds is from direct inducement of misery.

…if there are people who *normally* don’t get depression from colds, that would explain a lot about how blase they are about disease prevention.

(…“people with enough depression at baseline that colds are just background noise” would also explain a lot but in a much more horrifying way. you indicate that in at least some cases they can be distinguished, though.)

 

brin-bellway:

@rustingbridges replied: “no, I don’t feel that way. identifying a cold mostly consists of ruling out allergies and guessing”

holy fuck

 

gasmaskaesthetic:

fwiw I don’t tend to get depressed when I’m sick with a cold either. A bit grumpy and tired at worst.

even having the flu isn’t depressing as such, it’s sucky and miserable but doesn’t cause a depressive episode.

(I wrote most of the following before seeing this branch, but putting it as a response to your post seemed reasonably fitting)

I would like to be clear here that I am not talking about feeling mildly down. If I were going to be stuck feeling the-way-I-feel-when-I-have-a-cold forever, I would seriously consider suicide, and if you know me you know that I do not say that lightly.

no fucking wonder that one Girl Guide casually mentioned to me after breathing on me for like an hour that she had a cold like it wasn’t a big deal, she probably didn’t *know* she was risking condemning me to 3 – 5 days of *life not being worth living*

Come to think of it, this also explains a lot about people failing to grok depression. Like, yeah, quantity has a quality all its own, but maybe when I saw that one chronically-depressed person explain what “having so little executive function that it takes hours to summon the will to get off the couch and go to the bathroom” is like as if it *wasn’t* a universally relatable experience, she wasn’t just doing whatever-the-opposite-of-projecting is.

(I would also like to be clear that I am not otherwise prone to depression. There have been some instances of experiences that *maybe* qualified, but that kind of deep shit where you can barely even exist let alone do anything else, I haven’t been anywhere near that *except* when I’m sick.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #illness tw #suicide cw #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #depression

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~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

aa49d59ecd971a3ba9bdd142e45b94af69c121f2

twitblr:

Definitely masking up post-COVID (x) {{the original link didn’t actually lead anywhere; I have replaced it with a genuine source link}}

 

juliainfinland:

Also, let’s keep having soap and disinfectant dispensers everywhere.

 

derinthescarletpescatarian:

By contrast, I’ve been getting the same number of sniffles that I do every year even though there’s no one to catch them from, which is how I learned this year that I’m not prone to minor colds; I’m prone to hayfever.

 

brin-bellway:

Huh, you’re still getting hayfever with a mask? I started wearing a mask in 2017 *specifically* to avoid pollen, and it’s been working wonderfully for me.

Have you been keeping the mask on outside, and when near front doors that people are opening a lot? Does it have a well-fitted nosepiece?

—

I also had no colds in the calendar year 2020. It used to be fairly normal for me to go entire years without getting sick (after I adjusted to my current microbial milieu, that is; I got sick a *lot* the first couple years I lived in Canada), but then I started working a customer-facing job where nobody else ever took sick leave and staff members were forbidden from wearing masks, and I went from a cold every 1 – 2 years to a cold every few months. Getting rid of that damned fast-food cold rate wasn’t worth what it’s cost, but it’s a very nice silver lining.

(for anyone who finds my rate of colds bogglingly low: I’m guessing the two big components are “trained myself out of touching my face in public when I was a pre-teen, and always wash my hands upon returning home” and “rarely travel”, in that order)

I didn’t even used to do any anti-airborne measures†, just anti-fomite. I plan to start wearing a mask in indoor public spaces from October – March or so each year and on public transit year-round, and it’ll be very interesting to see what that does to my baseline cold rate.

(also, on a broader scale, it will be interesting to see if COVID-19 vaccines grant any cross-protection against cold-type coronaviruses)

—

†Except in extreme situations like “on an airplane two seats away from a coughing dude”. Guess who didn’t get sick until an incubation period *after* the rest of her family? (unfortunately there’s only so much you can isolate from people you’re sharing a hotel room with)

 

derinthescarletpescatarian:

I very rarely wear a mask. I hardly leave the house and when I do, almost nobody wears masks here because there’s no covid in my state outside of the quarantined medi-hotels for infected international arrivals; we just sanitise, social distance, keep records of where we go and get tested any time symptoms show up so that when it does show up, we can respond before it’s got more than a couple of people. The distancing and group size limits are enough that basically nobody’s getting colds.

My probably-hayfever is very mild and isn’t debilitating at all (which is probably why it took me so long to notice); I just get a sniffly, runny nose so I haven’t bothered with any pollen precautions. They’d be more annoying than just living with it.

 

brin-bellway:

Fair enough, I suppose.

When I started wearing pollen masks, my only symptom was mild sore throats. The main problem I was having was that pollen attacks felt exactly like…well, the onset of a cold. *Physically* the sore throats per se weren’t a big deal, but I hated never being sure whether or not I was coming down with something.

I’ve started getting runny noses too now, which I found even worse in that they’re impairing in their own right. Maybe I’m just more bothered by having a runny nose than you are.

 

alarajrogers:

My allergies are for animals and dust. I have pets and am far too disorganized to dust. So yeah, I’m actually just as miserable this year as I am every year, but I definitely have noticed, no colds. Runny nose and sneezing and occasional sore throat and cough… but at my age, the biggest symptom of a cold is a draining and horrible fatigue. All my fatigue this year comes from diabetes and depression.

I do think I’m going to keep using masks during the winter every year.

At your age? Are you implying you *didn’t* get horrible draining fatigue from colds when you were younger?

When I saw that one of the DSM rules is that in order to qualify as having clinical depression it has to be at least two weeks, I thought “ah, of course, they’re thinking of self-limiting diseases”. The last week of December, 2017, I had a cold that *didn’t* come with a transient depressive episode, and it was amazing how much less it sucked. Turns out that while sore throats and stuffy noses and coughing fits *are* pretty annoying, *most* of the badness of colds is from direct inducement of misery.

…if there are people who *normally* don’t get depression from colds, that would explain a lot about how blase they are about disease prevention.

(…“people with enough depression at baseline that colds are just background noise” would also explain a lot but in a much more horrifying way. you indicate that in at least some cases they can be distinguished, though.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #illness tw #covid19 #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #allergies #depression

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~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

tototavros:

is there an easy, consistent way to get someone to wake up when they’re just in a deep sleep? i was woken up multiple times by my girlfriend today, but kept falling asleep – it’s a good thing she didn’t bring me the coffee she’d made, i’ve previously kept it in an unsafe place while not thinking about it much because sleepy, and then it spilled

i think that getting me to stand up would probably do it? not sure tho, wondering if people have experiences with it

Would it help to use one of those alarm apps that waits until you’re in a lighter part of your sleep cycle before waking you? I’ve used this one [link] and liked it.

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#recs #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #reply via reblog