Mark Carroll's Journal

It used to be that people might observe that I have some dry skin and I would not be much interested given that it didn't seem noticeable to me. However, I don't know if it's partly in returning to forced-air heating but I've been getting rather sore, dry lips at times this winter. I am resorting to lip balm for the first time in my life, it seems to work well. Maybe, as I age, I become more dried and shriveled.

With the advent of the omicron variant, I have been upping my masking game. I'm unconvinced by my experiments with P100's, I don't think I'm getting enough of a seal against my face, though I'd say the 3M feels as if it fits better than the Honeywell, and I remain intelligible from behind each. Also, I have safety glasses with side panels all around, to help protect my ACE2-receptor-rich eyeball surfaces from passing viral miasma, and these don't sit well against my face atop the bulk of the P100's. I also plan to cut larger HEPA filters for the pouches of my cloth masks, I worry there is still too much surface for airflow through the cloth only. So, my current go-to for grocery shopping will be the glasses with a cloth+HEPA mask atop an FFP2. I won't look much like a crazy person at all, even if the inner me would rather prefer to be wearing a full-face CBRN respirator for such excursions. No long COVID-19 for me, thank you.

I have now received my Moderna booster, following last spring's doses of Pfizer, thanks again to my employer's convenient bulk vaccination program. It was administered late yesterday morning. Today my arm has been somewhat sore, I started today with a headache, also leg ache which lasted for longer, but analgesics with breakfast and lunch largely dealt with those aches. The side effects have been lighter than I expected, I felt a little under the weather this morning and generally improved since.

It is good to know that the boosters appear to be rather effective against COVID-19. However, local case numbers are not encouraging, and the omicron variant is finding its way around the country. I wonder if I should remain unsustainably cautious well into the New Year, in the hope that case rates finally reach a low level. Since this pandemic, I have minimized various in-person contact, including routine medical appointments. After so very many months away from the dental hygienist, I certainly do not look forward to my next visit.

The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service claim to rather like my blood. However, for all the fuss they make about wanting more of it, I can't help but wonder: if that were true, surely they would make it easier to donate, offer more slots, etc.? When I lived in Scotland, I found it enough of a pain to find any donation sites that offered easy car parking. As I plan to visit soon, and they did SMS me again, I thought I should check what's available in coming weeks.

Their appointment search sucks. It's not the most intuitive and, crucially, I don't think it's helping to find anything at other locations and dates, even though I am flexible about both. In a bit of searching, in Perth I can find only one slot, at a time I can't make. In Dundee I can't find any, even if I try searching at a location where a different part of their website says they are open that day. Unfortunately, I have never seen a no-appointment donation session that did not have an enormous queue, definitely a problem mid-workday. No matter, I figure that if they needed my blood anywhere near as much as they say, they'd have their act together better for letting me donate any.

I seem to have caught something of a cold: runny nose, itchy eyes, some sneezing, etc. I am curious how I even managed to, given the masking and distancing; I sanitized my hands twice just on my way out from the grocery store today. I feel generally okay otherwise.

I suppose it could be some local seasonal allergy, at this time last year I was not quite here yet.

Being a little stricter with myself seems to have been working, my weight returned to its gentle trend downward. Next, I should focus on my resting heart rate, I am still slacking in trying to get back into exercising most days.

Whenever I come in under 140lb, I get a day off to eat whatever I like. Yesterday I tried Krystal for what may be the first time. I am used to White Castle, which is soon to celebrate its centenary, and this seems similar. The meal was quite good, mostly in terms of spice: the default condiment on the cheeseburgers is mustard, chili cheese fries are readily available, and the apple turnover had plenty of cinnamon; altogether a nice combination. If I order online from home then I reach the Krystal drive-through just about on time for pickup.

For today's lunch, I shall fry a couple of fresh steakburgers that were on discount at the grocery store, alongside them I have diced half an onion, which I had left over, and sliced one of the leeks I bought yesterday. I also have a potato baking in the oven, I'll probably put butter and cheese in it. Once cooked, I'll save one of the burgers for another day.

At the moment I have an easy time with meals. I work from home and the kitchen's but a few steps away from my desk. Even on weekdays, it is easy enough to prepare all kinds of meals without bothering anybody or much stepping away from work, even while something's cooking I can just step back over occasionally to check on its progress, maybe stir it again.

I am not aware that we yet have any results from the Big Breakfast Study but my general impression of current chrononutrition thinking is that it favors eating earlier in the day, rather than later. I vaguely recall that this may also be true of exercise. Anyhow, I eat breakfast and lunch, then fast for the remainder of the day. It's not as if I can eat much food without becoming overweight, and some degree of fasting seems to help against diet-related disease.

As a high fraction of my colleagues are now fully vaccinated, later this summer I expect to have to work on campus each day. I do not wish to much change my overall diet, it works well for me, but I get to figure when to try to exercise and what to eat when. There are refrigerators and microwaves around the office but, say, frying fresh vegetables and fish is probably no longer the kind of direction to take. There is also a cafeteria, though daily use would cost a fair bit.

I haven't decided what to do. I am not going to get time to fit a decent meal in before work. My inclination is to maintain the evening fasting and cut some of the fresh foods out of my typical diet, use the cafeteria a little, frozen ready meals too, maybe sometimes cold sandwiches, then I can continue to devote the evening to other things. I may need to correct course as I see how the changes affect my weight. At least I have time to think about it.

Update: I ought to have noted that, before the Eventpandemic, lunchtimes were during my fasting period so I was already out of the habit of eating at work.

Since losing weight I have felt far colder than I used to, quite the opposite of how I was before. Therefore, I rather looked forward to moving to the South. Indeed, today is forecast to reach 87°F and, while this is nowhere near enough for me to consider turning on the air conditioning for myself, and I am still wearing denim jeans, I am finally moving to wearing a short-sleeved shirt. It is so nice to no longer feel cold most of the time. No wonder I enjoyed visiting the tropics last year.

On the continuing remediation for the house: it turns out that, one reason I felt cold in working from home this winter is that the room I was in had no insulation in the exterior wall nor in the attic above it. Also, two of its windows were sealed poorly.

I keep up with the basic chores: cooking, laundry, some cleaning, etc., and I get my paid work done. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that, outside work, I prefer to relax in front of social media or television. This is true especially in the evening: I finish up work, clean up the kitchen, catch up a bit with news or friends or whatever, then I am just about ready to watch a show then go to bed. Yesterday, I did not have to go out at all, I got to spend my Sunday morning catching up on sleep and doing some small chores. Over the afternoon and evening, I didn't feel cold or hungry, still I watched television mostly, rather than doing anything useful.

I get smaller chores done, for example, tonight I shall check various account balances and set in motion the next round of credit card payments. I do have some larger chores long-pending though, many computer-related, that require a longer period of focus, a clear head full of relevant context. That's what I tell myself, anyway, but maybe I should try to make tangible progress when shorter windows of enthusiasm and opportunity present themselves. Not tonight, though, it's but 19h and I am already yawning and hearing some tinnitus.

Now I realize that one of my largest gambles has paid off: moving alone from Europe to a red state, where I know nobody, during a somewhat-denied pandemic. Not only did the travel feel risky but also the various new-life-setup tasks that follow, such as the driving test. I got through the move and all the way to vaccination without contracting COVID-19.

While I am cautious and double-check a lot, I also take large, though calculated, risks. Indeed, I would have taken a far less secure job too were others not depending on me. I may be conservative but I also know that, from where I am, that course will not deliver satisfactory outcomes. So, just as with the remains of my investment portfolio, I take risks in other spheres, hoping they pay off, and willing to bear the cost if they fail. Which they sometimes do, e.g., all the work needing done on this house that went unreported in the inspection.

Anyhow, my make a new life elsewhere while under the shroud of plague gamble was at the borderline of my tolerance, especially given that it is only more recently we learned that the vaccines appear effective for long-haul COVID-19. Between, say, that or the house working out, I would certainly have picked my health, and I am pleased that things seem to have gone that way.