Daily gratitude:
*Note: Obamacare is a great program, which came along at a critical time for me, and lasted long enough for me to get on Medicare. My gratitude for the program knows no bounds, and I feel immense sorrow that the Republicans continue to try to ruin it.
Ashley seems to enjoy going for a run, and she’s a pretty good running companion. She does want to stop and sniff rather more often than I do, and she wants to stop and pee occasionally, which does make it tough for me to hit my best pace for any particular mile. But that’s okay. Enjoying some dog-companionship is a lot better than hitting my best pace.
I had virtually quit running a couple of years ago. I’d gotten a trifle tentative after a fall, and then Jackie was out of town (and therefore not on-hand to rescue me if necessary), and then the weather got cold and the running routes icy. And by the time the weather improved, I’d just fallen out of the habit. For a few months now I’ve been working to reestablish the habit. I haven’t accomplished that yet, but I am getting in an occasional run.
The Fitbit software in my Pixel watch estimates my VO2Max. My estimated VO2Max has long been excellent for my age, but it had gradually dropped some, which was part of the reason I wanted to start running again. These past few runs have produced a modest increase, so as of today it’s in the 95th percentile for people my age. (I think Peter Attia suggests that the minimum acceptable VO2Max is the 95 percentile for someone a decade younger than you, which I’m still a bit below, although it seems perhaps doable.)
I’m afraid I failed to get a photo of Ashley or myself running (or better, the two of us running together), but I did get a picture of a cool little snake friend who was crossing the sidewalk where I was running.
I got in one writing session in the morning. Now that I’ve finished my run, I very much hope to get in some more writing (and most especially some more plotting) before the end of the day.
I was busy most of the day. In the morning I took Jackie to her (last!) physical therapy appointment, and in the afternoon I had my usual Thursday visit with some former co-workers. But in the early evening (after fourth dog walk) I sat down and wrote a few hundred words. I’ve also updated the progress tracker in the sidebar. (And, if you’re reading it, wrote this brief post on my day’s progress.)
Three things I should do soon (they’re on my schedule for “before November 1st”): Write a logline, short synopsis, and long synopsis for the story. I don’t know that I need to do all three, but I should definitely do some thinking about what the story is about before I spend much more time writing.
Probably just the sort of thinking to do tomorrow while walking the dog.
Today was something of a trial run at what I’m hoping to do during NaNo 2.0. I did first dog walk, ate breakfast, and did second dog walk. Then I sat down and banged out a few hundred words on my new novel. Then I did my morning exercises, followed by a workout.
Going forward, I’m hoping to be able to spend some of the afternoon and evening writing as well. At least, that’s the plan I’m hoping to follow all November.
Today we spent a big chunk of the afternoon enrolling in new Medicare Advantage plans, because the insurance company that we’ve been using for nearly 20 years is closing up shop. We had been very happy with our old health insurance. We’re approaching this new plan with a degree of trepidation. The signup was a one-time thing, and the fact that I had to spend my afternoon that way doesn’t mean that I’ll be unable to write future afternoons. I hope.
Now it’s evening, and I got a tiny bit more writing done.
All told my day’s writing came to 879 words. That comes to only about half of the 1667 I’ll have to average to get 50,000 words by the end of November. But that’s okay. I’m just getting started.
The workout was my first workout in more than a month—since Jackie had her surgery, and I got very busy. (There were only a couple of weeks when I was nearly a full-time caregiver, but even after that period was over, it turned out that just the odd hour here and there taking Jackie to physical therapy and such put a hole in the day that was hard to work around.)
Anyway. Words! Go me!
I’ve started generating prose for my NaNo 2.0 story, despite the fact that starting early is supposed to be against the rules.
I figure it’s okay because I’m not really trying to write the story yet. I’m just capturing some text to use to validate things like the NaNo 2.0 progress bar, which should now be visible in my sidebar, below my short profile, and above the form for subscribing to my newsletter.
I’m not sure the progress bar is working yet. It looks kind of minimal, but maybe that’s just because I haven’t written much yet. By the time NaNo 2.0 goes live on November 1st, it should be clear that it’s working.
Besides writing, I’m making notes about how the story is supposed to go. I don’t really have an outline yet, but I’m capturing internal details about the story world as I figure them out.
And I’m figuring it out while I’m walking. Mostly while I’m walking the dog.
I’ve always done some of my best thinking about stories while walking. The past three years or so, I’ve done less such thinking, for two reasons: The dog, and podcasts.
Ashley, especially as a younger dog, was kind of hard to walk. She was a little too likely to lunge growling and snarling at people. (Too often she acts like she’s a very good dog until she jumps on someone, so people want to meet her, and then get booped in the nose with Ashley’s snout.) So I’ve really had to be very alert to people coming within reach, to make sure nothing bad happened.
That made it harder to think about other stuff while I was walking Ashley.
I’ve also been listening to podcasts, which I rather enjoy, but which also lead to less thinking about stories while I’m walking.
So, between Ashley behaving much better these days, and cutting back on podcast listening, my walks are turning back into an excellent opportunity for plotting.
I’m very pleased with the results so far.
Daily gratitude: I am enormously grateful that, back in my days writing for Wise Bread, my readers were not having AI generate summaries of my articles and only reading those, and were not having LLMs generate comments to paste into the comment field.
One of the things I haven’t done well in learning sword fighting has been “getting in the reps.” We’ll learn a move—a particular cut or thrust or parry—and I’ll work on it until I can do it correctly once (or a few times), but then I’ll quit. I don’t “get in the reps” that it would take to really learn the thing.
This is about 80% my own fault, of course. (It’s about 20% the fault of the instructors, who always want to move on and teach the next cool thing.) Clearly, having done something correctly once (or a few times) should put me in the position of being able to practice it more, either alone or with a training partner. And it’s totally on me that I hardly ever do that.
Anyway, I occasionally remind myself that I should get in the reps of whatever we’ve just learned. Sometimes I do better or worse, but I rarely forget. (I just get tired or busy or forget all the things we learned except the last one or find some other reason to fail to get in my reps.)
The reason I’m thinking about this today is simply that I’ve been writing more just lately, and of course writing is the same way. If you want to get better at writing, you need to get in the reps.
More specifically, you need to engage in “deliberate practice.” So it’s not just getting in the reps. You need to get in one rep, monitor your performance, evaluate your success, and then figure out how to do it better. Then repeat.
This is true at every level. In sword fighting there’s the cuts, thrusts, and parries, of course. But there’s also footwork to go with each one of those things. Then there’s postures that you might pass through along the way. There’s distance management. There’s watching your opponent’s postures for clues as to what he might be about to do. There’s figuring out what you might do in response.
Writing has its own levels, but it’s still the same. Word choice. Sentence structure. Paragraphs. Telling a story.
After decades of practice, I’m pretty good with words, sentences, and paragraphs. My skills with telling a story still need some work.
I need some more reps.
I did NaNoWriMo back in 2010. (There’s a NaNoWriMo tag, if you want to read the related posts.) I wasn’t successful. Worse, I found it didn’t help me write more or better. So after that one year, I pretty much gave up on the idea of writing-sprint-type things. This year though, I’ve decided to give it another try. Specifically, I’m thinking of doing NaNo 2.0.
The reason is simply that I’ve scarcely been writing at all for years now, and something like this seems like a way to get myself back to it.
I know how to get writing done, which is to write every day. I also know that (for me) it’s important to start writing early in the day. As I say in that post:
“Even just 20 or 40 minutes of early morning writing gets my head into the story space, and once it’s there I’ll continue to have story ideas through the day.”
It’s possible to get lots of writing done late in the day, but I know from experience that that my writing time is much more productive if I’ve gotten at least a little bit done early.
So, what am I going to do? Mainly, I’m going to write every day. That’s how I get writing done.
Less important, but not nothing: I’m going to set an ambitious word-count goal (1667 words per day). I won’t beat myself up if I don’t hit it, but I will take it seriously.
Also less important, but a trap I’ve been known to fall into: I’m going to make a point of refraining from going back and dicking around with the beginning until I have a complete draft. A complete draft is something I can fix. One-third of a draft isn’t.
Even the original NaNoWriMo rules made it clear that you didn’t need to write a novel specifically The point was simply to pick a large project and try to make progress on it each day for a month. But writing a novel would be cool, and given my experience of both my previous NaNoWriMo project, and of writing things since then, I’ve come around to thinking that a rather classic version of NaNoWriMo might work well for me.
So, my plan is very nearly straight NaNoWriMo. I’ll write daily from November 1st to November 30th. The 1667 word-count goal is simply a 50,000 words divided by 30 days. I’ll refrain from going back and editing my previous days’ work (except that minimal line-edits will be okay, as will making notes if I see things that I’ll want to change later).
You’re not supposed to start writing early. (It’s fine to start plotting early, doing research, making notes, etc.) Still, I’m not hesitating to capture some fragments of prose when something pops into my head. For one thing, that gives me some material for making sure that my backup mechanisms and file syncing mechanisms are working, so those are things I don’t need to worry about in November when I’m ready to start cranking.
I’ll try to post frequent updates here (although I won’t let such updates interfere with getting my writing done).
Wish me luck!
Jackie has beef ribs! And we’re both drinking Toppling Goliath Cyber Sue IPA.
Today’s Nature Briefing: “Today we learn that stinkbugs nurture egg-protecting fungi in a newly discovered organ, consider how to stop fake scientists from publishing real papers and explore perspectives on animal-testing alternatives.”
Me: “Damn. Those stinkbugs are really busy!”
Jackie has an Old Fashioned, while I’m drinking a 3 Floyd’s Zombie Dust, a decent pale ale that sounded more interesting than any of the IPAs on tap.
Jackie and I spent an hour or so at the zine-fest at Lincoln Square, and then another hour or so at the fungus-fest at Anita Purvis Nature Center.
The highlight of the zine-fest, of course, was Tony who was there with his Alphistia zines:
But there was other stuff as well. Teacupweeb was there (sadly with no new Birb stuff). There were at least three people who made fancy stickers, of which I purchased several:
I really liked the Steller’s Jay, and the raccoon was suitably scary. (Raccoons are terrifying. The have hands, and they work in teams. If they learn to smelt metal, humanity is doomed.) I thought Steven would appreciate the Ax-olotol (swinging a big ax). (I didn’t get him one though. I’m going to put mine on my laptop.)
The big fungus sticker at the bottom was from the zine-fest. The smaller ones higher up were from the fungus-fest.
The zine-fest was great fun!
We had great fun at the fungus-fest as well! We got the stickers (see above). We also each bought an Illinois Mycological Association t-shirt! (Mine is printed with glow-in-the-dark ink, which I’m expecting to enjoy very much, once it gets dark.)
Among the many other activities, there was a woman using stencils to paint mushrooms on people’s arms. Jackie and I each got one done. With sparkles!
We also got in a walk along the boardwalk in Busey Woods, which is always a good walk. I neglected to get any pictures of that, but it was fun even so.
Great fun! I’d recommend either fest for next year!
At the orthopedics place there are close handicap spaces, then these less-close, but still central spaces. But really shouldn’t there be distant spaces “Reserved for persons with unlimited mobility”?
I haven’t been running enough, so I went for a run today. The metrics are kinda funny, by which I mean my Fitbit thought it was an insanely hard run. I thought it was interesting enough to post about.
Fitbit calculates heart rate zones based on your “heart rate reserve,” which is your maximum heart rate minus your resting heart rate.
Your resting heart rate (roughly what you’d get if you checked your heart rate right after you woke up, before you started moving around) the device actually measures. My resting heart rate, according to the Fitbit, was 56 bpm. (It actually hit 44 bpm at some point while I was asleep, but your lowest resting heart rate is a different number.)
Your maximum heart rate, though, isn’t measured. Instead, it’s estimated as 220 minus your age. I’m 66, so that comes to 154. So my heart rate reserve is 154 minus 56 equals 98. Then my various zones are calculate as a fraction of the reserve plus the resting rate. Zone 5 (peak activity) begins at 85%, so my zone 5 begins at (0.85 ✖️ 98) + 56, which comes to 83 + 56 = 139. All the parts of my run shown in red in the map above were run at a heart rate at or above 139.
In fact though, my maximum heart rate is way higher than that estimate. I have in the past been somewhat dubious of the maximum readings shown by my Fitbit during a run, because all the wrist-worn devices sometimes sync up at your foot-strike rate, so you get anomalous readings around 180 (a common foot-strike rate). But I also check my heart rate doing other exercises, such as kettlebell swings, where foot-strike rate doesn’t matter. Plus, I get heart rate readings from my Oura ring, which is not wrist-worn, and which doesn’t seem to have the same syncing-with-foot-strike problem. So I know my max heart rate is much higher.
On this run, for example, the maximum heart rate as measured by my fitbit was 169. My Oura ring thinks the peak was 166 (but it averages over 5-minute periods, which smooths out the peaks quite a bit).
Anyway, if you take 166 as my actual maximum heart rate, then my heart rate reserve is 110, 85% of it comes to 94, so my zone 5 range ought to begin at a heart rate of 150, rather than 139.
I find that a lot more plausible. If the Fitbit is right, then I just spent 36 minutes in zone 5, which seems very unlikely. It was kind of a hard run, because I haven’t been running enough, but I not only could have talked while I was running, I actually did sing, which is one of the markers for being in zone 1. (I was listening to and singing along with some Kpop songs.)
So, I think much of that run, even some of the bits shown in red above, were in zone 2 or 3, not zone 5.
Whatever the heart rate metrics, it was a rather slow, rather short run: 3.15 miles in 58min 10s.
Much better than not running.
Updated next morning: I slept great after my run, and woke up feeling great. Legs not sore at all. Overnight heart rate right back down to my current baseline.
For an athlete, being explosive is good. You can jump higher, run faster, hit harder, and (the point of this post) thrust a sword more quickly. Sadly, I’m perhaps the least explosive person around. This is very frustrating when it comes to sword fighting, because my thrusts aren’t quick enough to hit my opponent, whereas their thrusts are quick enough to hit me, before I can parry them.
I can obviously compensate in various ways. I can try and be very deceptive, and then launch an attack that is so surprising my opponent can’t react. I can get very good at parrying, so I can stop an attack with a very small movement that doesn’t have to be so quick. I’m working on these things.
But one other thing I can do is work on explosiveness.
This will have other advantages too. Explosiveness (roughly the same thing as power) is an aspect of muscular strength that disappears early as one ages, and it’s very useful. Just being strong is great, if you want to lift something heavy, but power (or explosiveness) is what you need if you catch your toe, and then want to get your foot out in front of you before you fall down.
I’m going to have to do some research on training for explosiveness, but one exercise that I already know that I can start training right away will be to throw my slam ball. Some people do that facing a wall, so they can catch it and throw it again. But I think I’ll throw it, and then spring forward as fast as possible to pick it up and throw it again, so I can train both explosive arm strength and explosive leg strength.
Onions, three kinds of peppers, and some breakfast sausage, sautéd, two scrambled eggs, a little taco sauce, then wrapped in tortillas.
I call the breakfast dish Wavy Rancheros.
Two things I’m allergic to are ragweed pollen (which is at its annual peak right about now), and household dust (which has been at a peak this morning, because I’ve been decluttering, dusting, and vacuuming in the living room).
Although wearing a mask is an obvious move to minimize getting household dust in my nose when I’m doing housework, I usually don’t think of it until my nose is all snuffly. Today though, I remembered. And it worked great! No snuffling at all!
I’ve finally started getting invited to fitness influencer events! I got email today offering me a chance to get early access to a new line of athleisure clothing if I attend their event!
Sadly, their event is in Los Angeles. And, based on the images, their clothing line is for women. I’d look funny wearing their short skirts and tight tops for skinny girls.
Still, once I show up on one brand’s radar, surely other brands will start noticing me.
Note: I have no interest in being a fitness influencer or a brand ambassador, or getting early access to athleisure clothing. I don’t even really have any interest in free athleisure clothing, although I’m not sure I’d turn it down, because that’s just the sort of ethically ambiguous guy I am.
Pictures of me in exercise clothing, so that future firms know what they might get:
If that doesn’t make you want me wearing your athleisure clothing in my content, well, I guess you probably don’t want me wearing your athleisure clothing in my content.
There’s a reason they call it the golden hour.
Me: You’re a good girl Ashley! There’s no girl good-gooder than you! You’re the good-gooderest!
Jackie: Good-gooderest?
Me: Do you know a girl that’s good-gooder? If not, she’s the good-gooderest.
I have long been a big fan of allegorical figures, such as these two outside the Chicago Board of Trade.
My education in such things was slightly deficient. I mean, every educated person ought to be able to look at such a figure and identify it by the signifiers, the way nearly everybody can recognize Liberty and Justice. These two are only slightly more obscure, so I was able to identify them. (Especially in context—they are particularly appropriate for the Chicago Board of Trade, where commodities are traded.)
There are many more that I can’t reliably recognize—Fame, Victory, Hope, Time, etc. I’ve looked from time to time to find a nice compact reference with pictures and descriptions, and haven’t found exactly what I was looking for.
In any case, it was fun to see these two, just across the street from the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, where we had gone to visit the Money Museum—about which I hope to write a post soon.
We scheduled this trip to be here for the opening of the tapestry exhibit that includes work by Jackie’s teacher. We were completely unaware that Lollapalooza would be here this weekend as well.
I must say though, I’ve really enjoyed the sidewalk views of girls barely wearing party dresses and glitter. Particularly amusing are the girls unaccustomed to wearing such short skirts and shorts—detectable because they keep trying to tug the garment down, in a vain effort to cover their butt.
Five stars. Would attend again.
Every time before, when we were ready for lunch after visiting the Art Institute, the Berghoff had a line, but this time not, so here we are. Both of us are drinking their session ale, called Globetrotter. Good. Refreshing. Jackie likes it better than All Day IPA.
Jackie and I are in Chicago for the weekend, staying in the Palmer House. We came to attend the opening of a tapestry exhibit at an art center in the West Loop, put on by the American Tapestry Association. The exhibit includes a piece by one of Jackie’s teachers, So Jackie particularly wanted to see it.
After a period where I was being a bit casual about them, for the past few months I’ve been doing pretty well at getting my workouts in, and I didn’t want to let that go, so I went to the fitness center here at the Palmer House. It’s pretty good!
I cranked through a slightly reduced version of my usual morning exercises, then went to the main room of the fitness center for the workout proper. They had an adequate set of kettlebells, so I did two exercises with those:
Then I found a barbell and loaded it up with a pair of 45 lb plates and did 2 x 5 deadlifts. I’m super out-of-practice with deadlifts, and would not have wanted to do more weight or more reps, but that much was okay.
Having done the tapestry thing, we’re looking to do some other Chicago stuff. Probably the Art Institute. Maybe one of the boat tours where they talk about the architecture. Maybe the Field Museum. Maybe something else! We’ll just see.
Two days ago, and again today, we had a lilycount of 1, and this appears to be the end of the lilies for this summer.
Penultimate lily:
Ultimate lily:
