Personal Prohibitions

As I work on my personal productivity, or maybe efficiency, getting rid of distractions has been more helpful than purposeful scheduling with mandatory doing.  Thou shalt nots come more easily than thou musts.  My long legacy of kashrut has made avoidance of certain foods rather easy, protection of shabbos by banning otherwise pleasurable weekday pursuits has imposed more of a challenge with a successful trajectory overall.  So if I want to reduce my weight, exercising has been a chore but not putting cookies or soda into the shopping cart goes easily.  I've moved onto harder prohibitions.  Sleep needs to be improved, having had a major setback.  I will now not return to bed until my assigned bedtime once I arise.  No more catnaps and I've started reading in a chair rather than on my mattress.  If I can set aside activities for shabbos each week, I can avoid social media twice a week.  This has gone well.  Removing this from the competition for my attention, or even transient but not very useful pleasure, has made it easier to substitute more purposeful alternatives such as reading or watching my Great Courses that promote other useful initiatives.  

Having altered my grocery shopping for a few months, I do not have a feeling of deprivation but have been pleased with the reading on the scale first thing every Monday morning.  Not having FB or Tw on the days divisible by four still has a sense of deprivation, not really FOMO but an activity I like to engage in even though not in my best interest.  Avoiding my mattress is a new initiative.  So far I don't miss it, though my sleep pattern has not yet responded favorably to the introduction of this difficult element of formal sleep hygiene.  

I don't yet have a good explanation for why Don't Do avoidances have been easier for me than Must Do tasks, but they are.  As long as they can be put to good advantage, that will be the preferred path to my personal upgrades.

Tested Negative

A letter arrived from the Blood Bank.  They tested my blood for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies , detecting none.  I'm disappointed.  They had sent a notice that they would be testing all donor blood for this through the end of this month, so I had planned to squeeze in my next platelet donation a few days early to have this, but now it can wait until the following week when the new month arrives.

In the four decades that I have been a reliable donor, with a 50 donation lapel pin to show for it, this is only the second time the blood bank has passively notified me of my results.  The first came many years ago when they found me to be CMV-negative.  I have no idea why they tested for this, but with the notification, I became eligible for platelet donations, which I have maintained a few times each year.  Platelets with incidental plasma provides more value to a blood bank than whole blood fractionated to its components, as it is less readily available and the need by the recipients is usually more critical.  Donors in my category are usually honored to help out.

SARS-CoV-2 antibodies have less established utility, as the disease they treat is a newcomer to the world of health scourges.  There is evidence that large amounts of antibody can keep Covid-19 patients with ARDS on an otherwise unlikely survival path, so it can be a very useful thing to offer, though far less established in efficacy than platelets, RBC, or various plasma components.  I'm disappointed at not being able to help out more than I currently do, but the platelets and plasma still have people who will benefit from them.

Alas, my RBC have other antigens that limit recipients.  B-antigen, Rh+ so even my red cells have a restricted number of people who can safely use them.  Can't save everyone but can aid some people.  Not that I want to acquire Covid-19 even with recovery that generates natural antibodies.  I'll let the vaccine boost those when it's my turn.

Great Courses

Or at least pretty good courses.  When I set up my dozen semi-annual initiatives each June and December, I include a category for something I might like to purchase.  I don't really need or even want an RV or a condo in a sunny state to escape the mid-Atlantic winter.  I needed a new mattress a few cycles ago and got one. And expensive travel has to wait until the pandemic no longer jeopardizes the life spans of travelers and those who serve them.  Instead, I set my sights on the more modest, acquiring two Great Courses when they went on sale.

Both sets of DVDs arrived in a corrugated box, each separately shrink wrapped to preserve their authenticity.  I selected two, one on how to become a more capable photographer, the other on a description of the basic components of modern electronics. Photography being more generally applicable, I opened that one first, inserted the first of four discs into Drive E:// and listened to an expert professional photographer who travels worldwide for National Geographic explain the basics of lighting, main subjects and other objects of mixed desirability that get captured in each frame.  I have no intention of investing in equipment beyond what I currently own, unlike the rather intricate professional expensive accoutrements to his cameras, but I can pay more attention to light and the totality of the picture before I snap the shutter.  Or I could do what he seems to do and snap the shutter a lot for each picture, then look at the results and select the one that comes out best.  This is something I can do easily and inexpensively.  Shouldn't take more than a month to complete the course.

Might Go Out Later

Two days a month my personal calendar offers me a respite.  On the dates divisible by 3, I grant myself a day for my lower extremities to recover from the previous two day's treadmill sessions.  On the dates divisible by 4 I have a self-imposed but increasingly necessary avoidance of FB and Twitter.  Exercise takes about a half hour. Social media drains more than that, though the amount can be hard to assess, as some is a time sink and some activity purposeful connection or expression of ideas.  But on the 12th and 24th of each month, I acquire a small amount of transient time affluence. It never comes out as separate time allocated to other neglected activities, though.  Maybe it should.  While the treadmill takes a defined portion of time, the social media sink is more insidious.  There is a total accumulation of poorly allocated activity but no single interval which if used differently would enable me to read an extra chapter of a book, watch a documentary that I might otherwise skip, or commit my thoughts to a keyboard.  I do all these things on the other days of the month despite the distraction of FB.  What I really have is less a unified portion of time as much as the lure of transient engagement to something of greater value that I should be doing instead.

My daily task lists always far exceeds what I can realistically do, or even should do if I want to do the items I select well.  But two days a month I have both the half hour's exercise time diverted to something else and the distraction of social media eliminated.  I think I'll use the occasion to go out later today.

Dormant Art Supplies

Periodically I have a most inconsistent interest in exercising my right brain.  My Space contains ample options for this with calligraphy kits, a full-service art box, two sets of watercolors of dollar store vintage, drawing pencils, more than enough colored pencils, any number of sketch and watercolor pads, and one of those small books with drawings intended to be colored within the outlines.  Other than amusing myself by following online instructions to draw a pet of some type, these all remain on my desk or next to it, essentially unused.

It is not for lack of intent.  Each day's tasks include Coloring, Drawing, Watercolor.  However, task lists would have no value in the absence of priorities.  These are never a priority. Some might say, that to really fulfill priorities it is necessary to purge the task list of all other, but I must retain some hope that artistic expression will find enough of a niche to move beyond sketching the outline of a kitty from step-by-step internet instructions.  It hasn't yet but it still might.

Recording Shows

As soon as I retired I set into motion a few significant projects.  A cruise on the Adriatic took place within months. Creation of My Space took longer.  But now I have half a previously unusable room, kept fully functional for two years.  It has a stereo, large desk with midspace for my laptop and perimeter for all else based largely on usage. Planning materials and notebook in front.  Lights directed to illuminate my central work spaces, full coffee cup to my right, empty coffee cups to my left.  There is a recycling bag, not yet entirely full within reach.  I captured a functional but worn recliner, investing in a new navy textured cover for it.  And the largest purchase, a 55 inch flat screen TV with advanced cable.  I used to watch it all the time, now much less.

Despite a plethora of channels, I watch mostly three.  It took a while to figure out how to isolate Create TV, Science Channel, and Jewish Broadcasting Service as my Favorites, but now I can just navigate to the favorites bar.  After supper each evening, I scroll through each, capturing the schedule from 7PM to 6AM the following morning, setting the record option for what I want to see over the next few days.  Most shows repeat a few times, so I preferentially record overnight, leaving me some time to scroll through channels 1471 to 1480 to see what's on at the time, as I tend to like the nature shows or some of the history options, or maybe some travel programs.  But over time, I watch mostly what captured my attention a day or two before.

Having done this a few months, I get a better sense of what interests me.  Create TV's schedule seems dominated by food preparation shows which rarely get tapped for recording even though time in the kitchen has provided me considerable pleasure in retirement.  I much prefer to scan my cookbooks or surf the internet for recipes I might like to try myself.  Travel shows capture me more.  I haven't been to that many places but would have liked to visit more.  And when I do travel, the destinations tend to be either purposeful like a professional conference or destination like vacation, neither affording me the same opportunity to poke around that the hosts of the travel shows have.  I don't much like the local people dressing up in costume to perform for tourists; it just seems too contrived.  But there was a time when I would walk through neighborhoods, or more recently drive through them, in the towns where I lived and enjoy seeing the hosts do something similar in the places they visit.

Jewish TV seems more problematic in the selections.  I have gotten reacquainted with the Talmud half-hours, though I record more than I watch.  Same for discussions, some outstanding, some contrived with people of prominence pitching their ideological hardballs. I record more than I watch, but rarely delete one prematurely.  If recording capacity were more crammed I would.

If a theme emerges, perhaps I am attracted more to external to me more than part of me.  Cooking is participatory, travel to places remote is more the spectator me.  Jewish thought captures me more than Jewish identity.  I support Israel as a Jewish homeland more in the way I supported Refuseniks.  I have an obligation to peoplehood but as I see from JBS, Israel is for Israelis to exercise their sovereignty while I watch.  My head will nod sometimes, shake sometimes but the passion in either direction doesn't materialize.  Yet I remain interested enough to select some for viewing, though not to interrupt what I am doing instead to watch these things at the time of broadcast.  Maybe how I choose what I do when or save something I want for later makes one of the more reliable disclosures of the inner me.

Managing Twitter Contacts

Twitter has begun deplatforming selected prominent individuals and organizations.  They have no reason to come after me, and haven't.  Of all the popular social media options, this has been the most problematic for me. I still don't know how to best derive benefit from the resource.  There have been false starts, many disconnects.

Since people of prominence, some more famous than others, express themselves and invite feedback, large cohorts of people enroll in those contacts.  I have as well, but I found it a little too much like going to a sports stadium with thousands of fans who cheer or jeer or throw virtual beer bottles but have little impact on anyone else there.  I have no way of knowing which respondents are scholars and which are trolls, which comments have substance or which attract or repel me solely by my own view which either aligns or conflicts.  It does not really capitalize on the expertise of the celebrity being followed.  All these people have other forums without the verbal gladiator spectacle.  I have subscribed to a few of these, all unfollowed within a few weeks for largely the same reason.

And then there are people I know.  My editor, an old electronic friend, the organization of another old friend.  They rarely post and rarely interact.

And then there are organizations that present stuff of interest:  AJC, our Governor, the state University, perhaps our local Jewish Federation.  Some appear a lot, some rarely, virtually none responsive to me.

And I have my own way of initiating conversations.  I also have some followers.  If I ever post anything, response is minimal.

Mostly its a wasteland of people seeking a spectacle. Some of those spectacles have caused responses contrary to public interest, even worse than throwing snowballs at Santa as a mass stadium uprising.  People can get hurt.  People have gotten hurt.  Thus selective deplatforming.

My participation won't hurt anyone, but it doesn't contribute either. In the vast universe of cyberspace, there are many preferable places for me to appear.

Petty Rewards

Each evening at about 7PM except shabbos and yontiff I generate a list of what I would like to do the following day. It's a long list with four categories: personal projects, physician projects, home chores, and family/financial. By far, personal initiatives comprises the fast majority of what I seek to do each day.  Some are easily defined with clear end points like a treadmill session or swallowing my pills.  Others really don't have finite activities to determine their completion or are components of long term initiatives. However the classification appears on paper, the list far exceeds what I can do which is in turn longer that what I should do, and that exceeds what I will have done by the next evening's review.  Yet on reflection, most days I can do more than I did.  My habits are not bad.  I get up on time, go to My Space, ration social media.  What I have been doing better is defining what done means and rewarding myself as quickly as I can.  It helps to pre-define the reward. Making the reward relevant to the task undertaken has not gone as well.  Most rewards are petty.  A drive around the extended neighborhood, some herb tea, later in the evening some sherry, a return to FB which has become too much of a sink to call a petty reward.  Or sometimes the reward for a mitzvah is another mitzvah, so completion of one activity can be reinforced by moving on to a more satisfying activity.  But whatever the reward, it seems to keep my projects better defined and keeps me on track.

Seeking the Best Night's Sleep

Early awakening still plagues my nights, which carries into my days.  The time of awakening has shifted from about 4AM to 2AM, though I can usually fall asleep again at about 4AM and go past my optimal wake time, which I set at 6:30AM.  The why still puzzles me.  I know where my routine breaks down, but with the schedule time shifted, staying fully upright through each day has not gone well either.  I tried installing a sleep monitoring app on my smart phone, going through about three before settling on one to try out.  My smart phone did a lot better than my not very smart iTOUCH  watch which claims to monitor sleep duration.  Reviewing the data from overnight added some insight, particularly the REM stages and deep sleep that I could not figure out otherwise.  It did fairly well.  What I considered wake time, that 2-4AM interval of repositioning and clock glances, it considered very light sleep.  Maybe it is.  When I eventually arise, not that long after my intended time, I do not feel overly sleep deprived, though crave some more snooze by late morning.  Coffee after cursory grooming perks me up.  Since the New Year, I have been trying to limit myself to two morning cups, but will consider an additional late morning addition.  And I am invariably able to exercise mid to late mornings.  So despite the interruption, I remain very functional.  More focus on what I do during the days that reflects on sleep, though I still do not appreciate the reason for the change in the last month or two after much success with formal sleep hygiene.  I'll just have to get more insight from the sleep monitoring app and trust its validity.

New Bag Law

Our Governor expressed his unhappiness with the litter he sees on the streets as he travels between his home and the state capital most days and attends public events around the state.  Cleaning it up, while less urgent than setting state policy for Covid damage control, has become a personal quest. He has to be diplomatic. It would not go well if he identified litter as a demarcation point that announced leaving one neighborhood and entering another or counted McDonalds wrappers along a main thoroughfare and compared the count publicly to one taken from a McDonalds parking lot in a part of his state serving a more limited, economically distressed segment of the citizens. But plastic grocery bags make an easier target.

We all have them. We all let them accumulate, either in our homes, landfills, back seat of cars, waterways, or sidewalks.  We all find them convenient when shopping. Merchants have found them economical and even useful when they carry their stores' logos.  Moreover, other states or municipalities have already restricted their use with some means of assessing outcome.  My state enacted legislation that took effect last week.  My first major shopping expedition just occurred.

Ironically, before Covid I was already using reusable grocery bags.  Then for reasons of infection control, Trader Joe's banned them and Shop-Rite disallowed their checkers from filling them. So it was back to plastic at SR and paper at TJ.  As the new law's start date approached, I found a few flimsy canvas type totes but not the ones with SR or TJ logos that better support the purpose.  My first few shopping errands did not tax my supply but then a mega purchase from SR did.

At the checkout line they sold reusable grocery bags so I purchased two. They also offer plastic bags, heavier than those that are now disallowed and reusable for 10 cents each.  The cashier seemed sensitive to the added expense for the customers.  He judged me among the sturdier customers despite my advancing years, cramming as much as he could fit into the two newly purchased reusable sacks.  It took two arms to lift each from the checkout into my cart and later from the cart into the trunk.  I still had overflow, supplied with two of the 10 cent bags that I could handle easily.

Getting them into the house took some effort.  Carrying one at a time, I lifted with both arms successfully, not having to drag either along the asphalt driveway, concrete walk, or tiled entryway. Presumably the cashiers have been trained to not overload frail appearing customers or at least move the heavy stuff into the carts and escort them to their cars to assist with transfer to their trunks.  At home they are on their own, but like have leftover old plastic bags not yet recycled to take out to the cars and transfer from the overloaded reusable totes.

Morning Routine

 

While working on a presentation on retirement, I discovered stages known to others who studied them but not to me. There is an initial Time Affluence.  It can become idle, and early on often is, but eventually gets replaced by routines.  These tend to do better if self-directed rather than spontaneous, but either way they form with a life of their own.  Having passed the two year mark, the demarcation point that the studies suggest, my own routines have settled at the beginning of each day, less so at the end, and can remain flexible for the many hours in-between.

Wanting to feel rested amid often disrupted sleep, I set myself on a Sleep Hygiene program that worked well until recent weeks when early awakening has reappeared. The core of any Sleep Hygiene program is a fixed get up time, which I set as 6:30 and adhered to within a half hour, though I am rethinking this as the rest of the day is often better if I postpone this until I am more rested. Partial grooming comes next, the electric toothbrush with manual on shabbos, flossing with a Placker, moisturizing my forehead.  On Monday mornings I also weigh myself.  Once upright, I try to stay upright, usually but not always successfully.  To the kitchen next for coffee and washing a rack of last night's dishes.  I will often take out recycling and retrieve the newspaper to the front door for my wife. Coffee then gets transported to My Space where I look at email, Twitter, and FB, usually in that order, except for the days divisible by 4 which gives me a hiatus from social media.  The tasks outlined the day before get reviewed, with a rough ranking of importance, or at least commitment to doing the ones I really intend to complete. 

Now ready to go.  More often than not, furrydoc.blogspot.com entry comes next. Or right after that second cup of coffee.

A Break for the News

As attachment to the world becomes ever more accessible, I have found myself rather uninterested in tapping into it, at least not diverting from what else I am doing instead.  It's not that I am uninformed.  Misinformed, perhaps, some would insist likely.  But snippets come my way passively, often from what FB friends or the Post-Dispatch display on FB or from the hourly news on the radio, either in the car or in my kitchen where it serves as background noise. As a college student I took to KYW-1060 all news all the time, largely as a novelty but also because that station offered the best clarity on my AM transistor radio.  As a commuter, I needed the traffic report so KYW became the center push button of my car radio, as it still is.  

More recently, as I retire and retreat daily to My Space for much of the day, actively seeking out events has become a low priority.  It's not as if I reject information.  Indeed, I pay for subscriptions to The Forward and to The Atlantic which offer mostly good analysis of events, or at least The Atlantic does. The Forward presents a Jewish slant on events or culture.  They have reader comments, no better or worse than any other public site, rarely read, though often contributed to. You could argue that my FB friends make comments on news items they post, though they reflect reaction more than analytical thought.  There is something to be said for having an editor take responsibility for what others can read.

What I have not done until this week has been to divert from what I was doing, typically writing, exploring subjects on You Tube, bantering with electronic friends, watching my favorite channels, or reading to access a dedicated news source.  I hadn't originally planned to this week either until I opened The Forward to see that, to my surprise, a Democrat had won one of the two runoff seats in Georgia and that the other was still in contention.  Close The Forward and transfer to cnn.com. Now we have not only engaging news but to me unexpected favorable news, particularly when the second Democrat held a lead that would give my preferred party control of both houses of Congress, something they botched in November when it appeared more likely.  I had to follow the returns.  

On the same day, the formal certification of electoral votes would take place.  No surprise on the outcome of the count and vote, irritation with the circus that would perform.  Protesters are a necessary part of the American fabric, also expected.  Like everyone else, I did not expect a siege of the Capitol Building.  Once it occurred, and the second Georgia election seemed more likely to convert the Senate majority, the analysis from the news sources started pouring in.  I had allotted the day to work on an upcoming presentation, now pre-empted by news and commentary.  I shuttled between a number of news organizations on my screen but did not access TV or radio at all.  Like many others, I thought formally removing the President from power by the 25th Amendment might be the best option though others favored impeachment or running out the calendar.  All defensible but with different consequences.  Will his repetitively toxic and now physically toxic rhetoric be diffused?  That's the next story I had to have, still diverting me from other tasks like working on that talk or getting papers cleared out of the living room.  But I stayed fixated on events as they played out.

They are still playing out a few days later but I am returning to My Space less engrossed in the various moments of news cycle.  I have been reading The Atlantic more, as the commentaries are all well-considered, The Forward less as the commentaries are more pedestrian, cnn.com hardly at all.  And I am making good progress with my Power Point slides for the upcoming presentation.

 

Less Interested

On the dates divisible by 4 I shun Facebook and Twitter.  It took some willpower at first but lately it hasn't. That day being yesterday, I opened neither, had no Fear of Missing Out, acronymed FOMO. There was a time when I sort of did, but not lately.  The permissibility of social media returned to me at 5:30AM this morning but being tired, I had no inclination to see what I missed until more awake.  Then I did, only to discover that I missed nothing.  Two groups had responded to trivial comments on mine, one about the Eagles where I hinted that their coach needed to repent for some misconduct, the other about a site near my childhood home where my father had been sent for basic training when drafted into World War 2.  No reactions from anyone I actually knew about anything I had written, whether written about myself or in response to something somebody else has written.

As I go about the posts of the 24 hours that I avoided, they were mostly political posts pitching the hardball to excoriate the President, who I think deserves the demeaning remarks, or defending the blight that challenges our election.  By now I've gotten the hang of each position.  One very good friend has a daily presentation of science which I should read, though gradually evolving from the purity of analysis to the justification of his position on the public discourse of the day. That I regularly read, and often submit my own comment.

What has happened to Facebook seems a form of attrition.  I've been a participant about ten years, according to their records, as I do not keep my own records on this.  It was great to connect to high school chums, a few friends at the time, more acquaintances who became electronic friends.  Gradually their individual presence has waned. Most used to write about events of their lives, from vacations to challenges at work, their pets, or what they knitted or cooked.  They engaged in basically written conversation about themselves.  That's a lot different than the written placards which dominate now.

As the forum changes, so does my interest.  Sometimes as I read, or really glance at, what some repetitively post, I find myself in an unwelcome position of thinking less of the poster, their disdain for thought trampling my memories of them as engaging contemporaries who I once knew personally.  As this become more the norm, displacing the electronic banter that made Facebook attractive, I can understand the gradual attrition of my acquaintances from the forum, along with my own waning interest in engaging with what remains.

At the Edge

Retirement has afforded me more flexibility in donating platelets.  While working, I typically appeared at the Blood Bank quarterly on a Saturday morning.  Now I can come anytime, though I won't accept an afternoon appointment.  And in deference to those still limited to weekends, I opt for a traditional workday for my donation.  Four a year has increased to about ten, or at least that has been my intent.  While the occupational threats to eligibility, usually blood or needle exposure, a new one has emerged, my optimal health.  Once I have been disqualified based on Hb < 13 g/dl on their tabletop hemocytometer.  More typically I come out right at the cutoff.  Since protocol takes the higher of two measurements, I squeak by more often than not. At my most recent donation, test 1 =12,9, test 2 =13.1.  Had it been the reverse, there would only have been one measurement.  It has varied by as much as 0.4 but nobody can tell me the reliability of their desktop instrument. I have been able to predict by how big a drop of blood the technician obtains, so I think a very thin smear wicked into the collector registers low. There is at least one article suggesting that the wicking method overestimates the value obtained on a lab analyzer https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5754049/  In any case, the arbitrary cutoff seems less than medically rigorous if a person can qualify with discrepant results within the sensitivity of the machine.

I asked about temperature.  Temperature is taken by a cutaneous forehead device before they even let a person sign in, a very crude screening but quick and easy to avoid obvious covid concerns.  The formal temperature is sublingual with what I presume is a thermocouple, which would be very accurate.  It surprised me that anyone would show up with a fever until they advised me that their cutoff was 99.6F = 37.6C which is less than medical significance and could easily escape self-detection.

I do not know if there are bp or p cutoffs.  

While it's critical that blood donation be safe for donor and recipient, I wonder to what extent the chronic difficulty recruiting donors reflects some of their own stringencies, some of which seem questionable.  Binary standards, either you're in  or you're out, make screening more automated but at the expense of the blood supply perhaps.  Some things have enhanced eligibility.  Improvements in screening for certain infections have reduced exclusion times from one year to three months for many conditions.  NSAIDS other than Feldene are now permitted for platelet donors.  Yet they really have to err on the side of safety, even when eligibility can shift in literally one minute for the same donor.

Plastic Bag Ban

My state pretty much eliminated those ubiquitous plastic grocery bags effective a few days ago.  I made my first shopping venture under the new law today, just to replace kcups.

While the law is new, my commitment to reusable grocery bags is not.  Pre-covid I used them most of the time, largely as a personal aligning with the long term best interest of our planet.  I had purchased one from Trader Joe's, two with a Shop-Rite logo.  In addition, multiple organizations have provided flimsy burlap textured sacks as promotional items.  On each supermarket foray, I would put a few into each other, then into my basket.  Covid changed this.  Trader Joe's stopped accepting them.  Shop-Rite would not let their cashiers bag them and the self-service checkouts either limited to 25 items or for the larger quantity self-lanes did not offer plastic bags when my own supply of home packaging was inadequate.  Between the grocery unfriendliness to my good intention, I just stopped taking them with me.  Now that I need them again, I cannot find the ones I bought at the supermarket.  There were a few faux canvas containers in my kitchen so I took a few with me, though I could have just carried the coffee with the receipt.  A box of 60kcups fit perfectly into one of the bags.  Now I need to search kitchen and car for the rest.