Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Legwork and Life, week of 8/21/19

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

The itching has thankfully subsided.  This is, naturally, because my doctor told me to stop taking the maca root.  I'm a little frustrated that the rash site doesn't seem to have returned to normal, but perhaps the supplement isn't quite flushed out of my system yet.  Either way, I'm going to give it a bit longer and then try it again, at a very low dose.  Chances are, the same result will ensue.  But on the off-chance it doesn't, I'm going to try, because I'd really like this to work.

We did finally get the bed moved away from the wall with the smart electricity meter.  I seem to be sleeping better!  We're not actually clear whether that's because the bed is now facing away from the curtained window, or because the electrical meter actually is a garbage machine that disrupts sleep... but either way, I'm really pleased.  I'm not as tired in the morning, and when I am tired, so far it's because I deserved it for staying up late.  

This change of bed location is in addition to keeping the wifi turned off at night, and having our phones/tablets/etc. in airplane mode at night, with wifi and cell phone data turned off.  I'm honestly considering just paying for more data per month and ditching the wifi router entirely... but again, that's a major change, and would need to be made with my spouse.  

I also managed to get myself and my bike to a different repair shop.  This one didn't try to sell me a new part... the repairman actually just fiddled with a few things (tension in my brakes and the gears, or something) and the gears stopped slipping.  So as far as I'm concerned, they're magic now.  They kept the bike a couple days to try to fix the barking sound it was making when it was pedaled, and they did manage that as well.  So now I have a working bike and just need to have a non-rainy morning or afternoon. 

In the meantime I've been noticing I get red in the face and such at relatively light exertion, which I feel like has been a thing for me growing up, but maybe not quite to this degree.  I'm not really eating a lot of high histamine foods, or even all that many histamine liberators... so it really makes me wonder about the algae outside.  The board has been kicking around the idea of simply filling in the pond out back, which would be far cheaper than fixing it ($45k versus $150k, or something like that).  I'm kind of on the fence about it, to be honest.  The algae is really horrible and bad for me, but I also really like having a pond and seeing the great blue heron and the ducks.  If the pond goes, so do they.  

Anyway, I'll be able to try the bike trials with and without the vitamin C as soon as I get a nice few hours.  It's been rainy and thunderstormy recently, so I haven't gotten my bike out yet.  Soon, hopefully!

Last news: it looks like I'm being called on again to review research proposals for the federal government.  I'm really happy it's not falling around Thanksgiving or Christmas this year.  It should be next month, which makes these next 30 days or so Crunch Time.  Lots of deadlines, lots of hurry-up-and-get-it-done.  I was just starting to manage getting a buffer together, too...  But this is also important, so I guess I'll do the best I can on both fronts and hope I don't drown in work.  Wish me luck!

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