Time to read: 10 minutes
In this week’s newsletter:
The Timbit Times
Kate Film Club, 10 of 52: “Mary of Scotland”
Book of the Week: in-progress
French Study
My Year of Ne’er-do-well-ism
This past week was a bit of a whirlwind, especially on Thursday, when I had five (!!) total appointments, when usually I only allow three total things in any given day—that even includes social things like calls with friends. Normally I would’ve attempted to reschedule something, or simply canceled, but I knew I would be able to radically rest most of Friday, and Saturday, and the appointments on Thursday were all important. (Most notably, I had a meeting with my main doctor and a researcher to review some test results; I was lucky to be invited to sit in on the call at all!) Anyway, it indeed took me the better part of two whole days to recover, but I wasn’t fully crashed at any point so I’m glad I made the calculations and decision I did. On Sunday I was even feeling back to baseline enough to join my weekly knitting circle for some socializing.
I’ve stalled in my attempts to increase up to the full dose of monolaurin (the supplement the Lyme specialist wanted me on before trialing antibiotics). I was doing ok at 1/8 scoop but 1/4 scoop started setting off troubling nocturnal MCAS symptoms. I tried going back down to 1/8 scoop but even that’s still bothering me a little now, so I’m going to pause it and wait to hear back from that doctor if he has any advice to better acclimate my body to the monolaurin. In the meantime, I have a long list of things to do for this other, experimental protocol that I want to try (and that my main doctor wants me to try), to hopefully correct nutritional issues before rolling on to the antibiotics anyway. (This is not Lyme specific, it’s geared towards ME/CFS-cluster illnesses generally.) I might talk more about that next week—I’ve simply been calling it “fixing nutritional deficiencies” and it is mostly that, but it’s really a holistic protocol. There’s a lot to it; explaining the whole thing might make me sound like that “Always Sunny in Philadelphia” meme where Charlie Day is in front of a board with photos and string, rambling.
That’s part of what’s hard about having a complex illness—it’s necessarily complex!, but if you try to take the time to explain the whole picture to people, you sound nuts. And people are so quick to dismiss truly suffering people as hypochondriacs or whatever. But it’s cool science, and I’m sure I’ll share more about it once I’m a little farther into it.
The Timbit Times
The big news from this weekend is the corrected frame for my coffee table finally arrived! Now it looks like a proper coffee table instead of a mini desk. I had ordered a custom size table, and it’s beautiful, but the height was incorrect compared to what I had ordered. Luckily the company was happy to make it right, I just had to wait several weeks for the exchange.
Also while recovering on Saturday, I spent some time on the internet trying to find a runner rug that was the right size for my kitchen area. It was pretty tricky because I only have about 27 inches of width for it, and most runners are two and a half feet wide (so, 30 inches). I also wanted one big rug to unify that part of the space, so it needed to be around 10 feet long. An odd, lanky runner rug. Eventually my googling took me to Etsy, where I discovered a neat thing some vendors are now doing to show that they actually make their items by hand: they upload a video of them making it! I absolutely love shopping small—I love it aesthetically, I love it politically, and I love it because I enjoy parasocial connections and I’m sucker for getting a little thank you note with my purchases. So I’m glad actual artists have found a way to differentiate themselves more reliably from the loads of merchants on Etsy trying to pass off cheaply manufactured stuff as handmade.
(Ah, and I should also mention I try to reduce the synthetic fibers I buy, so I was specifically looking for a wool or cotton rug, which further restricted my search. Your girl has Opinions when it comes to how to live their politics with their dollars.)
Anyhow! I found an Etsy page for a shop that makes flatweave rugs by hand in India, that had a vague mention they can make custom size rugs. They got back to me almost right away and told me they could of course make a rug in the size I need, and indeed in the particular pattern I was hoping for. Wee! The rush of finding another just-right item for my tiny home. I could honestly see myself doing some part-time interior design work for other tiny home dwellers once I’m well enough to work again someday. It’s been a lot of work but I’m enjoying the hell out of it, and I’m developing lots of little hacks and skills in finding products that are well-suited to tiny home life.
Kate Film Club, 10 of 52:
“Mary of Scotland” (1936)
I love being surprised, and I love being struck to change my mind on something. This movie brought those goods. It’s a period drama based on a stage play about Mary, Queen of Scots. Usually, I’m not much for period dramas, and at first I admit to being a little bored by the movie—noblemen infighting is just very yawn-inducing for me. The first half of the movie felt like it dragged a little bit in some scenes, although the costuming was excellent and that’ll always hold my attention. And some of the big scenes with crowds were impressive, like the townsfolk singing to welcome her return from France.
But oh, the second half of the movie! There is some absolutely stunning and beautifully devastating cinematography. The trial scene where Mary (Katharine Hepburn) is being condemned by a tribunal seated on high is probably permanently seared into my brain. What was happening was sad enough, but even just the set design alone made me want to cry for her! Same for the final scene. Also, the intimate showdown between Mary and Elizabeth (her jealous cousin and Queen of England) near the end made me appreciate this drama in a way that I don’t normally appreciate dramas. Two big undercurrents of the movie were personified and battled it out via conversational jousting, saying out loud the things previously left unsaid. One woman devoting her life to the pursuit of power above all else, and the other devoting herself to living by her own values and refusing to be pushed around even when threatened with death. Electric stuff.
Also, usually when we have movies about people brave enough to go their own way, we usually see them rewarded for it somehow. I appreciated this movie’s honesty that sometimes people decide to go their own way and are gravely punished for it by the world. Yet they’re still heroes/heroines.
Lastly I’ll add: I have no idea how closely this movie hews to the stage play, hews to actual history. My regard for monarchy is too low to be bothered to find out. The movie gave me things to think about and that’s good enough for me.
Rating: 3.5/5 – I can admit when I’m wrong! Sometimes period dramas can be great! (Even if they are a little slow to get going.)
Where to watch: Streaming on Apple and Amazon.
Quote: “I’m going to live my own life, do as I say.”
Book of the Week:
Lupin still in-progress!
Not much to report here other than: I’ve really started to hit my stride with this book, which I find myself eagerly looking forward to reading each night, instead of it feeling like forcing myself to eat my broccoli. I’m in the middle of “Le Sept du coeur”, story 7 of 9, and it has me completely enrapt. A burglary where nothing appears to have been taken, but a playing card (a seven of hearts) is left behind. I may have the book finished by next weekend and ready to review as a whole!
French Study
I didn’t have time to dedicate to DELF study specifically this week, so I really have no idea how the test is going to go. Can a person studying at the B2 level just waltz in and pass the B1 level? Or will I be stymied by things like still perpetually picking the wrong preposition for many verbs?
I do know that for the oral production part, you really should practice your initial introduction—that’s a gimme. So I will make some time this week to work on that. And I would at least like to take a practice test at home to get a feel for the structure of the test. That’s just table stakes preparation, and I think I can at least fit that in!
My Year of Ne’er-do-well-ism
Rather than figure out something to report that was beautiful in my world this week, I want to share a series of links to reads that are painful but important. It’s not really possible to fully understand the context of me fighting to find joy, unless you understand why I’m “fighting” to begin with.
At a long ago job, a guy manager who was interested in learning more about diversity things started up a #diversity Slack channel, and encouraged people to drop links to anything they were reading in there. What quickly became apparent wasn’t just the content and lessons of the articles—it was how much time the people negatively impacted by such things spent educating themselves, the sheer number of articles read, versus how little time the people blissfully unaware spent on their reading of these issues. The (white, straight) guys were like “I had no idea you all did so much reading on this”, and the rest of us were like “yes…? this is a normal part of life for us?” But the thing is: even if you’re on the outside of a demographic, you can know things by reading, too! You just need to decide it is worth your time to do the reading.
Here are some things I read this week that I think are worth your time also:
First, there was an NPR article published that was deeply insulting and misguided. Then, there was a well-argued rebuttal, repeating the same things many of us have been saying all along. And of course there was much wordshed on social media about it all, including a very good Twitter thread on the original article, on the differences between “lines” and “walls” in relationships. If you want to understand why the still-covid-cautious are so exasperated sometimes, this is a good place to start.
Next, if you are new to learning about ME/CFS and don’t understand the long and extremely politicized history of the illness, this piece in The Guardian is a good place as any to start. Naturally it focuses on how the illness has been treated in the UK, but it’s extremely similar to the arc in the US as well.
Lastly, on a seemingly different topic (but not really) I want to share a New York Times article that wasn’t shit, about why even the not-covid-cautious are feeling pretty bummed out these days. I wish people understood all this stuff was connected.
Kate Violette 