Time to read: 10 minutes.
In this week’s newsletter:
The Timbit Times
Kate Film Club, 20 of 52: “Dragon Seed”
Kate Film Club, 21 of 52: “Without Love”
French Study
We Can Have Nice Things
Friends! It has been almost a month since I’ve written! I’ve got a lot to catch you up on but will try to keep it to the usual length. The main thing you’ve missed, and the reason I haven’t had time to write, is because my current phase of medical treatment has been kicking my ass. Kicking my ass in a way that means good things are probably happening, but still—pretty ass-kicky.
When we last left our heroine…I began a course of antifungal medication on May 16, just a few days after my last newsletter. This is a preparation step for putting me on antibiotics for Lyme (soon! at last!), since if you have any yeast or fungal issues in your intestines, and you go on antibiotics for months on end, it’s just gonna make the yeast/fungal issues a lot worse. I also have a strongly suspected fungal infection in my sinuses (thanks to past residential mold exposure), so my doctor put me on a one-two punch of both nystatin and itraconazole. Nystatin is not systemic when taken orally (meaning it mostly just stays in your gut and does not enter your bloodstream), while itraconazole is indeed systemic and should help with the sinus issue as well. The other benefit to taking both together is that nystatin can help prevent infections developing resistance to azole family antifungals.
Two issues quickly arose, however. Itraconazole can prolong QT interval (I’ll let you google that, it’s a heart rhythm thing that can be quite serious), as can famotidine, which I’m already on all the time as a maintenance med for my MCAS. My QTc (a normalized measurement of absolute QT) interval does ok enough on famotidine, but adding in itraconazole caused it to prolong to a potentially sketchy point, so I had to stop it for now. Nystatin doesn’t impact QT interval so I kept taking that, which brings us to the second issue: it has been doing such an enthusiastic job of killing the yeast/fungal issues in my intestines that I was having my usual plethora of mold exposure symptoms. This includes a flamboyantly less stable cervical spine, which then in turn leads to a number of additional terrible downstream symptoms. I almost immediately reverted to needing C1 taps (I rely on atlas orthogonal work) three times per week, instead of weekly-ish. I was quite a bit more debilitated even than usual, and spent a lot of time lying down doing nothing at all.
Long story short: while the nystatin is, as previously mentioned, kicking my ass, it also is doing me a lot of good and helping fight dysbiosis issues that have needed tending to for quite some time. We’re trialing some things to manage the inflammation it’s causing and that’s already starting to help my neck stability. And we have a few things to try for how we could possibly put me back on the itraconazole safely. All in all, I think things are moving in the right direction. It’s just been a hell of a month.
With that, let’s dig in to the fun stuff: I’ve got two Katharine Hepburn movie reviews for you this week, several Timbit tidbits, and a mini-report from the land of comparison shopping for eye masks (to block out the early morning midsummer sun).
The Timbit Times
Remember last time when I said the gorgeous rhododendron bush in the backyard was about to burst into a flower fireworks explosion? Well it has taken me so long to write again that the gorgeous blossoms have entirely come and gone, and I wasn’t well enough to snap outside photos while the peak was here. But I could at least see the top of the bush from the couch and from bed, and that was still pretty nice.
Another bit of exciting news is: the custom-size runner rug I ordered back in March is finally here! It took a two-months-running comedy of errors for it to arrive. First, they sent me a rug that was the exact width but two whole feet t0o short. Weird they wouldn’t have checked that before shipping, but ok. Then they sent me someone else’s rug entirely, which I (or rather, my helper) had to ship off to New York City. That customer in NYC had gotten my corrected rug, which they shipped to me. It’s a lovely rug, and most importantly, it fits! My pantry door can even open over it just fine. My only complaint is that they used a slightly different shade of green for the background on the last couple feet of the rug compared with the rest of it. Why? Who knows. But I don’t care enough to run the goofy gauntlet yet one more time just because of a slight different in background color–the current rug stays. It’s definitely feeling more homey now that my feet hit the ground on the nice rug when I trudge downstairs in the mornings.
Kate Film Club, 20 of 52:
“Dragon Seed” (1944)
Y’all. This is a bad movie. Stay tuned for the one good thing I have to say about it, but yeah, it’s bad. It’s probably the worst movie I’ve ever watched, and an ex-boyfriend once convinced me to watch Trolls 2. “Dragon Seed” is what happens when you combine World War II propaganda, yellowface, and “you know these guys are the bad guys because they’re the rapists”. Which is all to say: it’s A Bit Fucking Much.
The plot focuses on a family living in rural Chinese village that was getting along just fine until the Japanese invasion. For certain, there were war crimes committed during the Japanese invasion of China during World War II, and these deserve to be acknowledged. I just don’t think this movie sticks that particular landing, because the sexual violence, and the repeated extremely heavy suggestions of such, ended up feeling more “guy ties lady to train tracks while twirling mustache” trope-y than somber reflection on the horrific scale of the atrocities.
Anyway, this movie focuses on the different ways people show up and break and put themselves back together in the face of violent oppression. This is material someone could have made a good movie with!, but this movie fell short in numerous ways, the most offensive being: why didn’t they cast any of the talented Asian actors and actresses in Hollywood at the time for the main parts?! My other complaints included an overly Western music score with what seemed like afterthought, duct-taped-on Eastern music themes, and, a particularly grim story arc for one of the sons that gets hurriedly wrapped up at the end in a way that didn’t at all feel congruent with what had happened.
But as promised, I have one single good thing to say about this movie: it contains the absolute darkest line of any movie I’ve ever watched. There’s a cousin in the family who owns a shop and decides to take an appeasement approach with the occupiers in order to keep his shop. Shortly after leaving his mother behind in a potentially dodgy situation, where she was then murdered by soldiers (or worse, I was skipping a couple minutes in some places because I categorically don’t do rape scenes), he walks back into his still-intact shop and says–yet unaware of the fate that befell his mother–“How wise am I to arrange my own affairs so well?” We almost literally cut from this woman’s screams to her son patting himself on the back for his ability to lick boots.
Moral of the story? Don’t be a fucking boot-licker.
Oh and I guess Katharine Hepburn was in this movie. Her acting was weird here and frankly not good. The End.
Rating: 0/5 – With prejudice.
Where to watch: Why would you?
Quote: “How wise am I to arrange my own affairs so well?”
Kate Film Club, 21 of 52:
“Without Love” (1945)
We’re still in the context of World War II here but at least it’s a background feature this time around. Spencer Tracy plays a government scientist working on some sort of oxygen mask for fighter pilots, who is in need of a place to put his lab equipment. Katharine Hepburn is a young widow with a giant house with a conveniently giant basement. She rents the space to him and they become friends. She’s still overwhelmed by the sudden, early death of her late husband, he’s still stunned from a past unrequited love. Hepburn’s character decides to propose to Tracy, saying they would be a great match because neither of them ever wants to be in love again, and you can build a perfectly good marriage without love. It’s a pretty fun monologue of a marriage proposal, but you already know it’s not going to go as planned.
“Without Love” is kinda fluff, but is also a fun ride: it’s a rom-com. It had one job and it did it well. The supporting characters are a lively good time (Lucille Ball makes another appearance!), and there’s an adorable little dog that actually has a small narrative part to play and isn’t just there for cutesy jokes. Although this movie obviously explores themes of love and loss, I wouldn’t say it goes super deep with the intersection of the two—I didn’t come away with any new revelations about heartbreak or heart-mending. It’s the movie equivalent of an afternoon tea with a friend. Cinematic comfort food.
Rating: 3.5/5 – A perfectly fine rom-com.
Where to watch: Streaming on Apple and Amazon.
Quote: “You’re not the falling type. You’re like the Tower of Pisa. You may have certain leanings, but you always remain upright.”
French Study
In my last dispatch, I mentioned that the current session of the conversation class (through Coucou) I’d joined felt like it was maybe going to be a bit slow for me. The good news is that a couple other folks joined the class in the second week (which I missed due to the aforementioned medical ass-kicking), and when I returned the third week I was happy to find the class level, and gregariousness!, had stepped up a notch. Even though I’ve had to dial in to some classes while lying down, which everyone has been kind and understanding about, I haven’t missed another week since, and I’m really enjoying this particular session.
I’ve also been digging more into the material on a website recently launched by some of the Coucou staff called 6pm in Paris. I have a bit of a goal of working through everything currently there by the end of June, especially since I’m stuck lying down so much at the moment, but with an energy level that is slightly improved.
We Can Have Nice Things
I was going to write a whole review of the half dozen different eye masks I recently bought, mostly from Etsy. But I’m running out of steam here, and word budget (I try to keep these under 2k words), so I’ll just point you to the best one I found.
It has giant eye pads, with a deep nose cut-out, so as not to let the light in one bit. They’re made by a lady in New Hampshire. I like all-silk eye masks for the “treat yo’ self” factor (that’s the one I linked), but she also has a lot of options for cotton on the front, silk against your eyes. Be sure to get either of the 9″ wide size options, which come with more depth in the eye section. (The 8″ x 3″ option is a rather standard size like you’d usually find in eye masks.)
Highly recommend.
Kate Violette 